Dos Mamitas on Division of Labor in a Same-Sex Household
Our brilliant friends Stephanie and Jamie are the proud mamitas of 6 month old Javier. Their pictures always bring joy, so we’re thrilled to feature this beautiful family this week. Jamie and Stephanie started Dos Mamitas to join to the LGBTQIA community’s online chosen family, contributing to the conversation on queer parenting, raising a multicultural family, navigating the big city of New York, and, of course, sharing cute pictures.
Dividing the Labor in a Two Mom Household
Statistically, mothers take on the lion’s share of the work at home with fathers often lagging behind on house tasks and child care. We didn’t think that imbalance would show up for us, because seriously, what’s better than TWO moms? Hello perfectly clean house, where all the tasks are evenly distributed, and child care is a fully shared responsibility! Think again.
After Javi was born, we instead said “hello” to no sleep, overflowing garbage, microwave dinners, and resentment. Stephanie was on parental leave first, which meant she was the primary caretaker. And as the birthing parent, she was also the only food supply for the baby. Jamie was back at work Monday to Friday, taking a class two nights a week, and advising for a local sorority chapter.
Both of us were busy - but that didn’t automatically equate to things being fair.
Counting the Hours
Hours spent at the office shouldn’t count for more than hours spent watching a newborn. So, we counted up the “working” time. From waking up to going to sleep, Stephanie was responsible for the baby 10 hours a day! On top of that, there’s time spent cleaning the bathroom, cleaning up after pets, doing dishes, cooking, and more. The baby needed full attention, so who has time for everything?! If Jamie did all these tasks, household responsibilities would swing wildly the other way. Jamie would rack up significantly more hours. It could seem simple to divide and conquer: “I watch the baby; you do everything else” or “I work; you take care of the house.” In practice, it’s not so easy.
Distributing the Lift
After defining our household needs (regular diaper inventory was a new one!) and assigning hours to each task, we sat down again and divided it all up. It wasn’t a 50/50 split, but rather, we balanced the total time commitment for each partner, with no weighting for perceived “importance” of the work. One of the things that’s great about most same-sex partnerships: there are no preconceived ideas around who does what chores. Yard work and cooking aren’t viewed through a gendered lens, but solely weighed based on the amount of time they take.
Continuous Evaluation
Just a few months later, Jamie started her maternity leave, and Stephanie went back to work! This time, we got ahead of the change and made a plan to redistribute household responsibilities. In a few days, Jamie’s parental leave ends, and both of us will be back at work. Another redistribution is in the works.
Had we had Mirza when our baby was born, a lot of this would have been at the forefront of our planning. So much time is put into planning leaves of absence. We agonize over making the most of the little slice of time from employers to spend with our baby, during the most critical months of development. One thing to remember: more time at home does not equal more time for household responsibilities! Use Mirza to make a family plan: count the hours, distribute the work, evaluate regularly, check in on each other often, AND MAYBE you’ll both have time to take showers daily.
