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where we keep you updated on news about parenting as it relates
to division of responsibilities, career versus home decisions,
work/life balance, and legislative and grass-roots movements toward
equality or better choices for families. We’ll also throw in our
opinions of life as equal parents in a nonequal world, regardless of
what’s in the news.
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Enormous Advantage
Great article in The Independent (UK) today about equally shared parenting - and other parenting models that place dad on par with mom at home and in the workplace. It seems that Britain is poised to extend the duration of its parental leave policy to a full year, of which all but the first 26 weeks can be taken by fathers. I'd like to see even the first 26 weeks be available to fathers too - so that both parents can learn about caring for their baby alongside each other and mothers are not given such a head start on everything - but I digress.What's nice about this article is how excited the author is about fathers' equal involvement in raising children - how the author believes this benefits men, kids and women too. Here are some quotes (italics are mine):"Thousands [of fathers] work part-time, along with their partners, so that they can share the parenting." Thousands? Love it!"The pathetic wail of, "I want my mummy!", is already turning, quite often, into "I want my daddy!" Sounds like our house."Finally, it looks as if the tide is starting to turn....to a time of greater equality and more shared parenting. Something that seems to me to be of enormous advantage to absolutely everyone." Although I know that ESP is not for everyone, I like the idea that making ESP accessible to everyone is an enormous advantage. And more shared parenting? Wow, we might even qualify as a trend soon!The article goes on to profile a few involved fathers, most of whom seem to be ESP dads. It's a really nice round up - check it out!
The Top 11 Reasons ESP is Growing
Okay, I cheated. The first 10 reasons are here in this Strollerderby blog from Babble magazine - a great list of ways our society is changing to make it more acceptable for men to be involved and equal parents. The list ranges from small physical signs like diaper changing stations available in some men's bathrooms to more all-out evidence like a growing number of breadwinner women. Here's my eleventh reason: Because Daddy and Mommy want it. Yes, according to leading sociologists, Generation X and Y parents want equal marriages and balanced lives more than they want almost anything else. Definitely more than power jobs that take either parent away from family. This is true for both women and men; in fact, 2/3rds of men in this demographic say this is what they want.The article starts by intimating that ESP may be an impossible dream. Ah - not so! Equal parenting is not an exact, black-and-white situation. Think of it as co-parenting in which both partners have a general goal of being equal in their involvement with the kids, home, career and self, and then it becomes perfectly attainable. Not perfect, but perfectly attainable.These little signs that traditional mom-lead childraising is not the only option will snowball over time. Right now, we have a small number of ESP parents forging ahead against still-strong cultural and workplace barriers. But soon, as role models lead the way, it will take slightly less courage for the next wave of men to ask for a reduced-hours work schedule, take paternity leave or show up in public with their own diaper bag. And then someday each of these things will become so commonplace that they'll be easy to claim by any man who wants them. A critical mass will be reached and ESP will be an obvious option right up there with all the other standard family arrangements. I just know it.... Hat tip to Daddy Dialectic for linking to this Babble blog.
Going with the Flow
We are just back tonight from a few days visiting my family in Michigan, and I have a moment to post up something I thought about on the plane ride home before I head off to bed. We were on a packed plane, with two seats in row 23 on the left and two seats in row 24 on the right. A few very good natured passengers endured Marc and me passing stuffed animals, a laptop, snacks and other items over their heads for the duration of the flight. Two tired, somewhat cranky kids who were sad to leave their grandmother and cousins made it through with the help of this juggling.
As I settled down for the last half hour descent, I thought about one of the things ESP means to me. It means I don't have to spend one minute thinking "I'm stuck doing more again" - even if I might actually do more on any given day. If I was a SAHM, I might not think this either - I'd hopefully be settled into the idea that it was my responsibility to do all the childcare most of the time. But if I was a mom who hoped for a partner who pulled his weight and was disappointed time and again when I was left with the bulk of the childcare, I would probably be mumbling this under my breath frequently. With ESP, all of the sharing is built into our lives - the daily schedules, the planning, and the natural way of relating to each other. Not because we nitpick every task so that it comes out equal (I can hear the Greek chorus starting up its chant of scorekeeping); just because we both want things to be generally equal and both assume they will be.
With ESP, if I find myself doing the majority of the childcare for a stretch, my first reaction isn't annoyance with Marc. It's more likely to be annoyance with myself for not cherishing the time I have with the kids while they are still young. And to me, that makes it a lot easier to go with the flow.
Unintended Consequences of Inequality
In April 2007, Britain extended its maternity leave benefit to a full year for mothers. Supporters were thrilled to see such a giant step in the direction of supporting families and their ability to spend time with their children. However, the BBC News reported yesterday that there may have been some unintended consequences of this legislation. It appears that "some employers were thinking twice about offering women (of childbearing ages) jobs or promotion(s)."I'm sure it's already illegal in Britain to discriminate against women who are of childbearing age so it's not likely a new law will be used to solve this problem. Instead, a possible solution could be to turn the maternity leave into a parental leave policy. Even this move is not a quick fix because women would probably continue to take the majority of the leave, primarily due to cultural expectations. But what if the leave could be made a "use it or lose it" benefit for each parent. Six months paid time off for mom followed by six months paid time off for dad. Either parent can opt out of the benefit for any reason.I realize there are other factors to consider here, such as how this idea might be modified for single parents, mental or physical illness or divorce, but I firmly believe that policies should be gender neutral if we, as a society, are going to break down the cultural barriers that reinforce inequality. And, as in this example, harm women.Hat tip to Rachel, a generous reader in Estonia, for sending us this news story!
