I am currently, hopefully, nearing the end of a season of dependence on my husband and four children. I broke all three of my ankle bones on Fat Tuesday while hiking on a trip. I am almost six weeks into being completely non-weight-bearing. My husband (mostly) and my children (college-aged, living at home) have fed me three meals a day, brought me things, open and closed my blinds, helped me bathe, kept me company, and done pretty much everything else for me for the entire time. One of the things that helped me with acceptance of the situation was this Substack - reminding myself of the dignity of dependence, telling myself it's my opportunity to "walk the walk". I have also leaned on Catholic social teaching. It's been a Lent of surrender.
I was also the recipient of so much love and grace from the people of Puerto Rice (where I was hurt) and the people of my parish and larger community who have been feeding us.
When I feel frustrated or guilty, I intentionally transfer my feelings to gratitude. It's not hard, as I am so very grateful for all the help and companionship. There are lessons to be learned, and I'm just being as welcoming of them as possible.
Together for 12 years, married for 7, 1 child + 1 on the way. We are Episcopalians (he ex-Catholic, me ex-Evangelical) who are not consciously “complementarian” in terms of gendered theology (that more describes my mom and dad) and he is the stereotype of an involved millennial dad, for which I am very thankful. My daughter could not ask for a better role model of masculine love.
I do find the 50/50 split concept to be helpful as far as making sure we have roughly equivalent DOWN TIME or as my husband would say “time to stare at the wall.” However, we ensure our wall-staring time does not have to be identical; he watches LOTR clips on his phone or smokes a pipe or takes violin lessons; I try elaborate bread recipes or write poems or do yoga. Neither of us try to give 100% because that is a recipe for exhaustion and resentment; we aim to protect each others’ margins. We both work full time with advanced degrees and I make about 2/3 of what he does.
I just started WFH and have about 1.5 hours extra during the day because I don’t commute any more. I would break this down to extra 30m playtime with kiddo + 30m housework/cooking + 30m stare at wall time (I use it to exercise; with commute previously I had no stare at wall time on weekdays). We discussed the breakdown before I started WFH so that we both agreed it would be a fair split. If either of us has a late project or deadline or whatever, we handle things on behalf of each other.
Finally I will say that a lot of this is only possible because his mom worked when he was little, he went to daycare, his dad works in film and had an unconventional schedule, and he is used to what you might call more modern “norms” around gender relations and family time. I contrast this with my parents, where my mom stayed at home and homeschooled for a good 25 years and yet my dad reflexively treats the family’s income as his money, doesn’t want her to be spending on herself (small things, like travel to sing in a local choir). I’ve seen this happen to many SAHMs (having been homeschooled myself, thinking of friends’ parents) no matter how convincing the husband seems to be about splitting incomes “it’s our money not mine", and I am grateful I am in a more egalitarian partnership.
It’s been hard to navigate the dynamics of giving when we have been living through a crazy year of illness. What do you do when giving 100% looks like giving 50% of your normal capacity? What about when it looks like -20%? The analogy that I’ve used in counseling is that it feels as though we are both drowning and sometimes we have to push off the other person to breathe - but that just shoves the other person under the water.
We are coming to realize the fragility that comes from being a nuclear family. When we are at 100%, it’s fine to have a division of labor and specialization. When we are at 20% capacity between us, it’s obvious that each partner has to be able to take over from the other or something has to give. We have called in the cavalry of our parents, some friends, given up some stretch goals, dipped into the emergency fund. We had to be very open and honest about what our genuine capacity is, checking in a lot with each other to re-assess, giving up when we really need to.
In full transparency, some of it has been starting to have deeper, real conversations about what we value. When you’re drowning, even things that you care about become irrelevant. It’s really hard to reach a settlement about what you value vs drowning. I think it comes back to the principle: if you care that much, do it yourself. Because then it’s more obvious when it gets dropped, it’s due to drowning and not just a lack of care.
I wish our culture embraced “Fair does not mean equal, fair means what is in the best of interest of the child in question.” I too taught special ed and found that tenet so useful. Imagine how different the world could be if we expanded it to all children, and designed learning experiences that built on the unique gifts and challenges of each child. Great teachers do this and I aspired to it…
And it carries into our marriage. Coping with infertility and professional challenges were our crucible. Our division of physical labor and chores is lopsided due to my chronic pain from an accident. If asked, my husband points out all the logistical work I do keeping our family in order and driving kids wherever they need to be. We celebrate 13 years next week and look forward to growing old together.
