How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids

by Jancee Dunn

  Turn it into a game.

  “My daughters are competitive with each other,” says my sister Dinah. “So I’ll say, ‘Who can put away their stuff the fastest?’ I’ll put on music and we’ll have a Living Room Cleanup Dance Party. Or I’ll set a timer for five minutes and have them quickly put away the groceries. Well, except the eggs.”

  Approaching chores in a playful way, says Faber, “is magical stuff. Do anything nutty and kids become more responsive, more inventive. Often they come up with something no adult would ever dream of.”

  Be consistent.

  “My kids know the drill,” says Lysa, a mother at my kid’s school. “They make their beds after they get dressed in the morning. When they come home from school, they empty their lunch bags and do their homework. When they get up from dinner, they clear the table and put their plates in the dishwasher. They have a few extra chores on Saturday, and no sports, electronics, or trips to the park until they are done.” At the risk of overkill here: clarity, clarity, clarity.

  And, last, separate chores from allowance.

  Before Daniel Pink wrote his bestseller Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, the father of three thought that rewarding chores with an allowance was perfectly sensible. But after he immersed himself in research on motivation, he changed his mind. He, and many other experts, contend that by linking money to the completion of chores, parents turn an allowance into an “if-then” reward. This sends a message that in the absence of a payment, no self-respecting child is going to willingly empty the trash.

  He promptly separated allowances from chores in the Pink household. “We did provide a very modest allowance of a few bucks a week,” he tells me. “And while we didn’t have assigned duties for each kid, as in, ‘Eliza, you’re in charge of setting the table,’ we made it very clear that everyone was expected to help out around the house. And, amazingly, everyone did.”

  Pink contends that kids—and parents—do chores because families are built on mutual obligations. “I wouldn’t expect to be paid to drive my daughter to dance class,” he says. “She shouldn’t expect to be paid for emptying the dishwasher when we have no clean plates left on Pink Family Taco Night.”

  Allowances, he says, are useful for teaching kids how to handle small amounts of money. “But combining allowances and chores,” he says, “is a case where adding two good things together produces less, not more.”

  Markham agrees. “I remember being about six, and wanting to buy this plastic horse,” she says. “I got an allowance for doing chores, so I did them long enough to buy the horse, and then stopped. I didn’t understand the need to do chores beyond getting paid for them.”

  And so, once again I call a family meeting (which still feels a little funny with three people, but I do it anyway) and explain that in our family, we all must help out. I pull out a chore chart I have made, and do a demonstration of Sylvie’s daily and weekly tasks so she knows exactly what to do (if she learned how to order a Tetris app on my phone, she can master spritzing a bathroom sink).

  And now she does her chores. Does she do them perfectly? No. Does she complete every one each week? Not always. But she does them.

  My mother, who has long grumbled that her grandchildren don’t pitch in enough, is pleased when she observes Sylvie industriously sweeping our six-by-eight-foot kitchen one afternoon. I know a speech is coming about how she helped her mother pluck chickens growing up in Alabama, and she does not disappoint.

  “Mama wrung their necks, and I’d help pluck them,” says my mother with a faraway look, as “I Wish I Was in Dixie” plays somewhere in her mind. Many decades have transformed this unpleasant job into a gauzy memory of gratifying hard work and mother-daughter bonding.

  Sylvie wanders over. “What did you pluck?” she says.

  My mother’s eyes widen. “Feathers, child! Do you think chicken just falls out of a Trader Joe’s bag?” But she gazes at her granddaughter approvingly as she carefully empties her dustpan into the trash. “Still, I will admit that this is a good start.”

  It’s never too late! Age-appropriate chores.

  Age 3–4

  Pick up toys.

  Help make the beds.

  Set the table.

  Stuff their dirty laundry in the hamper.

  Age 4–5

  Clear the table.

  Put away silverware while Mom or Dad is unloading the dishwasher.

  Hang up towels in the bathroom.

  Take out recycling.

  Weed.

  Match socks and put away their own laundry.

  Water indoor plants.

  Age 6–7

  Sweep kitchen and dining area with small broom.

  Fold laundry.

  Make their bed.

  Organize toy cabinets.

  Swiffer the floor.

  Help with meals (wash vegetables, set out ingredients).

  Get the mail.

  Clean out the gunk in the microwave.

  Wipe counters.

  Age 8–9

  Dust.

  Empty trash in each room.

  Vacuum.

  Help with dinner.

  Change a lightbulb.

  Empty the dishwasher.

  Feed and care for pets.

  Clean bathroom surfaces.

  Pack lunch.

  Age 10–12

  Do laundry.

  Clean the kitchen.

  Clean out the refrigerator.

  Cut the grass.

  Scrub the tub.

  Bone of Contention

  One night, my daughter’s endless bedtime send-off runs even later than usual. The enterprising child had crafted a surefire way to detain me after I told her that old people like to talk about their childhoods. At the time, I was referring to my father, given to misty reminiscences of his upbringing in Bay City, Michigan (“Mother had warm cookies waiting for us every afternoon when we came home from school”), but my daughter categorized me, perhaps not incorrectly, as an old person, too. Just as I am about to make my escape from her bedroom, she asks for a story of my Pittsburgh girlhood.