From Traditional Marriage to Equal Sharing
Joining our Real Life Stories page are Michelle and Jim, a couple who had a traditional marriage until they carefully planned a conversion to equally shared parenting. Michelle has transitioned from a stay-at-home mother to a writer and writing/communication coach, and her husband Jim is a small business owner who runs a parking lot maintenance company and also partners with Michelle in her coaching business. Jim and Michelle have worked out a schedule that allows them approximately equal solo-parenting time, time at work, and time for themselves (they have a regular weekly date night too). And although their schedule may seem complex to us outsiders, it runs smoothly for them because they both know where they need to be when, and because they both value what the arrangement brings to their lives. This couple is, above all, extremely thankful for their ESP relationship - for the balance they each receive, for the sharing, and for what they feel their equal involvement brings to their three children.Thank you, Michelle and Jim, for adding your voices to our Real Life Stories!
Keeping Score
Let's tackle another big criticism of ESP today - one that has been mentioned in so many blogs and comments to Lisa Belkin's NY Times Magazine article that it wins the Anti-ESP Sentiment medal of honor. It's the notion that equal sharing requires, or leads to, scorekeeping and accounting and he says/she says arguing about how many minutes each parent has spent washing the dishes.
Believe me, if my life was reduced to these kinds of activities, I would be the first one to abandon ship. I'm all about having an intimate, warm, loving relationship. That's my main motivator for keeping ESP alive in our own family. How could I possibly be happy if my marriage was reduced to such tedious and friction-filled tallying?
In the NY Times Magazine, there is talk of color-coded charts and making things come out even. I can certainly see how a reader, especially one bent on finding a reason to dislike equal sharing, would jump to the conclusion that Excel spreadsheets were required to distribute the family workload equally between two people.
But think about it. There probably isn't a family in the nation that doesn't require some sort of planning to coordinate the children's care and activities, and the parents' jobs. Maybe it's a big family calendar with Aidan's soccer schedule and Elizabeth's Kindergarten early release days marked on it. Maybe it's the discussion most parents have about which days of daycare to sign up for. Perhaps it is the big discussion many couples have about whether one of them should stay home with the kids and what that might look like financially and practically. And unless one parent does 100% of the childcare and housework (with the other parent doing 0%), they will need to talk occasionally about who is taking Susie to gymnastics on Tuesday and who can stop by the grocery store for milk on the way home tomorrow.
It's not that much different with ESP. Yes, parents who decide they want to share equally in the care of their children and in breadwinning and housework (and recreation time) will need to have an initial discussion of how to structure this. Work schedules, daycare/preschool/school schedules and recreation schedules will all have to be laid out and fit into the family time puzzle. ESP parents will want to piece the puzzle together in a way that feels as close to equal between the parents as possible. Traditional parents will assemble their puzzle in a different way.
Once the basic schedule is laid out, nature takes over. ESP couples will naturally find that they have about equivalent time for housework, and will have built equality into their breadwinning and childraising time. Yes, crazy things like evening meetings, business trips, that girls getaway in Tahoe, or sick children will get in the way. But ESP couples will handle these things the same way any other couple would - by communicating and figuring out the best solution each time.
The big difference between ESP and other family arrangements is that equal sharing couples keep equality in the back of their minds as they go about their lives. In other words, they have an equal-sharing mindset. They know that if Dad just returned from a 3-day fishing trip with his buddies, Mom should feel no guilt about taking a few nights to go out with friends. No one needs to keep score; it just comes out about even because both parties want it to. Both parents know that ESP is their best life, and so they are both motivated (without scorekeeping or judging) to make things fair.
Still...the myth that ESP requires onerous chartkeeping and accounting lives on. It is an easy excuse for those who don't want to consider equal sharing (people we don't want to be in the business of convincing to do so anyway). But for those who might want the equality and balanced lives that ESP provides to both mothers and fathers, I'd like to say this is nonsense! ESP requires contemplation and purposeful decisions that go against our culture. ESP requires two willing participants. But it does not require scorekeeping.
ESP: The New Babymaker?
A Psychology Today online columnist asks an interesting question of women: "If your partner took on more of the housework and childcare, would you consider having more children?" The question is likely tied to the recent NY Times Magazine story about the declining birth rate in some European countries (although this story is not referenced), with its theory that this trend is inversely related to father involvement in childcare. The Psychology Today column attempts to connect equally shared parenting with a higher willingness among women to have more children. Hmmm....interesting theory, although I'm not sure we ESP families can (or want to) back it up. Remember that ESP has equal challenges for women as it does for men - in letting go and in staying equally involved in breadwinning. At the very least, I would modify the connection to one between the satisfaction of both partners with their current family arrangement and their interest in adding extra work to their lives in the form of caring for and feeding additional children.It comes down to whether what you've got is working for you. If it isn't, you would be wise to see the red flags waving you to pull over and halt baby production. We all know that insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. But if you're happy, well, you may or may not want to add to your family, but at least you've got a decent level of satisfaction from which to start the discussion. Happy and willing parents make babies, and babies born into happy homes are off to a good start.
