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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