My wife, Nina, arrived home one day after a happy hour with a group of work friends she refers to as the “boss babes” and said the following, “Hey, I have an action item for you.” If you have ever heard this phrase from your wife, either jokingly or very seriously, then there’s a good chance you’re living some version of what is often referred to as the “50/50 life.” Nina excitedly followed this up with, “Can you write a blog post about being married to a career woman for our company website?” As you can see, when I receive an action item from Nina, I accept and execute. To do otherwise — as is well known by her friends, family, and colleagues — would be inadvisable.
Thus far, we are 30-somethings of the Xennial generation who are living the 50/50 life. The phrase "50/50 life" refers to a family where both partners share the responsibilities of work, home and kids as equally as possible. And let’s get these facts out of the way, right away — 1. No relationship is perfectly 50/50 and 2. Lots of mental score keeping over this is not a good idea. When I Googled “the 50/50 family life,” the top results include web articles like Why the 50/50 Plan Won’t Work in Marriage and The Myth of the 50-50 Marriage. The 50/50 life sounds great, right? This is 2017, and marriage should be an equal partnership, so what’s with all that bad press? Well, let me tell you, the 50/50 life can be a challenge. I don’t want to say that any family has it easy, because in the modern word, there is plenty of family struggle to go around. But for families with a stay at home mom or stay at home dad, there is a certain clarity in the day-to-day division of responsibility. Meanwhile, living the 50/50 life brings out some truths about marriage and work in the 21st century:
In most families with a stay at home parent, one partner goes to work and earns the necessary income, while the other takes care of the children and the home. Responsibilities don’t shift around very much. For the 50/50 family, these clear boundaries are replaced by an ever-shifting squiggly line of task management. One partner may love to cook and therefore gets dinner ready most nights, but if this partner has a tough deadline or a travel week, the other needs to step in and feed the family.
Our two girls began full-time daycare starting at a young age while my wife and I stayed in the workforce. This seems like a wonderful solution, right up until you get a call that your 2 year-old just spiked a fever and one of you needs to come get her right now. What can follow is a not-very-fun negotiation over who has a tougher deadline or a more important meeting. The important thing is to keep calm and think about the demands on your spouse as much, or even more than the demands on yourself. When possible, it's also best to give your partner fair and ample warning about when they will need to cover a larger than normal share of the tasks and to do so using their preferred style of communication. In our house, good verbal communication works best for my wife while I prefer a visual white board calendar.
As I mentioned before, trying to divide the tasks of work and home life in a perfect 50/50 split or performing ongoing score keeping are not great ideas. I recommend thinking about the perfect 50/50 as something to aspire to, and not something that should be achieved every week, month or even year. The best method is to focus on your contribution and shoot for accomplishing at least 60-70% of the home tasks. Any discussion involving an evaluation of the partner’s contribution is best done within a calm, scheduled conversation that occurs a few times a year, not when the kids are late for school and tensions are high. Trust me on this one.
For the past five years, I was a technical consultant working in the electricity markets field; during that time, I was a 100% remote or 'work-from-home' employee. This allowed me to take on big chunks of the home tasks, as it was easy for me to go grocery shopping during my lunchbreak, or take care of a sick kid at home while attempting to get work done. Recently, at the beginning of a customer call, I warned my clients that I had a sick 5-year-old in the room in case she decided to interrupt (which she did), and after an hour of my presentation on transmission congestion issues in western Oklahoma, I proudly informed them that my droning had put her to sleep on the floor of my office. Employers, colleagues and clients need to acknowledge this fact and support families that are simultaneously juggling work and family priorities.
Recently, I took a new position that will require me to commute 45-minutes to an hour each way. When discussing this, my wife said she would start managing most of the morning routine and drop the girls at school so that I could leave earlier to beat traffic. Most parents know the morning can be the most stressful time of the day; getting a 4 and 5-year-old fed, dressed and in the car on time is sometimes a Herculean task. But Nina just offered up this increase in her load and asked for nothing in return, and she didn’t resent me for it either. That’s just what you do in the 50/50 life.
I strongly believe that men need to work harder to understand the unique struggles that women face when balancing a career and a family. I want to make sure that my wife has as much opportunity to be successful in her career as I do. This means being confident enough to tell my boss that our kid is sick and I need to leave now, but will do my best to call in to the important meeting. There might also be a time in our lives when I will need to make a big sacrifice like relocating for her next job opportunity. Men need to be willing to make as many or more sacrifices as we ask of our partners to nurture a 50/50 life. Here's an example of empathy that's rather easy to express. When Nina comes home after a really rough day and I can see it in her eyes, I take care of dinner, the dishes, give the kids a bath and put them to bed – I do it without being asked. Because, she needs to watch two uninterrupted episodes of This is Us and go to bed. She. Deserves. It.
Every 50/50 family will have stories of their troubles and they’re probably only willing to tell you about half of them. Lucky for me, I married a strong career woman, mother and wife. Her reputation at work is of a hard-charging professional, one who is intelligent and fair, but not to be messed with either. At the same time, she is raising the smartest, kindest, funniest, and well-behaved girls that have ever lived (sorry, I can’t suppress my massive Dad bias.) I am certainly far from the perfect 50/50 husband. I have had my successes, and I have definitely had my failures. My goal is to do better. I want to be my wife’s biggest supporter, and share everything with her as we navigate this winding, crazy, exciting and rewarding 50/50 life.
If you want to learn more about living the 50/50 life, check out the book Getting to 50/50: How Working Couples Can Have it All by Sharing it All. It's not a perfect formula or “how to”, but I’ll take all the help I can get.
To learn more about Nina Golder's thoughts on work/life balance, check out her blog, Perspective through Pie. Have your own stories or tips for living a 50/50 life? Share them with the group below.
Seeing that relationships are living things that grow and change and having a partner who understands and contributes to that growth is special. Thanks for sharing Nina & Drew! (And "I have an action item for you" is my new favorite phrase).