The Balance of Responsibility

In millions of households across the country, there are mothers shouldering ridiculous amounts of responsibility.

I’m not talking about single moms, who by definition are primarily responsible for their children.

I’m talking about moms who are in relationships with or are married to the father of their children - and yet are still bearing the responsibility burden on their own.

We call it “the mental load” or we talk about how moms need “help” or “more support”. These terms diminish the depth and breadth of the weight of motherhood.

My question is simple: Whose responsibility is it to raise a child?

For hetero couples, the answer is usually mom.

Ask your child to make a list of what are mommy responsibilities and what are daddy responsibilities. You can substitute “jobs” for young children who are lucky enough not to know the r-word yet.

Are you comfortable with the list they give you? Does it reflect your values? Is it what you want for your own children if they decide to become parents in the future?

When we did this exercise with our son for the first time he was almost four years old. The lists he made were extremely gendered. They were a wake-up call.

As I put together the curriculum for the 2021 cohort of my course, Motherload Liberation, I asked my five-year-old daughter to make the lists. She tilted her head in confusion. When I prompted her again she came up with things on my list like making jokes and dancing. Adam’s list had playing and reading stories.

I prompted her again and she threw up her hands and told me that she didn’t understand. “Parents take care of kids and everyone take care of everyone so you lists is silly, mommy!”

It took me a moment to really understand her frustration. She honestly doesn’t see a difference in my “job” as her mother and Adam’s “job” as her father. Her lists reflected differences in our personalities and what we like to do with the kids.

It had been my goal ever since that first list that my son did five years ago and it had become a goal Adam and I shared. And we’d done it.

So - what changed over those years?

We did a lot of the exercises that you’ll find in books and magazine articles about couples sharing labor. We divided tasks based on our strengths, our preferences, and our time. We talk - A LOT. We’re flexible.

But we’d tried those things before and we’d always sunk back into the cycle. You know the cycle - mom blows up or breaks down, dad makes promises, things get better, slow slide back to ‘normal’, resentment builds, mom blows up - rinse and repeat.

Until we changed the balance of responsibility.

It’s not simply about who is keeping the calendar and who is doing the laundry and who is making the lunches. It’s about who is responsible for ensuring the family is cared for.

WHO. IS. RESPONSIBLE.

It has taken years to reach a new equilibrium of responsibility, to shed the teachings of patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy that would have me operating as a burned-out husk and calling it motherhood.

Adam is 100% committed to the health and growth of our family and is fully responsible for it and to us. I am 100% committed to the health and growth of our family and am also fully responsible for it and to us all.

No more striving for 50/50. I always hated fractions in school, anyway.

Nope - we’re both all in.