  “Tell the one about the car,” she begs.

  I hesitate at the door. I can never resist. “Well, there were no car seats then, and I used to ride in the front seat of our enormous light blue Buick LeSabre with my mom, while my sisters rode in the back,” I begin. “When my mom took a corner quickly, which she often did, my sisters would roll and bounce against the door like marbles. And because we didn’t wear seat belts, if we stopped suddenly, my mom would hold out her arm to prevent me from banging my head on the dashboard. Which didn’t work so well.”

  “So once, she was smoking in the car,” Sylvie prompts.

  “Right. In the olden days, my parents loved to smoke cigarettes in the car with the windows tightly rolled up at all times. Why do you think that might be?” I like to encourage Sylvie to think critically. “Maybe so that way,” I propose, “they could get the most smoke in their lungs as possible?” Sylvie agrees that this makes sense. “Anyway, once a car suddenly pulled in front of us, and my mother threw her arm in front of me.” I pause for dramatic effect. “But she was holding a lit cigarette at the time!”

  “And your hair almost caught on fire!” Sylvie finishes triumphantly. It is one of her most treasured bedtime stories.

  After one more exciting tale of my youth—in which I play for hours with a large, unsupervised gang of children in a trash-strewn vacant lot, to Sylvie’s amazement—I finally get her to sleep. Then I (quietly) clap my hands together. It is time for my Mom Party.

  Your basic Mom Party lasts roughly 45 minutes to an hour before the celebrant slumps forward in a dead sleep. It has a few general components. One is food, which should be either sugary or salty (or in the case of salted caramel brownies, both). Add any sort of calming beverage—a glass or three of wine, a mug of decaf tea. Garnish with your choice of mindless entertainment: blogs that obsessively compare moisturizers, a trashy reality-TV maratho
n. One mom friend of mine favors a bathtub, a pile of home decorating magazines, and a joint; another likes playing Candy Crush while slowly eating a small bowl of chocolate chips she has microwaved to the consistency of hot fudge. Party attire is Festive Casual (yoga pants stretched out just the way you like them, an old T-shirt worn to translucence, maternity underwear in a fetching shade of “greige”).

  Humming, I head for the kitchen, extract a family-size bag of SunChips from the pantry, and take out the magazine I swiped earlier from the gym: Star magazine’s “Worst Celebrity Beach Bodies.”

  That is the moment that Tom picks to approach me in the kitchen and give me a back rub—conveniently ignoring the fact that I am holding a bag of SunChips in my hand at the time, in frolicsome Harvest Cheddar flavor, which clearly indicates Mom Party in progress. In our relationship, there is no such thing as an agenda-free back rub. (As comedian Dena Blizzard puts it, “With husbands, a back rub always leads to a front rub.”)

  Weary from Sylvie’s extended bedtime ritual (and also eager to Turn to Page 23 to Find Out Whose Cellulite This Is and Match the Man-Boob to the Celebrity), I ask for a rain check and hurry off to the bedroom, while Tom glumly wanders into the living room to play computer chess.

  It is not the first night that this particular scenario has occurred. After six months of trying to fight fairly and actively looking for the good, our interactions are decidedly calmer and happier—but our sex life needs a boost. We have fallen into a pattern in which he tries to capitalize on a moment when we are finally alone, and I, after a long session of tending to a child, shut him down, viewing sex as just one more thing I have to do for someone.

  Given the ways sex can be sabotaged, it’s amazing that new parents have any relations at all. Along with timing issues, they must cope with stress, near-hallucinatory fatigue, postpartum depression, body insecurity, and hormones, which can wreak havoc for both sexes: a University of Notre Dame study found that during the first year of fatherhood, testosterone levels drop by roughly a third—and never resume pre-baby levels.

  Breastfeeding can also send libidos south, says Hilda Hutcherson, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University—and not just because you’re afraid to have your husband venture anywhere near your explosion-prone G-cups. Breastfeeding triggers the release of prolactin, a hormone involved in milk production, which can make orgasm more difficult. It also causes a drop in estrogen levels, which can produce the dreaded vaginal dryness (estrogen is what keeps the vaginal lining moist and flexible).

  Then there are the psychological roadblocks, such as making the transition from mom to vixen. “I have four children, and I know exactly what women are talking about when they say they don’t want to,” says Hutcherson, who possesses formidable credentials but a best-girlfriend demeanor. “I remember it being so difficult to switch on and off like that, when a kid has just finished sucking me dry, and my husband’s lying there with an erection, waiting his turn! It’s like ‘Enough already, can I have some private time with my own body?’” And with a needy baby, she says, there is only a small window of available time. “We’d be having sex, and I’m listening for that whimper.”

  Yet another reason for parents’ sexual paucity, says couples therapist Esther Perel, is common, but not often discussed. Mothers get tremendous physical pleasure from their children—caressing their skin, kissing their silken cheeks, staring into their eyes for hours. This enraptured union, she says, bears a striking resemblance to the physical connection between lovers.

