The first weeks decide who does what later on

The division of tasks that arises out of necessity in the first weeks after the birth stays in place for most couples. Nobody decided on it, nobody negotiated it, and years later it is the normal state of affairs that people then argue about. This is well documented in German data, and it is the reason this topic is so stubborn.

What the figures say

The German Family Panel pairfam (Beziehungs- und Familienpanel) has followed several thousand people every year since 2008. An analysis by Dechant, Rost and Schulz from 2014 looked at 1,173 couples from it, 280 of whom became parents during the observation period.

Before the birth, 47 per cent of these couples shared the housework roughly equally. After the birth it was 24 per cent.

The share taken on by women rose from an average of around 53 to 74 to 80 per cent.

And the crucial point: even about three years later, the figure was still there. For the childless comparison couples, hardly anything changed over the same period.

So it is not a temporary state. It is a shift that stays.

Why it tips in the first place

In the first weeks there are good reasons for it, and none of them is unwillingness.

One is at home, one is not. Whoever is there during the day does whatever needs doing. In that moment it is the only sensible arrangement.

Breastfeeding ties you down. If one person gets up at night anyway, it seems obvious that she also takes on the night. That quickly turns into her taking on the morning too.

Practice makes faster. After three weeks, one person knows how the baby likes to be carried, in what order to dress it, when it is getting tired. That person then carries on doing it because it is quicker. The other stays at the level of week one.

The last one is the underestimated mechanism. The head start does not arise because someone is more talented. It arises because someone has had more repetitions. And the bigger the head start, the more pointless it seems to hand things over.

Why it does not go back

Because nobody has a reason to change it.

There is no day when parental leave ends and someone says: from now on we will share things differently again. Everyday life runs, it somehow works, and any change would mean extra effort at first.

On top of that there is something uncomfortable. The person who carries more becomes good at it over time. She knows when which check-up is due, which shoe size fits right now, whose birthday it is on Saturday. Handing this knowledge over is more effort than keeping it.

This creates a state in which both of you feel you have no choice.

The window that counts

From this follows something practical that hardly anyone says: the most important conversation about the division of labour takes place during pregnancy.

Not because you already know what it will be like. But because afterwards the capacity to negotiate anything is missing. If you argue on four hours of sleep, you are not negotiating, you are fighting.

If you are reading this and your child is long since here, the window is not closed. It is just narrower. Then it is no longer about dividing things up, but about taking things back, and that is more work.

How to take it back

Do not divide up tasks, divide up responsibilities.

That is the core. A task is handed over; a responsibility belongs to someone.

“Can you pack the nursery bag tomorrow” is a task. Afterwards, the thinking ahead is still with you.

“Nursery is completely yours from now on, including appointments, parents’ evenings and communication with the staff, I won’t ask about it any more” is a responsibility.

Reduce the knowledge gap deliberately.

Whoever takes on a responsibility needs, once, the information that is in the other person’s head. Go through it together once, then never again.

That feels like a waste of time, because in that hour it would be quicker to do it yourself. It is the price of not doing it yourself for the next five years.

Put up with it being done differently.

This is where most people fail, and not because of their partner. If you check up on it and correct it, you have not handed anything over, you have only delegated.

So start with an area where you can bear it if something goes wrong. Not with the most important one.

Ten minutes a week, at a fixed time.

What is coming up, what did not work, does anything need swapping. Always on the same day. This replaces the constant reminding, and it takes the topic out of everyday life.

The sentence that opens the conversation

The most common way in is a list of everything you do yourself. That is understandable and almost never works, because it lands as an accusation and the other person starts counting back.

It is better to start with what actually wears you out:

“It’s not that you do too little. It’s that I have to think ahead for everything. That is exactly the part I want to hand over.”

Many men hear it put this way for the first time in that moment. In my work I rarely see defensiveness at this point, but rather astonishment.

When nothing moves for months

Then it is no longer an organisational issue.

Then there is an agreement that one of you is not keeping, and that is a different conversation. It is then not about laundry, but about what agreements between you are worth.

That is uncomfortable and should be had early, because otherwise it turns into a silent bill over the years.

And if you take on tasks because otherwise there will be trouble, then that is not a division of labour, it is something else. The German helpline for women affected by violence (Hilfetelefon Gewalt gegen Frauen) is available around the clock and free of charge on 116 016.

What I would like you to take away

The way things are divided in your household is not a verdict on anyone’s character, neither yours nor his. It is the result of six weeks in which both of you did what seemed obvious at the time.

The good thing about it: what arose from circumstances can be changed by a decision. It just takes one that someone says out loud.

Source

Dechant, A., Rost, H. & Schulz, F. (2014). Die Veränderung der Hausarbeitsteilung in Paarbeziehungen. Zeitschrift für Familienforschung, 26(2), 144 to 168. Data source: Beziehungs- und Familienpanel pairfam (German Family Panel).