I'm navigating it currently in a different sense, with my extended family. I'm in nursing school and depending a lot on my mom and sister to watch my daughter while I'm in class. I don't have the time to offer an equal trade of childcare; I have to lean into the dependence in this season
I want to drop this here... a friend of mine wrote a beautiful reflection on how to do Lent as a woman, since fasting and abstinence were really designed for male bodies.
I read your First Things essay this morning. It is a wonderful piece, which I copied and sent to my son, his wife, and their teenage daughter. I also sent it to my newlywed daughter and her husband.
Thanks…!
BTW - I learned a lot from your excellent book Arriving at Amen (this from an old man Protestant who is fascinated by what I think of as Orthodox Catholic feminism which I first encountered with Edith Stein).
Congratulations!! May God Bless you and your sweet boy. I'm back to fasting this year after a few years off as my youngest is two. I'm still getting used to fact that in my marriage our penances are always different on Ash Wednesday. My husband has worked as a music director at a Catholic parish for 3 Ash Wednesdays now. My lot in life seems to be the one staying home with littles while he is helping the larger church pray...and getting exhausted by a looooonng work day in providing for the family. Thank you for helping verbalize how this is different and what it means.
Congratulations, Leah, and thank you as always for sharing yourself and your thoughts with us. This is my third consecutive Lent in pregnancy-and-breastfeeding, and now that I think about it, I was anticipating the passage of a missed miscarriage during Easter of 2020. This concept of “natural fasting” has been on my mind a lot, but your description of the complementary dance of marriage in seasons of feast and fast has given me a lot to think about.
You’re EXTREMELY LUCKY. I suggest you read Liz Lenz ‘This American Ex Wife’ to see what almost all marriages are like. Don’t attribute luck to anything but luck.
This concept of "two things can both be hard, but hard in different ways" is something I've thought about a lot when it comes to parenting choices. My husband works full-time; I do two part-time things, both mostly from home. It's challenging to work 8 hours at a stretch; it's also challenging trying to get a quota of work done in interrupted chunks of time. I'm not sure it's possible to compare those two and decide which is more hard because they're completely different kinds of hard; there's different pros and different cons. Similarly with choices like breastfeeding or not: just because I chose to breastfeed and mostly love it doesn't mean there aren't things I dislike about it, things that using formula would solve. But there are things about using formula I would dislike too. It's not necessarily about one option being easier or better-in-every-way; they have different challenges and different pros and cons.
I like the concept of trading burdens or mutual indebtedness. It reminds me of the rule I try to apply to baby care: that if there's something that needs to be done, whoever has more capacity at the moment does it. I'm pretty sure I first heard the idea articulated by Alan Jacobs, in what's one of my favorite pieces on sharing family work: https://blog.ayjay.org/abigail-rines-weighed-in-with-a-terrific-post/ "It’s just about figuring out (a) what needs to be done and (b) who, at the moment, is better placed to do it."
And congratulations on the new baby, Leah!! I hope the fatigue starts to lift for you soon; I feel like it gets less attention than morning sickness, but it can be really incapacitating.
My favorite living author, Lois McMaster Bujold in her book A Civil Campaign has one of her wisest characters point out that in good family dynamics there can be a synergy that adds up to more than 100%. In specific in a marriage a strange dynamic happens; when both partners willingly give everything, in return they both win all.
I've been mulling over this whole question of fasting, especially for women in the childbearing years. As an Orthodox Christian, the discipline of fasting is very much woven into our lives throughout the year and even the week. And the Eastern Church, to my knowledge, has not defined so clearly as the West what are the expectations for pregnant or nursing mothers. (In general, the East stays reticent on all but the most essential doctrines.) Now that I'm not currently pregnant or breastfeeding exclusively (though I am still breastfeeding) I try to keep food-related fasts *where/when possible*, which mostly means fasting from meat and relying heavily on good old cultured dairy. It is really challenging, but a good challenge, I think, like fasting is supposed to be. It brings my sins -- grumpiness, pride, anger -- to the surface so that I can know of them and repent of them.
