Learning Points: pandemic parenting – it’s not just mum’s job

woman working at home in living room, daughters doing home work and hanging around

My husband and I are now both working from home. We have 4 children. We are taking turns in the office, but he seems to think I should be doing all the work with the kids and the house. I’m used to my parents in law helping out a lot and we’re actually very rarely all together as a group. I usually have help with the cleaning, and the laundry but that has all stopped.

I’m feeling very resentful towards my husband, my work is just as important as his. I’m short-tempered with the kids and just letting them go on screens all day, just so I can get anything done. I feel we could actually split up over this, I’m furious with him, but feel I shouldn’t rock the boat as we are all so tense.

Frustrated wife, mother and dogsbody, Co Cork.

I think you have touched on many of the issues couples are experiencing throughout the globe currently. This pandemic has challenged the best of us. We are all confined to our houses, working and minding our children and trying to manage our relationship on top of that, too.

This can place a serious amount of stress on the family unit. I think what you said is extremely important; we are all that little bit more tense and irritable now because of the situation we find ourselves in. However, inequity never breeds contentment or harmony. Women have a tendency to take too much on. Whether that is coming from social construction, the family they were raised in or the pressure from their partner, they can often struggle to say ‘no’ because they desperately want to fill the ‘good daughter/wife’ role they have been tricked into.

Something like a pandemic might actually bring us into contact with how we were living. And we might not like what we see.

The busy-ness of our lives might, in fact, help to dilute some uncomfortable truths about the relationships we have with our partners and children. This pandemic might be an opportunity for us all to re-evaluate how we want to be in the significant relationships we have.

There is an opportunity here to change how your husband views your role in the family, and perhaps, how you view it yourself. You are not alone. I have had many conversations with women over the last number of weeks who are feeling overwhelmed because of the amount of responsibility placed on their shoulders. As I said, inequity doesn’t breed contentment it breeds resentment.

And I think what you are feeling now, is some of that resentment rising. It is crucial for the health of your family unit to have a very frank and honest conversation with your husband. When the balance is off in one area of the family it will upset the entire equilibrium of that unit. You are right, your work is just as important as your husbands. But the fact that you have to say that out loud illuminates the feelings you have been harbouring. I wonder when do they find expression?

Do they come out in a fight when you feel you are not being validated? When we hold on and don’t verbalise aspects of our relational life that we do not like they often find expression in all the wrong ways. For example, in a fight you could end up shouting ‘my work is just as important as yours!’ Your partner might have no context for this statement and it would further exacerbate the conflict.

So, by sitting down and outlining your feelings in a way that doesn’t back your partner into a corner, which is what happens in most fights, you might be able to get him to hear how difficult things are for you.

You mentioned you are short – tempered with the kids. This would signal to me that you are overwhelmed with all of the work you have been charged with. Of course, due to confinement we are all probably a little less patient with our children. But, this is not good for your mental health. You need to share the responsibilities. It is not a woman’s place to do the laundry, cooking, cleaning and minding the kids. That is the responsibility for both parents.

The sooner we shake off those anachronistic ideas the healthier we will all be. Maybe you have taken on too much in the past and now you are beginning to see the inequity that exists in the relationship. Now is the time to rectify that. You mention that you’re worried your marriage will be severely impacted by this period of confinement, I actually think the opposite. I believe this could be the saving of your marriage, if you go about it correctly.

I think you have to sit down with your husband when the children are in bed and calmly explain what you are feeling. Make a list of all you do during the day and ask your husband what he can help with so that not everything rests on your shoulders. It is important that you have this conversation in a non-judgmental way. There is no doubt about it, living in quarantine is challenging.

But you must not allow yourself to be positioned in a way that places the burden solely on your shoulders. A sensitive conversation, whereby you lay out what it is you are currently doing in the house and how you are feeling will, hopefully, help your partner to see the importance of both parents meeting their duties.