Equally Shared Parenting

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2010-04-13T20:15:00.001-05:00

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Come See Us in Providence!

2010-04-11T20:13:00.000-05:00

We'll be doing a book event at the independent bookstore Books on the Square in Providence, Rhode Island on Saturday April 24th at 2:00p.m. Joining us will be Providence couple Judy Kaye and Bruce Phillips, who are the "Judy and Bruce" featured in Chapter 8 of our book. This is the Money chapter, by the way, and Bruce and Judy are a fantastic example of an ESP couple who gladly traded maximal salaries for balanced lives with plenty of time with their three children.

Think you can't afford an equal partnership and balanced lives? Come see us, and hear Judy and Bruce's compelling story, on April 24th!

Your Partner or Your Career?

2010-04-05T19:30:00.002-05:00

David Brooks had an interesting op ed in the New York Times last week entitled "The Sandra Bullock Trade." It starts out as a description of how the actress has experienced what many would consider one of life's ultimate career highs (winning an Academy Award) and one of life's pretty awful lows (finding out your husband is cheating in a big way) in a very short span of time. But the column isn't really about Ms. Bullock - she's just the hook to get readers to take notice. It's about what brings the most happiness - a stellar career or a stellar partnership.

Anyone care to guess?

Surely you answered correctly that it is a great partnership that brings far more overall happiness. As Brooks says, "Marital happiness is far more important than anything else in determining personal well-being. If you have a successful marriage, it doesn't matter how many professional setbacks you endure, you will be reasonably happy. If you have an unsuccessful marriage, it doesn't matter how many career triumphs you record, you will remain significantly unfulfilled."

Yet, in our culture, even though we may know better, we're primed to pick the career time and again. This is true not only in fairly obvious ways, such as typical male choosing a job with an enormous commute or tons of travel when he's got young children or a wife he won't see much as a result (but, by God, he'll have a crack at that Global Vice President position), but also in much, much more subtle ways. For example, couples choose who stays home and who works primarily by who has the career or job that stands to net the biggest paycheck. Or we simply pick our careers by their salary prowess or their "importance" (which can then bring better and better opportunities with bigger pay down the road).

Brooks addresses this. He says: "...most of us pay attention to the wrong things. Most people vastly overestimate the extent to which more money would improve our lives." No matter if a family nets $50,000/year or $500,000/year, most people often still make important decisions by the compass of money. And collectively, we so rarely choose a lower paying road that brings us more time for our relationships instead. ESP and other simple living lifestyles turn this around - now we can choose to mostly make decisions based on relationship nurturing (happily and knowingly), and only secondarily based on money.

Brooks also tells us: "People aren't happiest during the years when they are winning the most promotions. Instead, people are happy in their 20's, dip in middle age and then, on average, hit peak happiness just after retirement at age 65." It sure seems that, if we assume that most people work at least full time (and probably far more) in those dip years, maybe we could even out this life curve if we evened out the career piece. I'm not saying we have full evidence here, but it sure works that way for me. I'd much rather work a longer career with enough hours to have time for all the other pieces of life that matter - not least of which is my relationship with Marc - than retire early yet miss out on something far more precious that I can't get back.

The White House Looks at Work Flexibility

2010-04-01T18:50:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, an historic forum took place at the White House to address the issue of work-life balance, and specifically job flexibility. Many experts and business owners with experience in offering various types of work flexibility with good results (higher productivity and employee retention, lower overall costs, less energy expenditure) were on hand to listen and share. Michelle Obama kicked off the forum, and Barack was there to deliver one of my favorite lines of all: "Workplace flexibility isn't just a women's issue. It's an issue that affects the well-being of our families and the success of our businesses."

The Obamas seem genuinely devoted to bringing our business model out of antiquity, and making it capable of meeting families where they need to be - able to balance paid work with caring for the next (and the previous) generation of Americans. They didn't make any decisions today, but they sparked what I hope will be a flame that doesn't die out.

And the best part, well - ESP-wise, is that almost everything I've read about the discussion is gender neutral. Parents need change - not just mothers. Or as Barack said: "Ultimately, it reflects our priorities as a society -- our belief that no matter what each of us does for a living, caring for our loved ones and raising the next generation is the single most important job that we have. I think it's time we started making that job a little easier for folks." I'd just add that everyone - regardless of their parenting or married status - deserves a decent shot at a balanced life.

ESP Book Review: Against the Grain

2010-03-27T21:20:00.000-05:00

It's time for a book review! On a recent trip home to visit my mother, I brought along some reading and got some good stretches of time to dive into Canadian sociologist Gillian Ranson's new book, Against the Grain: Couples, Gender, and the Reframing of Parenting. It is an in-depth description of her study of 32 parenting couples who have bucked traditional woman-as-primary-nurturer/man-as-primary-breadwinner lives, and so not always light reading.

