The Topline: Is Equal Partnership a Myth?

I first read All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers and the Myth of Equal Partnership, in 2019. I saw myself on almost every page because author Darcy Lockman described the sense of anger that had built in me over years of supposed “partnership” with my spouse, and she also articulated my bewilderment. I had married a good man and we had pledged to have an equal partnership. I would have even called him a feminist. I outearned him, got more raises and promotions and travel opportunities, and we (I thought) adjusted at home.

And yet I was exhausted, strung out on invisible and unpaid mental and manual labor, and I was lonely. Darcy’s book made me feel like someone had been reading my diary (not that I was keeping a diary, because who had time for that in the melee that was working motherhood?!)

So when the pandemic first forced families into lockdown in March of 2020, I knew Darcy was someone I wanted to talk to. Her perspective on couples and unpaid labor was one I really wanted to hear and have addressed, even as the dishes piled up around me from suddenly cooking every. single. meal. at home.

 Can you tell us a bit about your work and family set up as it's going right now?

Darcy: Sure, that's a funny question, because “set up” is such a boundary word. I have two kids, they're in third grade and sixth grade, seven and 11. And I am raising them with my husband in Queens, New York City. My husband and I are both psychologists, so we're both therapists working virtually now since the pandemic, and trading off hours in the office, so to speak, with kind of helping our kids manage getting to their e-classes and trying to keep track of homework and stuff.

We feel so lucky that we're in control of our schedules, because we're both self-employed. It's made this manageable. I constantly am saying to my husband, "I don't know how other people are managing this." If I had an employer and he did as well, I imagine it would be impossible. During typical working hours we are now either actually working, or helping our kids do school.

How did you divide that up?

Darcy: We divided it up by what our patient hours were. We had already even, back in March when this all started, we kind of worked things out so that one or the other of us would be available before 1:00, because that's when all their school stuff was happening. For me, full time as a therapist is 25 hours, and then I have two days for writing, which I was working on a new book proposal, and that's sort of gone by the wayside because that time is now devoted to making sure that my third grader can sit through her class or whatever the case.

We've been subletting space in our neighborhood to work in, because in a two-bedroom Manhattan apartment, you can't have two therapists and two children going to school all simultaneously. That really doesn't work. So, one of us actually leaves to go do our virtual work in another space, which has been really helpful.

How have your kids impacted your career overall?

Darcy: I don't know. It's a good question. I think again because I'm self-employed, I don't have the same sort of ladder-climbing trajectory that a more traditional career might have. I mean, I'm perfectly content more or less with my private practice, and I can devote as many hours to that as I want to eke out, and of course as few as I want to eke out I suppose, though there are financial constraints. As there are for everyone's working life. I have to work a certain amount, certainly. And then also, I went back to school later in life, so I went back to school, which is not uncommon in clinical psychology at 30. I had been a magazine writer before that, and then I had kids in my late 30s.

So, I was really starting my practice at the same time that I was starting my family, and those things just went really well together because it is so flexible. I was able because of the flexibility of my job when my kids still actually attended school to also use that time for writing, which is something that I really love. And that has fallen by the wayside.

So, I guess it's kind of like it is something I do for money, but writing is not primarily for money. It's more because I really enjoy it and can fit it into my work schedule. So that has fallen by the wayside, and I imagine a lot of women's projects along those lines that are absolutely necessary for falling by the wayside, and there's research as we talked about before we got on, that's showing that already.

The family study stuff is already showing that it's more women and less men who are being impacted professionally by the pandemic.

Do you feel like you have the conditions in your life that you need to be your most creative right now?

Darcy: No, are you kidding me? Not at all. I mean, within the traditional work week, and I don't really want to work more than 40 hours a week. I like to have other stuff on the weekends and whatever. No, because so much time is taken up by just making sure the kids are doing what they need for school. I mean, their physical presence in the house, which on one hand is lovely. I really do enjoy all the extra family time that we're getting, and I feel like my kids are at perfect ages for it, because they're not totally dependent and they also aren't teenagers yet.

So, we're enjoying this time on one hand, but no. I mean, time is much more limited for any personal pursuits that I might want to engage in.

Does your husband have those creative conditions in his life right now?

Darcy: No, definitely not. He doesn't want them in the same way, so it's different. But we're both either working to earn money or kind of overseeing what the kids need, doing laundry. I mean, we don't feel particularly strapped because again, because we have this flexibility with our schedules.

