My husband is a very involved dad. He’s always been just as hands-on with the kids as I am. When they were babies, he didn’t need any special instructions or reminders about changing their diapers, feeding them, soothing them. He would get up with them in the middle of the night almost as much as I did. I was nursing, but if he had had boobs, I think he would have been up just as much as me.
He’s good with chores, even if he needs a few reminders
OK, a lot of reminders. But there’s never a complaint, and he’s just as active as I am around the house when he’s not working. And get this: This man does our family’s laundry every freaking week, from start to finish. I hate laundry. Despise it. So I definitely consider myself #blesssed.
I don’t think I fully appreciated how involved a spouse my husband is until the pandemic. As fellow moms complained about their husband’s being basically checked out during pandemic schooling and trying to juggle kids at home 24/7 with work and other commitments, my husband was right there with me, doing just as much as I did, if not more.
When my kids were fully remote last year, my husband was the one who took a leave of absence from work to care for them, help them with remote school, and take care of the house while I worked full-time from home. If you look at the data, this is highly unusual, as most of the time, it was the woman who ended up putting the brakes on her career during the pandemic to deal with the sh!tshow of the last school year.
All that said, my husband is definitely no saint
And while he shares equally in so much of the running of our household, there is one area where he’s pretty routinely clueless: He doesn’t share the mental and emotional load equally with me.
He also doesn’t do all the planning that I do — he doesn’t plan our budget, our activities, our holidays, etc. I’m the one making lists of doctors' appointments that need to be scheduled, medications that need to be renewed. While he’s willing to go to the grocery store to pick up this or that, I’m the one making all the lists of the things we need.
I don’t know about you, but my head is filled to the brim with to-do lists
I have a live-streaming, constantly running list of every single freaking thing that everyone needs for school, for meals, for our home, for upcoming events. This running list doesn’t shut down when the lights go out, either.
My stress about planning our lives keeps me up at night. My husband, on the other hand, falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.
That might also be because he doesn’t worry about the emotional and mental health of everyone in our home. I’m basically the family therapist, on top of everything else. My kids will be fine and happy, and then start sobbing as soon as they see me. Seeing me causes them to remember all the stuff that they are unhappy about, and divulge every last detail to me.
I know that’s because I’m their safe mommy space, and I do love that
But it means I also carry around their feelings and stresses and fears with me all day and all night. And it’s a lot.
Again, it’s not that I don’t appreciate my husband. But I have tried to get him to engage in more of the “mental load,” and it’s just not his thing. He doesn’t take the same kind of initiative I do and, well, he’s just not as good at it all as I am. He’s not wired to keep that annoying running list in his head.
He can’t remember things like every single food item that our kids like, and every item that they absolutely hate. He doesn’t know what items in our pantry or home need restocking. He doesn’t notice when the kids’ clothes are too tight, or when it’s time to buy new winter coats.
I get frustrated about all of this sometimes
But I also know that there are things around here that he does and I don’t do at all. For example, he’s the resident chauffeur and errand runner. I almost never take our kids anywhere or run errands (yes, really!). So maybe we are just about even then?
How we balance our lives is definitely a work in progress, and though I have some complaints about the mental load, and wish he’d share in some of it, I am also pretty satisfied with how our lives work.
Still, I would really like it if I could do what I needed to do around here, and then fall the heck to sleep once the day is over. Now that sounds like pure bliss.