Welcome Brazen Careerist Readers
Just when we felt the blogosphere was quieting down about the NY Times Magazine article, up pops career blogger/columnist Penelope Trunk with a classic attack post today. It is designed to provoke, in Penelope's standard fashion. And the odd thing about it (well, really not so odd because this is how she works, in her brilliant way) is that she ends up half supporting what she starts out to detest - equally shared parenting.But first, a disclaimer: We've emailed back and forth with Penelope a few times over the past 2 years, and she had been genuinely helpful and fully supportive when we were just starting this website and trying to widen our readership. She seemed super nice and fun, to use her own words.However, we can't pass up the opportunity to shed new light on some of her attacks:1. Shared care (the term she uses for ESP) shields people from the reality that their careers are not great.What she means is that you can't gun for a top management position, competing in the very top of your field, and practice ESP. We agree with you here, Penelope. But who cares? Some people do - those who narrowly define a career as one that can only be accomplished at fever pitch. The odd thing is that we have perfectly appealing careers ourselves, and Penelope might even coach others on how to land positions with titles like ours. But she is defining 'great' by time rather than effort. Jobs that overtake one's life and boost one's ego with big accomplishments are not what Penelope herself says that Gen X/Y want - she says they want balanced lives instead. In which case, they would probably say 'amen' to her definition of 'not so great' careers.Maybe the best answer to her point about 'not so great' careers is a quote from Penelope herself. This one is from her blog two weeks ago on June 27, 2008: "I know that people who are workaholics are scared of two things: Not being great at work, and having to face an empty personal life. And I'm worried about both." Perhaps high-power careers shield people from the reality that their personal lives are not great. Just a thought.2. You need a lot of money to do shared care.This myth has been floating around for a long time - it's one of our top naysayer comments. Penelope adds to it by saying that you need to have family nearby if you're going to do ESP because they will have to bail you out. Huh? Family help is not a part of our lives except on rare occasions; Amy's family lives in the Midwest and mine is in-state but a long car-ride away. In fact, we can't think of another ESP couple (and we know many) that relies on family care.The money issue is solved by doing the math. Two parents who work reduced hours can result in two decent paychecks (more than the single paycheck awarded to a sole-breadwinner household) and a big reduction in outside childcare costs (remember, we don't use grandma for childcare). Two paychecks also insulate a family against layoffs. But more importantly, take a look at who elects to practice ESP - not the rich, but those who value time over money. In fact, I have a theory that 'lots of money' would be a huge deterent to ESP - not too many high powered, wealthy people are inclined to chuck it all to reduce their hours and be with their families. The irony is that those who could most easily afford not to work at all are those who could not possibly think about cutting back to value something other than accomplishment and yet more wealth gathering.3. Shared care kills two careers.Here, Penelope says neither parent can have a decent career when both cut back to do ESP. Again, if you define a viable career as top-of-the-heap, mucho bucks, this may be true. But the very people who aspire to ESP do NOT aspire to these careers. They would stifle them. Penelope highlights Dylan Tweney (a nice guy who has been very supportive of this website) as someone who tried ESP but found he wasn't able to grow his freelance business while 'working 4 hours a day.' Who says anything about 4 hours a day? We work 32 hours a week - hardly 4 hours a day. Many people would be thrilled to have careers like those of many ESP couples we know. Yes, it may be hard to land jobs that allow perfect ESP schedules in today's business world, but it is not impossible - and if you want something bad enough, it is worth the effort. Gen X/Y are demanding flexible jobs and more time with family, which means that these possibilities will likely open up tremendously in the near future. And traditional marriages with a stay-at-home spouse kill one career for sure (at least temporarily); if that's what both partners want, hurray, but if it is not....Another quote from Penelope in a blog post from August 18, 2007: "So if you're considering taking a job that requires long hours so that you can make a load of money, don't do it...consider seriously the idea of making more time for yourself by agreeing to earn less money."4. Shared care requires an unlikely match of personalities in a marriage.The argument here is that two caretaking personalities don't fall for each other, and ESP requires two caretaking personalities to marry and have kids. Penelope admits to no data to back up her theory, so I'll throw a harebrained theory of my own up here. Our culture has conditioned men to marry down and women to marry up for a long, long time. Therefore, most couples position the man to succeed outside the home and woman to take care of the home so he can. That's not to say every woman is happy about this and every man loves being burdened with primary breadwinning. ESP is a way for both partners to have balanced lives, something that Penelope has pointed to again and again in past blog posts as a deep desire of Gen X/Y couples - both men and women. Here's a quote from Penelope in her blog on March 18, 2007: "Today men and women have shared goals: More time for family and friends, and more respect for personal growth at work for everyone, not just the high-ranking or the hardest-working. We are at a shift. The majority of men under thirty say they are willing to give up pay and power to spend time with kids."5. Shared care caters only to detail-oriented types.Arghh. The old color-coded charts argument again. I'm about the least detail-oriented guy you can dig up. I hate structure and planning and checklists. Amy loves them. But we still manage to co-manage our home and co-parent our kids. ESP means you have to talk about how you're going to divide things initially, and then periodically check in with each other, because you and your spouse are a team. In exchange for this level of communication in my marriage, I get to have my own home - from how it is run to how it is furnished - reflect me (not just Amy), and that feels authentic.The bottom line is that Penelope tried what she says was shared care in her own marriage (she's currently divorcing) and didn't like it. Her personal ESP description seems a lot more like reverse-traditional than ESP, however, so I'd be curious to know more. But I don't need to either. ESP is not, and never will be, the right family model for everyone. It is perfect for me and Amy, perfect for many other couples we know, and perfect for many couples who might not even know it is possible.At the end of her blog attack, Penelope admits that ESP is one of the ways Generation X is expressing their desire to put parenting before anything else (meaning careers). Yes, well perhaps. I'd say parenting and balanced lives.
