The topic of child rearing responsibilities is one that can cause great debate, not only between mothers who differ in opinion, but even within a family where parents may not see eye to eye on the issue.

It may be that one parent feels overwhelmed by all they have to do or they feel the other is not pulling his or her own weight. My husband and I have always made all family decisions together.  So even if there are people that question what I do at home all day, we know that we are both working very hard to maintain a happy, healthy family.

Because of the varying opinions, and because I do not want to ever say my way is the right way, I’ll start this off by saying this: do whatever works for your family.  It shouldn’t matter how the know-it-all mom around the corner does it. If you find the right balance, why change?

Our family’s recipe:

  • 1 cup of all inside responsibilities for mama
  • subtract a tablespoon for weekends (everyone needs a break)
  • 1 cup of all outside responsibilities for papa
  • Add an abundance of play and fun for ALL
  • Sprinkle with plenty of love
  • Cook under the warmth of the sun until creamy
  • Mix, serve warm and enjoy

austin-moms-blog-unequal-parenting

How did we come up with this? Well, that took some trial and error. When my first son was born, my husband and I tried to share in all of the wonderful experiences together. We would bathe him together, cook together, play together and always have dinner together. Because I was having issues with nursing at first and was not able to produce milk right away, my husband took over a lot of the responsibilities. He gave our son his night time bottle while I pumped at night. I was still nursing-on-demand hoping to get a good flow, of course. With his help, though, this time gave me time to obsessively pump to get the milk supply going. Thankfully, I finally got my girls to do their job and I produced more milk than I could imagine. Even managed to freeze enough to have a 2 month supply for when I stopped nursing all together. But I digress, back to my fabulous husband: he took care of bedtime. It became their routine. My husband will now tell you that he would not change that for the world.  They tell stories, play games and have their own bonding time. Now that I have two boys, my older son really loves having his papa all to himself without mom or baby brother around. Night time is their time now.

Once my second son was born, we had to change our recipe a little. We did everything the way we did with our older son; gave him a bath together and all of the fun newborn things you can do with a new baby, but as soon as he could sit up, we changed it up a bit. I take care of bath time, and then he joins us after bath for some fun playtime before bed. We have to use up all that energy they have left so they sleep better. And then we split bedtime. He still does our older son’s bed time and I do our second’s.  Both kids get some alone time with one of us and my husband and I get our own bonding times, too.

At about the same time we decided to change the recipe with our second, we also realized that my husband would end up exhausted after coming home from a long day of work only to do more work. He is an amazing man and would never complain. I feel in my heart that he needs to enjoy the few hours he has with the boys when he gets home from work without having to do chores. And I can tell you that the boys love this time with papa the best. So we decided to refresh our recipe and redistribute duties. I take mommy-hood as my new career. Being a person who does not like to fail, I take this job very seriously. Last thing I want is to get fired (ha). The way I see it, my husband works so hard so I can stay home with the kids, the least I can do is try to keep a happy home. That means happy, healthy kids, yummy food (sometimes I don’t get the recipes right, but I try) and a clean house.  This is my job and I will do it the best way I can.

from scratch

So our distribution of responsibilities is now quite simple. I take care of everything inside the home: cooking (although he likes to grill in the weekends so I take those off, hooray! 🙂 ), laundry, cleaning and taking care of the kiddos plus anything else that should arise.  He takes care of everything outside the house: not just the finances, but grocery shopping (hey, it’s outside the home, right? Thanks luv) but the yard and maintenance as well. As far as the yard goes, I’m sure he can’t wait for the boys to be big enough to take care of the yard themselves.

You can call me a fifty’s housewife if you like. I always admired those women. They were always so well put together and graceful. If only I liked wearing dresses or curling my hair. Also, back then, family values took precedence over anything else.  It seems to me time with the family was the number one priority. The crazy hustle and bustle of today was not around so much then, maybe? Life appeared to be a little slower giving you time to enjoy your quality time with the family.  Everyone is so busy these days, I like to pretend that the home is where you can slow down and relax.

Paradise

I love my role and it works for our family for now. I’m sure we will continue to tweak our recipe especially as the boys get older and schedules change. On a final note: never be afraid to change things up in your family until you find what works for you. There is no set recipe for success, just families willing to work at it together to get the right flavor. Bon Appetite!

amazed

Malu Talan
Hola! I am Malu. I am a UT graduated bilingual mama raising two energetic boys who love with ALL of their heart. They are my greatest teachers and they make me try to be a better person even when I am not ready. I have been married to the love of my life since 2006 and can’t wait for FOREVER more. He is my rock, my sanity and makes me feel beautiful even in my worst days. I run the Family Events Calendar for AMB and have been part of this amazing team since 2014. I love how AMB lets mamas from all over Austin share their vision, their humor, their frustrations and whatever other stories they like to tell in this platform. It is a much needed safe space for mamas navigating this wild ride we are on. When I am not being mama or finding family events, my side hustles include searching for fun ways to help my boys love languages, writing silly picture books, running my own Rodan and Fields biz, helping out at their school when I can and getting my kids excited about it all!!

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