Quick comment before I run off to the grade school:

Has anyone noticed the overwhelming bent to commercials with the stupid male / stupid dad? He can't butter bread, he can't choose a car, he can't mow the lawn, etc. It gets quite irritating, and I turn to my husband and mutter "another stupid man." Which I think subtly reinforces this idea that men can't parent as well as women (they sure can't put in ponytails / get the kids properly dressed / feed them a balanced meal, judging by what I see on TV.)

I hate the cold medicine commercials that hinge on "the world falls apart when mom is sick! Dad can't cope!"

Before my son was born I went to lunch with some friends who were telling me about parenthood and how even though I THOUGHT my husband would be really involved, I was in for a rude awakening. "He'll never know how much they weigh or what their tylenol dose should be." or "He may cook, but he'll never pack a lunch".

I admit that with a crying infant my tolerance for letting my husband try to figure it out varies wildly - if I'm really tired, I'll give him longer - but other times, I'm likely to swoop in just to stop the fussing.

BUT - my husband does at least half of the parenting duties  - packing lunch for daycare, taking kids to the doctor, staying home when they're sick (within some limits), changing barfy sheets, cleaning poop smears off the furniture (don't ask), etc.

He's a researcher by nature, so he's the one leading the charge into finding pre-k. He set up college funds, he takes them clothes shopping sometimes if I need some time to myself.

I wouldn't have it any other way.  I'm a lucky, lucky woman.

I will admit to some guilt in pre-empting my DH's role as a dad - especially when they were younger. I had assumed (consciously and unconsciously)that he wasn't as fully a parent as I was (and that he wanted it that way).  I've worked on that - and really have made an effort to assume that he's capable of parenting.  As I have done that, I've seen him become more and more involved as a parent.

BUT

It's still majority my role.  Maybe it's shifted from 80/20 to 60/40, but in a vacuum I am more likely to take the lead.  I guess this is a combination of me (and my upbringing),  him (and his upbringing), and the culture we're in.  It's  a process and there's always room for growth.

My DH is just as involved as a nurturer as I am, and on a bad day, I'll admit to some of the feelings that the moms admitted to the researcher. I can feel a little threatened. It makes me feel bad about myself--but it doesn't make me put a damper on DH's involvement.

There's the cultural myth that women are natural, biological, superior nurturers. Therefore, if he can nurture just as well as me, and on some days even better, then I must be "less of a woman." On some unconscious level, it feels like a loss of status. Sometime equality's a bitch: sometimes it involves loss.

That said, I have tended to make all the decisions about Jude's care: finding a nanny, researching schools, choosing a preschool, finding babysitters. There have been times when I complained about this, wondering why DH didn't take more responsibility. It seemed like he was deferring because he believed that I knew what I was doing. (Maybe it was really because he didn't want one more responsibility added to his plate.)

I have always made all the decisions about Jude's room and furniture and clothing, but that's because I enjoy those things, not any innate gender role stuff.

but in one of those books we read that if DH was getting upset because I was fat & unattractive while pregnant, he should look at my belly & remind himself how virile he is.  Yeah, the book was put down to collect dust after that.

I'm an oldest child & did a lot of baby-sitting.  DH is a youngest and never changed a diaper until DS was born.  Since his career allows him to make three times what I could, our decision was he would work extra-hard so we could afford for me to stay home (DS's health made it a necessity the first year or so).  So I do a lot for DS (not necessarily the house though!) because I enjoy it and I feel it's my way of contributing so our current lifestyle.  

DH is always willing to help and takes a lot of burden off me when he can.  But simply because I spend so much time with DS, I know that if he wakes up suddenly during a nap, I can leave him alone & he'll fall back asleep on his own, or that when he cries after finishing his bottle he isn't still hungry, he's just mad because he wants to suck some more. DH doesn't know a lot of these little cues yet, so he gets a little worried that something's wrong with DS, when he's really just acting like a baby.

(Our oldest is from my previous marriage), he was really into the "parenting stuff" when I became pregnant with the youngest. He read What to Expect When You're Expecting cover-to-cover...TWICE! When my midwife said that I wasn't gaining enough weight, and put me on the "ice cream and pizza diet", he made certain to bring me home a pint of Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey every day, and to make sure I ate the whole thing.

