I once spent some time in Fiji where I found myself responding, repeatedly, that life in the United States is just different, to the many comments I received about how wonderful it must be to have all the creature comforts we have here, etc., etc. I even found myself sitting upright in bed one night reciting this mantra. One is not better than the other.
I've been reminded of this experience when I hear from working mom friends who have had to put their children in daycare that they are envious of the fact that my husband is a stay-at-home dad. "How much easier that must be ..." they fantasize. It is easier. And it's harder. But I felt like a spoiled brat in feeling this way. Shouldn't I be immensely grateful that my husband not only wants to stay home, but also throws himself into the job of doing so with incredible passion, commitment, and skill? And that we don't have to put our daughter into daycare (which, by the way, is a perfectly reasonable option -- I just know from what others say that this can be difficult)? I am. Profoundly.
But I needed to know that this nagging feeling of envy -- even jealousy and, at times, resentment -- toward my husband was normal. I suspected that I wouldn't feel this way if we had put her in daycare. I thought that this would have leveled the playing field, that he and I would be experiencing parenthood more similarly and I would feel less competitive. I turned to my life-long friend, who happens to have researched this phenomenon, for support. She validated that what I'm feeling is, in fact, normal. And I felt much better. I've even found myself letting go of those jealously competitive feelings.
Here's what's also helped:
(1) I added up the waking hours that my husband and I each spend with our daughter. After factoring in her late bedtime and wake-up time, and the fact that I spend most of each weekend day and evening with her, it turns out that he and I spend the same amount of time playing with and caring for her.
(2) My husband offered to leave more frequently during weekday evenings so that I could gain confidence in my parenting. Although he generally backs off during the evenings so that she and I can have our time together, I still turn to him for guidance or assistance if he's around. I parent much more intuitively and gracefully when completely on my own, and my husband gets a real break for once.
(3) Perhaps most importantly, I found that the more worried I felt about our daughter preferring my husband over me, the more likely she was to do so. So I chilled out. Which gave us the space to connect.
I still struggle from time to time, but it's getting so much better.
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3 comments:
All good points. And another thing that helped me: accepting that he tend to prefer each of us for different tasks, rather than looking at it on the whole. Yes, on the whole, he prefers Bryan - but there are definitely things he wants his mommy for and I take my joy in that. My therapist has commented to me many times that we each bring our own skills to the parenting gig and the kids pick on on that.
What a good thing to remember---somehow it's so easy to lose sight of the fact that there are indeed ways in which she needs me specifically. And it sure helps to hear that I'm not the only one experiencing this (what I've read to date on the topic of children preferring one parent over another is generally geared toward the stay-at-home parent feeling pushed aside when the working parent comes home---which, I must admit, has happened more often of late, a reminder that the tides inevitably change).
Absolutely. It goes in waves.
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