Sharing family responsibilities
Now that your baby’s here, you and your partner have new roles and responsibilities. Part of that means sharing the pleasures and pressures of parenthood fairly, as well as the loving and nurturing.
Success doesn’t mean 50-50
The expectation that all matters of family business, from making money to changing diapers, must be equally split is often not realistic. Usually, one parent feels that he or she is carrying more than a fair share of the load.
Parents who work together forget about who does what and for how long. Try to focus on pitching in for one another whenever support is needed. Here are some other points to remember as you work toward sharing family responsibilities:
- Appreciate each other’s contributions. One partner may earn a higher salary. One may be better at managing the home. One may be good at balancing the checkbook. The other may be great at handling a cranky toddler. In each case, different jobs are equally important and need to be valued that way.
- Agree up front. List daily and weekly jobs, such as cooking and doing laundry, and monthly jobs such as paying bills and maintaining the car. Then, determine who should do each, based on talents and availability.
- Let it go. If one partner regularly does a job, it’s important that the other not criticize the way it’s done, even if it’s different from how you would do it. Once you’ve relinquished a job, let it go and trust your spouse to handle it in his or her own way.
- Respect each other’s parenting styles. It’s unlikely that you and your partner behave in exactly the same way toward your baby. That’s a good thing because your child will benefit from those different approaches. You may be more of a cuddler, and your partner may be more active. Together, you provide the comfort and adventure your baby needs.
- Adjust your standards. When a baby enters the family, parents sometimes try to keep to their pre-baby standards of household neatness and the energy for outside pursuits. The sooner you surrender to the reality that life with a baby may not be neat and orderly and that you can’t do everything you once did, the happier everyone will be.