Canadian Real Life Story
I'm happy to announce the posting of another new Real Life Story. This one comes from Carl, an academic psychologist with now-grown children, who reminisces about the 11 years he and his psychologist wife worked part-time to share in raising their children. Carl's story is a powerful example of how important equally shared parenting can be to a couple, and how they can overcome societal barriers to it if they want it badly enough. In Carl's case, his arrangement cost him his newly-earned tenure status, and he made the climb back to tenure slowly after his children were older and didn't need their parents at home as much.
Please click over to his inspirational story for more details. And my heartfelt thank you to Carl for sharing it with us.
Expecting Men to be Involved Dads
The NY Times Magazine continued to highlight some important family structure issues this past week with "No Babies?" It looks at why birth rates vary, often downward, throughout the world. One notable exception is the US where birth rates continue to hover around the "replacement rate" of 2.1 births per woman. Many would suggest that this may be because the US is relatively affluent but the piece disputes this as the main reason. Instead they offer:
The old conservative argument - that a traditional, working-husband and stay-at-home wife family structure produces a healthy, growing population - doesn't apply, either in the U.S. or anywhere else in the world today. Indeed, the societies most wedded to maintaining that traditional family structure seem to be those with the lowest birthrates. The antidote, in Western Europe, has been the welfare-state model, in which the state provides comprehensive support to couples that want to have children. But the U.S. runs counter to this. Some commentators explain its healthy birthrate in terms of the relatively conservative and religiously oriented nature of American society, which both encourages larger families. It's also true that mores have evolved in the U.S. to the point where not only is it socially acceptable for fathers to be active participants in raising children, but it's also often socially unacceptable for them to do otherwise.
I think my answer to how other men treat me for being so involved in my home life will now change. According to the most recent data, it's socially unacceptable to do anything else.
Hope
Some of my favorite emails these days are ones from young, unmarried, childless, often completely unattached women. Women who can't imagine having children with someone who would be less than an equal partner, but who have been beaten down in their idealism for thinking they could find a man who would want this too. The discussion of ESP in the NY Times has resonated in their souls, and they have wandered over to this website in search of hope.I am here to proclaim that their dreams can rest on far more than hope. I, too, had this dream, and I'm extremely thankful I didn't settle for a partner who didn't share it. Judging from some of my previous partner-contenders, I narrowly escaped a life of traditional household burden and full childraising responsibility (however joyful children are, for those who bristle at the thought that a mother might actually say her children are burdensome). But through a combination of luck and something like "it had to be this way," I found a guy who not only shares my desire for an equal partnership, but would have refused to marry me and create children with me if I felt otherwise. I am not the luckiest woman on Earth, and Marc is not a saint. There are solid reasons why ESP appeals to both of us and is in fact the only way we can fathom to live. In a nutshell, ESP gives us two coveted possessions: Equality and Balance. More than any worldly riches, I want an equal partner to walk through life with, and Marc wants a balanced life with breathing room for fun and joy. And these qualities are what the majority of young women and men say they want, according to statistics from leading sociologists studying Generation Y and as evidenced by the many emails we've received from men and women in this age group. So, to all the young women (and men) out there hoping that their someday-partners will accept and embrace their dream of ESP, I say you are in good company. Your pool of mates is ever widening, and you are a prize catch. Hold out for someone who shares your vision, and who doesn't have to be convinced of its merits, and together you can forge the right path for you.
