A Formula for Household Harmony?

An egalitarian marriage is the gold standard, right? Who wouldn’t want to split parenting and household duties down the middle? No archaic gender roles, no downtrodden spouse, no distant parent… How modern! How admirable!

Our family works pretty much this way and I can’t imagine doing it otherwise. We never consciously decided that we wanted to use this model–it just came naturally to us. We’re philosophically committed to equality and fairness. But we are also both opinionated and bad at ceding control, which hints at the flaw in this system. In our house it is exemplified by the Stroller Incident.

When our daughter was a few months old we traipsed out to baby big-box land to buy a stroller. And we stayed there for over three hours. We tested every model in the store. We debated the merits of their size, steering and storage capacity. We agonized over price and portability. Six different sales associates tried to help us, and all, eventually, gave up. We didn’t really argue, but by the time we finally chose and purchased one we were completely fed up with ourselves and each other. It’s just a stroller, for heaven’s sake!

But that clarity of perspective is rare for us. Sharing responsibility for household tasks opens every one of them up for discussion. How often should the baby get a bath? Should we have spaghetti or linguine with dinner? Where should we take the car to have the tires rotated? At best this is a waste of time and at worst it’s an invitation for acrimony. Since the Stroller Incident we have tried to more consciously streamline decisions, especially for small things. But we still have a hard time letting the trivial be trivial.

Recently we visited some friends whose household is much like ours, and they proposed a simple but revolutionary solution–taking turns. Not some loose and friendly version of taking turns–think Middle East peace deal here. Every day one person would be in charge of making all insignificant decisions, and the other would not be permitted to argue, object, suggest, question, or otherwise interfere. Decision-making power would alternate between spouses according to a predetermined formula–each gets 3.5 days/week, for example, with a power handoff at lunchtime on the seventh day. Or one gets 3 days and one gets 4, with rotating control of the extra day. There would be strict guidelines about what qualified as an insignificant decision, and when consultation would be required.

I recognize that to those who do not share this particular brand of family madness this scenario surely sounds absurd, but I am drawn to it. Would it work? Could we respect the rules? Would it be sustainable? Would it teach us to let go? Would we eventually be able to abandon the formula and keep things in perspective on our own? And then the big one–would we really be happier that way? I don’t know, and I don’t know if we’ll ever try it, but if we do I’ll share a full report.