I just got through reading the New York Times Magazine article, “When Mom and Dad Share it All” and although I was initially enthusiastic, as I read more I felt increasingly convinced that on some levels, the “equal parenting” model felt contrived, a kind of new social construction.
The family tableau
One of the couples interviewed for the story, Marc and Amy Vachon, seemed to have figured out (with considerable effort on their part) an “equal-parenting” model and are evangelists for the ESP (equally-shared parenting) lifestyle. However, the article’s lead in photo disturbed me.
It had obviously been digitally altered to give it that odd, flat 70’s-era brownish duotone. The family of 4 are likewise engaged in some rather disjointed activities. The mom, Amy, is seated at the upright piano (looking eerily like my junior high school chorus teacher) while her daughter is very intently playing violin. Her son is happily whacking on the tambourine, oblivious to the “serious” music his mother and sister are making. But the most telling detail? Just to the left, partially obscured by the frame, is the dad, folding laundry.
I’m not knocking the Vachons’ intentions, which are admirable, but the photo looks almost as staged as the “Domestic Bliss” photo session Brangelina did for W magazine, perpetuating the prevailing American myth of the ideal family structure.
Dystopia, or, this is how it really is
The composition is a visual commentary on the inherent emptiness of the obligation to fulfill roles, and that establishing “fairness” can also create unintended effects. It struck me that Marc Vachon is relegated to the sidelines, much as dads have usually been - even though he’s set up as the exemplar of the involved dad/partner and counterpoint to the statistics bearing witness to how women primarily assume the bulk of the mundane household chores. Instead, it’s Amy Vachon, with her perfect posture, nodding her head in time with the music, that functions as the picture’s subject.
As a feminist, I guess I’m supposed to feel a voyeuristic tingle of excitement: Amy doesn’t have to wash those tighty-whities if she doesn’t want to! And yet, why do I keep feeling like this insistence on absolute equality comes with a price somewhere in the deepest recesses of our emotional existence? One thing that my husband points out to me from time to time, which is as instructive as it is troubling, is that even though he may take on more responsibility for chores around the house or caring for our daughter, I don’t necessarily seem any less tired or stressed out than I was before – even though I do appreciate his involvement. So maybe parents are really battling something bigger than who does the dishes or puts the baby down for sleep at night.
We are not Devo (or Brangelina, for that matter)
The article itemizes how the Vachons negotiated household chores, daycare roles and work schedules and eventually achieved an enviable level of partnership parity, but as the saying goes, a picture tells a thousand words. Just as the Brangelina spread was attempting to mythologize a family tableau that never actually existed for most people, the Vachon family tableau doesn’t exist for most families either.
What I think what struck me the most in that photo was that no one, except maybe the son, looked like they were having a good time at all.
