Marc and Amy Vachon's blog

As some of you may know, we were profiled in this past Sunday’s New York Times Magazine in a piece by Lisa Belkin entitled When Mom and Dad Share It All.

This blog entry is written by Amy only. While Marc hung out with our kids, I chose last week to attend a summit meeting offered by a national coalition called the Campaign For A Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC). I had no idea what I'd be hearing, or whether I'd be spending two precious days of free time on a worthy endeavor.

"It is not possession of a womb that now holds women back, but its use." That's a line from a brilliant article published earlier this week in the British magazine New Statesman. As journalist Richard Reeves explains, in Britain the pay gap between men and women is virtually gone, until they become parents.

The American public, at least the part consisting of parents, is obsessed with measuring how much housework is done by women versus men. Statistics about men’s increasing involvement at home clog the blogosphere and newspaper columns– followed by discussion of how much MORE women still do. Many women would love to find a way to get more help from their husbands to even the load.

Exciting news from the US House of Representatives: a bill has been introduced by Senator Edward Kennedy and Representative Carolyn Maloney that mirrors flexibility laws in place in several European countries.

The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) has released a new report comparing the policies of 30 countries with respect to work/life balance.

On paper, having a husband who does half the housework, changes half the diapers, cooks half the meals, and schedules half the pediatrician appointments (without any reminding) sounds like heaven to most women. In theory, having a wife who brings in half the money and never, ever nags or directs him at home sounds like the perfect dream to most men.

The '08 Presidential candidates are beginning to discuss the family-friendly aspects of their platforms. Hillary Clinton, for one, has voiced her support of paid parental leave and expanded FMLA benefits, as well as grants for workplace flexibility leaders and an end to job discrimination for parents. We look forward to learning the details of her work/family proposals and those of her opponents in the coming months.

We are very excited about the birth of FamiliesRising.org! But before we tell you exactly why, we’d like to introduce ourselves. We are representatives of a subset of involved dads and moms who practice equally shared parenting. This means that both parents, in an intact family, share equally in breadwinning, housework, childraising and recreation time. No one parent rules the home; no one parent has the primary career. Both parents have deep intimate relationships with their children, and both have equal say in tending their childhoods. And both parents place a high value on time with each other, time to pursue hobbies, time to do what matters most to each individual. Right now, we are working to raise awareness of this lifestyle – its joys and challenges – through our website and blog at www.equallysharedparenting.com. We are looking forward to doing so through FamiliesRising.org as well.