tl;dr
- New parenting gives us new challenges and we are missing role models, behavioral patterns and out-of-the-box solutions, so there is merit in sharing the contemporary experiences.
- The institutions are not created with working parents in mind and we need to create awareness of our needs to influence change.
The Goals of this Blog
We live in a situation of extraordinary fast technological and social change. Those becoming parents these days are confronted with very different challenges than those met by their parents and grandparents. Our careers, housing situation, understanding of gender roles (and what not else) look rather different from what was a norm at the 80s or 90s.
The social expectations on parents are often controversial and mutually exclusive. Social media are making our lives transparent and tend to create even more pressure to compare ourselves to some impossible and unrealistic standards.
We want to be involved parents, we try to give our children organic food, body contact and nonviolent communication.
The new challenges and our own wishes to parent differently as we were parented often are overwhelming. We are missing role models, behavioral patterns and out-of-the-box solutions. And this is true for parents of all genders, though the exact challenges might be rather different for mothers and fathers.
As we were considering how to share our first parental leave, the current model we are living was not even on the table, because we were unaware that it is possible. Although this is the model that works best for us.
So one of the main goals of sharing our experiences is to show one of the many possible ways to solve this challenge. We are hoping to inspire other people to search for models that are best fitting their families, their desires and their lives.
On the other hand, deciding to divide both care work and professional work in a non-traditional manner, poses unexpected difficulties. The whole system of career, childcare, parental leave etc. was not exactly designed with the idea of both parents being equally invested in their jobs as well as family. We often need to be creative to overcome the system, rather than being supported by it.
Though it might be rather unnerving, we found out that many institutions and rules are not created this way to deliberately exclude some groups, but rather happen to be created and are maintained by people who are clueless of the needs of e.g. working parents. Therefore, we need to get loud to create awareness and influence the change. And this is the second goal of this blog.
Non-Goals
This blog is explicitly not about showing someone a better way to parent, to judge other people’s choices or to create any pressure on other parents. This blog is also deliberately not about complaining or showing off.
Therefore I feel a need to add a disclaimer about parenting and being privileged. Having this in mind, I might still collect enough courage to write publicly of our private experiences. As “the personal is political”.
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