Practical & Conscientious Parenting
On Parenting, Relationships, & Family
Parental Multitasking Cloud
15 years
I read an article at Wired.com recently about how multitasking muddles the brain (full article). Studies have shown that people who frequently multitask do poorer on test that require their full attention. Well, I’m starting to feel the affects of the parental multitasking cloud that I’ve been walking in for the past 7 weeks. Everywhere I go, I feel like I’m showing up half-dressed and late.
Even at home, I find myself walking urgently up to my computer, pausing while I try to remember what I needed to do so urgently, then remembering that I was really walking over to get my shoes because I need to go outside and turn the sprinkler on, but I remembered I wanted to look for sound protection ear muffs for Edie, which I had already decided I would look for after I started the sprinkler, but I then forgot that I had decided to do sprinkler then internet, which is why I’m standing in front of the computer.
It’s like I have about a 10 second window on either side of :now: that my brain can take in and process. Anything further away than that takes extreme concentration. Tonight when we were getting ready for bed, I changed Edie’s diaper and put her in bed with Ashley to nurse. Then I turned around and saw the container we keep our baby wipes in and thought “Oh, no! I forgot to use a wipe!” Which, of course, wasn’t true. It had just been more than 10 seconds since I had changed Edie’s diaper, so I had forgotten.
Stay at Home Dad
15 years
We just got back from a trip to Oregon to visit our families and friends. The trip was a lot of fun, if a little whirl-windy, and we managed to see just about everyone. Most people wanted to know what our plans were, with Ashley being in medical school and all.
Ashley and I have talked a lot about what the next year is going to look like for us. Ashley is taking this fall off to be at home with Edith, and she’ll start back part time in the spring. This time next year, she’ll be a full time med student again. Since most of my work is done at home, my schedule is going to be a little more fluid. I’m going to try to work as much as I can this fall to get my business at a steady level. In the spring, I’ll have to adjust my hours down a little bit, and come next fall, I don’t know how things will look. It all depends on how all of us feel.
Anyway, the thing is I noticed a weird reaction in myself as I would explain this to people. I’m really excited about being a stay at home dad. I’m going to love it. But some part of me feels a little guilty about it. As much as I try to celebrate gender equality, I grew up with the mentality that a man should do everything he can to provide for his family. So maybe it’s because we don’t have a lot of money to begin with, and I feel like I should be working more anyway.
There was a way I wasn’t comfortable telling people that I’m going to be a stay at home dad. Stay at home moms have done a great job informing people of the importance of their work. But as a dad, I felt like I needed to be doing more. I was really glad that I have my web work that I could tell people I would continue doing. And it shouldn’t matter. There’s a good chance I’ll be too busy when Ashley’s back in school full time. What I don’t like is that I’m somehow pressuring myself already to do more, to be a super dad. But I don’t want to miss Edie’s first years out of guilt or some perceived male responsibility.
So that’s my work for the fall. I’m celebrating and anticipating being a stay at home dad.
Maternity Leave
15 years
Ashley is officially on Maternity leave! She finished up the school year last Friday, and she’s taking the fall off, so she won’t have to be back until January. I’m really excited about the extra time we’ll have together and the extra help around the house. Since I’m a work-at-home-father-to-be (I’ve been working from home now for about nine months doing web development, and I love it. I absolutely love it.), we’re both going to be home to do some serious nesting. Not to mention we’re going to have the best babymoon ever! Even this week, though, I’ve realized that having Ashley around the house all day is going to bring its challenges.
While Ashley was in school, I usually worked for about five hours or so during the day, took a little break when she got home to hang out and cook dinner, and then worked again at night while she was studying. We were used to hanging out when she was at home. One of the downfalls of being self-employed is that I don’t offer myself any sort of paternity leave (I know, I know… I really should get with the times). I’m thinking I need to iron out a little more structured schedule, or it will be way to tempting to sit around and watch movies all day.
A Stunning Realization
15 years
I’m not a big fan of gender roles. I like to use my sewing machine just as much as my table saw. I like both Reservoir Dogs and Roman Holiday. In our pre-pregnancy lives, Ashley and I try to share the responsibilities, and for the most part we work pretty well together. I’m horrible at keeping a schedule, so Ashley pays the bills. I’m good in the kitchen, so I do a lot of our cooking. Nothing has tried to push us back into traditional gender roles quite like pregnancy has.
It’s been hard to find ways that I can equally contribute, since I haven’t had trouble keeping food down, I haven’t been super tired, and I haven’t had to grow another human being inside myself. I try to compensate by doing most of the shopping, cooking and dishes. I’ve been to most of the prenatal appointments, and I keep our blog updated with pictures for our families. But recently, I was reminded just how different our roles are during pregnancy, and just how incredible mothers are.
On a recent trip to visit our families in Oregon, Ashley started getting worried because she hadn’t felt the baby move in a couple of days (spoiler: everything turns out just fine). Generally, our little bug has been pretty active (although we didn’t start feeling baby kicks until about four months into the pregnancy because of an anterior placenta). It was late at night, and we weren’t sure if our insurance would cover an out of state emergency room visit. Funny things happen all the time during pregnancy, but we thought just to be safe we should go in. We did, and after being hooked up to a fetal monitor for about 20 minutes, the doctor said everything was just fine.
On the way home, I was relieved, but I was never really that worried. Me being the current bread-winner and having a fundamental dislike of visiting doctors, I figured this was just going to be another needless trip to the hospital. But then came my stunning realization: somehow Ashley is expected, with no previous experience, to know what’s going on with our baby. Between all the gut turning somersaults and still moments, new mothers are expected to know when things aren’t okay. And bad things can happen if they don’t recognize signs that they’ve never even felt before. Wow.
So this is just to say, to Ashley, Anne, my mom and all moms: Wow. Way to go.