You would think that as a feminist I'd have plenty to say about this month's topic of "healing between genders."  Surely I am stocked full of examples of gender essentialism gone wrong, or exercises that help build understanding and community between the sexes.  But I don't.  And I can't think of any and that right there is the inspriation for this post.

See, I'm tired.  I juggle two kids, full-time employment, a fledgling writing career and, when I can, some adult time with my husband.  But undoubtedly that adult time turns towards the day-to-day of running a household, our jobs, and the inevitable mood-killer, money.

In our household I am the budget committee--the gatekeeper of all we can and frequently cannot do due to finances.  I've been the budget committee for a while, and its a role we've grown into and out of and had to repurpose as our circumstances changed.  First it was because I was the more linear, rational thinker in the home, less prone to impulse buys or unjustified spending.  Then it was because as an attorney in private practice I was earning more.

To my husband's credit this was never really an issue for him.  My success was never threatening nor did he feel emasculated come payday.  It did make some of our friends and family uncomfortable.  But that's a different post.

Instead I'm going to blog about time and the value of those dollars, particularly for men and how through time and money we may come to some kind of healing.  For real.

So here's our story.  When I was pregnant with our first child it was a given that I would take maternity leave while my husband struggled with just how long he'd be gone from work.  At the time he worked for a small business that had no formal parental leave policy nor were they large enough to have to follow state or federal family leave laws.  After much debate we decided that two weeks would be a good amount of time for us to get acclimated to a new baby and for me to get back on my feet before he returned to work.

Of course that equation didn't take into account a week-long hospitalization and recovery after a labor gone south and an emergency c-section.  By the time we were home from the hospital my husband had a whopping four days with us before heading back to work and leaving me to fend for myself with a newborn while recovering from emergency abdominal surgery.  Yeah, not so fun.

So when we learned we were having another child we vowed to do things differently.  His current employer is large enough to have to follow state (though not federal) family leave laws and in many ways my husband saw this as a chance to get back some of the time he felt slipped away from him with Owen's birth.  As soon as it was clear the pregnancy was sticking we notified his employers that he'd need three weeks to help me recover from the c-section.  After those three weeks he would return to work until January when he would take 4 of his alloted 12 weeks of family leave to care for Olive while I returned to work.  We were proud of our post-gendered family plan and determined to make it work.

Now, my husband's employer couldn't complain about the plan.  Afterall, we'd followed every legal requirement, knew our rights and made sure there was no "hardship" for them during his absence.  We even skimped and saved since his employer made it clear that their only requirement was to not punish or fire him for taking leave and that they had no intention of paying him during that time.  Sure we didn't like it but we had a new baby coming.  Who wants to rock the boat?

This time the execution of the plan went much better.  January was a great month for Kelly and Olive-he got some fantastic bonding time with the new baby, some quality dad-son time with Owen and I could return to work relieved that my children were in good hands and being cared for by their dad.  We were all tired and stressed from the changes and the financial burdens but damnit, we were making it work.

And then came February.  Kelly returned to work but things were different. Co-workers seemed distant.  His boss and manager made it clear they were happy to have him back by reminding him that he'd exhausted nearly all of his PTO.  Some went so far as to suggest that the difference in the work environment could be solved if Kelly would just offer a simple explanation about what he did on his "month off."

Month off.  No one who has cared for a newborn or helped a partner recover from surgery would call a month away from work a vacation or a "month off".  But that's how it was perceived.  When it was explained that he was actually caring for family the reactions were universally the same--either he was very lucky to have a job that would "let" him do this or he was applauded as some kind of uber-feminst ally.  If you asked my husband though he'd tell you he was just being a dad.  And my job wasn't much better.  The school had gotten accustomed to someone being able to "cover" for me at home and when that changed, well, so too did my working environment.

There it was.  Our common injury.  That thing that can facilitate healing.

Imagine if time off to care for a loved one was not something that employers offered reluctantly (or under threat of litigation), but something that was standard as an expression of our values that a healthy, secure home life is as important as billing client.  Imagine if my husband's decision to take advantage of a benefit offered to him was not met with skepticism or derision, but rather, seen as run of the mill? What if my employer could go on assuming I had someone to cover for me at home because I did.  Imagine.