Welcome to my life. I used to be a neuroscientist and my focus was on getting the cover of science journals for my research. Now...
Literally every night I ask my husband to watch the baby (and 4 year old, although he's pretty independent these days) for 30-40 minutes so I can make supper and he refuses 9 out of 10 times because he is too busy. Yet an hour earlier he was playing video games or napping or you name it, he had time for that but when I need help he mysteriously is always busy. When I went out last week near supper time I had supper already, but still had to show him how to operate the oven to warm it up because he hasn't cooked more than a bowl of soup for himself in years. He doesn't know how to do laundry, getting him to change a diaper involves massive amounts of cajoling, plus I take care of the baby all night so I'm operating on hardly any sleep while he gets about 10 hours. Yet if I say anything to my mother she refers to some Christian book about a fireman and how you're supposed to figure out what pleases your man and by making him happy he'll learn how to treat you better. In other words, if he's a jerk it's the wife's fault.
Whatever. At this point I'm just so tired I don't even have the energy to protest the unfairness, mostly because that would mean a fight with my husband and he'd spitefully stop helping even the little he does.
A great deal of our imbalance is just not fixable, because, well, for the most part, I work fewer hours than he does. Or, perhaps more accurately, the hours that I don't have actual tasks to be working on, I don't have to be at my office, which means I can run errands or do chores while child is in daycare. The degree to which I am zen about this varies. But I can tell you that when I make 2/3 or our income, run all but a very few of our errands, do about 3/4 of the childcare (including ALL of the doctor's appointments, keeping track of medicine and food and whether she's pooped, being on call for daycare, making other arrangements when both of us have plans...you get the idea), a significant chunk of the housework, most of the work of actually managing our house, 90% of our shopping, etc, am really not zen about my mother telling me I'm unreasonable for asking him to change a diaper.
I find it hard to negotiate what he should be expected to do, to be honest, and I think this is something many women/families experience. In my case, I unexpectedly became a stay at home mom and we never had discussed roles/expectations. I guess I figured if I was now a "mom" as a job description, that mean I did 100% of the child care, cooking, cleaning, and laundry even though my husband worked from home. I figured if he had more time for doing his own things (ie video games, etc) that was his reward for a long day.
We're on our second child now and he sold his business and promised to help with this baby more while he slowly started another business - but he just sleeps more and watches TV/plays video games more. So now I'm resentful because I have to beg for what little "me" time I get - and I feel selfish wanting it. If we had talked it through more - or were to do so now and be able to change things, I think it would be beneficial.
So really, in my opinion, the main thing it comes down to is negotiation between the only 2 people actually in the marriage (ie parents and in-laws have no say) in discussing expectations. I don't know if you and your husband have sat down and talked about? He sounds pretty cool and open to that type of discussion, so if you haven't then maybe now would be a good time to do so? I don't know that everything has to be equal in terms of kids, etc - usually it's not because of how parental time out of the house varies - but you can figure out something fair. And then you don't have to ask him to change a diaper (unless necessary) because he does it as part of your overall family plan.
Literally every night I ask my husband to watch the baby (and 4 year old, although he's pretty independent these days) for 30-40 minutes so I can make supper and he refuses 9 out of 10 times because he is too busy. Yet an hour earlier he was playing video games or napping or you name it, he had time for that but when I need help he mysteriously is always busy. When I went out last week near supper time I had supper already, but still had to show him how to operate the oven to warm it up because he hasn't cooked more than a bowl of soup for himself in years. He doesn't know how to do laundry, getting him to change a diaper involves massive amounts of cajoling, plus I take care of the baby all night so I'm operating on hardly any sleep while he gets about 10 hours. Yet if I say anything to my mother she refers to some Christian book about a fireman and how you're supposed to figure out what pleases your man and by making him happy he'll learn how to treat you better. In other words, if he's a jerk it's the wife's fault.
Whatever. At this point I'm just so tired I don't even have the energy to protest the unfairness, mostly because that would mean a fight with my husband and he'd spitefully stop helping even the little he does.
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A great deal of our imbalance is just not fixable, because, well, for the most part, I work fewer hours than he does. Or, perhaps more accurately, the hours that I don't have actual tasks to be working on, I don't have to be at my office, which means I can run errands or do chores while child is in daycare. The degree to which I am zen about this varies. But I can tell you that when I make 2/3 or our income, run all but a very few of our errands, do about 3/4 of the childcare (including ALL of the doctor's appointments, keeping track of medicine and food and whether she's pooped, being on call for daycare, making other arrangements when both of us have plans...you get the idea), a significant chunk of the housework, most of the work of actually managing our house, 90% of our shopping, etc, am really not zen about my mother telling me I'm unreasonable for asking him to change a diaper.
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We're on our second child now and he sold his business and promised to help with this baby more while he slowly started another business - but he just sleeps more and watches TV/plays video games more. So now I'm resentful because I have to beg for what little "me" time I get - and I feel selfish wanting it. If we had talked it through more - or were to do so now and be able to change things, I think it would be beneficial.
So really, in my opinion, the main thing it comes down to is negotiation between the only 2 people actually in the marriage (ie parents and in-laws have no say) in discussing expectations. I don't know if you and your husband have sat down and talked about? He sounds pretty cool and open to that type of discussion, so if you haven't then maybe now would be a good time to do so? I don't know that everything has to be equal in terms of kids, etc - usually it's not because of how parental time out of the house varies - but you can figure out something fair. And then you don't have to ask him to change a diaper (unless necessary) because he does it as part of your overall family plan.
Just thinking out loud here...
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