Not the Same Ol' Same Old
Another one of the themes among the critics of ESP is the notion of "What's so special about this? Everyone I know is already doing it." If you define ESP as an arrangement in which two parents share running their family, I would agree with this criticism. Most couples have discussions about how to divide up the tasks of running a home, even if the end result is far from equal. But we're talking about something quite different with ESP. With ESP, each parent feels neither of them does more at home and that neither of their careers is considered less important than the other's. Both say they participate equally in household management and decision-making, and in the depth of their relationship with their children.Now, no ESP couple practices perfect equality - so technically no one can claim exact 50/50 sharing. But assume that the viewpoint is more of an overall equality of ownership and involvement. The sad truth is that, today, few couples practice ESP. I can usually tell those who do because their eyes light up when I mention the topic and they can't wait to chime in with, "Wow - us too, and we've always felt different than others." That's not to say non-ESP couples aren't happy, or that they couldn't work toward equal sharing if they felt it appealed to them. We firmly believe that any couple can practice ESP if both partners want it enough, and if both are willing to traverse the barriers society and life put up to get there.The world is not a bad place because not every parenting couple operates like an ESP family. In fact, I imagine parts of the world would suffer if 'everyone does it.' Who would run for President, for example? A couple of interesting articles printed in the wake of the NY Times story on ESP have compared Marc and me to Barack and Michelle Obama. The Obamas are closer to an equal couple than any other (hopeful) presidential couple has ever been, with Michelle playing the primary breadwinner role in their past and not content to be only the woman behind the man. But I don't think the world is ready for a President who's life is in balance - who is responsible for half of the childraising and housework functions of the family (despite the high level of outsourcing afforded a President of the US). No, we want being the President to be a 24/7 job, interrupted only by the sleep required of the human body. So the Obamas can't be an ESP couple right now.To get back to the argument that equal sharing is the American norm, let me end this post by describing ESP in a bit more detail than our 'official' definition in our What is Equally Shared Parenting? essay. ESP is the equal sharing, on average, of each of four domains of family life between an intact couple with children; those domains are housework (or all the work, including one-time projects, of running the home), childraising, breadwinning and recreation (or time for self). Yes, many couples share - even equally - the daily repetitive housework. But when you share equally in each of the four domains, the rare magic of ESP comes through!
ESP for Men?
Over the last couple of years we have received numerous questions about ESP both from our personal lives and through this website. Previously, we posted answers to these questions through a now defunct section of the website called Question of the Week. We are going to revisit some of these questions in the coming weeks as a way to address a few common themes.Question:
This equal thing is all well and good, but come on...isn't it just a way to get guys to do more housework and change more diapers? I'm a very involved dad but I have no interest in more chores. What would make a guy want to subscribe to this way of life?
I expect that this question would be foremost on a guy's mind when he first hits this website, and I've even had friends jokingly say 'Shhh...don't tell my wife about this - you'll ruin it for the rest of us'. But believe me, if anything, it was ME driving the equality thing rather than Amy from the very beginning, because it is good for my own balance and happiness. For me, this is not about feminism or fairness (although I'm certainly not against those).
Trying to convince you to equally share is fruitless. I don't want to be in that business, and a man who begrudges this option will not be successful in making it work. That said, in choosing to equally share with Amy, I get a lot in return. I get:- A happy wife
- Guilt-free recreation time for myself
- Less stress by not being the family's only breadwinner
- Even more closeness with my kids
- Being appreciated, not nagged, for the work I do around the house
So for all those guys whose gut reaction is fear that their wives will see this website, there is a huge flip side to doing more dishes or laundry. There are even big reasons why our wives wouldn't want anything to do with equal sharing - things like having to let go of full control of the kids and the house, or having to be out in the working world for decades like men. On the surface, these reactions of ours and theirs can seem justified, but the rewards for reaching equality are so much greater for both parents.
Equally Shared Parenting on NPR
Following in the wake of Lisa Belkin's NY Times Magazine story on ESP, we're happy to let you know we were guests on National Public Radio yesterday - on the Patt Morrison Show broadcasting in Southern California. Our colleagues Francine Deutsch from Mount Holyoke and Jessica DeGroot from ThirdPath Institute were also on the show, and equally shared parenting was well showcased. It was our first time on live radio and we had a blast!If you're interested in listening to the segment, click over to Patt's show and listen from your computer or download a podcast to go. The segment is about a half hour in duration. Scroll down to her 6/23/08 show and click on the 'When Mom and Dad Share It All' title. Tip: when you get to the commercial/news break, skip over the horrible news story they cover about an abused child; it made us queasy when we were forced to listen to it on hold.Enjoy!
Our Infamous Laundry
Our laundry has become a topic of national attention. For some reason, it is fascinating to many who read the NY Times Magazine article on ESP that Amy does the light laundry and I do the darks. We've been accused of running a house with all tasks split exactly down the middle - of running our marriage like a business arrangement that sucks the intimacy and love out of our relationship. The idea that our laundry sharing is so clearly defined seems somehow to mean we don't love each other. After all, if two people care about each other, won't everything just fall into place without discussion or a plan to share equally? Love conquers all, right?Well, judging from the fact that most couples don't come anywhere close to sharing the housework, either very few couples actually love each other or something else may be at play here. Yes, some lucky ESP couples come by their equal housework sharing completely naturally. They are just a perfect blend of male domesticity and female sloppiness. Many, however, have to create this equality through communication and decision-making.If a couple is motivated to share the housework fairly, they have to ask each other some questions in order to set the stage for this sharing to happen. Questions like...- Do we want to split a task equally or divide tasks by interest?
