DadLabs Poll: Is Parenting a 50/50 Proposition?

With a 4 month old, there isn't much to do outside of waking up at all hours of the night and cleaning up puke, but I'd say my husband are at a 80/20 with me being the 80 when housework is included in the mix. He works a part time job and I work full time along with raising the baby and taking care of the house, meals, etc. I spoiled him the first month she was born, doing everything myself (with help from the mother in law) so now he assumes that I'll continue doing everything forever. I am slowly but surely trying to break him of this dangerous assumption.

What a topic for discussion! We both work 40 hours a week, so that is equal. I drop my son off at school and he drops our daughter at daycare every morning. We alternate nights picking them up. That is where the equal split ends. I come home, cook dinner, do laundry, dishes, give them their bath, clean up the house, not to mention doing all the grocery shopping, and bill paying, and going to school activities. If I need time for myself, I have to find someone to keep them. If he wants to do something, the children stay with me. I am not sure what kind of split this equals out to, but I do know I have the majority of it!

Okay, I have a feeling that this topic may not go well for the guys. Dads, let's hear from you, too!

Katrina -- for some reason you comment made me flash back to a time when I was wiping off spitup off my wife's back. Ah, beautiful memories. Good luck bringing your guy around.

The dropping off/picking issue. We divide that up pretty equally, though that's less of an issue for us because our daycare a block from where we live. My wife and I split bill paying because we maintain separate accounts (a whole other discussion).

I probably do 30% of the baths because that is all my wife will let me do. It kills me that guys don't do bath time more often. It's so great!

I like to think we're 50/50. My son, 8, travels most of the time with my husband, who's a teacher (their schools are two blocks from each other). Also, since he is a teacher, my husband does most of the homework help. I do most of the "baby" stuff for my 1 1/2 year old. That's just the way things work out.

Wendy--

Congrats to the 50/50 dad! I think that Dads do tend to get more involved (by necessity perhaps) after the second kid comes along. Sounds like you guys have a good thing going.

When my son was younger he certainly came from a household where both parents did work together but now that he is married I see he expects his wife to do the laundry when they both work. I don't understand where he got this concept. HIs wife makes more money than he does and theyhave two very small children. Every chance I get, I tell him to split the chores.

Just a month ago I'd say it was around 60/40 with me at 60. We were both working different shifts and he stayed home with our boys during the day. I did all of the cleaning, most laundry and bathing and he would do whatever he had time to between caring for the kids. He just got a new job though, and I am now a SAHM and he works 50 hours a week. So now we are more like 80/20, I take care of just about everything at home, other than the bills. When he has days off we do anything extra like grocery shopping together, but those days are mostly for family fun time.

I work part-time from home and homeschool our two teens. My husband runs a business and operates as the sole employee unless one of the teens works for a few hours a week. I do nearly all the cooking, shopping and cleaning. He is fully there for the kids (all five; in addition to the teens, there are three "grown"--and oh, how I use that term loosely--kids, too) and does the garbage, recycling, helps with errands, etc. I feel like I do 40 and he's the 60 in our family.

So many different arrangements. Very interesting stuff. Great to see people like Teara where there is flexibility to changing situations. That's just part of modern life.

Anne your comment makes me realize that parenting never really ends. does it.

Wow, Kim, five kids and homeschooling?! That's a load.

My husband does what he can. He works outside the home and I don't, but he'll do whatever with the baby if I ask him to.

Oh yeah, and unless he's working late, he's the primary giver of the bath.

Nice.

I guess my question to the SAHMs is, when dad gets home, is he willing to split duties at that point? Do you ever feel frustrated that he doesn't understand what you've been doing all day, and expects you to shoulder more than your share once he's home?

As I said in my first comment, he is working 50 hours a week, and that doesn't count commuting time, so he is out of the house a good 12 hours a day. If he gets home before the boys are in bed he does help with reading bedtime stories and the whole bedtime routine. He also cooks dinner for the two of us if I haven't eaten by the time he gets home, and most of the time does the grocery shopping himself so we can have his days off all to ourselves for family time. I look at taking care of the house and kids as my job being a SAHM so I don't mind shouldering most of the stuff that needs to be done, but he really helps out a lot wherever he can. I think it probably helps that he was the one doing most of the day-to-day stuff with the kids before he got this new job, so he knows what I go through every day. I personally have no complaints.

