Confession time. I am NOT R and G’s primary carer. No, this isn’t a ‘The children have a secret Nanny’ and she writes my blog for me’ confession . Nor is it a ‘I don’t have twins and am actually a novel writer’ admission.
Dh and I actually share equal responsibility for the girls. Let me explain. Dh and I both work full-time. He does shift work, alternating between ‘earlies’ (working in the morning) and ‘lates’(working in the afternoon and evening) with the occasional week of night shifts thrown in for good measure. I have a more conventional 9-5, Monday to Friday job but work at home on Wednesday and Friday. The girls attend nursery on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.
The nature of dh’s work means that he often works at weekends and has rest days during the week. If he has a rest day on a Wednesday or a Friday, I might go into the office for an extra day. If he’s really lucky and his rest days fall on the girls’ nursery days, he drops them off, picks them up and has (much deserved) a day to himself in the middle.
A couple of weekends a month, I do the lions share of the childcare. I don’t mind too much but I always find that Friday and Saturday nights on my own are a bit of a killer. I also dislike Sunday afternoons because the girls are often irritable, I’m knackered from entertaining them for three days and I think we all look forward to nursery and work on Monday!
The division of childcare means that R and G have bonded incredibly well with both of us. I wouldn’t say that they necessarily look to me, as Mummy, for comfort and reassurance, as one might expect. R has phases where only Daddy will do and I don’t get a look in. However, if dh is at work she will happily sit on my lap for kisses and cuddles. G doesn’t mind who she goes to, as long as she receives plenty of attention but she sometimes has ‘moments’ where only Mummy will do, so it all works out fairly equally.
I have noticed that even though dh spends a huge amount of time with the girls and knows their routines, patterns, personalities, idiosyncrasies, illnesses and vital statistics inside-out, I am still treated as the primary carer by most people we come into contact with. Nursery will always phone me up if there’s a problem, even if dh has dropped them off that morning. Doctors tend to address questions about the girls to me rather than him. Back when we used to see health visitors (er, twice I think), dh would ask them a question and they would reply to me.
According to the National Statistics, two thirds of mums do some form of paid work: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1655 so someone is looking after the children while they do it. The childcare may come in a variety of forms: grandparents, friends, extended family, childminders and nurseries but I’m willing to bet that a fair few fathers have a more hands-on role than the stats might suggest.
Dh is around so much during the day that he almost had to take on more of a hands-on role, plus looking after twins is a mammoth job so we have to work as a team. I’m lucky that he wanted to be so involved because I genuinely couldn’t do it all without him. I would be a gibbering wreck.
In the excitement of pregnancy, many expectant fathers make lavish promises about the amount of time they will devote to their children and boast about how involved they intend to be. Some men (and women) find the burden of childcare so stressful that their good intentions turn to dust when the baby arrives. I’m grateful every single day that dh has kept his promises and is such a fantastic joint primary carer. We have good and bad days, but we are a great team.