I am looking for opinions on fairly dividing household chores and a two earner family with a kid. Here is my ahem hypothetical.
Parker and Taylor both have full time jobs, as well as a young baby. The jobs pay similar salaries, and require similar effort.
Taylor has a half hour commute and drops baby off at daycare and picks baby up. Taylor arrives home between 5:00 and 5;30. Taylor has course work to complete two evenings a week.
Parker has an an hour and fifteen minute commute, and usually picks up dinner en route home, returning between six and seven.
Parker’s job sometimes requires travel, leaving Taylor to manage all kid work for up to 10 days at a time, but this travel is not regular and can be stopped.
Baby sleeps at 7:30, and needs feeding, bathing, cuddles and stories until she sleeps. After baby sleeps, there is about 40 minutes of work washing and prepping bottles. Baby work is complete at around 8:30.
Parker wakes early (often at 5 or 6 to give first bottle) and aims to sleep by 10:30. Parker also needs to fit a shower in at night. Taylor sleeps later and wakes later, and showers in the morning while Parker watches baby.
So what is the fair way to distribute chores?
Since Taylor picks up baby and spends a significant amount of time handling baby alone, Parker should step in upon arriving home and take on the bulk of the evenings tasks. This adds up to Parker and Taylor doing basically the same amount of baby chores, but leaves Parker with less leisure time.
Since both Parker and Taylor work hard, they should split the remaining tasks evenly. This leaves Taylor doing more baby chores, but leaving them the same amount of leisure time.
I am surprised there have not been any replies to your thread. Everyone in a relationship at some point in time will deal with the division of labor. I have been happily married for over ten years. Looking at my marriage and contrasting it with both successful and failed marriages of friends of my wife and me, I have learned the following:
Don’t keep score. To be fair, we all do it whether we are conscious of it or not. But really try not to do it.
It doesn’t always need to be, and won’t be equal or even. Take one for the team as the saying goes. See #1.
Trade responsibilities occasionally. As a minor example, this month I am the one who waters all the plants.
When our kid was young we worked offset shifts. I worked 5am to 1pm and he worked 8-5. He did all the morning baby chores and I did everything in the afternoon. We usually shared responsibilities evenly once we were both home. One was with baby and the other was doing chores/fixing dinner until the baby went to bed. Usually we were all in the same room.
It was never set who did what. We just did what needed to be done. Sometimes one did more in a day, sometimes the other. Sometimes one of us would be dealing with the baby and need a break and we’d switch in the middle.
Parker should step in and spend some one on one time with the baby. While Parker is doing that Taylor can be washing and prepping the bottles leaving them both some free time together after the baby goes to sleep.
Definitely try and stop keeping score, if both of P&T are trying to ease the burden of each other and actively appreciating the work of each other it will make for less stress for both in the long run.
Speaking of stress, business travel sucks on both sides. After a business trip P&T should leave the baby with someone else and enjoy a couple of hours having a grownup dinner and catching up. Seriously, it doesn’t seem like it now but in 20 or so years the baby will be gone and hopefully they will still be together. Its worth the effort to plan some time together.
If P&T are both too tired after the trip have the sitter take the baby out - an afternoon in the park, an evening with grandma, something so you can ahem enjoy a couple quiet hours at home.
Once home, are both Parker and Taylor doing something that needs to be done? I’m not seeing why there is a need to officially divide chores as long as there are no idle hands until bed time.
Some clarification on what’s happening now is needed:
Who is usually handling all of this now? If Taylor has homework that needs to get done, is Parker tending to the baby stuff? If Taylor doesn’t have homework, are both Parker and Taylor handling baby stuff?
I’m fighting the facts here a bit, but consider also whether there are chores that can be reduced. Some babies can be fine with not bathing every day. You might be able to stock up on enough bottles that washing can be an every-other-day task, too.
If either parent is commuting by car, is there any possibility of shifting schedule so as not to have to drive during rush hour?
Also, you don’t have to handle the division the same each night. P can take the baby right away some nights and not others.
I have a two month old. Assuming that they are hand-washing the bottles, doing it every other day will just make for a longer washing session the other day, and maybe lead to a lot of clutter on the counter-top.
If they are using a dishwasher with a sterilizing function, then your mileage may vary.
Yeah, score keeping will kill a relationship pretty fast, tread carefully.
Also, it does not take into account each persons strengths. If the tire on the car needs replacing on some lonely road, do you each do half the labour? Or does the one more suited, inclined, experienced step in?
Stop keeping score and rationalizing in favour of your way, and own that what you are doing, at present, isn’t working for you. (Assuming their are reasons beyond real or imagined inequities in commutes or personal time!)
You’re going to have to work together towards a solution, drawing lines isn’t going to help with that. Your marriage will be long, and there are a couple of decades of child care ahead. If you’re thinking it should always be 50 - 50, you’re in for a big surprise, I’m afraid.
You should be working together towards neither party feeling overburdened.
Score keeping severely damages your ability to pull together, now and in the future. You’re not sharing a flat with a roommate, after all, you’re building a family!
First, this question only seems to focus on baby chores but what about the countless other household chores? How those are getting done should factor into how the baby chores get done.
Second, having unequal leisure time will only lead to resentment and I don’t think Parker should be penalized for having a long commute. It’s the reality of the situation that you’re in and should be considered part of his job. I would, however, be looking for ways to cut that time down if possible, or maybe investigate whether working from home a day or two a week is an option, or even a new job closer to home. Also consider that if he’s picking up dinner then that’s a nice chunk of work being removed from your evening (with a financial cost, though). That said, Parker should be ready to start pitching in when he gets home since Taylor has already had a good chunk of solo time with the baby. That doesn’t mean that Taylor gets to hop on Facebook or whatever, it means she gets to focus on some other task and not be distracted by baby.