During the seasons of exclusive breastfeeding and pregnancy, it was literally impossible for me to keep any kind of fast. I did not feel one ounce guilty about that. But now, I think it's starting to be different. My daughter nurses just a little bit. She's a big, healthy, almost-two-year-old, with a big appetite for whatever Dada and I are eating.
All this to say, thank you so much for sharing your eloquent thoughts on this subject. I'm still forming what I think about this in-between time of still technically breastfeeding, but also having bandwidth for some form of food fasting again.
To address your 2nd question: I try not to to begin with. I had a professor in college, a special Ed professor, back when I was still an education major, who stated, "Fair does not mean equal, fair means what is in the best of interest of the child in question." Of course, this was in relation to special needs children, but I have extrapolated the statement out and have applied to it to everything. What is in the best interest of this child, this individual, this family, this community, may not be the same for another, and likely isn't exactly the same. Fair is about what is "right and just" not necessarily equality.
Therefore one of my (many) mantras that I have drilled into my children from the very beginning is "Fair does not mean equal."
It's extremely helpful when having to explain to my 6yo (or even the 10yo) why my 9yo T1D is getting a piece of candy right before bed but she can't.
Consequently we spend time reflecting on areas where we should look for justice, because equality isn't fair enough.
I admit that I have great fears of being a burden on others and consequently I probably overwork myself trying to not lean on and depend on others, except maybe my husband and even then he has to remind me to let him do things for me. It's a constant struggle to remember that when I need help it's a good thing to allow others (who are willing) to practice the virtues of charity and generosity. And for me to practice the virtues of humility and docility.
Congratulations Leah and family! And I live 5 minutes from Assumption and work in Golden Valley sometimes. I will plan to attend to talk at Assumption but if you need a place to stay or a ride to or from the airport or anything else while you're in town please let me know!
I am currently, hopefully, nearing the end of a season of dependence on my husband and four children. I broke all three of my ankle bones on Fat Tuesday while hiking on a trip. I am almost six weeks into being completely non-weight-bearing. My husband (mostly) and my children (college-aged, living at home) have fed me three meals a day, brought me things, open and closed my blinds, helped me bathe, kept me company, and done pretty much everything else for me for the entire time. One of the things that helped me with acceptance of the situation was this Substack - reminding myself of the dignity of dependence, telling myself it's my opportunity to "walk the walk". I have also leaned on Catholic social teaching. It's been a Lent of surrender.
I was also the recipient of so much love and grace from the people of Puerto Rice (where I was hurt) and the people of my parish and larger community who have been feeding us.
When I feel frustrated or guilty, I intentionally transfer my feelings to gratitude. It's not hard, as I am so very grateful for all the help and companionship. There are lessons to be learned, and I'm just being as welcoming of them as possible.
CONGRATULATIONS!🥳🙏🙏🙏
This was very good to read (and exciting!).
Thank you.
Together for 12 years, married for 7, 1 child + 1 on the way. We are Episcopalians (he ex-Catholic, me ex-Evangelical) who are not consciously “complementarian” in terms of gendered theology (that more describes my mom and dad) and he is the stereotype of an involved millennial dad, for which I am very thankful. My daughter could not ask for a better role model of masculine love.
I do find the 50/50 split concept to be helpful as far as making sure we have roughly equivalent DOWN TIME or as my husband would say “time to stare at the wall.” However, we ensure our wall-staring time does not have to be identical; he watches LOTR clips on his phone or smokes a pipe or takes violin lessons; I try elaborate bread recipes or write poems or do yoga. Neither of us try to give 100% because that is a recipe for exhaustion and resentment; we aim to protect each others’ margins. We both work full time with advanced degrees and I make about 2/3 of what he does.
I just started WFH and have about 1.5 hours extra during the day because I don’t commute any more. I would break this down to extra 30m playtime with kiddo + 30m housework/cooking + 30m stare at wall time (I use it to exercise; with commute previously I had no stare at wall time on weekdays). We discussed the breakdown before I started WFH so that we both agreed it would be a fair split. If either of us has a late project or deadline or whatever, we handle things on behalf of each other.
