I have determined that my sanity as a parent and our ability to do the paid-work/care-for-kid split without the usual resulting disconect and resentment is due to lunches. Specifically, that The Man comes home for lunch every day, with rare, difficult exceptions (like today). He also has been known to go in late (er, sometimes really late), take long lunches, and views 5pm as his deadline for leaving the office; staying late means not getting out until 5:15, and happens maybe once a month.
But mostly, it’s the lunches. It’s the fact that I never have to face 8 or 9 uninterrupted hours by myself with the Boychick. It’s the fact that thanks to sleep schedules and naps, the Boychick is usually without his dad around for no more than half his waking day, often less. It’s the fact that if dinner needs prep work, we usually do it together at lunch. It’s that I do get a lunch break, during which I don’t have to deal with another’s feces, I can eliminate mine in peace, I can shower with the child on the other side of the door, and I get hugs and adult conversation and a sympathetic ear. It’s that sometimes, even, I can have lunch out without having sole responsibility for an always-potentially-cranky toddler. Lunches together make all the difference in the world, which is never so clear as when I find myself alone for lunch with no alternate plans and a roast to start and a loaf to shape and a toddler to save ffrom himself, such as today.
It is part luck that allows us this, and a heap of privilege as well to be sure, but it was also something worked for, chosen, deliberately and determinedly pursued. He guards his lunch jealously, and his evenings rigidly, and refuses travel that by rights his work could demand of him or release him for; and it costs him in networking and advancement and annual review points, but it gains him so much: his family, his lover’s sanity, his child’s delight. This, far far more than any earning potentially lost, is his responsibility and his right as a father. This is how men can work and sacrifice for the good of their family. Not 80 hour workweeks, but 5 hours of lunches. Just by coming home. Just lunch.
Arwyn
In my bathroom hangs a plaque with a picture of a yin yang and the word BALANCE. I can never get it to hang straight. This probably says something deep and meaningful about my life.
You are so fortunate..as is your partner. My dh has been gone a week and will likely be gone another…we’re looking into making a change because we all are starting to hate it…2 weeks at home, alone with the kids with no break is taking it’s toll on me.
good post and oh so very true
Carolyn
Thanks for a great post. I’m in a similar situation where my co-parent works a schedule that is more flexible than the average American’s. I know I benefit from his availability, as does our son.
For a country that touts “family values” we sure don’t do much to allow workers to put family first. In many cases, we punish those people by overlooking them for promotions, pay raises and worse.
OMG, your family is practicing Attachment Parenting/co-parenting. Novel idea.
It is rare that a man makes such a sacrifice at work. Back in the agrarian days, his proximity to home wouldn’t have been rare.
I tremendously agree. I need breaks now and again or I go mad — sometimes I feel like I’m failing as the cheerful, peaceful mommy that my sahm friends seem to be, but screw it. My husband and I are lucky (but we, too, planned it this way very intentionally) in that we work from home together so are almost always available to spot each other in the parenting duties. We make very little money and don’t get nearly enough work done as before having a kid, but it was important to both of us to do both things: work and parent. So we figured it out. I agree with Jen, too, that this culture pretends to be family friendly but isn’t really, something I didn’t grasp until starting my own.
I visited my family in Malta and this was the norm – the lunch meal is the main meal of the day and goes for two hours. People (predominantly men) come home, have a big meal, hang out for a while, then go back. Very nice. Here, it takes a lot of planning and sacrifice (of material things, status and opportunities) to parent equally.
We are definitely fortunate, but he actually works in a “traditional” 8-5 job. It is his privilege that he’s on salary, working for a small-mid-size company (50-100 employees), here in the Pacific Northwest, and having the housing and the transportation (we have and can afford to fuel a car, and pay more to live just 10 minutes away from his work), that allows him to do this. His job description originally called for him to travel up to 25% of the time, and he risked demotion or firing but stood his ground that it was not something he was willing to do; fortunately, he has had all sympathetic managers who have been willing to accommodate him, and he now, unofficially at least, is in a no-travel position. He also works at home and on weekends as needed, and is their most productive employee when he is at work, which I’m sure helps his case!
Jen and Hobo Mama — yes, The USA is misogynistic and family unfriendly.
Rachel — it really does seem to be a novel idea! It shouldn’t be, but it is. I know it’s different for families whose income is dependent on an hourly wage, but even among other salaried workers, we know of no other man who implements his nominal family values this way (it seems to be really different for the two-mother families we know, even when they have the same work-for-pay/child-care split; my guess is it’s primarily a culturally-imposed father/mother thing).
Mikhela — that sounds much more reasonable than the standard in the USA (and Australia too?). Although it makes me wonder what their evenings are like…? (Also, welcome!)