Dads, Babysitting, and Hobbies: How Mothers and Fathers Are Treated Differently
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It’s pretty frustrating when you hear people refer to fathers “babysitting” their kids, or when you see them receiving lots of praise for doing something that moms thanklessly do all the time (especially considering we’re two decades into the new millennium).
In last week’s news roundup, we shared a essay from Glamour along those lines that was written by Jennifer Siebel Newsom. She is a documentary filmmaker who is married to California Governor Gavin Newsom (and she is referred to as the “first partner,” rather than “first lady”).
We thought that the issue of unequal parenting partnerships would be a great one for discussion today, and it expands on our previous conversations about being the default parent and dividing parenting roles. How do you feel that the parenting roles of moms and dads are viewed differently? How has this come to bear in your own family?
{related: how to share parenting duties with your spouse}
In her piece, “It’s Time to Stop Treating Parenting as a Mom’s Burden and a Dad’s Adorable Hobby,” Newsom wrote about “the work that men are often neither expected nor asked to do” — which in turn becomes women’s invisible, unpaid labor — as well as the “motherhood penalty” that moms face at work (vs. the 6% salary bump that men receive once they become fathers) and how society fails working moms.
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Here are some questions to get things started:
- Do you think that views of moms’ and dads’ roles have changed much in the last 10 years? 20 years? 30 years?
- Have you faced the “motherhood penalty” in your career? How has your husband’s career been affected by fatherhood?
- Are there certain parenting responsibilities that you feel expected to take care of as a mother vs. a father? What about the tasks and emotional labor that your husband isn’t even aware that you do?
- Do you ever feel like the bar is much lower for “father of the year” reaction compared to “basic mom duties”?
- For readers in same-sex relationships, especially if both of you work: How have you found this dynamic to be different in your family?
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Stock photo via Stencil.
{related: how to share emotional labor as parents}
“A father traveling with a screaming baby is presumed to be a widower who is devoting himself to the welfare of his poor babes, and therefore simple humanity requires that strangers do what they can to ease his burden. A mother traveling with a screaming baby is presumed to be a slovenly person whose husband was driven away by her neglect of disciple and the resulting bad behavior of the children; others naturally try to distance themselves from the mess.”–Miss Manners Guide to Rearing Perfect Children
Both my and my husband’s careers have been negatively affected by having kids. Our kids are one and three. Both of our firms feel that we should have someone else tending the home fires while we work our big important BigLaw litigation jobs. Both of us got shunted into counsel positions this year. We have an au pair for childcare but I’m 100% responsible for scheduling, communicating, and ensuring her emotional well-being. My husband works significantly more hours than I do and makes twice as much, but is miserable while I like my job.
Sigh.
My favorite story on this topic is that my husband took our 3 month old daughter out for lunch by himself one day and got a free ice cream cone from the store. He gets a pity cone?! I have never been offered free food when I’ve had one or both kids by myself. Kudos to the server who recognized he was pretty tired, but, ahem.
Oh for sure, the bar for good parenting is totally different. I realized that when my daughter was about 2 months old. She was crying in a restaurant so DH and I took turns walking her around outside. I got lots of angry looks and even a “your baby is hungry, you need to feed her” comment. My husband just got gushing comments about what an amazing, attentive dad he was (mostly from older women, fwiw). That was just the first time, it’s happened about a million times since then. My husband is an amazing dad and partner, who more than carries his weight around the home and with parenting, but it frustrates me that outside people (including my own mom) give him SO MUCH CREDIT for doing things that are really bare minimum parenting tasks.
Emotional labor isn’t such a big deal for us. I do the vast majority of it, but DH does a significant majority of the physical labor of keeping the house running so it feels pretty fair to me. I’m a planner and really good with details and he isn’t so me taking on all the planning tasks makes us both happy. If anything, I think he does more overall, even when you factor in all the emotional labor.
So my biggest comment on this topic is how people view my husband ca how they view me. I feel like my husband and I are both busting our butts to provide a good home/life for our family and I don’t feel inequality in our relationship. But oh my god. Just because my husband actually pulls his weight and participated in childcare/cooking/cleaning BOTH our families think he’s Mother Theresa. Like yes I chose well and he’s an awesome partner/dad and I tell him this all the time. But my parents and his parents have explicitly told me I should thank him everyday for how amazing he is. I can assure you dude is not perfect…but I think they’re coming from their own personal perspective where dads participated minimally in childcare, ESPECIALLY the care of young children. I don’t think my FIL ever changed a diaper. I’m sort of used to it now and just internally roll my eyes and move on, but it is upsetting to never hear “wow it’s clear you work so hard and you’re such a great mom” from anyone but my DH.
I appreciate this site teeing up recent articles for discussion but I am so done with this topic. Like every 6 months, someone writes a book or an article and we get all up in arms and maybe things continue to move incrementally forward, but I just am not feeling the value in spending my time thinking about it — of course it’s true, I’m not the one that needs to be reading it, and it sucks my energy to do so. Maybe I’m ready for the weekend?