Finally I will say that a lot of this is only possible because his mom worked when he was little, he went to daycare, his dad works in film and had an unconventional schedule, and he is used to what you might call more modern “norms” around gender relations and family time. I contrast this with my parents, where my mom stayed at home and homeschooled for a good 25 years and yet my dad reflexively treats the family’s income as his money, doesn’t want her to be spending on herself (small things, like travel to sing in a local choir). I’ve seen this happen to many SAHMs (having been homeschooled myself, thinking of friends’ parents) no matter how convincing the husband seems to be about splitting incomes “it’s our money not mine", and I am grateful I am in a more egalitarian partnership.
Congrats on baby #3, Leah!
It’s been hard to navigate the dynamics of giving when we have been living through a crazy year of illness. What do you do when giving 100% looks like giving 50% of your normal capacity? What about when it looks like -20%? The analogy that I’ve used in counseling is that it feels as though we are both drowning and sometimes we have to push off the other person to breathe - but that just shoves the other person under the water.
We are coming to realize the fragility that comes from being a nuclear family. When we are at 100%, it’s fine to have a division of labor and specialization. When we are at 20% capacity between us, it’s obvious that each partner has to be able to take over from the other or something has to give. We have called in the cavalry of our parents, some friends, given up some stretch goals, dipped into the emergency fund. We had to be very open and honest about what our genuine capacity is, checking in a lot with each other to re-assess, giving up when we really need to.
In full transparency, some of it has been starting to have deeper, real conversations about what we value. When you’re drowning, even things that you care about become irrelevant. It’s really hard to reach a settlement about what you value vs drowning. I think it comes back to the principle: if you care that much, do it yourself. Because then it’s more obvious when it gets dropped, it’s due to drowning and not just a lack of care.
Congratulations on your son’s impending arrival!
I wish our culture embraced “Fair does not mean equal, fair means what is in the best of interest of the child in question.” I too taught special ed and found that tenet so useful. Imagine how different the world could be if we expanded it to all children, and designed learning experiences that built on the unique gifts and challenges of each child. Great teachers do this and I aspired to it…
And it carries into our marriage. Coping with infertility and professional challenges were our crucible. Our division of physical labor and chores is lopsided due to my chronic pain from an accident. If asked, my husband points out all the logistical work I do keeping our family in order and driving kids wherever they need to be. We celebrate 13 years next week and look forward to growing old together.
I'm navigating it currently in a different sense, with my extended family. I'm in nursing school and depending a lot on my mom and sister to watch my daughter while I'm in class. I don't have the time to offer an equal trade of childcare; I have to lean into the dependence in this season
I want to drop this here... a friend of mine wrote a beautiful reflection on how to do Lent as a woman, since fasting and abstinence were really designed for male bodies.
https://thehollow.substack.com/p/dont-choose-a-counterproductive-penance
I read your First Things essay this morning. It is a wonderful piece, which I copied and sent to my son, his wife, and their teenage daughter. I also sent it to my newlywed daughter and her husband.
Thanks…!
BTW - I learned a lot from your excellent book Arriving at Amen (this from an old man Protestant who is fascinated by what I think of as Orthodox Catholic feminism which I first encountered with Edith Stein).
Congratulations!! May God Bless you and your sweet boy. I'm back to fasting this year after a few years off as my youngest is two. I'm still getting used to fact that in my marriage our penances are always different on Ash Wednesday. My husband has worked as a music director at a Catholic parish for 3 Ash Wednesdays now. My lot in life seems to be the one staying home with littles while he is helping the larger church pray...and getting exhausted by a looooonng work day in providing for the family. Thank you for helping verbalize how this is different and what it means.
Congratulations, Leah, and thank you as always for sharing yourself and your thoughts with us. This is my third consecutive Lent in pregnancy-and-breastfeeding, and now that I think about it, I was anticipating the passage of a missed miscarriage during Easter of 2020. This concept of “natural fasting” has been on my mind a lot, but your description of the complementary dance of marriage in seasons of feast and fast has given me a lot to think about.
You’re EXTREMELY LUCKY. I suggest you read Liz Lenz ‘This American Ex Wife’ to see what almost all marriages are like. Don’t attribute luck to anything but luck.
