Dear Dr. Yael:
I am a great fan of your column. Your January 30th column about the wife who makes a big deal about she and her husband sharing family chores equally was right on target for me. I gave it to my wife to read and she said, “If I did not know better, I would think you wrote this column.”
This letter is being written with my wife’s consent. Let me tell you a little but about us. Baruch Hashem we have a good marriage and make a good parnassah. As a matter of fact, all of our friends are young professionals who do well financially. We are doctors, lawyers, accountants, who in spite of a tough economy have held on to good jobs. We own beautiful homes, lease two cars and go on nice vacations. We also have full-time help. We have a nice size family which we are raising according to the dictates of the Torah. I daven with a minyan three times a day and have a set seder. Baruch Hashem we have what seems to be the perfect life.
However, when we first got married we decided that if the time ever came when we could afford full-time help, she would do the cooking and cleaning, but we would be the ones to raise our children.
So, we devised a plan where we would be equal partners in doing homework, talking to the children about their issues and going to all their plays and productions. In fact, I think I am the only father in all of their classes who has never missed a school event. This means I go to pre-school shows, science fairs, siddur and Chumash plays. Often for the smaller events we are the only parents who always come as a couple. People think we are a model family, and in many ways we are.
However, there was one line in the letter that really resonated with me: “They are like children keeping count of who changed how many diapers each day.” I don’t keep count, but my wife does. She says that they are our children and since she brings in half, or sometimes more than half of our parnassah, we need to be full partners in their chinuch.
I resent her attitude. We happen to have more boys than girls and clearly I am in charge of learning with the boys. This means Gemara with my oldest son and Mishnayos and Chumash with the younger ones. Even the girls tend to come to me with their Limudei Kodesh homework. I am also the more science-inclined of the two of us, so science and math homework is brought to me as well. My wife is basically left with English and maybe some spelling. In fact, the children prefer to do homework with me since I am less high-strung than my wife.
I feel since I am doing most of the homework and the driving (there is a lot of carpooling in our neighborhood), she should not be counting whose turn it is to get up with the baby at night. Yet, she does. She actually has a chart on the wall where we mark each time we get up for the baby – and she nurses! However, she pumps, which means I can get up and give the baby a bottle.
To make a long story short, even with all the outside help, I am literally exhausted. Between working hard (which I do), never missing a minyan, getting up very early to study in the morning and at night after the children go to sleep, I feel I have no time to breathe. My wife can sleep late on Shabbos and Sunday, while the housekeeper takes care of the kids; she doesn’t have to go to minyan or learn, so she has time to herself – she goes out to exercise and out with her friends for dinner.
We try to have a date night once a week and have other couples join us for meals on Shabbos. We also go to other families for lunch Shabbos day. However, more times than not, I am so tired that all I want is a quick meal with the kids so I can take a long Shabbos nap.
Do you have any suggestions as to how I can get this supposedly “equal” relationship to be more equal?
Frustrated Husband
Dear Frustrated Husband:
It sounds like you and your wife are a great couple with many brachos. And you are right, the constant “making things equal” is very frustrating – and exhausting. As you said that you wrote this letter with your wife’s consent, I assume she knows how you feel.
So, here is what I think. Your wife needs to consider that you are an “all American family.” As an Orthodox Jew, you have extra responsibilities and by your wife making allowances for that she will get schar for making it easy for you to go to study and daven.
You do Baruch Hashem have a lot of outside help; so neither of you need to be a slave to the house. What you might want to consider is cutting down on the socializing since it is taking away from your sleep and your time as a family.
Please sit down with your wife, show her this letter and my answer and if you cannot come to some amicable solutions on your own seek professional help. Hatzlocha!