But there's no such thing as downtime as it would have been before, during the work week. Because our kids were in school and after school, so they were gone everyday, 8:30 to 5:00.

What would you tell other working parents right now who are trying to navigate this with a partner, married parents who are trying to figure this out?

Darcy:

Women are the one whose ambitions fall by the wayside when time is crunched.

And so, that's what we're seeing now. I saw that the number of papers being submitted to [academic] journals is way more heavily skewed in favor of men in the last few months, the assumption being that it's because women are taking on more of the at-home school stuff with their kids.

I think that it behooves us to examine our own internalized sexism and the assumptions we make about how everything should be our responsibility, and it behooves our partners to do the same, to think about sort of the impact of growing up in a patriarchy and on what our assumptions are about who is supposed to do what and who needs to do what.

Because it's only through examining those beliefs that we can really decide whether we want to behave differently, or simply kind of go with the status quo. But for it to be a real choice, we have to have a good understanding of what's going on beneath the surface, which is why I wrote this book, because I wanted to understand how things had gotten so skewed in my own egalitarian relationship. And also, for the women who I knew who found themselves in the same position.

Values have changed and a lot of progressive couples before kids will tell you of course they're going to share everything equally.

But what I learned in doing research for All the Rage was that attitudes do not predict behaviors and in fact, when behaviors start being apparently in conflict with attitudes, people change their attitudes as opposed to the other way around.

I do believe it's because so much of this is unconscious. We don't go into marriage these days, at least modern couples don't go into marriage saying, "All the housework and childcare is going to belong to the woman," even though she's going to work too and earn half our family's income or a significant portion of our family's income. We would never say that, and yet our behavior collectively certainly indicates that that's an underlying belief.

What is one thing that you personally have just let go of or quit caring about since this whole pandemic began?

Darcy: I think in some ways, everything.

The idea that we're doing the best we can under difficult circumstances sits pretty well with me.

I have let my kids eat more junk food. In the early days of the pandemic when everything was so tense, we left the city and rented a house in the woods for a while. And I knew that snacks would keep my kids happy, because I don't usually let them have much junk food. So, we loaded up and they loved it. And it was such an easy way to make them lighten up in a way, like be happier in a new environment. So, I have become less strict about junk food.

If you were going to design a t-shirt right now for working parents, what would it say on the front?

Darcy: Wash me. (Please help me with my laundry, I can't do it!)

What about a tradition that has started for the four of you, or a new thing that you've kind of started during this time that you like or want to continue?

Darcy: We started doing meal kits. We're doing Hello Fresh. There are so many of them right now, and it has made cooking so much easier, because you don't have to think about what you're going to make. It just arrives, and also the directions are very easy to follow. So, my husband who has never felt very comfortable in the kitchen can cook those meals and it's been really nice to have that. Yesterday, my younger daughter who's seven cooked with me, and I think I'm going to let my 11-year-old try it more or less on her own tonight, because it's so easy to follow.

So we're having more meals at home which I really enjoy. It's really nice not to have to rush anywhere, and I hope when things get back to normal somehow maybe we can instill not rushing to get places. I don't know how that would happen, but it's been really nice not to be rushing.

What have you done just for yourself lately?

Darcy: Well, I've been running a lot during the pandemic, which I really enjoy. My commuting time has been cut out of my life, so it's easy to go for a half-hour run when I no longer am doing a 90-minute commute.

What’s one question I didn't ask you that you think I should ask my next guest?

Darcy:  How they're feeling about everything, maybe? Mine changes from day-to-day. I feel very lucky to still be employed. If we were no longer able to earn a living, as I know a lot of families aren't right now, that would really put us in crisis. So overall, I feel lucky. We're all healthy. We love being home together. I mean, maybe not as much as we are, but it's pretty... It's a very comfortable time for us in this perverse way, because the world is so bad. I got really despondent when school started about the education that my kids were missing out on because I mean, as hard as everyone's trying, this remote stuff is not... I don't think they're learning very much. I don't know how to make it any different.

Clearly, full-time school isn't an option right now. So, I've been feeling bummed about that. My sixth grader isn't getting to go to middle school, which she was really excited about. There's so much that everyone has missed out on. Weddings, being able to be together at funerals, I mean, so all that stuff is hard. 

Thank you.

I'll just tell everyone one more time that your book is All the Rage. It's a wonderful read. It will help you with all kinds of issues at home, which you might be experiencing right now. So, thank you so much for being with us, Darcy. I really appreciate it.