I often get told how lucky I am that I have a husband who is hands-on and helps out, but am I really all that lucky? Yes, my husband is an amazing father. He is present in every aspect of our children’s lives, but he has to be. More importantly, he wants to be!
But let’s shift gears for a moment, and be real. It is not 1950. Society is not made up solely of working dads and housewives. No longer, is it solely the father’s job to bring home an income, so why should it be solely the mother’s job to raise the children?
It takes a village to raise kids. My husband is my village. I am his village. When we started out on this parenting journey together four years ago, we were all each other had— we still are. Being anything but hands-on was not an option for him. My family does not live nearby, and my mother-in-law was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease one year before our twins were born. Getting help just wasn’t in the cards for us. In order to survive newborn twins, (individually and our marriage) we had to work as a team. We decided from the get go that we would both be present, and we would both dive into the messiness of parenting. Boy has it been messy!
In those early days, we took shifts with our twins. We didn’t see each other much because we were both so neck-deep in raising babies. In fact, now with our third child it often still feels that way. But isn’t that what parents are supposed to do? And isn’t that what spouses are supposed to do? It’s called sacrifice. We make sacrifices for our children, and we make sacrifices for each other.
My husband wants nothing more than for me to be happy, and for our children to be happy. We both want to raise happy kids who feel loved by both parents. So for us, that means taking turns waking up with the kids in the morning, playing and reading together as a family, teaming up for bedtime routines, taking turns doing dishes, and the list goes on. So, you may look at me and think all of that makes me lucky. But maybe your husband cooks or does laundry. I’d say that makes you pretty lucky!
All jokes aside though, I love my husband for his hands-on parenting, and I do feel incredibly blessed by him. The amount of support that I feel from my husband is my favorite thing about us. It’s why I fell in love with him. He wants to do life with me, every aspect of it. I couldn’t have dreamed of anything more.
In this busy world we live in, we are all just trying to do the best we can. Husbands too. So if there’s something you wish your husband did more of, tell him! Marriage and parenting takes teamwork. And at the end of the day, you won’t be the lucky one for having a husband who is a hands-on dad, your children will be. They’ll be the lucky ones for having a dad and a mom who show and give love. We should all be so lucky!
Lovely