When talking last week with one of my mommy friends who has a 6-month-old, she revealed something I could empathize with. "Me and my husband have been just awful to each other," she said. "We're both so grumpy and short tempered -- it's terrible." Well, was I relieved! And here I thought my house was the only one with a thunder cloud hanging over it these days. It's comforting to know other people's husbands have sticks up their butts, too. :-P Seriously though, I did feel some relief that we weren't the only couple not having candlelit dinners and whispering sweet nothings to each other. Sure, all the books say a baby can put a strain on a relationship at times, especially when mommy and daddy are both working and trying to put baby first, but in all honestly, who's got time to think about it when the little one's crying to be fed or diapered or there's 12 loads of laundry to do? The problem stems, at least at my house, from mommy's extra duties. These can be anything from, say, cleaning up cat puke (I swear I'm not fixated on cat puke -- it just happens a lot at our house these days) to moving my husband's shoes for the 487th time to the place they are suppose to go instead of in the middle of the living room. After a lengthy conversation with my husband a few weeks ago about the inequality of mom's and dad's duties, I became convinced that men really DO know how good they've got it. Oh sure, they're not going to tell us that, for fear they will, heaven forbid, have to pick up an extra chore like vacuuming or owe us a back rub without sex. But there was no argument from his side that I was, indeed, carrying more of the load after we each listed our daily duties. And let me interject here that my husband is by all means a 50/50 parent. Aside from breastfeeding our daughter, there's nothing he won't or doesn't do. In that arena I am admittedly blessed. He does do the cooking, too, although I tend to think that's just because I'm so bad at it that he doesn't want to eat what I would try to make. But add working full-time on top of all the other duties, not to mention balancing child care (either between both parents, like us, where you may pass each other in the hall or have an occasional lunch together, or at a center) and it gets hard to find enough time to even work sleep into your day. And so arrives the grumpiness and irritability parents take out on each other. But to quote what a guest on Oprah said the other day: "When you're the mommy and have the kids to take care of and the errands to run and the house to clean and dinner to cook (or in my case, a Web site to run), sex is the last thing on your list, whether you want it to be or not." Amen. If men only understood this, we'd have them taking over our lists completely. So what can a couple do to stop jumping down each other's throats when a floor isn't swept or a baby isn't bathed? I suggest a rewards program. Much like a frequent flyer card, duties could earn you points with your spouse. Wash the car for 500, empty the Diaper Genie for 1000. Earn 20,000 points and a romantic evening is yours. Or a free plane ticket to anywhere in the continental U.S. -- your choice. Sure, it may not work for everyone, but I'm thinking I'd have at least five or six nice dinner and back rub evenings wracked up in less than a month (or a few plane trips around the country). If I can work up some sort of Super Bowl trip package, I might just rope my husband into agreeing to this program. Hmmm ...
Dawne Brooks is a new mother of a 5-month-old baby girl and the "webmommy" of SanDiegoMother.com, the #1 pregnancy and parenting resource for San Diego mothers, moms-to-be and dads, too. Visit the site at http://www.sandiegomother.com
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