The couples included in Dr. Ranson's study were not all ESP couples; in fact, a large group were reverse-traditional couples (whom she calls 'crossovers'). Her aim was to explore the reasons behind any type of non-traditional, intact family, and she included both heterosexual and same-sex couples, and couples with children ranging in age from only a few months to nearly adult. Of those couples who were not reverse-traditional, she distinguishes between 'shift-workers' (couples who organized their outside work in shifts to allow for zero outside childcare) and 'dual-dividers' (those who maintained full-time jobs and depended on outside childcare at least some of the time). Hmmm...not sure where Marc and I would fit then...we have a 'shift-worker' mentality because we both work reduced/staggered hours to minimize outside care and balance our lives, yet we depend on some outside childcare too.

Anyway, as one reads deep into Dr. Ranson's book, several themes emerge that I found thought-provoking and important. One is that non-gendered ways of approaching parenting can take many, many forms. This makes a lot of sense to me, and certainly what Marc and I found as we interviewed couples for our book; the details of ESP are highly individual, even as its principles seem to be solidly those of equality and balance.

Another takeaway is that parenting partnerships almostly uniformly include early and deep father involvement and non-conventional work arrangements (e.g., unusual schedules). All of Dr. Ranson's ESP-like couples had these two elements in their relationships. I agree that these things help, and are almost essential, but I'll stop at 'almost' because I've met full-out, amazing ESP couples who started out their first years of parenting in a completely traditional way, and I've met legitimate, successful ESP couples who work in traditional jobs. I don't think that any outside force can stop a couple bent on sharing their parenting, but surely statistics will show that most ESP couples fit these molds.

Now for the really good stuff about Against the Grain. Overall, I loved the book. Dr. Ranson 'gets' gender equal parenting, and has lovely ways of describing it. She talks about 'functional interchangeability' as the result - which means that both parents are fully capable of attending to their children's needs and both have formed intimate bonds with them. This is not to mean two identical parents, since she found that her ESP couples maintained their individuality as separate people. She also defines true gender equality as 'undoing gender' and as 'equal terms' parenting - in which both parents have equal say and equal responsibility.

Only six of the couples included in this book can be considered ESP parents. Yet they tell a powerful story. These couples balanced paid work with strong family connections, and reported deep satisfaction in their overall relationships as a result of their shared parenting. They were, in Dr. Ranson's conclusions, 'parenting' rather than 'mothering' or 'fathering.' Their paths were not always easy - just as we found in so many of our own interviews - but their choice was affirmed many-fold along the way.

Dr. Ranson challenges scholars who say that men and women cannot fully share parenting because our culture is too deeply gendered to make this possible. "Any gender-based differences seemed to me more a matter of style than substance," she says, drawing on the fact that she interviewed each couple as separate individuals and could hear details from a father that seemed similar to details she heard from a different mother. "I don't think that parenting necessarily has to be genderless," she add, however.

Against the Grain is a well-written description of how a small population of couples is approaching parenting in a less-gendered manner. No, they (we) are not the majority yet, but Dr. Ranson thinks these pioneering efforts will move us closer and closer, little by little, to a society in which 'parenting' is the more appropriate term. And they demonstrate, as we strive to do, that ESP is fully possible today.

Thank you, Dr. Ranson, for a wonderful addition to our Resources page.

Moms - Get a Grip!

2010-03-23T08:11:00.001-05:00

If your partner is a fantastic parent, does that make you a crappy one? Hardly worth the energy to think about, really, but that's exactly what an MSNBC article last week describes when it comes to mothers' anxieties. The article starts out with an objectionable sentence - "Dads are helping out with childrearing more and more these days"- which gives us a big clue to the crazy-thinking of the moms in question.

The key word here is 'helping,' of course, and we find out a few sentences later that new research from Osaka University of Commerce in Japan (in collaboration with the University of Texas) reveals a drop in self-esteem in mothers who rate their husbands' parenting as high quality. Now, the 78 couples interviewed for this study were not ESP couples. They were dual-earners, and the moms spent on average triple the time caring for their babies (all had 8-month old infants) as compared to the dads. In other words, Dad may have been an involved parent, but he was probably thought of as a 'helper' by his partner.

In these quasi-traditional relationships, the mothers seemed to want to hold on to their role as primary caregiver - which makes sense since our society (and probably even more so, Japan's) expects this and has a way of making a mother feel guilty if she doesn't. Yet, the moms wanted help with the parenting too...just not so much help that their place in the family was usurped by a too-good daddy.

I can see the (sad) logic in this. But I can see a no-win situation, surely. For both partners. It puts mothers between a rock and a hard place and it cheats fathers out of the joys of full-on parenting their own way. And it sure sets a couple up for resentment rather than appreciation of their arrangement!

I bet that if this same study were done with ESP couples - meaning couples who had made a deep commitment to equal partnership in their parenting - the results would have been very different. It seems to me that the women in this study weren't really ready to let go. But in an ESP family, the eyes of both partners are wide open to the challenges of re-sculpting traditional roles and are focusing on creating balanced lives and a team approach to raising their children. In an ESP mom's soul, a competent father is the best thing in the world for her/his/their children - and her self-worth is no longer tied to what culture expects.

