Today is our 7 year wedding anniversary. It’s been 7 years full of great memories, can’t-stand-you tender moments, tears, laughs, sleep deprivation, two wonderful kids, career changes, life changes, great travels, fights, hugs, great conversation, and love.
Happy Anniversary dear hubby! Here’s to 7 more years of good luck, interesting adventures, good health, surviving parenthood, and happiness as we travel this journey of life together! 
A friend sent me a link to this article: Wedded to Work, and in Dire Need of a Wife in the New York Times by Shira Boss. My husband is great and does a lot of things to help with the kids and the house, but I’m still the one making sure the parties get planned, the thank you notes get sent, the gifts are bought for other kids parties, schedule the kid’s doctor’s appointments, etc. Mostly because my schedule is more flexible. I have to say I do love planning their parties though. Our son just had his 5th birthday party (I’ll blog about it later) and it was so much fun! 
Now that women have solidly earned their place in the work force, many find themselves still yearning for something men often have: wives.
“The thing I most want in life is a wife. I’m not kidding,” said Joyce Lustbader, a research scientist at Columbia University, who has been married for 29 years. “I work all day, sometimes seven days a week, and still have to go home and make dinner and have all those things to do around the house.”
It is not just the extra shift at home that is a common complaint. Working women, whether married or single, also see their lack of devoted spousal support as an impediment to getting ahead in their careers, especially when they are competing against men who have wives behind them, whether those wives are working or staying at home. And research supports their argument: it appears that marriage, at least marriage with children, bolsters a man’s career but hinders a woman’s.
One specialist in women’s studies dismissed wife envy as something women “are usually joking about” and another called it “a need for a second set of hands, regardless of gender.” But therapists who work with couples on equality issues say it is no joke.
“I hear it all the time,” said Robin Stern, a psychotherapist in Manhattan and author of “The Gaslight Effect.” “It’s a real concern. Things that used to be routinely taken care of during the week are not anymore.”
With two-income families now the norm, and both men and women working a record-breaking number of hours, the question has become how to accomplish what used to be a wife’s job, even as old-fashioned standards of household management and entertaining have been relaxed. Many men are sharing the work of chores and child care with their wives, and some do it all as single parents, but women still generally shoulder a greater burden of household business (or fretting over how to do what is not getting done).
According to 2006 survey data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, one in five men engages in some kind of housework on an average day, while more than half of women do.
According to an editorial written in the Austin American Statesman on June 12, 2007 called Multi-tasking men, women arriving at the same place, “The roles that American men and women assume have been seriously battered the past few decades, enough that men and women are beginning to resemble one another. In attitudes anyway.” It goes on further to say: “A recent compilation of the research, interviews and studies about gender roles found men and women growing more alike in their views, especially about parenting. Long gone are the days when males did the work, brought home the paycheck and had little to do with the children. Just as gone are the days when women stayed home with the kids, cooked and cleaned. ”
I have certainly seen the increased involvement from fathers in child rearing within my peer group, but I wouldn’t say those days are “long gone” because I know several moms who do pretty much all the (non-paid) work at home whose husbands do all the (paid) work outside the home.
I believe we are in the midst of an interesting shift in American/Western society.
While doing research for Babble Soft, I came across a company called Dad Labs. When I found out they were also located in
Austin, Texas (Hook ‘Em!), I had to meet them! So I contacted them and we had a laid back, friendly meeting in their (way down south) office/warehouse/recording studio a few weeks ago. Daddy Clay was nice enough to write a chuckle-provoking review of Baby Manager on his blog.
Troy Lanier, Clay Nichols and Brad Powell (the 3 dad-keteers) represent the ‘new’ dad: unashamed of participating whole heartedly in the lives of their children. What a great concept! An involved, hands-on dad usually means a happier, less stressed-out mom which usually means happier kids. I think Socrates (or was it Plato) came up with that logic: if A, then B, which ultimately results in C…just a guess. I wonder if either of those philosophers had kids? Hmmm. Maybe the dads at dadlabs will help enlighten other dads out there who just don’t seem to ‘get it’ yet. :-) Fortunately, I happen to be married to one of the enlightened ones…
Check out Clay’s interesting and sometimes awkward interview of the co-authors of Babyproofing Your Marriage. Also check out the dads’ nationally (at least regionally) acclaimed DVD: Due Dads - The Man’s Guide to Labor and Delivery. Yay Dads!
I just finished reading a new book called Baby Proofing your Marriage. I also recently met one of the authors, Stacie Cockrell. She is a fellow MBA grad from The University of Texas at Austin and happens to be married to a venture capitalist that interestingly my husband and I had met briefly almost 10 years ago! What a small world…or at least small town (Austin, TX).
This is a really great book! Funny, entertaining, and quick/easy to read. It’s been a top seller at Amazon.com soon after its release in January 2007.
Several of the situations described in the book brought back memories of when my husband and I had some of the same “heated discussions” when our kids were babies. I’m now seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and I think this book is a must-read for those still in the “trenches.”
The men will particularly appreciate Chapter 4, The “Sex Life” of New Parents: Coitus Non-Existus.
So if you are in Baby World or know anyone who is, this book will provide something interesting to talk about … and could save at least one trip to the marriage counselor.
