During the holidays, as we spend time with our children, I thought I'd share some thoughts on child rearing, adapted from what's in my book, The Art of Playing Defense...
Kids can put a lot of strain on a marriage because raising them requires countless difficult and emotional decisions: who feeds and takes care of the young ones, who sets behavior boundaries, how to discipline them, when they should get a smartphone, how much TV/screen time is allowed, etc.
Having kids strengthened Susan's and my marriage. It was a shared activity that brought us together – plus, I usually deferred to her in this area because I recognized that she's a lot better at parenting than I am!
But studies show that we're the exception. Here are the relevant charts for both women and men, which show that life satisfaction declines after the birth of a child – and never fully recovers:
Women
Men
I think a major reason women's life satisfaction dips is that they end up assuming most of the childcare duties, which often leads to anger and resentment.
According to one study, in the 1960s, women spent 3.4 times more time every day doing child or adult (elderly) care than their husbands. While it had declined to 1.9 times in the period of 2010 to 2015, that's still a grossly unfair ratio, so, to the fathers reading this, get off your butts and start pitching in more! (And to the mothers, help us out by being very clear about how we can be helpful – a lot of this stuff doesn't come naturally to us!)
Couples married before 1992 seemed satisfied to have the wife do most of the housework and childcare. But that has changed. Studies in 2006 found that the happiest and most sexually satisfied couples are now those who divide housework and childcare the most equally.
I'll admit that I didn't come within a country mile of doing my fair share of raising our three daughters – Alison, Emily, and Katharine. Susan really knew and connected with them on a deep level, knew their friends and teachers, etc.
But I did one thing that was helpful...
Every Saturday and Sunday, I took the girls to Central Park for all-day "Daddy Olympics." I put on my rollerblades, strapped them into the jogging stroller (with helmets!), and we went whizzing around the park at high speeds. The double jogger was filled with soccer balls, frisbees, bats, and balls, and as we went around the park we stopped to play at our favorite fields, playgrounds, the merry-go-round, rock-climbing area, and the zoo.
As babies, the girls would sit in the stroller, but then starting at 18 months, I taught them to ride scooters – here are Alison and Emily:
On their third birthdays, I removed the training wheels on their bikes. Here's a picture of us (along with Susan, my sister, and my parents) about to go out on one of our expeditions:
Here we are a few years later when they were three, six, and nine – once they were all riding, we could cover a lot of territory!
Our adventures in the park were a win-win-win-win: They were fun... they helped me build good relationships with my daughters... they gave Susan a much-needed break... and they helped my daughters become strong, confident, resilient, and athletic.
Best regards,
Whitney
P.S. I welcome your feedback – send me an e-mail by clicking here.
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