- For the tasks we want to share together, do we need to come up with a way to do that or will this just come naturally?
Nature is a very handy housework equalizer for ESP couples who have already worked out their work and childraising schedules. It comes naturally for most to handle the housework without much communication. If I'm home, I'll cook; if she's home, she'll do it. But occasionally, a task that a couple desires to share equally gets out of whack. This is exactly what happened with our laundry. Without accusing, or silent smoldering rage, Amy simply noticed over time that she had morphed into the family laundress. She mentioned it one night, as in "I've been doing all the laundry - what's up with that?" I agreed - she had. Then we wondered why. It could have been fine that Amy did it all; perhaps I could have been doing all of several other chores and the bottom line housework time could have been about equal.
In our case, we didn't like that Amy did all the laundry because laundry was something we wanted to share. So we figured out why it had fallen to Amy: she has a much lower threshold for running the washer than I do. If the basket is full, Amy instinctively dumps it in the washing machine. I, on the other hand, am perfectly content to let a few loads pile up and do them all on the weekend. Different styles. Once we figured that out, we came up with the lights/darks solution to preserve our ability to share laundry and allow us each to maintain our own perfectly acceptable way of doing it. Now, we each go about our own laundry business without being held up or pushed by the other, and without sacrificing our laundry equality. It works well for us. And it isn't so rigid that we don't help each other out all the time.To me (and Amy), our laundry solution exemplifies our joint commitment to ESP and to each other. We are both committed to preserving our balanced lives and the best life for each other. Either is free to bring up inequalities that become bothersome, and we are dedicated to hearing each other out to come up with a solution that works for both of us. I think this speaks of love more than anything else.What interesting solutions have you come up with for sharing a specific task equally?
A Core Competency Life
Just a quick post to point you to one of my favorite media takes on the NY Times story. This one comes from Laura Vanderkam, author of Grindhopping, and appears in The Huffington Post as one of a series of articles she has written on 'Core Competency Moms.' We'd prefer 'Core Competency Parents,' of course, but her series deals with prioritizing your life and being conscious about how you are spending your time.I love Ms Vanderkam's take on ESP, and am especially fond of this sentence: "It is as much a slander to deny men's talents in [nurturing children] as to claim women can't be doctors, engineers or heads of state."And of course, who wouldn't love the ending: "...maybe, maybe, the Vachons are the leading edge of true social change." Thanks, Laura V., for a thoughtful essay.
New Real Life Story
One of the great joys of being featured in the New York Times Sunday Magazine last week has been receiving messages from many couples who reported living the ESP lifestyle as well. One couple wrote in their blog that they could have easily been a subject in the piece. In their passion for this lifestyle, they offered to share their story with all of us in the Real Life Stories section of this website.
Annie and John are two doctoral students with three children, and they have purposefully carved out more time in their lives for family. They follow the model of attachment parenting and have come to appreciate what they have created.
Check it out and let us know if you also have an ESP story to tell.
Thanks Annie and John!
Where are the Children?
It's time to tackle one of those criticisms of ESP that showed up in several NY Times article reader comments. Today, let's examine the notion that ESP must be harmful to kids. Or, at the least, that it is all about selfish parents who want what they want - without considering the needs of their children.
Here are some excerpts of choice comments from the NY Times:
- From Scotto: "What I find tragic in this article is that the children are completely left out. What do the children want? Are not the real losers in all of this is [sic] the children?"
- From Joe: "What if getting from 60-40 to 50-50 meant significant amounts of time the children would have to be away from both parents, from a young age?"
- From Brian St. Pierre: "Good lord, the poor kids, raised on a schematic, mechanical, politically correct schedule."
You get the idea. But what about the children? First of all, the NY Times article addressed a particular parenting lifestyle - ESP. It wasn't a parenting piece, so it makes sense that it didn't include information about the kids other than as proof that yes, indeed, the profiled people were parents. The absence of a discussion on how ESP affects children doesn't translate to ESP being a lifestyle that ignores the needs of children, however, any more than mentioning you like broccoli means you don't like apples.
There are no concrete data on how ESP affects children, except that ESP affects their outlook on gender. We have no proof that equal sharing leads to (or doesn't lead to) better test scores, higher college admission rates, or more beautiful or well-behaved children. There are also no data on the important things, like its effect on self-esteem or happiness. No data exist because no data have been collected. Someday, I hope we do have this information, but we don't have it today. We do know that children with involved fathers do better than those with less involved or absent fathers.
ESP actually is, for us, primarily about parents. On that point we'll agree (although many couples we know are motivated to practice ESP foremost because of their children). But it is about creating happy lives for both parents who can then be their best selves for their children - day in and day out. We're thinking happy parents make a happy home which makes for happy children. We also like to think we're modeling a happy marriage for our children to see, and showing them that adulthood is not just drudgery or sacrifice - it can be just as fun as being a kid (in a responsible way, of course).
By showing our kids that that they have a team of equal parents raising them, we hope we're diluting out the not-so-perfect parts of each of ourselves and giving them a close-up look at two very different ways of dealing with life's ups and downs. Plus we're hoping that our kids grow up to see, first hand, that men and women are equals in all aspects of home and work.
