Hi Brooke!

My question is about balancing parenting duties with my husband. We have two sons aged 2 and 5.
We are both very committed to our boys, and we both have jobs we love that place high demand on our time; he runs his own company, I’m a freelance writer.

Even though we can afford childcare and I am able to work full time, I am still the default caregiver: the one who’s most present in terms of time spent with the kids, who coordinates childcare, who plans their meals, who keeps track of and takes them to medical appointments, etc. etc.

I have always been ambivalent about this: on the one hand I do it joyfully because they’re my adorable precious children and I want to take care of them and be as present as I can during those all-too-fleeting years; on the other hand I feel resentful that I’m the one who carries the mental burden of these uninteresting logistics, of remembering to buy the diapers and give the vitamin D supplements.

It feels like it would be a lot more comfortable to be the parent who breezes in and out, spends quality time with the children when he can, and trusts they’re cared for with love and attention the rest of the time.

My husband wishes he could spend more time with the kids, and he is appreciative of my daily involvement. He doesn’t actually express an expectation that I do all those things, but he’s also not doing them spontaneously, and in fact I know his brain is not wired to think of those things: if it were left to him, we would simply run out of stuff, feed the kids takeout, miss vaccine shots, etc. The kids would survive, I’m sure, but I don’t want to conduct this experiment. 🙂

Should I just make peace with the way we each operate and the skills and value we each bring to our parenting team? Do you see something else at play here?

Thank you!