We have a 20 month old (it gets easier, by the way :), in some ways) and as far as we were concerned no one was off the clock at least until the baby was asleep. When my wife was nursing/pumping then that meant I was doing the bulk of the other stuff (both baby and regular chores), which was fine.
I’d cut out some baths (we did/do 2-3/week) unless there is a really good reason for doing it every night. I also think 40 minutes for bottle cleaning/prep seems awfully long. Is there a reason why Taylor and Parker can’t get on the same sleep schedule?
Yes, don’t keep score. But also, the ideal relationship is one where both parties are falling over themselves to do all the chores before the other one gets a chance to. If Taylor comes home first, she should do everything she can before Parker gets home, because she loves Parker and doesn’t want to see him do unpleasant things. Likewise, when Parker gets home, he should feel grateful for all the work Taylor did and make it up to her by doing all the chores he can get his hands on. If both parties are doing everything they can to serve each other, then there will be no conflict.
This may be an unattainable goal, but I’ve found that my own marriage works best when my wife and I are doing our best at reaching it. Sometimes I’m in a funk, and when I see my wife going the extra mile to pick up my slack, it makes me want to try harder. On the other hand, when we’re both in a funk at the same time, we feed off each other’s laziness. We start keeping score, we refuse to clean up “their” mess, etc. It’s not good.
FWIW, things got better the more kids we had. Our house is filthier, but there’s so much work to be done that nobody gets any leisure time. No point in keeping score at that point I was a pretty lousy husband when we only had 1 kid, because I’d get home first and there was maybe 20 minutes of work to be done and about 3 hours to do it, so I’d procrastinate. It just didn’t seem like a big deal to me. Took me a long time to figure out that my procrastination had wider repercussions.
If there are funds to hire a maid or nanny and take some of the burden off of you both, that’d be my go-to suggestion. But honestly, nobody else can tell you what will work for your relationship.
I appreciate that the OP posted in such away that either Taylor or Parker could be male or female or they could both be male or both female. Typical that some would assume the one doing most of the baby work was female. I actually read it as both being male for some reason.
It doesn’t seem to me like trying to find a division of labor that both parties can live with is the same as keeping score. At least for our family, it is essential to know who’s responsible for what and when, and for us that means having clearly designated responsibilities for each spouse.
I don’t think there’s a right answer, but I would go with #1, especially since Parker is sometimes gone on business trips. When one parent is home alone with the baby for days it is usually really stressful. Taylor needs more of a break. Plus, Taylor has course work as well. If Parker stops the travel, then things can be renegotiated.
~Wednesday, member of two-earner and two-kid household.
It should be a division that both parents are able to live with. Other than that I have no opinion, since what couples can live with can vary so highly. I echo what everyone else said about not keeping score.
When we had an infant in my household, one parent did the majority of the household tasks (washing dishes, washing bottles, cleaning, grocery shopping) and the other parent did the majority of the child-care tasks (diaper changing, feeding, bath, etc.). Non-child-care parent took the kid during child-care parent’s second job one evening and one weekend morning per week.
We had a deal that the parent who liked mornings (me) would take the kid in the mornings, and the parent who liked evenings (my husband) would take the kid for post-10pm wakings (that were unrelated to feeding). This turned out to be great for him when she started sleeping through the night at about a year old. And that was (is) somewhat unequal, and I was (am) fine with that.
What was not fine for me was to see my husband having a lot more leisure time than I did in the evenings. (A little more was okay.) So, I guess, for me, I’d vote 2. But if it doesn’t bother you, then that’s cool, then you don’t need to do it that way.
Oh, it also matters if one of the parents is breastfeeding. Breastfeeding makes it really hard to do an even division of labor (e.g., it’s the breastfeeding parent who has to wake up three times a night to breastfeed), and if that’s going on both partners have to be really careful to factor that in to the divison of labor.
I had the same question, and searched the thread for more clarification.
Males and Females, in a healthy society, evolve gender-specific adult domestic roles for a very good reason – in order to assure that all tasks get covered. The male can do the traditionally male things, and the female can do the female things, and nothing will be left undone. The only people left unsatisfied will be the PC police, and who gives a shit about them?.
I think “something else” would work better. I’m sure you know this already - as your child grows and leaves one phase and enters another, some chores change/end pretty quickly. My opinion is to be flexible from day to day depending on how each person is feeling – their workload, energy level, amount of time spent with baby, etc. This can be done while keeping in mind each other’s strengths and preferences of chores, too. Perhaps certain chores can be assigned to one person solely, but only if it works out fairly for both of you.
Parker and Taylor both need to remember that 3-month oldish babies are a particularly monotonous and exhausting challenge, and that everything will be different in a few months, and a few months after that, and again a few months after that, so there is not much point in putting a lot of effort into coming up with an equitable solution because it will have to be revisited continuously.
Parker and Taylor need to have mutual faith that both are doing the best they can, and both doing the best they can is going to result in both being tired, cranky, and tragically short of “me” time for the next while. Parker and Taylor need to let go of the desire to find a way to make this workable, sustainable right now and focus instead on just enduring, grabbing moments of pleasure and indulgence when they can but not fixating on it. THIS PROBLEM FIXES ITSELF if you just give it enough time.
I was a pretty lousy husband when we only had 1 kid, because I’d get home first and there was maybe 20 minutes of work to be done and about 3 hours to do it, so I’d procrastinate. It just didn’t seem like a big deal to me. Took me a long time to figure out that my procrastination had wider repercussions.