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Perfect Parenting Partnership

You’ve booked the hospital and decorated the nursery, but have you found time to discuss your new roles? Fran Molloy asks the experts the secrets to a perfect parenting partnership



The wild hormone ride of pregnancy marks the start of big, big changes in the relationship between most new parents. “It changes everything about how you are to each other,” says Anne Hollonds, CEO of Relationships Australia NSW. “Most couples underestimate how big the change is going to be, and are taken by surprise,” she says. In her line of work, she has seen that having a baby together can introduce “catastrophic change” to a relationship. Anne suggests expectant couples treat having a baby as a relationship crisis and make a strategic plan to deal with it, identifying relationship strengths and also addressing weaknesses. “Preparing ahead makes sense, because once baby comes along, you don’t have time or energy to do much else.”




Couples who have never had to pull together as a team before can have a big shock when a baby arrives, she says, because they are forced to confront their dependency on each other. As a new mother, writer Alison Osborne would watch her husband leaving for work while she was left holding the baby, and full of resentful resignation. “Our conversations became less about understanding and more about logistics. They changed from being supportive and encouraging to being spiteful gripefests,” she says.





But 20 months after their first child was born, and four months pregnant with their second, Alison came to an acceptance of her new role – and the couple have been far happier since. Wanting to understand her own relationship experiences as a mum, she has since written a book, The Post-Baby Conversation (Rockpool Publishing), based on her surveys and interviews of around 100 Australian parents with young children.





Alison says decades of academic discussion on women’s rights in the workplace and home have challenged our expectations of traditional male and female roles without leaving us with a clear replacement.
“Most couples don’t talk about who will do what post-baby and, as a result, most assume traditional roles,” she says. There’s still little consensus on how couples can balance the big increase in domestic responsibilities when a new baby arrives without one (usually the mum) feeling overwhelmed and under-supported, and the other (yep, dads, it’s usually you) feeling nagged, under-appreciated and neglected.





Alison suggests couples write down all the tasks involved in looking after a baby, and all other household tasks, then work out who will do what and when. “The two critical things most couples seem to experience is, firstly, suddenly having to share constant responsibility for a baby; and then when one partner returns to work, you’re suddenly living quite different lifestyles,” Alison says. “Couples often go from having quite similar work and social lives and a high level of understanding, to a situation where many women who are at home with a baby just don’t feel like their partner understands their life at all.”


The top 4 parenting hot spots

1. The issue: Unequal financial partners
Since their baby came along, Joel and Natalie have been constantly arguing over money. Joel thinks Natalie spends too much on things for the baby and meeting friends for coffee, and she feels like she has to justify every cent she spends. Natalie also finds it frustrating and a bit humiliating having to ask Joel for money. Alison Osborne says: It’s important for partners to acknowledge it was a joint decision to have a baby. If that has meant one of you is staying home to look after your baby while the other partner is out earning the money, then that money needs to be seen and referred to as the family’s, not just the earner’s. If that doesn’t happen when you give up paid work to do the childrearing, you can lose confidence and feel dependent, neither of which
is good for your wellbeing or the relationship. So sharing financial goals is really important after a baby arrives, as is both partners having some money of their own to do what they want with.
Try working out a weekly budget together that allows for this. Sharing the bill-paying and keeping both sets of eyes on the bank balance helps, too.

2. The issue: No knock-off time
Kate feels like she does both the day-shifts and night-shifts. Even when the kids are in bed, she’s cleaning the kitchen after dinner and putting toys away. “I might be watching TV, but I’m still ironing or folding washing,” she says. “When that’s done, I’m exhausted and I go to bed because I have
to get up to feed the baby at 3am.” Her partner Dave works a long shift as an electrical contractor and when he gets home, he helps with bathtime while Kate cooks. But when the children are in bed, Dave sits on the lounge and watches TV. “He just doesn’t get that I never clock off,” she says.
Anne Hollonds says: It’s best to negotiate ahead of time how you are going to handle the responsibilities in this 24-hour joint-venture that you’ve both committed to. That means deciding who goes out to work, who stays home, and what happens at the end of the day, because your responsibilities don’t finish at 6pm. Every couple really needs to work out for themselves what the right arrangement is because without negotiation there’s often resentment. Sometimes women are very possessive. They want to be the ‘baby expert’ and are reluctant to leave the baby with their husband, but this really works against their interests in the long run. You need to let him become competent and work out how to do things his own way, not the way that you would do it, so he develops empathy for what you are going through. If you’re always there, picking up after him and doing the hidden bits and pieces while he plays with the baby, he doesn’t see what else goes on.

3. The issue: Time away from the baby
Elizabeth admits she “lost it” with her husband recently when he announced plans for a weekend away in the lead-up to his best mate’s wedding. Exhausted and sleep-deprived, she “hit the roof” because he was going out for a good time and didn’t seem to realise that their lives had changed. Her husband reacted angrily because he thought it was unreasonable that she expected him to let his friend down by not attending. Alison Osborne says: When couples fumble their way into new parenting roles, there’s often chaos, confusion, hostility and resentment that ends in an emotional outburst. It’s usually the woman who feels resentment when her partner seems unable to either understand her situation or give her time-out, but simply carries on with his ‘old life’. Resentment develops when the needs of one person seem to be more important than the other’s. Resentful feelings can push couples apart, leaving each person feeling lonely or isolated and unsupported. Try to talk about a way that you can each support each other in having some much-needed down-time away from work, domestic stuff and your baby.


4. The issue: No time for each other – and no sex
Aaron feels his needs come last these days. “Even the dog gets more attention – at least he gets a hug,” he says. And he’s only half-joking. He says that partner Sarah has been completely focused on caring for their 6-month-old daughter, who shares their bed and wakes for a breastfeed sometimes during the night. Sarah is too tired to have sex and doesn’t seem to be interested in talking about anything but the baby. While Aaron loves his baby daughter, he says he really misses his ‘old’ partner.
Anne Hollonds says: It’s typical for sex to go off the boil in the first year after baby’s born. An older man once told me he wished he could tell younger men not to panic, that it’s just a stage and things will change and get better again. Men can often feel they are not considered of much importance once their baby arrives home, which can lead to a lot of very negative behaviour that can be extremely damaging in a relationship. And women are very prone to underestimating the importance of sexual intimacy to men as a form of reconnecting. It’s quite common for a mum who’s been breastfeeding all day to not want any more human contact, and to keep her body to herself. This is a tricky issue to tackle. Couples need to commit to each other to stay connected emotionally and physically in other ways through this period and, in time, the sexual intimacy will return. If you allow the shock of the change to drive you apart, it can be very hard to come back from that.

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