Dad = Play Time :: Mom = Everything Else
Read more about: Dad to Dad, Family Time, Relationships
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How do you and your spouse share the responsibilities for your children?
Lately, I have been guilty of letting expecting my wife to take care of the routine care for our children while I focus more on the play time with the kids. As you can imagine, that has left my wife feeling overwhelmed.
She gets them up in the morning. Gets them dressed and ready for school. Makes breakfast and lunches. Coordinates doctor appointments and dentist visits. Prepares dinner at night. Oh yeah, she works a full-time job as well.
She truly is a superstar - at least in my eyes.
While my wife is busy doing all of that, I come home from work and spend an hour or two goofing around with the kids and wrestling or playing sports.
They love it. I love it.
Sure, we read stories and do homework together on the nights I am home early enough but for the most part my time with the kids is spent on play time. At times it really drives my wife nuts because she does all of the dirty work and I come home and get all of the fun time with the kids.
On days that I work in the office, I try to leave the house before 5:00am to beat the rush hour traffic. However, even when I have slept in a little later, I am guilty of getting myself ready and heading out the door without much thought about whether the kids are up on time or their lunches have been prepared.
As a dad, I need to do better. As a husband, I need to do better.
Being a good dad, at least in my opinion, means more than just playing with the kids. As I mentioned, I do my best to be there to help with homework and we have the tradition of a bedtime story. Tonight I made sure to attend parent-teacher conferences at school. Over the summer, I make sure to attend the ball games.
But where I feel like I need to do more is with the day-to-day activities that are a part of life. Simple things can make a world of difference in sharing the responsibility, such as:
- When I don’t leave the house by 5:00am, I need to make sure the kids are up on time or take the time to prepare their lunch before I leave for work.
- If I hear or see that one of the kids is coming down with something, I need to call and make the doctor appointment from time to time.
- When we receive the reminder card from the dentist, I need to call and schedule an appointment for a day that I will be home instead of expecting my wife to do it.
There are many small things that I can do to help share the responsibility with my wife. Lately I have been guilty of equating time with my kids as just play time but I need to do more. I need to be a bigger part of their life.
How are the responsibilities shared in your house?
The Man Page is your home to get career advice, parenting tips, or just kick back and escape from the pressure of being a man. Join Derek Semmler - a working husband and father to two young boys, as we tackle the issues facing men today and have a good deal of fun in the process. He also blogs at 
Oh my gosh, Derrek. I think you just answered your own question. Early on you were wondering why people always talk about work-life balance for women but not for men. This post may very well have something to do with that. In many, many families, the mom is expected to do much of the routine activities (read: work), while the dad is given a pat on the back and an “attaboy” if he does so much as play with the kids.
Thank you so much for recognizing that you need to do more. That is an awesome first step. I hope for your whole family that you are able to to follow through with that. Congrats on making a really, really important discovery!
Between us, Wife is the workaholic. She has shared before that she is glad I am not as ambitious as she is!
Because I am the one who wishes to be home on time and be around Caitlin. I’d take her to the park before it’s dark, I’d take her for a swim, I’d indulge her in her pretend-plays, I’d be the one reading & putting her to bed 95% of the time.
Wife, who is administratively more effective than I, looks after the finances, including where to invest, insurance stuff, scouting for pre-school, etc.
In Caitlin’s eyes Mummee isn’t home very often, so she sometimes isn’t actually used to Mummee being around when she does come home earlier than expected. This is something we need to work on..
Call me a diva, but I would never “allow” my husband to fall into such a pattern. He would have had a gentle reminder in the form of an upbraiding. PS Why don’t you be in charge of making the lunches the night before?