Equal Vulnerability

2010-03-21T18:53:00.001-05:00

Whenever 'equality' is discussed in terms of marriage or parenting, it is often kept in the realm of the tangible. Here on the surface, the media talk of who is doing more of the chores - by number or by time - or even sometimes about who is handling more of the job of remembering when those chores need to be done. This is all well and good, but you've probably read our views about this before...equally sharing the chores or even the joys of parenting, or housework, or breadwinning, or time for yourself, is more of a product of the mindset of equally shared parenting than a goal unto itself.

The real meat of equality in any partnership is far more weighty and vast than the weak definition of equal chore sharing. We like to talk about equal investment, or equal value in the marriage, or equal power in decision-making. Over at the fantastic Equal Couples blog, equality is given an even broader and deeper definition - encompassing each partner's equal ability to be vulnerable in the other's presence.

I hadn't thought of equality in this way before, but it brings an important idea to light. One of my deepest wishes has always been for a marriage built on genuine intimacy, in which both of us are able to truly be ourselves - with every imperfection and work-in-progress fault out in the open. To be loved not just in spite of our shortcomings, but even for them. (I knew I'd found the right guy when I asked Marc early in our relationship if I snored, and his immediate response was "Just enough to be sexy.")

For me, the 'equality' foundation of ESP really is about equal vulnerability when I brush away all the surface stuff.

Nice, but...

2010-03-18T19:29:00.009-05:00

Check out this chain email (of sorts) that I got recently:

Cleaning for a Reason

If you know any woman currently undergoing Chemo, please pass the word to her that there is a cleaning service that provides FREE housecleaning - 1 time per month for 4 months while she is in treatment.

All she has to do is sign up and have her doctor fax a note confirming the treatment. Cleaning for a Reason will have a participating maid service in her zip code area arrange for the service.

Please pass this information on to bless a woman going through breast or other cancer treatment. This organization serves the entire USA and currently has 547 partners to help these women. It's our job to pass the word and let them know that there are people out there that care. Be a blessing to someone and pass this information along.

Pretty nice of them, huh? Granted, most women (sadly, I guess even those in the throes of chemotherapy) are still their household's primary cleaning person. Or maybe they live alone and don't have a capable partner to take over. But I hope someday generous offers like this will be gender-neutral. Don't men deserve clean homes too? Let's bless them too, shall we?

Traveling Light

2010-03-15T20:06:00.000-05:00

The other day, the WSJ's The Juggle blog tackled the subject of what happens when Mom goes away on a business trip. The author of this particular entry tried for humor as she described the travails of her two toddlers, one of whom is crushed by her 3-day absence. To get the laughs, she used phrases like "my family fell apart" and described spending several days "setting the scene" for her absence and "familiarizing her husband" with routines she usually handles. Her son spent 3 days sobbing and her daughter caught a cold. Her son cried for days even after her return, declaring he suddenly didn't like school anymore.

Now, no one can predict a toddler's reaction to a missing parent. And Marc and I have certainly had our share of "I want Mommy!" or "I want Daddy!" screamed at the opposite parent. But leaving the house for a trip is made so much easier for either of us, and for any ESP parent, by the fact that both Mom and Dad are already deeply entrenched in the routines of the kids' lives and intimately involved in their nurturing.

In fact, I'm getting ready to leave - a trip home to help my mother recover from major surgery. I'm a bit anxious - I never like to be away from Marc or the kids for that long, I'm hoping everything works out smoothly for my mother's recovery, and I know my absence is going to make Marc's life (and M's and T's) temporarily lopsided. But I'm not going crazy with the preparation, and I know Marc's got it fully under control - in his own way - without one reminder or instruction from me.

Knowing my family won't "fall apart" without me is just a little of what I'm thankful for from ESP.

The Evolution of Dad is Coming

2010-03-14T10:50:00.001-05:00

Back in the fall of 2007, Amy and I were introduced to a dynamic and visionary man named Dana Glazer. He was dreaming about (and working real hard at) creating a documentary film about how the role of the American father has been changing. I can only imagine all the pieces that have to come together to make this dream a reality, but Dana has lived it and proven worthy of the challenge.

His eagerly anticipated film, The Evolution of Dad, is being released to the world in a couple of months - on Father's Day 2010. He recently released the official trailer; check it out on his site. There are lots of dads represented from all walks of life and even a few clips with me, Amy, and the kids.

Way to go, Dana! Well done.

Froggie ESP

2010-03-08T20:33:00.003-05:00

Lisa Belkin's Motherlode blog today covers a different kind of equally shared parenting - the kind practiced by the monogamous Peruvian poison frog. As Lisa says, "Your average [male] frog hops away after fertilizing a cluster of eggs, but the loyal poison frog stays close, then carries the newly hatched tadpoles on his back to small pools of water and plays stay-at-pond dad; the mother shows up mostly to lay unfertilized eggs for the babes to eat."

