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Community GROUPS ASK HEIDI WORD OF MUM BLOG
By Debra Waters October 4, 2013
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Men Aren’t Having It All, Either
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I’ve been so busy studying for a furthereducation, establishing a career, maintain-ing important female friendships, then sim-ultaneously juggling a family, running oursocial diary and the home, and continuingaforementioned career, that I seem to haveneglected to check on how the man in mylife is getting on.
(Kind of) joking aside, there’ll never be trueequality in our house because I’ll never bethe breadwinner (I write for a living, forgawd’s sake) but I wouldn’t expect there tobe. Whilst I’m a working mum – which myhusband respects – his job pays the bills.However, according to a report from the
Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) 2.2 million women are now the breadwinners inUK families, which is almost a third of working mums and an increase of over 80 per centsince 1997. That’s a huge cultural shift in a small period of time. A new book, Getting to50/50: How Working Parents Can Have It All, is representative of the zeitgeist, and it’s astep closer towards it becoming the norm that working parents go dutch on everyday tasks.
So we’re getting there, ladies, but achieving a decent work-life balance that makes having itall worthwhile isn’t just our problem, it’s a family one that includes the men in our lives. Aswomen’s lives become more progressive, the status of men is being challenged and we needto appreciate this.
As we do more, we expect our partners to do more. And they are, to some extent. A studyfrom the Pew Research Centre in Washington found that men have tripled the amount oftime they spend with their children since 1965. Stay-at-home dads, whilst still a minority, areon the increase. Housework remains a sensitive subject, with women, even working ones, do-ing the lion’s share.
Since starting a family, my husband and I have slowlyrediscovered harmony, but it’s been a bumpy, busy road. Hehelps with childcare when he can (he works longer hoursthan me), and we share the cooking but not the housework– at a push, he’ll do manly tasks like unload the dishwasherand put the bins out. This used to cause arguments until Igot real: I was so obsessed with holding on to someremnants of my pre-child life that I’d disregarded that myhusband’s life had changed too.
Over many discussions I came to see that his responsibilitieswere now greater – his concerns about keeping up with
mortgage payments and giving us a good life; wanting to spend time with our son but beingtoo busy; missing milestones that I delight in; sacrificing seeing friends to get home to us.He, too, has struggled to have it all and his absences (which I resented, seeing his freedom asless diminished than mine) is time spent away from bonding with his child.
Equality, it seems, has turned out to be a bit of an illusion; neither is it as important as I’dgiven it credit for. As a team, we have a bigger challenge than establishing parity – we have afamily and home and need to make enough money to afford it all. We’ve both made sacri-fices.
My husband now has to earn enough to maintain a decent standard of living but also find thetime expected by both society and his wife to be a regular presence in his son’s life. Thiswasn’t required of his father.
Modern expectations affect us all – male and female – especially families with two workingparents who struggle to find enough hours in the day to work, rest and play. As societyevolves, equality is a progressive dream that’s slowly becoming a reality but let’s be realistic– if we women have it all, we have to have smaller portions of it all. And that applies to ourpartners too.
Read more in Word of Mum.
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About The Author
Debra Waters
Debra Waters is a London-based lifestyle writer andeditor, and mum to aspirited toddler.
About Word of Mum Blog
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