This concept of "two things can both be hard, but hard in different ways" is something I've thought about a lot when it comes to parenting choices. My husband works full-time; I do two part-time things, both mostly from home. It's challenging to work 8 hours at a stretch; it's also challenging trying to get a quota of work done in interrupted chunks of time. I'm not sure it's possible to compare those two and decide which is more hard because they're completely different kinds of hard; there's different pros and different cons. Similarly with choices like breastfeeding or not: just because I chose to breastfeed and mostly love it doesn't mean there aren't things I dislike about it, things that using formula would solve. But there are things about using formula I would dislike too. It's not necessarily about one option being easier or better-in-every-way; they have different challenges and different pros and cons.
I like the concept of trading burdens or mutual indebtedness. It reminds me of the rule I try to apply to baby care: that if there's something that needs to be done, whoever has more capacity at the moment does it. I'm pretty sure I first heard the idea articulated by Alan Jacobs, in what's one of my favorite pieces on sharing family work: https://blog.ayjay.org/abigail-rines-weighed-in-with-a-terrific-post/ "It’s just about figuring out (a) what needs to be done and (b) who, at the moment, is better placed to do it."
And congratulations on the new baby, Leah!! I hope the fatigue starts to lift for you soon; I feel like it gets less attention than morning sickness, but it can be really incapacitating.
My favorite living author, Lois McMaster Bujold in her book A Civil Campaign has one of her wisest characters point out that in good family dynamics there can be a synergy that adds up to more than 100%. In specific in a marriage a strange dynamic happens; when both partners willingly give everything, in return they both win all.
Congratulations on your little boy, Leah!
I've been mulling over this whole question of fasting, especially for women in the childbearing years. As an Orthodox Christian, the discipline of fasting is very much woven into our lives throughout the year and even the week. And the Eastern Church, to my knowledge, has not defined so clearly as the West what are the expectations for pregnant or nursing mothers. (In general, the East stays reticent on all but the most essential doctrines.) Now that I'm not currently pregnant or breastfeeding exclusively (though I am still breastfeeding) I try to keep food-related fasts *where/when possible*, which mostly means fasting from meat and relying heavily on good old cultured dairy. It is really challenging, but a good challenge, I think, like fasting is supposed to be. It brings my sins -- grumpiness, pride, anger -- to the surface so that I can know of them and repent of them.
During the seasons of exclusive breastfeeding and pregnancy, it was literally impossible for me to keep any kind of fast. I did not feel one ounce guilty about that. But now, I think it's starting to be different. My daughter nurses just a little bit. She's a big, healthy, almost-two-year-old, with a big appetite for whatever Dada and I are eating.
All this to say, thank you so much for sharing your eloquent thoughts on this subject. I'm still forming what I think about this in-between time of still technically breastfeeding, but also having bandwidth for some form of food fasting again.
Congratulations!!!!!!!!!! That's so exciting!
To address your 2nd question: I try not to to begin with. I had a professor in college, a special Ed professor, back when I was still an education major, who stated, "Fair does not mean equal, fair means what is in the best of interest of the child in question." Of course, this was in relation to special needs children, but I have extrapolated the statement out and have applied to it to everything. What is in the best interest of this child, this individual, this family, this community, may not be the same for another, and likely isn't exactly the same. Fair is about what is "right and just" not necessarily equality.
Therefore one of my (many) mantras that I have drilled into my children from the very beginning is "Fair does not mean equal."
It's extremely helpful when having to explain to my 6yo (or even the 10yo) why my 9yo T1D is getting a piece of candy right before bed but she can't.
Consequently we spend time reflecting on areas where we should look for justice, because equality isn't fair enough.
I admit that I have great fears of being a burden on others and consequently I probably overwork myself trying to not lean on and depend on others, except maybe my husband and even then he has to remind me to let him do things for me. It's a constant struggle to remember that when I need help it's a good thing to allow others (who are willing) to practice the virtues of charity and generosity. And for me to practice the virtues of humility and docility.
Congratulations Leah and family! And I live 5 minutes from Assumption and work in Golden Valley sometimes. I will plan to attend to talk at Assumption but if you need a place to stay or a ride to or from the airport or anything else while you're in town please let me know!