Well, that's not exactly ESP. It's more like reverse traditional. But stay with me.... The American Naturalist will publish a study next month that theorizes that this frog's monogamous, co-parenting behavior is directly linked to its relative poverty of resources. These particular frogs, it seems, inhabit extremely small pools (as in less than two tablespoonfuls of liquid each), while their bigger cousins frolic in the larger ponds. Because they have less to work with, the theory goes, they have to bond together to get the job of raising their kids done. The authors of the study then postulate that our own ancestors (e.g., pioneers) were more apt to share domestic chores simply because they were poor and had to work much harder for their basic food and shelter.

Very interesting. Perhaps a bit of truth here. After all, in troubling times we often get back to basics. We remember what is most important and are more grateful for the love of family and friends. We come together as a team of humans to batten the hatches and feed the children. When our safety is threatened, like after 9/11, we prioritize our relationships rather than superficial stuff. We find time for connecting with our kids rather than extra hours at work. We work things out rather than dig in our heels. And that's kinda what ESP is all about.

But I can't reconcile with the frog theory in full. That's because so many of the ESP couples we've come to know have built their lives purposefully around this type of sharing in spite of having more than enough money to have chosen the big pond. Yet they still rejected that ol' American dream for their own version - actually preferring the little "good enough" pond and all the freedom of time that comes with this decision.

On the other hand, I do love that our froggie friends can help dispel the myth that ESP is only for the upper class.

Ribbit!

The Marriage Ref is Sad

2010-03-07T21:22:00.000-05:00

NBC TV's new comedy, The Marriage Ref, premiered last week. I don't watch much television, but I was drawn to check it out by the subject: the dissection of arguments between couples. This is Jerry Seinfeld's new venture, and so I thought, "How bad could it be?"

So bad that it had the unfortunate side effect of depression and anger.

Yes, I know, it's a comedy. Lighten up, Amy! But I don't dislike The Marriage Ref for the usual reason other critics have mentioned - namely, that it is a deeply uncomfortable and not-too-funny mix of A-list celebrities with mixed-up lives ridiculing middle-class nobodies based on superficial taped material. I agree, but what made me most sad/mad was that the whole show is based on gender expectations - and no one seems to care or notice.

We get to laugh along with a wife who orders her husband around in the home - not allowing him to use "her" formal dining room and expecting him to handle all the at handyman chores because that's what men are good for. We're supposed to chuckle when host Tom Papa tells the couple that women rule the inside of the house and men rule the outside. We're supposed to adore the celebrities that agree with marriages based on roles rather than relationships.

I thought the show was pathetic. Anyone else have a different take?

Suppose I'd better check out Parenthood too, huh?

Be Part of ESP History!

2010-03-03T20:33:00.005-05:00

If you are part of a couple with kids in which:

You both work at least 20 hours per week for pay
You share the load of household chores and parenting tasks
You each could participate in a 15-minute phone interview about how you balance housework and childcare

...our mentor, Francine Deutsch, Professor of Psychology at Mount Holyoke College, wants you!

Dr. Deutsch is the pre-eminent ESP academic researcher, and author of Halving It All: How Equally Shared Parenting Works. We've known her since close to the beginning of our ESP lives, and her encouragement has been like gold to us.

If you are interested, we would highly encourage you to be part of this research by sending an email to her research assistant, Phuong Ta, at ta20p@mtholyoke.edu or by calling 413-363-6432. Please be assured that all the information from this study will be treated as strictly confidential, and your name will be kept separate from your data.

Come on...it'll be fun!

Addendum from 3/26/10: Recruitment for this study is now complete.

Don't Go Thinking It's Somewhere Else

2010-02-28T18:23:00.003-05:00

Years ago, my dream was to retire early. The goal included lots of playing and relaxing whenever it suited me. I knew it was not a particularly unique dream. Many others have held out for the same vision with varying levels of success. However, I have come to believe that my dream of yesteryear was shallow and uninformed.

Retirement, in the classic sense, implies the attainment of sufficient financial resources to allow for the freedom to opt out of the work world. My experience tells me that this often leads to an unhealthy focus on the pursuit of money at the expense of other, more enjoyable, endeavors today. Indeed, my old dream was "the pill" I swallowed to justify my determination to succeed in my career - at almost all costs.

Today, my financial dreams are more modest and often revolve around making enough money to sustain my family (together with Amy), spending enough time caring for our home, getting enough time with our kids to really connect with them everyday, and sustaining enough leisure time for the foreseeable future. I don't wish for unlimited leisure time any more than a vibrant and passionate older person wants to be forced to retire at age 65. Instead, I try to stay purposeful with my choices for both responsibilities and fun.

I'm far from perfect in enacting this new dream. Despite my intentional creation of ESP with Amy, I can still sometimes view my time with the kids as a chore when things don't run smoothly. Or even to think of work or housework as burdens. I can still entertain that old desire for nothing but leisure. But it helps when I remember that my current dream of the good life (here and now) is accessible by a slight change in perspective. Having time to nurture my children and bask in their wonder, having a job that allows me to grow, learn and contribute to a group effort, sharing the running of our home with a true partner, and occasionally pursuing a traditional leisurely activity are together enough to sustain me for some time. I'm not sure that a large increase in "leisure time" would be a net gain for my life as a whole.

