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113© 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted from Francine M. Deutsch, Halving it All: How Equally Shared Parenting Works, chapter 9, pp. 169-194 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). 5 Halving It All:The Mother and Mr.Mom Francine Deutsch Editorial note: For her book, Halving It All, Francine Deutsch interviewed dual-earner couples, who had children ranging in age from babies to teenagers. First looking for couples who equally shared parenting, she found them in day care centers, schools, and through word of mouth. Then she called all of these couples, asking them to estimate the overall division of child care in their families. Many said they were not equal sharers, but many—at least initially —claimed to divide child care 50–50. When she investigated further, with specific questions like: “How do you divide picking up after the children? Diapering them? Feeding them? Taking them to birthday parties?” the estimates changed. Reminded of the many tasks parenting entails, many of these mothers and fathers remembered how much more of this work mothers did. Then Deutsch added two other groups to the study: The first were those who never claimed to share parenting equally; the second was a group of alternating-shift couples—blue-collar couples in which husbands shared the care of their children by working different shifts than their wives. To be included in this latter group, the fathers had to take care of the children on his own at least 15 hours a week. While the men worked at their paid jobs, their wives were at home; while the women were at their jobs, their husbands were at home. By arranging their schedules this way, the alternating-shift couples did not have to pay for child care. They did not always share parenting equally, however. To be sure, some divided it equally (or were, in Deutsch’s words, “50–50” or “equal sharers”); more divided it unequally (some in which the mothers did a bit more than half, whom Deutsch labels “60–40”), and others where the mothers did the vast majority of the child care (those Deutsch refers to as “75–25”). In the chapter we have included here, Deutsch examines the ways these alternating-shift couples divide parenting and the ways they explain and understand that division. Deutsch observed these couples. She talked to them about parenting—how they thought about it and how they behaved as parents. As Deutsch writes in the book: “I included them because their involvement debunks middle-class stereotypes that hard hats wouldn’t be caught dead changing diapers. They make eminently clear that the ‘revolution at home’ is not simply an uppermiddle -class phenomenon.” For these very same reasons, we chose for this book the chapter in which Deutsch analyses these alternating-shift couples. If you stopped to watch at the construction site of a new office building going up in Worcester, Massachusetts, you might catch a glimpse of Stan pouring cement for the foundation. Stan is a lean, muscular, good-looking guy whose job as a laborer in the 114 Francine Deutsch construction industry means hard work for low wages. Some facts about Stan would probably not surprise you. A high school graduate, Stan is an avid Red Sox fan, thinks his mother is the world’s best cook, and is known among his friends as a great storyteller. As you might expect, especially once you know that he is the father of two children, Stan worries about how to make ends meet. However, if you believe, as I did once, that the gender revolution of today is limited to affluent, highly educated families, you might be surprised to find out what Stan does when he gets off his shift.1 Every day at 3 P.M., Stan rushes home just in time for his wife, Maureen, to go to her job as a retail clerk at a convenience store nearby. From 3:45 until 10 P.M., when Maureen gets off, Stan is home taking care of his two daughters, 4-year-old Annie and the baby, Sarah, now 7 months old. Stan plays with them for a while, gets them their dinners, gives them baths if Maureen hasn’t already done so, and puts them to bed by 8:30. Usually he washes the dinner dishes, but sometimes he leaves them for Maureen because he wants to relax after the kids are in bed. In his wildest imagination, Stan never pictured...

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