Do you know what I love? When the NYTimes confirms something The Lattice Group has been griping about for ages.
In an article yesterday entitled, “Til Children Do Us Part,” Stephanie Coontz discusses the effect that having children has on a modern marriage. Turns out, it tends to be negative. Why? Because it’s first with children that expectations regarding who is responsible for what are truly tested in most relationships. Coontz writes:
“Marital quality also tends to decline when parents backslide into more traditional gender roles. Once a child arrives, lack of paid parental leave often leads the wife to quit her job and the husband to work more. This produces discontent on both sides. The wife resents her husband’s lack of involvement in child care and housework. The husband resents his wife’s ingratitude for the long hours he works to support the family.”
What to do? Make sure the expectations are out on the table before the baby is. If you didn’t think you were signing up to be the primary breadwinner or the primary caretaker when you said your vows, the time to speak up is pre-conception.
But even after you’ve make your expectations clear, the problem of raising and paying for the kid still remains. The fact is that the American system provides so few provisions (like paid parental leave, public daycare etc.) that it may not come down to what you want, but what you have to do. That is why Gen Y must step up and work toward a change in American policy in order to provide what most industrial nations do already. Let’s begin with paid parental leave.
