"Key to Happy Marriage: Mom Cooks, Dad Plays?"

[lumberjack_jeff]

From WSJ

So I read with great interest this latest study on shared parenting, from Ohio State University. The research, published in the January issue of Developmental Psychology, found that couples where the father participates equally in traditional caregiving tasks, like preparing meals or giving baths (!!), tend to clash more than couples where the mother does a bigger share. Specifically, couples that strive for more equal co-parenting end up displaying “less supportive and more undermining co-parenting behavior toward each other,” the researchers found. But when the father spent more time playing with the kid, while the mom did more of the nuts-and-bolts caregiving, the couples had a “stronger, more supportive co-parenting relationship.”

The results themselves seem to undermine what so many couples today think marriage should be: Fair, egalitarian, 50/50, even-steven. Equal partners, equal parents. This is a noble goal, and a reasonable one. But it ignores certain realities. Like that kids put a huge (and joyful!) burden on a marriage. Also, that different people have different skill sets, and also different activities they prefer doing over others. And finally, that nothing in life is fair, period.

When women come to me with complaints about their husbands and housework—either he doesn’t do enough, or he doesn’t do it right, or on her schedule—I usually suggest they rethink their entire system and borrow a concept from economics called comparative advantage. The idea is that they start assigning tasks based on what they do best relative to other tasks, and then leave each other in peace to do those jobs. The point is to not go blindly into 50/50 mode, but to pick and choose what you each do wisely and trust—yes, trust—that it’ll all get done.

Maybe that means he doesn’t do the bath because she actually has more opinions about the way the bath gets done, but he prepares the meals, because he enjoys cooking for his kids and she’s not a great cook. Maybe he does the bulk of homework help because of the simple fact that he gets home earlier, and she then tackles the dinner dishes because what she really cares about are clean counters and doesn’t trust anyone else to follow her definition of “clean”. Neither of them gets to tell the other how to do their jobs—that’s the beauty of it. And maybe it doesn’t always feel fair or equal in the moment, but over a lifetime—which is, we assume, how long people intend to stay together—it evens out.

Thoughts?

[westerebus]

1. Thoughts?

Women make the rules.

Men will never know all the rules.

If two women disagree, both are right.

Rules are subject to change without notice.

Not knowing the rules does not exempt men from the rules.

Based on twenty three years of marriage between two wives, I rest my case. LOL

[lumberjack_jeff]

2. I'm a believer that a good relationship is a team effort.

Each does what they do best, they don't necessarily do each task exactly half the time.

I'm less keen on the author's stereotypical conclusions about who should do which tasks.