  “Let’s be clear,” Perel tells me, “I am not talking about sexual pleasure. I mean this is a sensual pleasure, and that sensuousness is intrinsic to female sexuality.” Female eroticism, she says, is diffuse, not localized in the genitals but distributed throughout the body, mind, and senses. For some new mothers, she goes on, their sensuality is redirected to the baby—and, for the time being, “When they tell me, ‘At the end of the day, I have nothing left to give,’ I also hear them saying, ‘At the end of the day, there is nothing more I need.’”

  A sexual drought that begins with a baby’s arrival is at least understandable; what is worrying is when it continues for months, or years. “I honestly can’t remember the last time we did it,” says my friend Kelly with a shrug. “He says he doesn’t miss it, and I really don’t, either. The kids just take too much out of us.” (According to research from the Gottman Institute, a preschool child makes an average of three demands a minute on a parent.)

  While it can be tough to summon up the energy, Hutcherson says it’s critical to observe the Nike slogan and just do it. She lists the reasons why: sex releases endorphins, the feel-good hormones with a similar structure to morphine, as well as oxytocin, the “cuddle hormone” that promotes feelings of devotion and trust. “And once you get into it, you might find pleasure,” she says. “I say might—it takes time. But in order to keep that relationship with your partner strong, you need to have physical intimacy. And you just feel better about each other after you have sex! You know?”

  I tell Hutcherson that my husband and I will marvel afterward and say, Wow, we should do this more often, as if we’re old college friends meeting for coffee. She laughs. “I find I don’t get as angry the next day about the mess in the kitchen my husband was going to help me clean up and didn’t,” she says. “Little things just don’t bother me as much, and the same for him. He’s not as testy.”

  But Tom and I, enmeshed in our fast-moving lives, will sometimes let weeks go by without a second thought. When I say this to Perel, however, she says she doesn’t buy the “busy” excuse. She often tells clients that it’s not children who extinguish the flame of desire—it’s the adults who fail to keep the spark alive.

  But I find the typical advice doled out by magazines to be cringingly embarrassing, not to mention unrealistic. I don’t want to “send him a racy text that’s not safe for work!” If I did, Tom would quickly write back Hi, hon, your account was hacked or Are you having a stroke? Should I call somebody? I don’t have extra funds to buy a naughty nurse outfit for role-play, nor could I credibly stay in character. And I am not going to “step into the shower with him for a sexy treat!” A small, cramped New York bathroom shower is the wrong kind of “steamy.”

  So I canvass experts and friends for more realistic strategies. Then I do something more difficult: I make myself bring up the subject with Tom. As awkward as it can be to talk about your paucity of action, a Georgia State University study of sexually inactive married couples found that people who argued about sex were at least more likely to be having it. Austrian researchers made a similar discovery: women who were given the “love hormone” oxytocin saw the same uptick in their sex lives as those who were given a placebo. Why? Because the women were also keeping diaries and discussing their sex lives more honestly with their partners—and this seemed to give relations a boost.

  “Have you noticed that we don’t have sex very often?” I ask Tom one night after Sylvie is asleep.

  He is reading a book. “I have,” he says.

  “Would you like to have sex more often?” I ask.

  His eyes do not leave the page. “I would,” he says.

  I sense that he feels the subject has been covered—but I press on, asking him if he’d like to try, just for kicks, the challenge issued in Sexperiment: 7 Days to Lasting Intimacy with Your Spouse, by the Reverend Ed Young and his wife, Lisa, of the evangelical Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas. Young, father of four, has joked that “kids” is an acronym for keeping intimacy at a distance successfully. Citing Corinthians 7:5 (“Do not deprive each other of sexual relations”), he encourages “congregational coupling” among his flock for seven continuous days. The goal is to get closer to each other, and to the Lord (as Young sensibly writes, “God is a great God who creates great things, like sex”). Well, why not? I propose to Tom that I would like to try out various approaches on him every night for a week. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he is game.

&n
bsp; It feels un-sexy to arrange our encounters in advance, but many friends of mine are fans of putting it on the calendar. My friend Sally, mother of one, books a rendezvous with her husband every Tuesday, an otherwise uneventful day. “The longer the week goes on, the more likely the last days of the week are to get bogged down with stuff that didn’t yet get done,” she says. “At least this way I don’t have to think about trying to find time for it on the weekend. And if we have sex on the weekend—bonus!”

  As it happens, having sex once a week is the ideal for maximum wellbeing, according to a study of over 30,000 adults. If respondents had more than that, their happiness actually leveled off. (That finding, by the way, held true for both men and women, and was consistent no matter how long they had been together.)

  But even once a week seems a little daunting, so we ease into the idea by increasing our daily amount of nonsexual touching. As Sonja Lyubomirsky writes in The Myths of Happiness, “The importance of touch is undeniable, yet it is remarkably undervalued.” She writes that the science of touch suggests that small daily acts such as a pat on the back or a friendly squeeze can “save a so-so marriage. When our spouse touches us, we experience a mild high, we feel less frazzled, and we experience a diminution of discomfort and distress.” Similarly, neuroscientist James Coan found that married women with distressed brain activity were immediately calmed when their husbands simply reached for their hands. A stranger’s hand, he found, did not have the same effect.