How to Damage Your Marriage

Normally, Carolyn Hax offers solid advice in her Washington Post column. Today is not one of those days. Upon receiving a letter from a woman who has been cursed with the task of caring for two toddlers, Hax offers to explain how she should force her husband to do more to care for the toddlers.

The letter writer and her husband have two older boys, ages 11 and 14. She does not tell us the gender of the two toddlers, aged 3 and 1. She is seriously torqued at her husband because he is going back on his word. You see, when the couple was trying to decide whether to have more children, husband agreed to get more involved with caring for the new babies.

He has not lived up to the terms of his agreement. Literally. Instead, horror of horrors he has become more active in the lives of his older boys. Apparently, the put-upon Mom took one-too-many Women’s studies classes and believes, as an article of faith, that men and women are the same, and thus, that it does not matter who plays mother to babies and toddlers.

The unfortunate part is that Hax does not know any better either. To her great discredit.

Here is the text of the letter:

So about four years ago, my husband and I decided to have another set of babies. Our older two were 9 and 7 at the time, and my husband and I were very young when we had them — 23 and 20 — so we thought we'd have another go at babydom. This was after many lengthy conversations about how my husband was going to have to be a lot more helpful this time.

When my older boys were little, I was responsible for 99.99 percent of child-related tasks, which as you know takes a huge toll. I was naive and chalked it up to the fact that he and I were both so young at the time that we didn't know what we were doing, had no friends who were in the same place in life, etc.

He said, yes, things would be different this time. He would help at bedtime, bath time, mealtime, diaper changing time.

Well. Guess who didn't rise to the occasion? Our Littles are now 1 and 3. I am back to doing 99.99 percent of the child-related tasks, but with a catch. My husband is a fantastic older-kid dad. He takes the Bigs fishing, hiking, boating and to all of their sporting events.

So I'm thinking only another two years until I'm back on Easy Street! Problem is, Easy Street is ANOTHER TWO YEARS AWAY!!!!! And I'm so tired. I stay at home and these Littles are killing me. I resent the fact that my husband isn't more help even though I probably should have seen this coming.

How do I get through the next two years?

— These Littles Are Killing Me

Hax recommends that the woman stand her ground. That she never, never back down. That she lean in, assert herself, and insist that her husband keep her word.

If the young mother or any other mother takes the advice, she will be undermining her marriage. It is bad, even dangerous advice. Ignore it.

Fair enough, Hax has a point, dull as it is. The husband did agree to help with baby care. 

Unfortunately, given the biology of the gestation process a pregnant woman’s brain rewires itself to make it more able to care for babies, infants and toddlers. The rewiring involves circuits that allow for greater empathy, thus for more aptitude at reading non-verbal cues. A father’s brain undergoes no such rewiring.

A woman who does not understand this and who resorts to constant complaining has overdosed on feminist ideology.

For reasons that escape me, Hax believes that it would be a good thing for this mother to reverse roles with her husband. While he is chasing after toddlers she will be going with her older sons to their sporting events, as well as to fishing, hiking and whatever. Do you really believe that boys in that age group want to go fishing with their mother? And do you not understand that relegating their father to diaper duty will look to them as a humiliation.

If so, there is no way the husband can accept these conditions.

Anyway, Hax counsels confrontation. She rejects discussion. She wants this women to force herself on her husband. She has not the least glimmer of awareness that this is a dangerous tactic… one that will make the father look weak and to lose face in front of his boys.

Hax writes:

There’s no magic here. You just switch. “I’ll take the Bigs to their sporting events today; you stay with the Littles.”

Not just once, but alternating. Every other time.

If your husband balks: “Remember your promise going into this, and why you made it.”

If that’s not enough: “I’m as responsible as you are for letting it get to this point. For things to be ‘different this time,’ as we agreed they’d be, I needed to be different, too, and I wasn’t. I was too quick to step in.

“But now it’s time to fix that. I’m burned out, you and the Littles need to bond, and I need to spend catch-up time with the Bigs.”

Take the issue to a marriage counselor or parenting class if you must.

But do not back down. You are good at wrangling Littles and he is not, but not because he’s incapable and (by your account) not because he’s a disengaged or negligent father. Unlike you, he simply had you to default to, never got the experience you did, and so never built the confidence, either — and people who aren’t confident tend to drift into spectating hard work as the confident people take over. It’s an old story.

Would it have been preferable for him to have sought that experience and confidence on his own initiative? Obviously. But these are the personnel and circumstances you’ve got, and apparently they indicate the best way for him to step in and get this experience is for you to say, “Your turn,” and then step out of the way.

And what will Hax advise when he simply walks out, either on the chores that she thinks he must perform or on the marriage altogether?

It's genuinely awful advice, from someone who normally offers very good advice. A sad day, indeed.