Marriage challenges are bound to happen throughout even the healthiest marriages. But when it comes to balancing the childcare load, it seems especially challenging for millennial moms to get out of a holding pattern by being the default parent and doing 2.9 more hours of childcare a week than their husbands.
In today’s episode, I’m sharing my hot take on this Renee Reina Reel and diving into how I “balance” childcare in my house as a work-from-home mom who is also the primary childcare provider with a husband who works full-time outside of the home. Yes, it’s also been a marriage challenge for me in the past!
Marriage Challenges Need Solutions
When it comes to any challenge in your marriage, nothing changes if nothing changes. You can’t just complain about this unfair workload to your friends and think it’s magically going to get better. Below are the steps I used to get the childcare scale back in balance in my house.
Three actionable steps to take to balance the childcare load in your house:
- Brain dump what you need as far as time away from your kids throughout the week. You can’t ask for something if you don’t know what it is. Think through how you’d ideally like your evenings and weekends to look and write it down. Get clear on what YOU need, and then brainstorm ideas for getting it.
- Communicate these needs with your partner and give them time to percolate and become commonplace in your marriage. Nothing changes overnight, and you should expect this transition to take time. However, it should be moving on an upward trajectory, even if it’s slow. If your partner won’t work with you on this issue, it’s probably time to get professional help.
- Plan something fun for you and your partner to do together at least once a month. Marriage challenges are often exacerbated when couples aren’t prioritizing time for fun and intimacy. You both need a break from your kids and some kid-free together time. Prioritize it and get creative with how to make it work in your schedule and budget.
Mentioned in this episode:
Taran is a self-proclaimed undomestic mom. She thrives as a stay-at-home-mom by consistently carving out time for herself and practicing realistic self-care. As a busy mom of 3, she knows that if mama ain’t happy, nobody’s happy! With a focus on how SAHMs can carve out time for themselves everyday, she teaches fellow SAHMs how they can do the same.
Leave a Reply