Kids raised by equal parents are not likely to be subjected to any more schedule-rigidity than children in traditional households, especially those with two working parents. They may actually have more 'down time' than some children because they often require less or no outside care. Parental care in ESP families can approach that in families where one parent stays home - only the time is divided by two parents in an ESP household. We can't imagine that seeing both their parents more often could be a negative thing for children.
Among the comments is this rare insight from someone identified as 'JP' who was raised by equally sharing parents: "Knowing that my parents were committed to balance and equality in their own relationship and seeing them work out that balance in constructive and loving ways throughout my childhood had a profoundly positive effect on how I grew up and on what I now expect and cultivate within my own relationship."
And finally there's this comment, by a poster called Ricardo: "I find the example couple, the Vachon's [sic] a really irritating model - the 21st Century all American family in which the parents' lives revolve around their children."
Guess you can't please everyone!
It's Our Day
Tomorrow is Father's Day, and rather than simply wish all you fellow dads out there a happy day by the barbeque with a beer, I'm going to wish you a happy life. You see, it used to be that being a dad was rather narrowly defined as a good provider and role model of a Man. Now, a father can be anything from this traditional figure to the sole caretaking parent. In between these extremes, we guys get to be 'involved dads' or ESP dads or stay-at-home dads. It is kind of like technicolor meets fatherhood!A few readers of Lisa Belkin's New York Times article on ESP have criticized the Times for printing something that denigrates fathers on the very day that we should be applauding them and slapping them on the back for jobs well done. Of course you might guess that I disagree, and that I feel these readers are missing the whole point of the article. Yes, the statistics about how much housework is done by men versus women are still off balance. But who's to blame here? Is it really just men? No - it takes two genders to create this inequality, and decades and decades of cultural brainwashing about our required family roles. What if instead of complaining and blaming anyone for the commonality of unequal housework, we instead celebrated the fact that we can indeed change the situation? Men no longer have to accept being saddled with primary breadwinning or being relegated to subordinates in their own homes. We can fight, alongside our partners (not against them), for our right to balanced lives, intimate and equal connections with our kids, and equal say in how often the bedsheets get changed.So, happy Father's Day to dads of all stripes and colors. It's our day, and it's our time.
Bursting at the Seams
We feel as if we could type solidly for the next month and still not get all our thoughts into the blogosphere. It's a good feeling, actually - the same one we had when we were creating our original How It Works essays.Our thoughts are coming from the comments posted on the online NY Times piece, particularly the naysayer comments. And from spin-off blog posts and news articles and personal emails/posts that are reacting to the NY Times. A lot of it is good - other ESP couples happy that this lifestyle is finally getting good exposure and not-yet-ESP couples and individuals who feel that the discussion gives them hope for the lives they want someday. It feels wonderful to hear from and read about these kindred souls.A lot of the discussion is negative too. This is expected - and actually necessary for growth and understanding. Much of the negativity is coming from male readers (hmmm....) and some of the common themes are:- ESP is all about nitpicky, childish scorekeeping; if two people really love each other, they don't need to bicker about who is doing more and who is doing less
- ESP is nothing new; everyone is already doing it
- ESP is bad for the children, and all about selfish parents choosing the lives they want without regard to the needs of their children
- ESP is only for rich people
- ESP is about mediocrity
- ESP is about splitting every task
- ESP requires both parents to work part-time, and therefore is not possible with most jobs
The good news is that we've heard all of these concerns before, and then some - many have been addressed in our previous blog posts or essays. The excellent news is that so many people are talking about it. For people who don't practice ESP, and especially for couples who would never want to practice ESP, these are fully legitimate concerns. Stay tuned (and join in) as we dissect each of these viewpoints and more....
The Team
Marc and I may be the hosts of record for this website, but we are hardly the only people talking about, promoting, and deeply caring about equally shared parenting. The team is much, much bigger than just the two of us. Bigger than all those who were a part of Lisa Belkin's New York Times Magazine article. Bigger than we even know. So, we would like to mention some of the other team members - ESP supporters, academic researchers, fellow parenting relationship bloggers. Together, we can get the word out: Equally shared parenting is real, and it's waiting to be claimed by those who want it.
Thank you, thank you, thank you to:
Kathleen Gerson, Barbara Risman, Scott Coltrane, Francine Deutsch, Pepper Schwartz - the giants of ESP and gender equal parenting research.
Penelope Trunk, Leslie Morgan Steiner, Maggie Jackson, Rebecca Walker, Joan Blades and of course Lisa Belkin - our mentors who gave us a nudge and a voice to share ESP with the world.
Brian Reid, Jeremy Adam Smith, Dana Glazer - fathers who believe.
Sharon Teitelbaum, Jessica DeGroot and Hanne Weedon - who pointed us in the right direction way back when.
And of course all the fantastic couples in our Real Life Stories section (may this grow and grow), and those who have written to us saying "We've found you - we're doing this too!"
Tip of the iceberg here, folks. We feel so grateful to all of you. But mostly, we want to say that bringing ESP to the collective consciousness is your achievement as much as ours. We make a great team - all of us - and we (Marc and I) can't wait to continue the journey with you all. May thousands more join in!
