Once women have children they want their partner to share with them the intimacy and physical work associated with family life. In the very early days, women often fail to appreciate how different the experience is for their partner. Just as the woman is suddenly the focal point for the new family so the man can feel relegated to a support role (not a position most men enjoy).
A man and woman can even live together and maintain some form of equality. They might share the cooking, shopping, cleaning or duck the issue by simply paying for a third party to cover these domestic chores. Once a couple has children it can be much more difficult to encourage a man to take the same interest in domestic and family affairs. It is also then that many couples come to realise that human biology has fundamentally ensured that men and women are intended to have complementary roles in life.
Even when women work full-time it is likely that they are more actively involved in home life than the most dedicated father. Luckily, women are generally motivated to care for their children but also it is often difficult to encourage a man to share the home support role. Men like to have their contribution recognised and the endless domestic chore does not tend to inspire them. It’s important to be both reasonable and realistic. Concentrate on the really important issues.
Getting men’s buy-in
If women are to gain more individual freedom, they will need to allow men to become more involved parents. This requires allowing a man enough space and control to define his own approach to the parenting role. Encourage your man to choose his own contribution to the family, for example, my partner does the bulk of our external family PR, certain aspects of family meals as well as interaction with schools over progress reports.
A woman who had stayed at home for her children found it hard to believe that it was even possible for a man and woman to co-operate over family. I guess working parents learn over time to invest in a higher than average level of communication over relationship and family. Another woman was surprised that a man could cook a proper meal or liase with schools. Anyone, even a woman, has to learn these skills. As long as men are given free reign to do it in their own way, they can be just as effective parents as women are.
One woman who had lived with her partner for twenty five years but without having children told me that she still could not get her partner to co-operate over basic household cleaning. Other women have told me that their men are physiologically or psychologically incapable of even being aware that domestic tasks need doing. I question whether other women appreciate the level of dedication required to effect a change but it does indicate the scale of the problem. I was committed to non-emotional reasoned debate but not everyone is willing to do constant battle.
“Men tend to see housework as an option, a special extra job they do to demonstrate how modern they are: they are genuinely baffled by the fury it can arouse in a woman if they innocently ask ‘Can I help?’ Wives don’t want husbands to help: they want them to recognise that they bear equal responsibility for running the household” (p37 Bluffer’s guide to Women)