Equal Parenting

I admit it -- I was a teenaged rabble-rouser. The problem was that I thought too much, and worse, I thought too highly of what I thought. Pretty typical for most adolescent girls, but I seemed to really take the cake concerning the big issues of life, like equality for women.

In 1976, I attended the International Year of the Woman's Conference. Don't remember it? Not only was it eons ago, it was something (in my opinion) concocted by the U.N. to calm a bunch of irate women from all over the world by letting them kvetch publicly. Right up my high-school alley. I went, listened to speakers, looked at the booths, and felt emotionally bolstered by being around so many people who thought, like I did, that not only should the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment, for those of you who missed all of this) be ratified immediately, but that men should do the only right thing left for them to do -- change, change, change!

Read more about the joys of Motherhood. Other "Now I Know" columns include:

Introduction

Clutter

Distraction

Grandparents

Memories

Pain

Photographs

Sacrifice

Preparation
Pride
Sentimentality

Sure, women were entering the work force by leaps and bounds (now we know that it was mostly due to economic necessity, not a need to fulfill themselves), but what were the men doing differently? Nothing! In fact, men functioned like they always had, watching their wives do double-time in managing households and careers. Only now the guys also complained that women were taking their jobs from them. Such a flap! In the meantime, who was raising the children? Well, we all know the answer to that.

Things would be different for me. I would not -- repeat not -- end up the sole parent in a two-adult household. I would marry a man who would love parenting, who would be so skilled and confident that he would willingly be the stay-at-home parent. My opinion was that men were perfectly capable of primary caregiving, but we as women and as a society had let them off the hook for years. I would find a man untouched by the usual gender double-standard, one who would share in parenting responsibilities as equally as humanly possible.

The first week with Tobias was like a dream come true, and my husband acted the part perfectly. I was completely convinced -- this was heaven on earth. Not only had I finally accomplished bearing a child, I had Mr. Perfect with whom to share this experience. Then my husband returned to work.

I probably don't have to say anything more for readers to know what happened next. This little scenario illustrates our situation:

We're lying in bed late at night, the three of us, with the latest set of visiting in-laws sleeping in our living room. As Toby is at this point six weeks old, I have by now learned how to fall deeply asleep in seconds, making the most of the next two uninterrupted hours.

Suddenly, a scream in the night, a child's pierce-pitched squeal of distress, and the upper half of my body is instinctively bolted upright in bed, my eyes wide open, my hands flailing around in search of my son who is sleeping deeply next to me.

The incredible gust of relief that swept over me as I saw and felt my slumbering son nearly brought me to tears. The squeal, it turns out, is from one of our nephews in the living room, and his nighttime fears were immediately tended to by his mother.

Once the reality that all is well had sunken in, I looked over to my husband, eager to share the experience with the only other person in the world who would understand. He was all but snoring. I knew then and there that I was doomed by biology to be the most immediately responsive parent in my house. I have since learned that fact is not all bad.

While I may be the first to react in every situation that relates to my son, my husband is there to follow up when I'm spent. Yes, we've had a few discussions on the point that his job as a father is more than "babysitting," but the truth is, he's much more fun than I am. At the end of the day, when my son and I have literally been in each other's faces for ten long hours, Daddy's face is far more fresh and interesting. I am ever so grateful to have been blessed with someone who puts down his sundries upon entering the house and heads for the baby.

Sure, if there's a bump on the noggin later on, I come running faster than a cheetah -- but Dad is there when the consoling is done. In large part because we're nursing, I am the one who goes to bed with a sleepy little one, while my husband enjoys his evening TV (or nap). And you can bet that any tiny whimpers in the night will get an instant reaction from me while Dad continues snoring. So our situations as far as physical energy and time spent are unequal, but the mere presence of each other is complementary, all to our son's benefit. When I think of all the single parents out there doing it alone, I know that I can't ask for more.

"Now I Know" first appeared on Moms Online, part of the Oxygen Media network (http://oxygen.com), and is reprinted with permission.

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