Pre-Pregnancy Contracts for Prospective Parents
Pregnancies, and, of course, the newborn babies that follow, involve a lot of work. So, some people have gone a professional route and decided to draw up contracts or at least formalize the roles that each parent will assume in taking care of the baby.
These pre-pregnancy contracts detail how parents will divide their chores and duties around the house and with taking care of the newborn.
Relationship therapist Sherry Amatenstein recommends that it would not hurt to draw up some sort of contract. But dotting every I and crossing every T may not be necessary and indeed may be impossible. Much of parenting is innate and learned by the seat of one’s pants.
All Joy and No Fun?
Jennifer Senior, author of the book All Joy and No Fun, notes many studies that have found that parents have numerous arguments after having children.
Some commentators have become concerned about the division of labor that traditionally exists between mothers and fathers. Women are often faced with greater amounts of domestic demands than men in most traditional relationships.
The idea of a parenting “contract” is not new. Such ideas, designed to improve the sharing in the domestic workload between parents was thought up over forty years ago.
Beyond the standard tasks such as cooking, cleaning, and caring for children’s basic needs such as feeding and clothing them, there are numerous other time-consuming household chores that can occupy the day.
These include everything from transportation for children, helping with homework, calling babysitters, arranging play dates, and staying up with sleepless children at night.
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Being a Captain or Sharing Responsibility?
Some parents are rebelling against the concept that one parent, often the mother, has to be the “captain” of the household. That is the captain of assigning chores, taking inventory of all the household goods, and assigning tasks to the other spouse to do as needed.
Instead, parents are attempting to divide responsibility itself between the parents. That is, instead of constantly creating new lists for the father, the father is automatically responsible for X, Y, and Z tasks, while the mother takes care of her own set of duties around the house.
The numerous and time-consuming tasks of parenting and maintaining a home require a tremendous amount of work. Some parents find that having strict agreements that are essentially contracts (even though there is not really any way to enforce them) are necessary to maintain order and to properly divide work amongst family members.
Alternatively, simply being open about one’s expectations around the house can make a world of difference. Being silent and bottling up latent frustrations about your spouse’s work during and after pregnancy won’t help the situation.
Contact Adoption Lawyers in Florida
The terminology and law surrounding reproductive law, adoption law, and surrogacy law is highly complex and confusing. It is highly important that you have an advisor and counselor that can help you figure the ins and outs of this area of law.
Contact Florida adoption lawyers at the Law Offices of Aliette H. Carolan at 305-358-2330 for questions on adoption, surrogacy and other reproductive law questions.