I often find myself reading the words emblazoned on a wooden snake that hangs in our home (a folk-art purchase by Amy at her hometown art fair years ago): "Don't go thinking it's somewhere else." A great life isn't somewhere over the rainbow - or when I can finally retire or take that trip to Fiji or dance the tango in Buenos Aires.

It's here, now.

Go to Battle, Dude!

2010-02-25T18:31:00.001-05:00

Amy ran across this article at DadsClub.com (Australia) last week, and read it out loud to me. I have to say, I agree with her enthusiasm for it - it's one of the best pieces I've heard for capturing a father's desire for a balanced life. It is common for women to write about their frustrations trying to balance it all, or having to give up work in order to carve out time to spend with the kids. But this article gives us the plight of the other gender, and I agree wholeheartedly.

According to the article, Australia is experiencing a 'renaissance in family values', with The Sunday Telegraph February 2010 reporting that "98.8% of [Dads] can't wait to get home to our families every day, ranking them ahead of wealth, possession and career in the important things of life." A DadsClub survey revealed that "When it came to the responsibility of work, many men felt trapped by work and wanted to spend more time with the family/friends, even if that meant downsizing or re-locating. As husbands get older many become more cynical about work. And whilst it serves to provide us money, we become increasingly jaded by the sheer fact of our dependency on it, often at the expense of time with our loved ones."

That last quote was precisely what I was most worried about when I thought about marrying and having children - before I met Amy and we solved the problem with ESP. I'd already decided I would rather downsize than consider my work to be my identity and sole purpose, and I'd done it as a single guy so that I could spend more time with friends, with my own parents/brother/sisters, and just having fun. My balance was well worth the price! I think there are more men out there who feel similarly. It just isn't particularly fashionable (yet) to say so. Which makes me all the more enthusiastic about this Australian DadsClub article.

The rest of the article focuses on how fathers could do well to bone up on their negotiation skills - both so that they can approach their bosses successfully when they want to downsize or flex their schedules to get those balanced lives, and so that they can harmoniously step up to their share of the responsibilities (and fun) at home and with the kids.

This last point is a good one. As men, we can't expect to enjoy more time at home without picking up our share of the chores and not-so-fun stuff. We need to earn our partners' trust in this area and work to help our partners make space for us to become true equals in decision-making and responsibility by becoming fully competent at everything it takes to run a home and raise our kids. Simply being home more isn't going to cut it. If we want to have a chance at lasting, happy balance, we need to step in as full partners - and learn to love doing our part without expecting (or wanting) direction.

The article concludes with a few thoughts that made me smile extra wide:

"Because truly equally shared parenting is a relatively new concept in today's families, Dads lack role models. When fatherless-ness costs the Australian economy $13 billion per annum it is not surprising that society is championing for more balance in the parenting equation. To truly optimize the balance of both worlds, work and home, dads need to posses heightened negotiation skills. Go to battle, dude!"

Mom, Dad and Money

2010-02-21T18:14:00.000-05:00

There has been a lot of buzz lately about the latest Pew Research Center results on men, women, and earnings. The big news is that the number of heterosexual couples in which the woman outearns the man has leapt from a mere 4% in 1970 to 22% in 2007. Historically, this is big news. Sure, a full 78% of these households still boast a male breadwinner with a bigger paycheck, but a sea change seems to be upon us.

The real impact of this change is in our definition of what it means to be a man. Forever, it seems, men's identities and worth have been tied up in their ability to provide for their families - and secondarily in their career success in general. The Pew data suggest that we'd better start thinking otherwise.

The news has been greeted with mixed reviews. One complaint comes from men who aren't quite ready to broaden their horizons - those who feel emasculated by partnering with a woman who earns more rather than either nonplussed, happy to be relieved of their age-old burden to chase a paycheck above all else, or eager to embrace all of the other things beyond career-building that make up a life well led. Another whine rises from those who would rather not deal with the difficulty of change - wanting, instead, to make relationships nice and simple...by turning them into purely role-based agreements (big yuck). Then, there's the "us vs them" discussions. These take the form of "the person who makes the most money gets the most power in the relationship" or "finally, women are putting men in their place" or "make room for the alpha wives."

Both of these thought lines are rather shallow, don't you think?

The ESP take might go something like this: Hold on, everyone! We're coming to that moment we've all been waiting for, when gender doesn't dictate a specific role in the family. When men and women are free to define their relationship and their family by what works best for them, rather than by what society says makes a successful man or woman. When both partners get equal access to the joys of each aspect of their lives - the joy of maintaining a career and providing for the family, the joy of everyday intimacy with the children, the joy of caring for the home and of taking care of themselves as individuals. Of course, we know we can have all of this now - by bucking tradition and setting up ESP lives instead. But when women and men have equivalent chances at earning enough to provide, and when caregiving is valued as much as working for pay, the rest of the world might rise up to meet us.

Let's not make these data about men vs women, or about battered egos. This is gender equality, and it's about freedom, my friends - for all of us.

