Maybe Joint Custody Isn’t So Great for Moms After All; An Unlikely Case for Helicopter Parenting; What Male Loneliness Crisis?; The Fraught Relationship Between Flexible Work & Gender Equality + more.
My guess re the fairness question is that very close to the birth and shortly after, mom is extremely vulnerable and needs help to do most things. I felt as if I was a burden on the family during this period, and reassurance that I wasn’t, made me feel cared for. As mom gets her energy back though, this effect goes away.
I wonder if a lot of the drop in feeling like things are unfair towards the end of the pregnancy comes from the fact that she becomes more incapacitated around the perinatal period and so her husband and village steps up more during that period. But after she recovers a little and gets back on her feet and sleep is better, so to speak, she is once again expected to take over the lion’s share of domestic work all by herself. Toddlers get more physically and emotionally demanding, but at least they are not as physiologically demanding as a fetus or a very fresh baby (when you’re waking up once every 2-4 hours). So women are expected to shoulder it all. According to everyone (including ourselves most of the time), if we are not literally incapacitated, it’s our job.
So if I understand the study correctly (and I mean...maybe I'm not), it seems the drop in unfairness wasn't connected to dads actually taking on a bigger share of housework around childbirth, but it seem plausible that an uptick in village help could be a factor! Like maybe right around childbirth, more outside family/friends are stepping up which makes any imbalances within the couple less aggravating. ...?
I think single point estimates. In the data section it says "This study is based on the waves 1 (2008/2009) to 14 (2021/2022) of the German pairfam (Brüderl et al., 2021; Huinink et al., 2010) data, which was collected annually from a random nationwide sample of respondents from four birth cohorts, namely, 1991–1993, 1981–1983, 1971–1973, and 2001–2003. All variables in our analysis are recorded annually except for the perception of fairness, which was only asked every other year until wave 9 and then annually afterwards." I think it's coming from this data set: https://www.pairfam.de/en/documentation/questionnaire/.
My takeaway from the summer/year round school study was not needing more helicoptering! It was that we need more affordable, accesible summer options and a society that allow kids to go places and do things alone. Staying inside all day is a version of helicoptering IMO bc the parents know where they are at all times.
I had a similar thought--that it's really the helicoptering at home/inability for kids to actually roam anymore that is the issue (although...I do think that there are more things tempting kids to stay inside than there used to be, so it does take more effort to get them outdoors). But I think then we're taking issue with the "structured environment" theory that the authors propose.
I expect it's a mix of the mom needed help with more things/choosing to drop some balls that the husband doesn't pick up, and the relief that it's fine and she is loved without having to carry as much load as she might have imagined.
Plus the tenderness of going to ultrasounds together, if you can, thinking about the baby might just make things feel more like a shared endeavor, not a split.
I'm 8 months postpartum with my third and when I read this data about women feeling things are temporarily fairer I immediately thought "yes, that's so true!" The initial support I had from my husband and extended family enabled me to "just" sit and breastfeed and care for the baby while everyone took care of the other things I usually do (interesting it takes multiple people to do what I usually do now I think about it!). But that was most definitely a temporary bubble that burst a month or so in...
I wonder if the people existing women (husband, friends, family) in the time approaching birth and postpartum period become more aware of all the work that moms are doing because she's doing it in an obviously vulnerable state, and verbally note it more often even if they don't step in and help do the actual work. Maybe having the work simply noted and valued makes the load feel lighter and makes women feel more supported during this time, even if they're not receiving more help with the load.
Ooh that's interesting...like just having the work recognised and socially valued might make someone less prone to getting really worked up about imbalances within the couple.
I am really 🧐 at these fathers just going "yeah I'm not doing my fair share ... she's literally building an infant's body out of her own blood ... still not gonna sweep more though"
I did find it interesting that dads seem pretty aware that they aren't doing their fair share lol. I guess we don't know how much they are actually contributing, but apparently it's not enough--according to the fathers themselves!
Intentional or not, the way that chart is presented in the original study exaggerates the differences; it's displaying results of a survey that ran on a scale from 1-5, with 3 representing "fair division of paid and unpaid labor," but the Y axis in the chart only runs from 2.4 to 3.4. If you graphed the results on a chart with a Y axis running from 1-5, which would cover the actual survey results, both men and women would look roughly the same. Yes, the differences are interesting, but it's easy to see more in this chart than the data seems to support.
Stephanie thank you for curating and summarizing these interesting studies. You're totally right - the info flow feels like a hydrant oftentimes, and trying to keep up is a constant struggle.
Ok, there's one sentence in your piece that definitely brought me joy (and almost made me choke on coffee bc I wanted to laugh) - it's the part when you said, "Something something social media?" :)
I feel so validated right now because I JUST wrote about how moms don't have flexible work, they make their work flexible because they have take on all the childcare things and their time is prioritized differently. Thank you!
My guess re the fairness question is that very close to the birth and shortly after, mom is extremely vulnerable and needs help to do most things. I felt as if I was a burden on the family during this period, and reassurance that I wasn’t, made me feel cared for. As mom gets her energy back though, this effect goes away.
