Six months ago, my wife and I were blessed with a baby daughter. Despite this new addition to my life, I found my time still being consumed by my nerdy passions. I imagine most new nerd parents are the same: you love your child, but you really need to finish the newest issue of Saga or grinding through that Destiny dungeon. Personally, I kept finding my geek side wanting to take time away from my dad side.
Spending too much time on geeky projects was driving a wedge between my wife and me. It also caused me to miss some important moments in my daughter’s life–moments I was never going to get back. In order to truly remedy this problem, I knew I needed to do something. I started brainstorming, and here are the results:
Meal Planning
My wife is a stay-at-home mom, so cooking is one of her many tasks. On a normal day, she would message me while I was at work hoping for ideas for dinner. The default response was simply “food.” Not exactly helpful, but my head was surely filled with code and solving other work-problems so I didn’t have the bandwidth to really contribute.
The solution? Plan dinners on a weekly basis. We have a few staples that we have every week: Tuesdays we have Mexican and Thursdays we always have pizza or pasta. That just leaves us with five days a week to plan. Not only does it mean that my wife has more time to plan what to do with the meal she’s cooking, but I can also run to the supermarket once or twice a week instead of daily, meaning more time at home.
My wife is the superior chef and enjoys cooking, but I’ve volunteered to at least give her one day off a week. Saturday is the night where I sometimes cook whatever I want, though mostly the wife gives me a challenge based off what she’d like to be treated to. Last week I made braised short ribs for the first time ever. It was challenging but fun. We got the recipe from the Brown Eyed Baker. That site is a treasure trove of great recipes.
Call Dibs on at Least One Chore Your Partner Hates
My wife loves to cook but she hates the dishes. After working hard on a wonderful meal, it’s sometimes hard to muster the energy to clean up. I’ve taken over doing all dishes when I’m home–even if I’m the chef. Chances are your partner is already handling a lot of the unglamorous chores that you don’t have to worry about, so taking one on yourself is going to help them get some much needed downtime. Chipping in is also a great example for your child, at least according to this recent study.
Schedule Partner- and Baby-Time
It is so easy for me to zone out into my work, and for hours to pass by without me realizing it. I’ve spent entire weekends curled up with my laptop, catching up on side projects without putting much thought to my surroundings. To combat that, I’ve tried to push myself to have certain boundaries, times I’m not allowed to engage in “passion project time.” The big one is when I first get home from work. From the time I get home until the baby goes to sleep, the laptop stays closed and my attention is on my family. Every night I bathe my daughter before my wife puts her to sleep, and they have my attention until she’s down for the count.
My commute is a short one, as I live only fifteen minutes away from work. Almost every day I run home for lunch. It gives the wife a break from the baby, and it gives me a break from the harsh realities of work. Eating lunch at home also helps our budget, so if that’s something else you can do I can’t recommend it enough.
Be Your Partner’s Enabler
If your partner has a passion of their own (geeky or otherwise), try being their enabler. Some of my wife’s big passions are reading comics, watching football, and writing her own stories. On weekends I try to block off time where I watch our daughter so she can get some writing done. I’m also trying to think of new comics to introduce her to that she’ll really enjoy. The most recent was Preacher, since she has a penchant for the South and her favorite comic is Hellblazer. She’s quickly become a fan. As for football, I’m actually not a fan. However, I was definitely not going to try to get between my wife and her game. We watch together whenever we can, and because of this I’ve gained some interest in the Packers. Whether it’s helping clear your partner’s schedule so they can engage their passions or just surprising them with a new comic, they’ll definitely appreciate it.
I still have a lot of work to do before there’s a perfect balance between my geeky passion projects and my family life, but we’re working on it. Sometimes that’s enough. Let me know in the comments of other ideas you have to help out your partner!
[Note: This post was originally published in 2015, but holds true today.]
Great post, Hex, and something I certainly hope we see more of on GeekDad: how to co-parent effectively. I’ve been married for over a decade, and we’ve had kids for eight of those years. I’ve only recently learned how important it is to enable your partner’s hobbies and take over their least favorite chores, but what a difference it’s made. It helps to reduce the “scorekeeping” mentality that goes on when you have a lot of shared responsibility. The term “helpmate” has some troubling historical and sexist connotations, but it’s a good way to look at your relationship with your partner.
Thanks! Yeah when given the chance for writing for GeekDad, this article kept bubbling to the top of my head. It’s tough enough juggling one child and both of us trying to keep our nerdy passions “fed.” These tactics were recent additions to our life and have had amazing results in our attitudes towards the daily tasks and each other. I totally agree that “scorekeeping” mentality is one that creeps up but is totally toxic. By shifting everything to being a team, it makes everything better!
Good post. You’be made some great observations. Here’s something that I was introduced to when my son was 2 and it has made a world of difference in our relationship.
Regularly scheduled Date night. It can be weekly, biweekly, the first Friday of every month, or whatever fits your schedule, but schedule it. Find a babysitter you like and agree that they will show up on schedule unless specifically cancelled.
