It’s hard to divide anything 50/50. In many families, even if both parents have paid jobs, one parent will lean into parenting more, and the other will lean harder into paid work.

In male/female couples it’s usually the woman who owns more of the parenting work, and that can feel unfair if the arrangement comes from assumptions rather than a willing choice. 

I want to highlight some counter-examples from the effective altruism space, to show it’s really possible to make an intentional choice about who does what.

• @Jeff Kaufman and I both travel for work, but he’s more fearless than I am about having the kids solo. Once while I was at an EA conference during the annual vacation with his side of the family, he took our four-year-old and two-year-old to the beach, and also took his sister’s two-year-old because she was working. Then, during this trip where he was responsible for three preschoolers, he potty-trained our toddler.
• My friend has pursued jobs focused on impact, while her husband has a normal job he’s not pursuing for altruistic impact. He does more of the childcare while she commutes part of the week to another city for her work. He’s also taken on more of the planning work involved in parenting, like choosing a school for their child and coming up with a reward system for behavior they’re trying to encourage.
• My coworker’s story from the recent EA New Zealand summit: Two of the women attending had babies. Their male partners came along as childcare support with the babies in carriers and stood at the back of the lecture theatre during the talks, ready to take the babies out when needed. (New Zealand president Jacinda Ardern, her partner, and their baby used a similar method in 2018.)
• You wouldn’t know from most writing about philosopher Hilary Greaves that she has children, because she’s been busy being an Oxford professor and directing the Global Priorities Institute. She mentioned in a 2018 podcast that she had 4 children at that time, and she now has 7. My understanding is that her partner has covered more of the parenting work, and that his doing so allowed her to spend more time on her career. (I’m so impressed with the amount of work that both of them must have done!)
• Not parenting, but in one couple I know through EA, the wife is a medical resident. She works 80 hour weeks, and he has a more normal work week, so he views it as his role to be sure she gets meals when she comes home. He said he’s not saving people’s health in his daily work, but he’s supporting her to do that.

Related:

• Jeff’s Equal parenting advice for dads
• My Dividing responsibilities at home
• Michelle Hutchinson’s My thoughts on parenting and having an impactful career