From HuffPo to Ireland

2010-02-16T21:48:00.000-05:00

We're excited to share that we made our debut yesterday as bloggers for The Huffington Post. Our first post there tackles the issue of "fairness" as a point of argument for sharing the chores. For decades - make that centuries, surely - women have been arguing that they handle an unfair burden at home and caring for the kids (nevermind snagging an unfair portion of the joy to be had in each of these domains). And it's true. But where do all these logical arguments get us? Usually mad at each other, or at best they let us reach equitable sharing by mild coercion - usually not a sustainable or happy state for either partner. With ESP couples, a different strategy is at work. Check out our post and let us know what you think!

And across the Atlantic, The Irish Times is covering the ESP life. First, in this article by journalist Sheila Wayman, based on interviews with Marc and myself. Sheila does a really nice job of pointing out some of the key underlying philosophies of equal sharing. The article is then paired with a look at two Irish couples. The Mansergh/Wrides rate themselves pretty equal in household chores and caring for the kids, but less so in breadwinning - here they succumb to traditional logic and value the career with the most stability and money-making power (his). They understand this trap, however, which is the first step to courageously choosing otherwise if they do decide later on that equal breadwinning is a positive goal for their relationship. The other featured couple, the Carens, could easily write one of our Real Life Stories (wouldn't that be great if they contacted us to do so!). Instead of settling for the gendered approach to breadwinning (meaning inequality), they "radically reshaped their breadwinning after the birth of their first child." Their solution was to become entrepreneurs, a common option for ESP couples (although certainly not the only way to equalize breadwinning). Their family income has dropped, but they consider the sacrifice well worth the time they can spend together as a family. We're willing to bet they are happier now than when they made more money - a classic "time over money" theme for ESP couples. Go, Carens!

Driving Home the Point

2010-02-14T21:33:00.003-05:00

Long ago - far before this website existed - I was talking with one of my best friends about who drives the car on family trips. His wife was present and was soon sucked into the conversation. We soon realized that the topic struck a chord for all of us. Despite the best intentions of both Amy and I, and my friend and his wife, the driver's seat was a guy thing! I remembered this conversation last week when I stumbled on Eric Morriss' NYT blog Freakonomics, on which he took up the same topic. It is one we've blogged about here before, too.

Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a couple deciding to allocate all of one task (any task) to a single parent. However, there are some inherent risks with this approach. The more this strategy is implemented, the less likely it is that you will both reap the benefits of walking in each other's shoes on a daily basis. Using "divide and conquer" for large swathes of the household tasks can also restrict the freedom of each parent, making it more difficult for your partner to pinch-hit for you when the opportunity arises.

And finally, if all the "manly" tasks are assigned to Dad, and the home and childcare tasks are assigned to Mom (even if they like this arrangement), aren't we teaching our kids that chores are gendered? I'm not sure, but I do recall T asking why I was in "Mommy's" seat when I jumped in the passenger side of the car and Amy took the wheel one day. Ouch.

Regardless of who drives - always, today, this week - being conscious of our actions is the first step toward owning our lives. Driver's seat patterns may seem like small potatoes compared to figuring out how to share in raising our children, but they reflect what we stand for nonetheless.

Here's to driving with our eyes wide open!

Book Love

2010-02-05T21:13:00.000-05:00

This wraps up another full week of book activities, the highlights of which have been:

A return visit to our fellow parenting writer and friend, Amy Tiemann, as guests on her Mojo Mom podcast. We love talking with Amy about ESP because she gets past the obvious surface questions and into the nuances. We have had the pleasure of being interviewed by her prior to our book publication days, but it was especially nice to speak with her now about our hopes for the book and some of its details. If you have about 30 minutes, this one is well worth the listen.
Part II of our 'radio tour' of 10 minute interviews across the country, and a final stop on Montreal's Kim Fraser Show (CJAD 800). We really enjoyed talking with Kim about the realities of ESP, and of course we love how she pronounces our last name with French panache. This high-energy, fun segment is about 20 minutes in length if you'd like to listen along.
An extremely thoughtful review of Equally Shared Parenting by family/marriage therapy academic Carmen Knudson-Martin, who blogs with her sociology professor counterpart, Anne Mahoney, at our sister site, www.equalcouples.com. Carmen understands ESP down to its very core, and her comments about intentionality and ownership are music to our ears.

Thumbs Up for Co-Ed Showers

2010-01-30T21:58:00.002-05:00

No, this is not an R-rated post. I'm talking about baby showers (and, for that matter, "bridal" showers). Astri von Arbin Ahlander, one of a dynamic duo of Gen-Y writers for True/Slant's thought-provoking Work.Life blog, rants this week about why in the world we still insist on throwing these events for women only...and including only women on the guest list.

Why indeed?

I love Astri's argument, so I'll just paste it in here as she tells it:

"If we're all going to at least play along with the contemporary idea of equal parenting (whether this actually happens or not is another question), then a man's life is going to change a great deal with the coming of baby too. If we expect men these days to change diapers and give baths, why do we arrange a party where the mother is the sole recipient of the diapers and the rubber duckies?"

