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The story is called When Mom and Dad Share It All and it profiles several couples who've made attempts -- successfully and unsuccessfully -- to divvy up household and parenting responsibilities while being working parents. It's referred to in the article as "shared" or "equal" parenting, based on a movement to restore the "traditional American familly."
It's a good read but really offers up no golden nuggets of information. If anything, it should help moms and dads feel better in knowing that they're not alone in their quests for work-life balance.
"Co-parenting" and "shared parenting" are traditional reserved for divorced couples with kids or stepfamilies. Both involve situations where a child's parents are no longer together yet both are trying to actively be a part of and responsible for their child's day-to-day life. For stepfamilies, it also involves the new role of the stepparent(s).
When parenting coaches and experts start slapping these labels on married couples with kids, that's bad enough. But it's manufactured and you sort of expect it. They have books to sell, research to promote, whatevs.
However, when married couples with kids start touting their co-parenting or shared parenting skills. That's when I say, please, for the love of pete, just stop. I may be old school, but when still-married couples have kids, they are parents. The juggling of schedules and routines. The diaper changes and feedings. The handling of chaos. This is called parenting.
Even "equal parenting," I get it. The "primary caregiver" role usually defaults to mom and most moms would love to have a more balanced distribution of parenting responsibilities. Yet in my opinion, in the Times story, it had less to do with "parenting" and more to do with the division of labor with regard to household chores. Truth be told, it's often the overwhelming feeling of having to manage the household in addition to being a parent that is a huge knotted muscle for most moms.
Still, even if a couple have managed to find a successful way to create this balance, this is not shared parenting, co-parenting or even equal parenting.
Call it old school, but as one dad says in the article, can't we just call it "parenting"?
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