Splitting Things Fifty-Fifty in a Relationship Is Nonsense
I originally wrote this article on August 16, 2015.
How many couples or roommates fight about splitting chores 50-50?
Pre-kids, their dad and I evenly-split our shared expenses and paid our own individual expenses. We each cooked our own meals or we ate out, and we each did our own laundry. This worked great as a couple without kids. This stopped working once we had kids.
Even when we were childless, though, besides splitting expenses and each of us managing our own eating and laundry, we didn’t and couldn’t split anything else.
It’s impossible to determine what would classify as 50-50 in a relationship, in a family and in a household.
Going to a paid job isn’t like being at home with kids: the responsibilities and experiences can’t be compared or served as competition. Even comparing paid jobs seems futile and not beneficial.
I’ve taken care of my kids around-the-clock since birth (with co-sleeping, extended nursing, babywearing, elimination communication, homeschooling, and so forth); there is no way to find equivalent tasks to what I have done. There’s no way to measure or quantify being attuned and having one’s parenting radar on 24-7.
There is also no way to compare duties with the person who does health and education research for the family, orders and shops for living supplies for the family, manages the finances, sits in a long work commute, deals with the general public, etc.
If the focus could be on relationships with each other and self, then there would be no need to even think about a 50-50 split. Either you are invested in your relationships or you are not.
Each adult can fetch food and feed themselves. Each adult can make sure they have clothes to wear. And the adult in the closest proximity to the children can make sure the children have food and clothing accessible to them.
Everything else, really, is personal preference. Who wants a sparkling bathroom? Well, that person will clean it when they have the time, energy and desire to do it. And if they don’t, then it doesn’t get done. It is irrelevant that the person who wants the clean bathroom is working 80 hours a week outside the home or taking care of the kids around-the-clock; they can either make it happen (by doing it themselves or hiring someone to do it) or not.
I want certain things for my kids, so I make sure they have those things (and it’s not really ‘things’–it especially has to do with well-being and emotional needs). I don’t expect their dad to provide those things for them. There are no ‘50-50’ dreams going though in my head.
To me, the key to happy co-parenting (or co-inhabiting) is for the couple to do the following:
be friends
enjoy each other’s company
listen to each other without defenses up and without needing to ‘save’ or fix the other
do the simple, minimal things–things which don’t put a damper on your integrity, dignity and energy-level–that help each other out (Examples: Put the toilet seat down so your loved one doesn’t find herself sitting in the toilet bowl in the middle of the night. Put perishables in the fridge when you’re through with them, uncovered even if need-be.)
do not have transaction-based thinking (‘I did this, so now you owe me.’ Or ‘I did 55%, so you at least need to do 45% to balance me out.’)
in parenting and household responsibilities: each person do what they enjoy (or at least what they each want to do or to have done) and are good at or, at least, willing to learn from
let go of every possible expectation and obligation which does not involve nurturing the relationships with one’s kids, self, partnership and family.
May we enjoy, nurture and learn from our relationships. May we be free and light in our homes.
Warmly,