We’ve done weekly date nights and have done romantic dinners, movies, we,ve even gone grocery shopping. Some times we go out with other people and we’ve shared a sitter. It has been a huge help in keeping the lines of communication open.
That’s the big thing. Because as your child grows up, other life things happen and what works today will need to be changed tomorrow. When my son was born, my wife was stay at home and I worked longish hours. Now, 13 years later, I’m a work from home part time dad and my wife works the long hours. That means we’ve had to renegotiate responsibilities several times over the last 13 years.
Good work Geek Dad! Game on!
I was actually tempted to include Date Night as a tip! I’ve been trying to make it happen at my house but by the time we get to the end of the week, we’re just both so exhausted that curling up and watching old Futurama episodes have been the nicest sounding course of action. Glad you enjoyed the article!
We almost never get a night off from both kids, but thankfully the in-laws live nearby and can handle at least one of them overnight. So our semi-weekly “date night” means putting the remaining kid to bed early, cracking open some wine and assembling tapas. Then we watch TV, movies, or play games. It may not be dinner and a movie out, but it’s close enough.
Good post! For us we go a little farther: as a rule, we try to have at least one day a week of fish, and another of veggie.
We have fish once a week, so it’s practically a staple on our weekly meals. I’m a bit too carnivorous to go a night without some big protein though…
Great post, I think I was still too shell shocked at the 6 month mark, to write anything that coherent!
Something we’ve added recently is a slow cooker. It means you can prepare stuff together the night before, or alongside the other doing the chores. Chuck it all in the pot, then switch it on in the morning to bubble away all day. It can be a bit of an extra burden that night, but the next day there’s almost no cooking or washing up, which converts to more time and extra energy for some quality time that evening. It’s not something to do every night, but once a week or so is great.
Yeah, our slow cooker has been amazing to have around the kitchen. We used it on Christmas when we had family over. My wife made an amazing Breakfast Casserole. http://www.browneyedbaker.com/slow-cooker-sausage-hash-brown-cheddar-breakfast-casserole/
I won’t tell the wife the REAL reason you adopted the Packers (it was the Cataan sessions, admit it!) Great article! My wife and I have been married for twenty years and we’ve always found sharing household duties to be the best course of action. That and I indoctrinated her into my geeky hobbies early on – she plays a mean Druid on DnD nights.
Oh she’s very aware of my geeky reasons for digging the Packers. It also helps that their quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, is renown for making obscure Princess Bride references. They’re also the only NFL team that is not-for-profit and community owned.
… not that I did a lot of research to have reasons to not argue with my wife why they’re the best team or anything…
My wife tends to go to bed early and being the night owl, I take advantage of it by focusing on my hobbies after the kids are in bed by 9:30 (I usually turn out by 11). My wife and I agreed (though it doesn’t always happen on schedule) to have movie/game night two nights a week (Thurs and Sat usually). With my kids 8 and 10, I know they will have incomplete homework and lack of sleep if I let my geek time interfere with priorities!
I’m actually a morning person, so I get up a few hours before work so I can get a lot of my work done over breakfast. We’re trying to have a movie/game night, but I think we’ll more have to wait until the daughter grows up a little more.
Wait till you have a second one.
😐
I thought things were rough with our first son. I honestly didn’t know if we would make it through his third year and stay together. But we did and all was getting better after his 4th birthday. Then we figured out she was pregnant again, this time unexpectedly.
Shellshock doesn’t even begin to describe it.
My oldest is about to be 7 and youngest is about to enter the 3’s (screw the terrible twos, for us the 3rd year was far worse). My wife and I are already so strung out we don’t know what to do most of the time. I’m dreading this next year. It is inconceivable to me how anyone not independently wealthy manages more than two children these days.
So far we’re happy with just the one and I don’t really foresee that changing. If not for the incredible generosity of our family we definitely wouldn’t have gotten as far as we have with our little girl.
Awesome post! I remember when my daughter was 6 months old and we did something similar. We were both working and gave each other an “off night” which meant the other person handled all child-related duties for that night (barring emergencies) and got to do their thing. It helped a lot for us to feel like ourselves again and to get back to the things we love.
As she has gotten older, it’s actually become pretty cool, because we can share things with her. She’s 4 and she plays board games like Sentinels of the Multiverse with me or plays a healer in Star Wars: KotOR with my husband, we geek out about coding and science and math, and she even excitedly shares her own interests with us (I know more about Skylanders and Supergirl than I ever thought possible).
The beginning is the hardest adjustment, but getting it down helps A LOT! It won’t be perfect (I have a sincere work-a-holic mother’s day card from a 3 year old to prove that), but making the “after-work until bed-time is family-time” rule stick is crucial.
Best of luck and congratulations on getting things somewhat figured out! 🙂
Thanks!! I really can’t wait until the little girl starts interacting on a communicative way and having her own interests. And yeah, it’s sometimes tough to stick to the “after-work” rule, but it’s definitely worth it.
Yeah, and it will be more worth it later! The first year is hard, but it gets better.. then worse.. then better… …
But eventually they get to be fun little geeks, and you can totally share all the coolest moments with them!
😀 I cannot wait!!