When the baby came, he was there with me, and only left my side when they took her to the nursery for weighing and her healthcheck. I had a c-section with her, so I was in recovery for a while before I was taken to my room. He came in, carrying the baby and was absolutely phenomenal. He and our oldest stayed in with me the whole time I was in the hospital, and, when the baby would cry, he would pick her up and cuddle her before handing her to me to nurse. I had to stay an extra day in the hospital because I wasn't recovering from the c-section as well as was expected, so, when we came home, my husband took over all the baby care. When the baby woke in the night, he warmed a bottle of expressed milk and fed her, just so I could get a little more rest. He even took his week's vacation the week after the baby was born, so that I wouldn't have to do everything, and could recover from the surgery (I had a tubal ligation after the c-section).

He has been a very "hands on" father to both of our daughters...he has always tried to set aside at least one day each month as "Daddy/Daughter Day" (one day for each girl), where he takes them somewhere or does something with them that they are interested in. (At the moment, he is teaching the youngest to juggle.) He was the one who took our oldest on her first bra-shopping trip, as well.

We really liked The Expectant Father, and the next book as well (about the first year).  Found the toddler years much less useful, though.  

For me, it was so important to read about my role in making sure that my hubby was an involved dad.  I was the oldest and babysat a lot growing up, so had much more experience than he did.  I made a point of sitting on my hands and letting him figure things out as much as possible.  I don't know if it was that book or on a website, but somewhere I read that when your first baby is born you are both on equal footing.  What often happens is that mom spends more time with baby in the first few months, and basically gets ahead early, making it difficult for dad to catch up.  So if mom changes most diapers and dad only does 1 or 2 a week, it's not surprising that dad isn't as good at it.  This makes dad feel like he's not a good parent, and everything flows from there.  

I was very lucky in that my father was an incredibly involved parent -- he did most cooking and cleaning, and put us to bed each night as my mom worked part time in the evenings.  This has screwed up my perception of gender roles (in a good way), and also created very high expectations for my husband -- which he has completely lived up to.  

My advice to new moms is to let dad do as much as possible, and let him do it his way.  It's worth a couple of diaper blow-outs to have a dad that feels like he can do things and learn things on his own.  

Interesting diary!  I'm on lunch break at the high school right now, so no time to comment substantively; more later.

-Alan

I have two daughters from two different relationships.  My eldest is 23 years old I had her at about 15 years. Her "father" has never been involved in her life. With my 4 year old, her "father" was involved while it was interesting for him.  Haven't heard from him since May 2005, I think.  So, I'm not very into having the father involved.  When my little one's father was around, I would not trust him with her, since I couldn't trust him with me (he was a a abuser- bad relationship choice, but I've got a great daughter). I couldn't trust his judgment.  For example, he wanted to take our daughter out in his car so instead of buying a new car seat, he bought a very used one from a garage sale. That was unacceptable to me, not just because it was used and dirty, but because I had done my research and I learned that it's not recommended to buy a used one as the buyer doesn't know if it had been in an accident previously. When I tried to tell him this, he got upset. His little ego was hurt, while I'm just looking out for my daughter.  
I don't like it when books try to blame moms for the fathers not being a active part of child caring. I didn't push him away, even though I preferred not to spend too much time with him, I made my home, myself available to him so he could be with his daughter and would have continued to put aside my discomfort/fear for my safety so that he he spend time with her if he chose to.  He chose not to. He moved away from CA, without even saying goodbye to his daughter.
I am glad there are men out there who are worth something and do their best to care for and nurture their families. Your husbands sound like really good, well adjusted guys.

My husband doesn't necessarily know what size shoes my kids wear, how much medicine to give or even how to get to their dentist's office.

But part of that, at least, is because I'm a SAHM and he works outside the home about 50 hours a week. So naturally, I am the one who takes the kids to the dentist and buys their shoes.

