Don’t believe the hype…

July 9, 2008

Don’t Believe the Hype: That’s definitely the song of the day, as I caught it on XM earlier. It required serious head-bobbing, as I sped down the road in my grey Honda Odyssey. I would have done my Chuck D rap stylings, but I believe we established how well that flys with said 11 year old. Anyway, I had to steer. Aww yeah. Bring the noise.

What hype, you ask? I’ll tell you. The shared parenting hype the NYT is pimping. It’s an interesting (albeit reaaally long…blog brain much?) article in the magazine, about couples that have gone to extremes to divide their familial responsibilities 50/50, as one would draw a sharpie line down the middle of the bedroom while fighting. (No, I haven’t done that. Really.)

Financially, child-care wise, who gets the birthday present for Suzie Who-wise, all that shizzle. But no matter how great the efforts, can it ever be truly divided equally? And in trying to keep score about the efficacy of the efforts, what’s lost?

Penelope Trunk (also known as Brazen Careerist- love her) has an interesting rebuttal, where she says the arrangement seldom works out as planned, now matter how good the intentions. She gives 5 reasons why it’s over-rated, including that it kills two careers.

It’s not the route that we chose over here at Rock and Roll Townhouse…(dude, I’m not mowing a D#$$ lawn.) I’ll grant you, our version is a little extreme. But here’s how labor division goes down here.

Back in the day, I had a job. Lo, a job that required my leaving the house and even occasionally wearing pantyhose. I had a cubicle. I wrote business-to-business journalism pieces for hospital lab managers. I know, I know. Too racy for this blog. I also spent a lot of time at my job filling out law school applications, as I figured there had to be a level up from this cubicle.

Then I had another baby. Because hubs is in a band, and tours quite a bit, my working while he kept up his touring schedule didn’t seem so viable. Also, my boss was a git, and I wanted out. And I’d gotten into law school, so I would start that when our new baby was seven months old. Plus care for the 8 year old.

Riiiiight. That was like a note from planet Pre-Baby, cause once the reality of two kids sunk in, I was so not driving an hour each day to law school. And read law stuff? Forget it. Plus I didn’t much want to be a lawyer, just get paid like one. Super planning, I know.

So I made the next obvious career choice: Freelance Writer! Cause they make ALL the mad cash.

Yet another baby later, I still stay home (kind of…I do a bunch of other stuff too, like go to Panera) and often, my husband travels for weeks at a time. The two year old points at planes and says, “Daddy!” I’m in charge of much of the domestic front, but there would be no domestic front without his contribution. Does that mean our jobs are unequally split? That one of us carries more weight cause we change more diapers or empty the dishwasher more? I would argue no.

In the model that we’ve chosen, each partner is living their dream. He wants to be a musician…he’s a musician. I support him 110% in that, although it means going to sleep alone more often than I like. But, as certain family members enjoy pointing out, I knew this when I married him. (Jeez! I know! Enough already!)

I want to be a writer. So I write. And when I need to do stuff for that, like go to conferences or hire an editor or spend eighteen hours a day on the internet, he supports that. (Maybe not so much the internet part. “Who is this Black Hockey Jesus? What are Spohrs? A Bloggess???”) The biggest way he supports my literary delusions aspirations is when he is home, he’s so in there pitching, and I love him for that.

Oh, I’m not saying it’s utopia here. He hates my fun game of “How much trash can fit in this can before someone takes it out?” And I wish he would stop moving my furniture around every time he comes home. He probably wishes I’d stop telling him how to take care of his own kids. “He can do that now…he learned while you were gone.” I’m working on that.

It’s not 50/50, but we’re both giving it 100%. And I’m OK with that.

Posted in DIY, Fangirl, Miscellaneous, Music, Rock and Roll Mama