I'm a SAHM and when my husband comes home he's grabbing the baby and helping out! We have an arrangement where I go out twice a week which I think is more for him to have some 1 on 1 with our 5 month old daughter, which is great! He also does most of the dishes, we split the dinner duties, he usually does the laundry (at the laundromat) and we both fold. I pay all the bills and usually clean more of the house, but if I really need help and ask I usually get it.

Teara--How cool that your husband manages to get groceries to buy more free time on days off.

Richelle -- Sounds like you guys have an arrangement dialed in.

I guess my question for all SAHMs is: His job is from 8-5, yours is taking care of kids/house. So at the end of the day, you're both equal. How do you split things nights and weekends. Is that part 50/50?

I am a stay-at-home mom, and I think my husband does about 50% of the work (sometimes more) when we're both home. I would go crazy if he didn't! (Our kids are too small for chores, and it often seems like there's too much work for four people to do, let alone two of us.)

My mom is amazed at how much he does with the kids, but he just says, "If I didn't want to spend time with him, I wouldn't have wanted to have them!"

I guess I'm just blessed.

My husband is great. He is the grocery shopper and does baths and bedtime if he's home with one of the two sets (2 boys or the two girls). He's a very hands on dad. He does travel some and works a lot during the week but he's careful to spend time with the kids before or after work daily and the weekends we have him all to ourselves. I do most of the cooking but he pitches it with whatever needs doing. If he didn't, we wouldn't have 4 kids.

For us, its not so much about 50/50 as it is about who is better suited to what task. I find grocery shopping relaxing, so I do it all. I'm NOT a morning person, and he's up with the sun, so he gets our daughter off to school. Sometimes he cooks, sometimes I do. We both hate cleaning, so we do 1 hour marathons to get it over and done with together. Sometimes he does more, sometimes I do more, but we find a better balance by doing what we each do best, rather than worrying about who is doing more.

Shannon, Janna and Penny -- Do your husbands know that you are sneaking out online to say nice things about them? This post was clearly rigged to give moms an opportunity to vent about having to shoulder more than their share, and here you are being appreciative and grateful. WTF?

Clay: if our husbands didn't help out, we'd never have time to Gather

(first time posting here)
To the original question: Things are about 50/50 in our household. We got off to a great start with a technique I recommend to anyone who is able to do it: when I returned to work after maternity leave with our first child, he took time off to be at home with the baby. In his case he was able to take two months off! It was great for me because it made it easier for me to return to work, knowing the baby was in great hands. By the time those two months were over I was used to leaving baby behind and the transition to daycare wasn't as big a deal. During those two months my husband would fetch the baby for night-time nursings so I could get more sleep, which also contributed to my easier transition back to work. It was great for him and for us because until then I'd become the de-facto expert on All Things Baby, recognizing the different cries and knowing the baby's rythms, and that time gave my husband a chance to become an expert too.

Now our two are 4 and 7 years old, and we're still on equal footing.

Before kids we were on very equal footing for household chores. We did everything together, from grocery shopping to yardwork. After kids my husband wanted to continue that model but he came to realize that it was simply more efficient for only one of us to grocery shop and it didn't work to bring an infant outside to shovel snow, so we fell into more traditional roles, though we still maintained about a 50/50 split. Now that the kids are getting older we can involve them in more home maintenance activities.

We have to keep each other in line, of course. We've had to learn to be vocal and clear in a non-judgemental way about what we want from each other, and to be receptive and open minded too.

Jeanne-- Nice job finding the balance. Your husband is lucky that he got to spend so much time with the kids early on. I agree that it is important to set precedent early on. I did a similar thing with our first -- I was a quasi-SAHD for six months after he was born. Best decision I ever made. I was a co-parent from the outset.

Co-parenting - that's what it is all about. I say that we are 50/50 in our house. Like others have mentioned, some tasks I am better suited at doing and some tasks the hubby is better suited to do. So we both do our share to make the household run efficiently. My DH and I also work together - we own a driving school - so we share in how that is run. I teach the class, he does the driving lessons on the road. Again a 50/50 endeavor...though if you hear his side I'm sure he thinks it is more 60/40 with him being the 60. He thinks all I do is read email and write on Gather, while he slaves in the hot sun out on the road....LOL.

Colleen-- Sounds like your got co-parenting (and even co-working) all figured out. Now if you could just figure out a way to teach teens not to talk on the cellphone while driving!