Shared Parenting: Why We Still Struggle and How to Make It Work

By Jill Oestreicher Gross

I’m thankful to have a husband who doesn’t mind doing laundry. He’s great at sorting it and folding it, but he doesn’t always put things away in their “proper” place. My 5-year-old daughter was recently looking for her favorite shirt and found it in the “wrong drawer.” I was about to blame her father, but caught myself and said, “Wow, wasn’t that nice of Daddy to wash your shirt for you?”

Instead of pointing my finger at my husband for not doing things perfectly (translation: my way), I turned the situation around and praised him directly for helping out with household chores. I was able to do this because, just hours before, I had spoken with Marsha Pruett, Ph.D., a child psychologist and co-author (with her husband, renowned child psychiatrist Kyle Pruett, M.D.) of Partnership Parenting: How Men and Women Parent Differently – Why It Helps Your Kids and Can Strengthen Your Marriage.

It’s hard to believe that we’re still talking about things like shared parenting. More than 70 percent of women with children under age 18 are in the labor force right now, up from 47 percent in 1975, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Still, the average wife does more than twice as much housework – and about five times as much childcare – as the average husband, according to data from the National Survey of Families and Households.

“We know that family life is not equal – even today, even with very open-minded and liberal dads,” Pruett says. “Moms don’t always feel like it’s an even exchange.”
Two new books – Pruett’s and one by another married couple – tackle the idea that Mom doesn’t have to “do it all” these days and argue that a shared and equal approach to chores and childcare benefits everyone in the house.