I wonder if a lot of the drop in feeling like things are unfair towards the end of the pregnancy comes from the fact that she becomes more incapacitated around the perinatal period and so her husband and village steps up more during that period. But after she recovers a little and gets back on her feet and sleep is better, so to speak, she is once again expected to take over the lion’s share of domestic work all by herself. Toddlers get more physically and emotionally demanding, but at least they are not as physiologically demanding as a fetus or a very fresh baby (when you’re waking up once every 2-4 hours). So women are expected to shoulder it all. According to everyone (including ourselves most of the time), if we are not literally incapacitated, it’s our job.
So if I understand the study correctly (and I mean...maybe I'm not), it seems the drop in unfairness wasn't connected to dads actually taking on a bigger share of housework around childbirth, but it seem plausible that an uptick in village help could be a factor! Like maybe right around childbirth, more outside family/friends are stepping up which makes any imbalances within the couple less aggravating. ...?
Do you know whether they used time diaries to measure housework(/childcare?) or single point estimates?
I think single point estimates. In the data section it says "This study is based on the waves 1 (2008/2009) to 14 (2021/2022) of the German pairfam (Brüderl et al., 2021; Huinink et al., 2010) data, which was collected annually from a random nationwide sample of respondents from four birth cohorts, namely, 1991–1993, 1981–1983, 1971–1973, and 2001–2003. All variables in our analysis are recorded annually except for the perception of fairness, which was only asked every other year until wave 9 and then annually afterwards." I think it's coming from this data set: https://www.pairfam.de/en/documentation/questionnaire/.
This is the partnership questionnaire (https://www.pairfam.de/fileadmin/user_upload/redakteur/publis/Dokumentation/Codebooks/Release14.2/Partner/Wave%2014/Codebook%20Partner_en%2C%20pairfam%20Wave%2014%202021-22.pdf) and it looks like it is just asking people to offer a rough assessment of their current split of labor (Housework (washing, cooking, cleaning), Shopping, Home and auto repairs, Financial and administrative matters, Taking care of the children). The possible responses are: (Almost) completely my partner/For the most part my partner/Split about 50/50/For the most part me/(Almost) completely me.
My takeaway from the summer/year round school study was not needing more helicoptering! It was that we need more affordable, accesible summer options and a society that allow kids to go places and do things alone. Staying inside all day is a version of helicoptering IMO bc the parents know where they are at all times.
I had a similar thought--that it's really the helicoptering at home/inability for kids to actually roam anymore that is the issue (although...I do think that there are more things tempting kids to stay inside than there used to be, so it does take more effort to get them outdoors). But I think then we're taking issue with the "structured environment" theory that the authors propose.
I expect it's a mix of the mom needed help with more things/choosing to drop some balls that the husband doesn't pick up, and the relief that it's fine and she is loved without having to carry as much load as she might have imagined.
Plus the tenderness of going to ultrasounds together, if you can, thinking about the baby might just make things feel more like a shared endeavor, not a split.
I'm 8 months postpartum with my third and when I read this data about women feeling things are temporarily fairer I immediately thought "yes, that's so true!" The initial support I had from my husband and extended family enabled me to "just" sit and breastfeed and care for the baby while everyone took care of the other things I usually do (interesting it takes multiple people to do what I usually do now I think about it!). But that was most definitely a temporary bubble that burst a month or so in...
I wonder if the people existing women (husband, friends, family) in the time approaching birth and postpartum period become more aware of all the work that moms are doing because she's doing it in an obviously vulnerable state, and verbally note it more often even if they don't step in and help do the actual work. Maybe having the work simply noted and valued makes the load feel lighter and makes women feel more supported during this time, even if they're not receiving more help with the load.
Ooh that's interesting...like just having the work recognised and socially valued might make someone less prone to getting really worked up about imbalances within the couple.
Yes, and maybe even perceive the work load to be lighter. I think this is true for me whenever my work is acknowledged.
I am really 🧐 at these fathers just going "yeah I'm not doing my fair share ... she's literally building an infant's body out of her own blood ... still not gonna sweep more though"
I did find it interesting that dads seem pretty aware that they aren't doing their fair share lol. I guess we don't know how much they are actually contributing, but apparently it's not enough--according to the fathers themselves!
Intentional or not, the way that chart is presented in the original study exaggerates the differences; it's displaying results of a survey that ran on a scale from 1-5, with 3 representing "fair division of paid and unpaid labor," but the Y axis in the chart only runs from 2.4 to 3.4. If you graphed the results on a chart with a Y axis running from 1-5, which would cover the actual survey results, both men and women would look roughly the same. Yes, the differences are interesting, but it's easy to see more in this chart than the data seems to support.
fair point!
Stephanie thank you for curating and summarizing these interesting studies. You're totally right - the info flow feels like a hydrant oftentimes, and trying to keep up is a constant struggle.
Ok, there's one sentence in your piece that definitely brought me joy (and almost made me choke on coffee bc I wanted to laugh) - it's the part when you said, "Something something social media?" :)
hahaaa I'm glad you liked it. Thank you for this comment!
I feel so validated right now because I JUST wrote about how moms don't have flexible work, they make their work flexible because they have take on all the childcare things and their time is prioritized differently. Thank you!
*existing around