Supermom, Superdad

In my class today, my teaching partner and I asked our class about the inequalities experienced by 19th-century American women and 21st-century American women. It was an interesting moment in my teaching career: for the first time in almost 8 years of teaching, I heard female students state that feminism has a purpose and that women are still struggling for equality, although at a much different level than in the 19th-century. I was equally thrilled and floored, since in my experience, most young women (i.e., 18-22) want nothing to do with feminism and are more than happy to believe that we've achieved equality. Several students pointed out that while women have achieved a great deal, most mothers still haven't achieved equality in parenting. As the discussion moved on to the day's reading, I continued contemplating that in the back of my mind.

When I got home later, I asked C about his feelings on equal parenting, which in all honesty is not something I have really contemplated before. We have, I believe, one of the most equal relationships I've seen, especially in terms of household chores. While I do cook more, he cleans more. In fact, I can't remember the last time I ran the vacuum cleaner or the last time I had to ask him to do it. With the pregnancy, our roles have shifted somewhat; there are things I just can't do right now, things that I typically do. We've also discussed how I won't be able to do much in the first few weeks after the baby's birth as I will be putting in 24 hours a day breastfeeding (I may be exaggerating, but I am also preparing myself for the worst-case scenario). I had no worries until we started talking, and C expressed a few worries of his own.

C has a particularly difficult academic year ahead of him; he's teaching full-time, defending his dissertation in January, and going on the job market. In the middle of all of that, we're having a baby. He is beginning to feel the stress, which I hadn't realized. He is genuinely concerned that he won't be able to be involved as much as he'd like to be and as much as he knows I'm expecting him to be (the guy, who folds my underwear and puts them away unasked, has set up some pretty high expectations). I think he is mostly concerned that he won't have enough time to bond with the baby and with us as a family. How do I assuage those fears? How do I express to my slightly anal husband that if we end up eating off of paper plates for a month that won't be the end of the world? How do I let him know that it is ok to forego office hours for the end of the semester, if doing so helps him maintain some sanity? How do I get him to understand that I don't expect every aspect of parenting to be equal? I don't expect to be Supermom--most days I'm convinced I'm going to irreparably harm our child in some way--and I don't expect him to be Superdad. I just want us to figure this out together.