She goes on to conclude:

"Why do I insist so on ruining the pink party? For two reasons. First of all, a baby shower thrown for a mother-to-be and attended almost exclusively by women sets the tone for who is really going to be changing those diapers and giving those baths: the mother. Hmm…so much for equal parenting. Secondly, isn't it kind of unfair to start a new-dad-to-be's parenthood path by suggesting his role in the matter isn't worth celebrating? You devoted dads are worth sticking up for."

I'm right with ya, Astri. If we aim to create an equal partnership in parenting, we should begin that way whenever possible. In our case, the guest list for our own baby shower was traditionally female, but Marc and I attended together and opened the gifts and thanked the givers together. And I've loved throwing baby showers for my male colleagues as they await their first children.

Let's take this one more step while we're at it...let's think of our baby's birth (the actual birth itself) as the moment both partners become parents. Sure, we women are doing the work and experiencing - in the first person - something extraordinary. But that isn't the only thing going on. The minute we hear that first amazing wail, two parents have crossed a threshold - together.

Evening the Score

2010-01-26T21:25:00.004-05:00

I think Amy is slacking off on her laundry duties. I mean, I've washed two loads this week to her one, and her batch is still sitting in the dryer with permanent wrinkles by now. It looks like I'll have to make M's lunch tonight too - even though it's Amy's turn...after all, it's almost 10p.m. and she hasn't done it yet. And another thing: I gassed up the car the last 3 times. Is it too much to ask that she swing by the pump sometime? Jeez.

Sound familiar? I sure hope not! But yet this horrid scorekeeping mentality is the Number 1 complaint we get from commenters on articles written about equally shared parenting. That, and its close cousin, the accusation of ESP being possible only between two highly neurotic people devoted against all else to exactly splitting every (that's every) household chore down the middle.

Well, we finally got to face these myths down yesterday in our guest post on Lisa Belkin's Motherlode blog in the New York Times. And boy does it feel good! Huge thanks go to Lisa for giving us this powerful platform to do so.

Now, back at the ESP ranch, we know there really isn't much need to address the issue. If you're an equal parenting afficionado or practitioner yourself, you already know the truth - that ESP is probably the opposite of scorekeeping and rigidity. It's about breaking out of the rigid molds that society would have us fit, and teaming up with our best friends (that's our partners) to come up with a new way of sharing both the burdens and the joys of life together. It's about wanting the best for our partners, not micromanaging them or keeping track of their contributions. It's about trust, and puzzle-solving...together.

But now that I'm here in ESP-friendly company, I do have one more beef with the 50/50-scorekeeping myths. And that is that splitting a task exactly down the middle, and even checking on how well one might be doing with that math over time, is totally fine. Laudable. Smart. See, it's all in the motivation.

As ESP couples, we want an equal partnership. We know this brings us both our best chance at lives we can honestly say we love. And yet thousands of niggling societal pressures push us into inequality every day. The boss that expects a man to stay late because his wife can pick up the kids (right?). The school that always calls Mom about the kids' progress or when they become ill - even if Dad's name is first on the call list. The neighbor who shares housekeeping tips with Mom and makes fun of how men can't cook to save their lives. To stay the course of equality, ESP couples have to be aware - consciously choosing it over and over in a culture that expects otherwise. And doing that often means either continually noticing and correcting course by talking, talking, talking together...or putting autopilot equality in place whenever possible.

Autopilot equality is a great thing. But the crazy part is that, to an outsider, it can look like the most petty of 50/50 division or scorekeeping. Mom cooks on M/W/F, Dad cooks on T/Th/S and Sunday is pizza night. Dad wakes up if the baby cries before 2 a.m., Mom handles cries after this cutoff. Mom drives to the party, Dad drives home. Silly? Or a really easy way to keep things - a few things - nice and equal. Which is just what both of you want anyway.

So here's to the beauty of the 50/50 split...when executed ESP-style!

Book Review Round-Up

2010-01-19T22:57:00.000-05:00

Yes, it's more book news... We seem to live and breathe it right now, and of course we'd love to share a bit of this crazy experience with you. Today, we did a 15-station 'radio media tour,' which is what publishers set up for authors instead of sending them out on expensive physical book tours (at least those of us who aren't celebrities). It was fun, although we felt that we kept saying the same thing over and over every 10 minutes!