On the other hand, there's always a feeling I get -- wondering, what part of what I do is because I don't have another job, and what part is because I am a parent? For me, it's a hard question to answer. I tend to take on just about everything [making their lunches, all the prodding to get ready when it's time to go to school or church or wherever, making sure they have packed the right stuff when we're going on a trip] -- so is that because I'm a SAHM so that's what I do, or is it because I'm a control freak who won't let anyone else help, or is it because he doesn't think to check and see what the kids are packing, he just assumes it's either right or that I'll check on it?

I can't answer that one.

My husband has one comment/excuse he often falls back on - "But you're The Mom, they want you, not me." And you know what, the boys hear this and I think it's like a vicious cycle now! Ugh!
I have to give DH credit, he's a great cook and makes dinner pretty much every night. But I'm still the primary caregiver for the boys, scheduling, school, etc.
DH does a weird flip flop, wanting to be more involved, take them to appointments, but then he gets busy and it's all out the window.
Sheesh!

DH is a fully, equally involved father, which is a blessing, but requires a lot of negotiation! Both of us are very type A, take-charge people (which, I admit, is a lot of our mutual attraction), and only recently (after 8 years of knowing each other!) have we started developing ways to negotiate and communicate without fights.

I sometimes wish I could just go ahead and make decisions unilaterally, or say "this is the way it's done," but that just doesn't happen. But on the plus side, we all know (the three of us) that there is equality between Mummy and Daddy and that Jess can turn to us equally and be loved and cared for.

The most interesting aspect to all of this now is watching Jess develop her separate relationships with each of us. I'm a WAHM, and Jess and I have a strong bond, but relate to each other differently. I can be working on the computer, or cleaning, or gardening, and Jess can be in the same area doing her thing (books, toys, random mayhem) and just chatting back and forth quite independently. However, with DH (who works out of the house), Jess has a very intense, clingy aspect to her relationship at evenings and weekends; DH sometime complains that he doesn't get his Me Time at weekends as he'd like. Of course, when I offer to take Jess out or tell him to go out, he says he doesn't want to be away from His Girls, so there's the dichotomy.

My husband is much better at playing with the boys-even when they were pretty tiny.  I know we kind of fall into the role where he is the "fun" parent and I'm the caregiver but all in all we're cool.  He is pretty involved and hands on.   He works long hours so the boys are probably closer to me for comfort but their daddy hangs the moon as far as they are concerned.

He is very good about helping all around though.  I'm better at dressing the kids but then again he needs me to tell him what to wear a lot of them time so that's no surprise.

is that my son is always on my mind on some level.  I'm not preoccupied with him, but I always know where he is, who he's with, what his schedule is, what's coming next, haircuts, braces, homework, friendship stuff, self-image, yadda yadda yadda, both immediately and in the near and far future.  

My husband, on the other hand, will drop everything to take care of our son -- if I tell him what needs to be done.  He doesn't anticipate very well, and he can be "out of sight, out of mind" in a way that initially blew my mind.  He's more of a softy than me, partly because he doesn't see the big picture, partly because he's nicer than me.  Ex: If they're out renting a movie and DS asks for chocolate raisins at the cash register, DH will buy them to make DS happy.  I, on the other hand, will swiftly review the day's nutritional intake before making that decision, so the answer is often "no."  (More often, I'll talk to him about it in the car on the way to the shop, and we'll have an agreement about treats before we ever walk in.)  

DH will take a day off work to take DS and his friends snowboarding.  You could not pay me enough to sit in that cold lodge all day.  He'll empty the dishwasher, even though that's DS's job. I play board games; they send DH straight to sleep.  We fight over picking DS up from evening rehearsals and parties (we are both lazy about going out at night).  We also have to flip a coin about doctor's appts. where blood may be drawn or shots may be given -- they're not pretty.

I remember a professor saying "motherhood is over-determined, fatherhood is underdetermined," and that seems accurate to me.  I have chafed against the prescribed mothering role and often feel inadequate, while I notice that DH feels pretty good about his fathering, even though he's never coached a team or done lots of the other "good dad" things.  I'm trying to learn from that, because he's a damn good dad, Hallmark be damned... and maybe I'm not so bad, either!

I am so grateful that DS has both of us.