This past weekend L. had a friend over for a play date. The weather was gorgeous, temperatures in the upper 60s, so the kids were out in the backyard playing. I made my way over to the hammock on our back porch, contemplating a brief rest in there while the kids were occupied. L.'s friend J. saw the hammock and swung it slowly back and forth with his hand, in a contemplative way that is usually quite uncharacteristic of this particular kid.
Mrs. M., does L.'s dad take naps in the hammock a lot? He asked, looking at me seriously.
No, I answered with a smile. The big hammock-napper is ME, actually.
J.'s eyes grew big and round with surprise. Really? He said with astonishment. 'Cause I thought it was the DADS who napped in hammocks, not the MOMS.
I was completely amused by this, by the thought of where J. had picked up this strange idea about parental roles, and how this extended to hammock-napping. I thought about my own father, who naps often and easily on couches and chairs, but doesn't own a hammock, and about my husband who really isn't much of a napper, although I suspect he would be if he had a spare moment. Mostly, though, J.'s comment made me think about how kids develop these preconceived notions about the roles moms and dads occupy, or are supposed to occupy, and how surprised they so often are when reality clashes with how they imagine things should be.
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My husband and I tag-team parent. We coined this expression years ago, when L. was just born. We were both graduate students juggling coursework, teaching and work. We arranged our schedules carefully so that we would be able to switch off care of L., often in the parking lot of the local Burger King just outside the bus stop where the campus shuttle pulled up several times a day. I would wait in the car, sometimes hurridly nursing L., until I caught sight of the school shuttle rounding the corner of Monroe Avenue. Then I'd grab my bag and L., and rush out to meet Scott. The bus driver knew us well and would wait, engine idling, while I passed off our precious baton and boarded the bus myself, heading into my other world.
Because we've managed to keep this craziness up somehow through job changes and a second child, we've both been able to have fairly equal roles in taking care of our children. The hard part for both of us has been trying to find a niche we fit into. I don't stay home full-time because I work full-time, yet I am home part-time with one or both kids. My husband also works full-time, yet he is often home in the mornings with T. and he's the one who takes both kids to school most mornings. Scott takes T. to story times and museum outings in the morning, or sudden sick visits to the pediatrician's office. He brushes her hair in the morning, gets her on and off the potty, dressed and out the door. He knows how much cinnamon to add to her oatmeal in the mornings, and he even knows more than I do about the clothing she likes and dislikes (don't put THAT underwear on her, he told me one day about a perfectly reasonable-looking pair of Care Bears underwear. She likes the bigger, looser pairs and those leave an elastic mark! I deferred to him without argument and picked out Little Mermaid ones instead). And while I do think I do better braids and pony-tails than my husband, and I always remember turn in L.'s homework folder, my husband is much better getting the kids out of the house on time without raising his voice.
We complement each other, Scott and I. We've elevated tag-team parenting to an art form, one which involves us constantly stepping into each other's shoes from time to time; picking up where the other has left off, filling in at the drop of a hat. In the process, we keep them on their toes, these kids, with their ideas about the comings and goings of parents, and of what moms and dads should or shouldn't be doing--hammock-napping included.