But even more fun is discovering reviews of Equally Shared Parenting in cyberspace - by old friends, new friends, colleagues, and complete strangers. Here's a sampling:

Review in Minnesota Parent magazine: This one had us laughing out loud at author Beth Hawkins' assumptions about us from heresay, and smiling from ear-to-ear at her realizations after she read the book. But it does make us more determined than ever to squash those horrid scorekeeping and 50/50-exact-chore-split myths about ESP!
Review by Laura Vanderkam: Laura wrote a great quote about us that we included on our book jacket, and has since become a work/life balance colleague and friend. She writes about our book now in her blog 168 Hours, which is also the title of her next book - due out this Spring - on taking control of your own time (we all have 168 hours to call our own every week). She includes spot-on examples of bath frequency and playroom clean-up routines to illustrate how two parents need to come up with family standards to create harmonious equal sharing. Laura's only beef with our book is our portrayal of dual reduced-hours work as a great way to make time for everything that matters most; she believes that full-time work (or more) is fully compatible with a balanced life. I think there is no right answer here - for us, meaningful and productive work fits very well into 32 hours weekly, while for others this best-life balance point may be different. Thanks, Laura, for a lovely review!
Review at First Time Second Time: ESP couple extraordinaire (and featured couple in our book), Gail and Lyn, review our book from a lesbian family perspective. It definitely makes us smile to read their take on how the book is welcoming to same-sex partners, and is the first parenting book they have read that doesn't talk down to dads. Hooray!
Review at Two Hot Mamas: Very sweet, heartfelt review by one half of this lesbian couple as they eagerly await their first baby. I'm so thankful to know that our book has helped them think about how they will approach parenthood, making room for sharing all the burdens and the joys. This is a perfect example of why we wrote this book! Best wishes, Mamas, for the months ahead (their baby girl was born just yesterday).

And, finally, while not a book review, we had the pleasure of contributing to the wonderful new web resource for everything shared, Shareable.net. Check out our piece on how a couple might hold tight to their equal partnership and balanced lives as they take that plunge into parenthood.

Have you written a review of our book? Let us know - we'd love to share it here!

A Busy Radio Day

2010-01-11T20:43:00.001-05:00

We had a wonderful, official send-off for our book yesterday at the Watertown Public Library. Our book launch party felt just right, with a whole gaggle of kids sitting at our feet as we gave a short presentation to those in attendance. It was heartwarming to see our friends and family, some of our featured ESP couples and some who absolutely qualify for the sequel to our book (although somehow talking about a second book seems a bit like bringing up the idea of a second child to a mother who has just finished labor with her first), and some new faces we're glad to meet.

Today, it was Radio Day for us! Things started at 6:00am when we snuck out of the house to the WGBH studios (our local NPR affiliate station) to do a short 6:45 a.m. spot with Lisa Belkin on The Takeaway. You can listen here (about 6 minutes). A big "thank you" hug to Marc's wonderful mother for sleeping over so that she could be with M and T. And, of course, an equal "thank you" to Lisa for sharing her weekly radio spot with us.

Then, it was on to the studios of WBNW, a local AM radio station, in the afternoon to do a longer spot with Rob Mitchell on his Pages to People book review show. This will air this coming Saturday at 6 p.m. We will post a link to the show once it airs - check our Events and Appearances page. It was a pleasure to talk with Rob because he was able to give us plenty of time to delve into the book's details.

Then, we were back on the phone as guests for the second half of fatherhood expert Armin Brott's Positive Parenting show. The air date for this show is not set yet, but we'll post the link on our Events and Appearances page when it becomes available.

And, finally, we had the pleasure of speaking with Diego Mulligan, host of The Journey Home, on KSFR-FM, Santa Fe Public Radio. This was a live show so we should have a link to share with you soon - again on our Events and Appearances page.

Phew! Okay, we're officially ready to sleep soundly now!

Back on TV and in the NY Times

2010-01-07T21:17:00.002-05:00

Just a quick note to say we're popping up all over the place - this is kinda fun! We were featured by Lisa Belkin in her NY Times Motherlode blog yesterday, along with several other authors. It was great to have our book introduced as Lisa's first grandchild (grandbook?). We were sad to see so much of the conversation in the comments once again focused on equal task sharing (never mind exact 50/50 division of every task), but frankly we're a bit too busy right now to fire up the ol' rebuttal machine (perhaps more on that in a later post). Hopefully all of you wonderful readers know this is hardly the case.

Then, this morning we got to hang out with New England Cable Network and do a 5-minute live segment on ESP, which you can watch here.

Hip, Hip, Hooray!

2010-01-05T18:06:00.002-05:00

We promise - we will return to our regularly scheduled programming at some point in the near future. But please allow us to celebrate today just for today. We are so happy to share our book with the world, and to get out the empowering - and very true - message that equally shared parenting is accessible, practical, sustainable and real. It makes us feel terrific to read and hear from so many sources that our book is full of varied examples of ESP, so that almost any couple can connect with someone who is featured in its pages. So much as been written about egalitarian marriage as an impossible ideal. But it's not!

Here are a few highlights of the book's recent coverage:

Our live TV debut! We were on FOX News here in Boston yesterday morning. Click here if you would like to watch this 5 minute segment.
Great reviews from some of our amazing, fantastic, esteemed colleagues: sociologist Carmen Knudson-Martin at Equal Couples, author Kristin Maschka at Remodeling Motherhood, and communications consultant (and featured ESP mom in Chapter 2 of our book) Michelle Barry Franco at The Brazen Soul. Your support feels wonderful!

It sure was great to walk into a bookstore today and see our book. Hooray!