JuiceBoxJungle

Juice Box Jungle: Dads vs. Moms

Posted about 1 year ago on The Tranquil Parent

This week’s new JuiceBoxJungle episode is an entertaining conversation about how Dads do it “wrong” when it comes to childcare. We’ve managed to avoid a lot of the battles described in the video, and the segment spurred us to think a bit about how we made that happen. And in classic “Mom vs. Dad” style, we’ll each take the floor to give our impression of the situation.

Here’s our take on all this.

Mom says….

We try to split the routine parenting “duties” evenly in our household. Jeremiah does the bedtime routine with our four-year-old daughter, Z – getting jammies on, brushing teeth, taking medicine, and reading books. Then Z and I snuggle together until she falls asleep. For major middle of the night issues (wet bed, etc.) I deal with them, because Jeremiah is a bear when woken in the middle of the night; but in exchange, Jeremiah gets up with her in the morning and lets me sleep in. I make all the appointments and keep track of when Z needs what vax but Jeremiah has to do the dirty work of taking Z to actually get the shot. (He’ll report tomorrow on her trip to have her blood drawn – including the wealth of great advice he was able to put to work to make the experience go as smoothly as possible.)

We do have different styles of parenting, but I think only enriches Z’s experience and understanding of how to interact with the world. Jeremiah and I try hard not to make either of our styles more important or “better” than the other style, because in the end, one day one way works for Z and the other day, the other way works for Z.

As far as discipline goes, we talked a lot about how we wanted to discipline Z while she was a baby, before she needed disciplining! We read a lot of books about positive discipline and decided a few things together early on – that we weren’t going to go down the time-out path, and that we were going to try to create an environment where the consequences for bad behavior are directly related to the behavior. That’s not to say that everything always goes smoothly with discipline. Sometimes Z just won’t listen to me or won’t listen to Jeremiah and so with a quick briefing, the other will step in to mediate.

Now, getting Z dressed in the morning, would be, in my opinion, the one place where I excel. Sometimes Jeremiah doesn’t dress her quite warmly enough or quite cooly enough. And sometimes, the outfits, well, the less said about that the better.

Dad says…

Pretty much the only concession I’ve made to Jenni being the household “authority” on parenting is in negotiating standards of dress. I typically let Z wear whatever she wants and figure this is the time when she’ll get to put together crazy outfits and not have any real social consequences for it. But every once in a while an outfit is just crazy enough that Jenni invites her back for a second round, and has a knack for getting Z into some more appropriate clothes without a lot of fuss is telling. When I try to guide Z’s clothing choices, it becomes a struggle. When Jenni does, they negotiate. I think it’s a sign of more “divisions of labor” to come – but they’re based on my two cohabitants’ shared gender, not “Mom knows best.”

The main reason mothers get to set the rules in so many households, and struggle to make their husbands enforce them, is because most mothers are around their kids more. That is also the case in our household – Jenni recently went from a thirty-hour work week to a twenty-hour one, due to chronic pain issues; I work full-time outside the home. But I’m no more likely to give Z ice cream than Jenni is (well, maybe a little), and we’ve both found that things run pretty smoothly in our house when we do our best to honor Z’s independent spirit while keeping her behavior within certain boundaries. Our big struggles these days are food (we have never wanted to try to “make” her eat, but she’s been trying to develop a last-minute snacking-before-bed ritual we really don’t like) and spasms of uninhibited rudeness. When one of us does need to step in to help or take over – either because something just isn’t working, or because the involved parent is getting too emotional about an issue – we make sure to share information and clearly establish what’s going on. We also don’t step in and assume that the kid just needs to be put in her place – more often than not, we negotiate the issue between the child and the other parent, and serve as interpreter for how each is feeling and how the issue can be resolved.

I think Jenni covered the “hows” of our co-parenting pretty well – we talked about issues early, read stuff we were interested in, decided on a general course for discipline, and we each get to express who we are in our general parenting style. This freedom is important to us, and the fact that we tackle issues somewhat differently exposes Z to two of a whole cast of co-parenting characters – grandparents, the occasional visit to daycare – with whom she must negotiate to exercise her free will.

Of course, none of this deals with the classic baby tasks of diapering, feeding an infant, etc. Maybe those kinds of issues are different than the discipline that comes later.

But regarding the general issue this episode raises about Dad’s way being “ok, but just not right,” I think that if that is a parent’s attitude and they actually are aware of their perfectionism, he or she just doesn’t have enough going on in their lives. Parenting is not a science, and when it comes to nurturing your family’s relationships, the perfect truly is the enemy of the good. Let perfection go and enjoy the ride. Get busier and you will start to identify which corners you’re willing to cut and what really must be done a certain way.

What day-to-day have challenged your ability to treat your spouse as a parenting “partner” with their own style? How have you worked through them? Share your stories in the comments!

Editor’s note: JuiceBoxJungle is having a contest this week, so if you’ve been enjoying our posts for the series, hop on over to their website and tell them if you thought our post was “funny,” “helpful,” or “honest.” So far, we’ve been at the top of the charts in the “helpful” category, which is the way we like it here at TTP. You can also read other contributors’ posts on each week’s topic over at the JBJ website, and vote for them too. You can also join the site and post about these topics yourself to join the conversation! – Jennifer and Jeremiah