What do guys see as their primary role in a family?
The primary role of a man in a family varies so greatly. The traditional role is the man is the caretaker and he tends to be the one that doesn't take much of a break from work and is the provider - that being said, I think that it's a lot more negotiable these days than it ever has been, so sometimes now you have the stay at home dad or you have the parents really balancing caretaking, the father might drop the kid off, mom might pick it up. So the traditional role psychologically is more of the caretaker, more of the one that earns the money, that is the responsible one, and the mom tends to be the one that is the nurturer and makes plans for the schools and the food. The role that tends to happen which I hear a lot of my client and a lot of my friends talk about, which is a very annoying role for the woman, which is the guy, because he's a little bit more distanced in the day to day caretaking, gets to be the fun guy and the one that plays ball with the kids, and the mom is always the one putting her foot down and the disciplinarian, and that sort of 2 sides is so un-fun a lot of times for the mom because she's always the one with the serious role, so I think that trying to balance that a little bit and communicate so that there can be an evenness of like, it doesn't always have to be good cop/bad cop, but maybe a negotiation of what your plan is for the kids. Consistency is number one when you're with kids, making decisions ahead of time, how you want to raise the kids, who plays what role so that there's a little bit more fairness in that family dynamic.