The World is Watching
Well, it was a fun day here at ESP.com. The media exposure has certainly generated some interest, both positive and negative. We have read the comments on the NYT website and have plenty of fodder for future blogs and look forward to continuing the discussion with any and all who wish to participate.We had visitors today from all 5 continents, 48 countries, and every state but Oklahoma! Do any of you have relatives in OK? Let's get them onboard too. We fielded a few media requests today looking for ESP couples. One of them is looking for a few local families to be subjects for an upcoming TV news magazine piece in New Zealand. Let us know if you are visiting from the land down under. We know you're out there!
Welcome NY Times Readers and Today Show Viewers!
Today is an historic day for equally shared parenting. As we hinted in our previous post, big media exposure for ESP was just around the corner - and today is the day! The cover story to this Sunday's New York Times Magazine (now available online) is about ESP - as written by Lisa Belkin. Included in online version of the article is a video of a day in the life of...us! We've had the pleasure of working with Lisa for many months as she prepared this article. Having such a world-wide forum to shout "equally shared parenting is wholly possible" is a dream come true for us.
We hope today is the beginning of a much more global discussion about ESP - benefits, challenges, questions, ideas - than has ever before happened. We're thrilled to be in the thick of the action, and invite you to join in. Comments are welcome here on this website, as well as at the NY Times Magazine site. Lisa Belkin is also launching a brand new NY Times blog called (be still our hearts!) Equal Parenting, and we couldn't be more thrilled.
If you're new to www.equallysharedparenting.com, please accept our warm welcome and have a look around. We have primer essays on various ESP topics in our How It Works section, stories from other ESP couples in our Real Life Stories section (check back for more stories soon), and tons of links and books in our Resources section.
And if you're up extremely early reading this blog post, tune in to the Today Show this morning (Thursday)! Sometime between 8:00am and 8:30am EST, Lisa Belkin will be on the show discussing her article, complete with clips from a day in the life of Marc, me and our kids.Note: The Today Show video is now online at http://today.msnbc.msn.com/. Enjoy!
Phew - what a week this will be! Glad to have you along for the journey....
An ESP Gathering
One of the reasons Amy and I came to the decision (which took months of pondering) to start this website was the desire to connect with other like-minded couples. When we were first putting our philosophies into words, we didn't know anyone else living like this. And now, we find 'our people' everywhere we look - in greetings in our email inboxes from as far away as Nepal and China to, ironically, neighbors living within blocks of our own house.
A few months ago, we had the pleasure of gathering a few of these couples in our home for a first-ever ESP dinner party. The occasion was a group interview for a news story on equally shared parenting that will be revealed later today (stay tuned). Having 9 other couples in the same room who valued equal sharing as much as we do was an honor. Each family had a twist on what was most important to them about their arrangement, how they got there, how they keep it alive, and why they choose to buck tradition so purposefully.
Amy and I loved hearing their stories. We hope this is the beginning of many ESP gatherings - here, there, everywhere. Here's a picture of the historic event:
The Good, the Bad and the Innovative
Father's Day is approaching, and you can tell from the contents of newspapers and magazines. Is it just me, or is there a higher percentage of stories on how involved fathers are with their children these days? I swear there is a turning of the tide. Or maybe I haven't scrutinized Father's Day messages so closely before.Anyway, a nice piece on involved dads comes from the June issue of the Boston Parents Paper that my son T insisted on bringing home from the free literature table at his preschool today. The article is called You've Come a Long Way, Daddy! I like that twist on the 1970s women's empowerment slogan because I tend to think that involved, competent dads are empowered too - empowered to lead full and authentic lives. The article's message is that today's dads can overcome their legacy as less-than parents and rise to the challenge of equal status with moms. Nice suggestions are included, such as bringing the kids to their doctor's appointments, buying their clothes, doing the dishes, learning the names of the children's teachers and knowing the kids prized possessions. The article ends by coining a term - the fathering 'beast' - which means a wicked involved daddy who's proud of it. Then there's this piece of fluff in Women's Health magazine. It's a perky and condescending description of why women are so much better at household chores than men, and how to get your man to do more so you can relax. Some of the tips have a small bit of merit, such as resisting the urge to supervise tasks that your spouse has agreed to handle, but the overall tone is, well, repulsive. This article tells women to manipulate their partners, while still holding onto the household management title. Buy him power tools so that he'll mow the lawn, buy him cookbooks so he'll cook and then demand he cook three nights a week, host a poker night so he'll 'beg' for more social gatherings. Allow me to at least leap forward into the 90s! No lasting equality will come of such maneuvering. If you want a true partner, treat your spouse as one. Hat tip to RebelDad for pointing me toward this piece of bad literature.And finally, a bit of interesting news from the city of Birmingham, Alabama. The new mayor has announced that all city employees will be transitioning to a 4-day work week (that's four 10-hour days, so still full-time). The impetus is saving money on gas. Imagine a whole city functioning on a work schedule that countless other managers think is too risky to offer to employees. Hooray for Birmingham!
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