How can parents do a better job of sharing responsibility for the children?

Transcripts

Host: How can parents do a better job of sharing responsibility for the children?

Dr. Diana Zuckerman: I think in today's society, we frequently have two parents who are both very over extended, maybe they are both working, they are both trying to help raise the children. They are both trying to keep the house looking good. There is all kinds of things going on in their lives. It's just very important that parents talk to each other about how to split up their responsibility so that you don't end up with one parent feeling very stressed out and resentful of the other parent. So, I mean different people have different ways of dividing things up. In some families, one parent is working part-time and the other parent is working fulltime. In some families one parent is working two jobs and one parent is one job or one parent is working one long job and the other parent is not working outside the home. So, how they divide up those responsibilities should reflect their other responsibilities as long as there are other responsibilities or something that both parents have talked about together. So, in other words, if one parent is working ten hours a day and the other parent doesn't want them working ten hours a day, they want them helping out more at home then the parent who is working ten hours a day can say; well I don't have to do this. I don't have to help with homework. I don't have to help with dinner because I am already working ten hours a day. Well, not exactly. So those are things that parents really need to talk to each other and I think talking to each other and thinking it is really not just waiting till you are so mad that you are screaming at each other but talking to each other about how things are going and how you can divide things up and talking about it on a regular basis should really help a lot.