Before you became a parent, how did you envision the way you and your partner would handle parenting responsibilities and household management tasks to form an equal partnership? To what extent does the actual division of labor match your vision or expectations? If you’re like most families, there is a notable gap between expectations and reality, and that may be fine with you – or not!

Clinical psychologist and author Darcy Lockman, motivated in part by personal experience, has delved deeply into this topic and brings what she has learned to this fascinating and important conversation with Marti & Erin. She explores assumptions about hormones and of parenting, cultural trends in intensive mothering, peaks and plateaus in active fathering and the often invisible work of the “mental load” of parenting. Most of all, Darcy urges couples to talk together about how they want to parent, especially before becoming parents. But, as Marti & Erin note, if you didn’t start then, start now!

Make time to reflect (alone and/or with your partner) on how you share the responsibilities of parenting, both the visible and invisible tasks this week’s guest talked about. How do you feel about the equality of how the work is being done? How do you handle those feelings? What would you want to change and how could you begin with small steps, showing respect and sensitivity to your partner’s perceptions and feelings?

Related Resources:

All The Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership, click here.

Too often, Working Mothers Do Far More of the Childcare Than Their Husbands article by Darcy Lockman for TIME, click here.

Don’t Be Grateful That Dad Does His Share article by Darcy Lockman for The Atlantic, click here.

Dads Matter: The Role of the Father in Child Development and What Moms Can do to Help Dads Succeed podcast, click here.