And now for our new video challenge…
The media bombards us with messages that tell us that women are naturally better parents. We want to know what you think. Does being a woman automatically give your the upper hand in parenting? Does your partner share equally in the parenting load, or do you carry the lions’ share? We want to hear from dads too. How do you combat this sterotype. There are no right or wrong answers, we want a healthy discussion and varied views.
Capture your views on video, link below and upload to BritMums and we’ll share with the world.
In my house and this is the only thing I can with any authority write about, because I am certain everybody has their own way of doing things and different perspectives on sharing the workload, but I firmly believe that I as a mother certainly make the better parent.
By the above statement I am not relegating my OH to the depths of ‘bad parenting’; it is just that his priorities have always been more firmly fixed on work and providing for the family. We both met as equals, but it was me who gave up work to care for the children and in doing so, I admit I was never an earth mother, but did establish an understanding of my children’s needs and wants more than my partner did. I have had to learn ‘child patience and understanding’ over the years, something that I think builds up gradually over time. My OH has had limited time with the children, an hour a day weekdays and weekends (which can sometimes be very disturbed), as well as the usual annual holidays. So insofar as parenting is concerned, he is very good at dealing with the ‘good stuff’, weekend football and building complicated lego models, but for the everyday needs of the children it certainly falls to me and I am happy with that. We all know women have the ability to multi-task much better (this is scientifically proven before everybody jumps on this statement) and children certainly need this ability.
When OH looks after kids for the day, it is with compromises, everything else has to ‘give’ so he can play with the kids, heaven forbid cooking dinner, playing, cleaning, reading, writing, homework all in one go.