In the year after Charlie was born, I didn’t do nearly as much as I could have to help raise my son — or even to help out around the house.  My excuse at the time was that I was working long hours at my job, which was true.  But when Bee got pregnant with Olive 13 months later, I really stepped up and did so much more for our family. It’s been over three years since then, and our household balance has been a lot more equal with two kids than it was with one. In the back of my mind, I’ve often wondered: what changed?

Charlie at 10 months.

I’ve been thinking about this for the past few years, and taking mental notes on how other couples make it all work (or not).  I’ve noticed that when there are unequal relationships, there are usually one of three dynamics in play:

* One parent is lazy, and the other one has to pick up the slack. (Hopefully this wasn’t me!)
* One parent is really busy at work, so the other parent has to do more of the parenting and housework. (This was my excuse.)
* There is a gatekeeper dynamic at play.  One parent knows the kid best and does things the “right” way, while the other parent tries to keep up — or, just gives up.

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In retrospect, I think that a bit of gatekeeper dynamic did start to emerge after Charlie was born. Once we figured out was going on, I was able to step up and become the dad I wanted to be. According to TIME magazine, it’s fairly common for gatekeeping to emerge after a child is born:

“A pattern is established in childbirth and breastfeeding that can be hard to break, observes Greg Allen, author of the blog Daddytypes. The mother becomes the expert first, then cringes as she watches her husband awkwardly stumble through his learning curve. As she hears the cries of her fragile infant, she can’t help but interrupt.”

This isn’t true for everyone, but it was definitely true for us. When our first son Charlie was born, Bee definitely climbed the learning curve first. She was better at everything: feeding, burping, bedtime, comforting, bathtime, etc. I felt I was doing everything wrong — not because it was pointed out to me, but because Charlie would let me know in no uncertain terms that I sucked at everything. Babies make for tough bosses! And if Charlie was crying while under my care, I’m sure it hurt Bee to know that she could make him happy again in just a few seconds.

Charlie at 21 months.

It’s depressing when your baby looks at you like you’re the second string parent: the parent that would only get called in if the first string parent broke her leg or had to go to the hospital for major surgery. But slowly, over time, I got better at this parenting thing. The breakthrough was simple: morning sickness!  Not mine, but Mrs. Bee’s. When she became pregnant with Olive, she got really bad morning sickness and so I took over things with Charlie (he was 14 months or so).  I handled night wakeups and early mornings for the next three plus years (and bathtime/bedtime once Olive came). I still wasn’t very good at them, but I climbed that learning curve just like any new parent and figured it out!

What was surprising to me is that it felt a lot easier to parent Charlie alone, than to parent him together with my wife. Sometimes she would offer me useful advice after I put Charlie down, like what worked for her when she was putting him to bed at night. In normal circumstances I’d view that as healthy communication, but for some reason I chose to hear her advice as criticism (sorry, honey!!). But pregnancy really knocked her out in the first trimester, through a combination of sleepiness and morning sickness. By the time she recovered, I had figured out the ropes and was a much better parent to our son. It was a lot easier for me to take her advice at that point, maybe because I felt more secure about my parenting.

Charlie at 2 1/2 years.

What I learned from the whole experience was that there was no reason I couldn’t have been a better dad (and husband) earlier in Charlie’s life. I made excuses to myself about being busy, but really I was just trapped in the gatekeeper dynamic — where my SO was better at parenting than me, and my son let me know it. In that state, I was somehow rendered unable to receive healthy advice and communication about how to best care for our child. Definitely not my best hour as a dad.

It’s coming on 4 years since those dark days, and hopefully I’ve made up for my early poor performance by becoming a better dad. I’ve noticed that I’m not the only one: with a lot of my guy friends, they also became much more involved dads when the second child came (and for similar reasons). If I knew now what I knew then though, Charlie’s first year would have been much easier for him and his mom and I would’ve stepped up right away.

Gatekeeping is defined a lot of different ways, but the definition I find most useful is this: it’s a dynamic that sometimes emerges when one parent is “better” at parenting than the other one. The dynamic can be draining to the other parent, who struggles to do things the right way — or just gives up entirely.

Here are some ways we’ve found to help avoid the gatekeeping dynamic:

* Make sure that each parent gets time alone with the kids. There’s something about 1:1 time with your kid that is a gamechanger. Your kid knows that they can’t just ask for the other parent, and you know that it’s all on you to figure things out. Both of these combine to make climbing the learning curve so much easier!

* Be really careful about criticism. I try to be really careful about saying things to my wife that could be perceived as criticism — especially on parenting topics. Now if I think our kids are at risk of injury, then I will of course always say something right away. Short of that, I try not to say anything about how she’s parenting — even if it’s different from how I would do it.

* Save comments for later. I think it’s really important to have healthy communication about differences in our parenting styles. But I’ve found that I’m more likely to hear it (and be heard!) if it comes later on in the day rather than in the moment and in front of the kids.

* If there’s something I’m doing “wrong,” we’ll see if we can rearrange responsibilities a bit. For example, I am not really capable of dressing the kids in cute outfits. One solution is to have the parent with better style post pictures of cute outfits near the dresser (I used to browse Bee’s Instagram to find cute outfits she had chosen for the kids previously). Or the stylish parent can layout a week’s worth of outfits ahead of time — and the less stylish parent (i.e. me) can dress the kids every morning without fear that the outfit will look terrible.

A lot of parents quickly reach a great household balance, and that’s great. Unfortunately that’s not where we netted out right away, so I thought I would share my experiences.

Has anyone else struggled with an unequal household balance, or with a gatekeeping dynamic?