Many couples, such as Bessy and Bill discover that their life values as a couple begin to settle securely in place with the beginning years of child rearing or building a shared project. Typically, responsibilities are firmly and clearly assigned, whereas before the birth of a child or the initiation of a major shared project, these responsibilities are more likely to be loosely framed, readily shifted or even ignored. Bill and Bessy made the choice like many couples to identify an “equal and logical way” of distributing their time with their daughter (when she was very young) and of distributing the new household chores associated with child–rearing.
As in many heterosexual relationships, the woman (in this case, Bessy) does the assigning of duties and responsibilities. In the case of Bessy and Bill, each partner has particular household chores that they had done for many years. Bessy does the wash and Bill takes the clothes out of the dryer and puts them away. With the introduction of diapers and baby cloth into the equation, Bessy and Bill simply expanded their responsibilities in the same areas to accommodate the new demand. Bessy has more clothes to wash and Bill has more to dry and fold. As their daughter, Trudy, grew older, she was also assigned chores.
Other couples are not so sanguine about the assignment of duties and responsibilities; yet, if a couple is to establish viable norms for child-rearing or project-building, the increased pressures and work demands inside the relationship typically requires that they establish firmer boundaries and clearer expectations. Whether raising children or building a project, a couple in this developmental plate is clearly in a “business” and must establish “business-like” rules or they risk destruction of the relationship. There is, of course, a much more positive way of defining the need to establish norms regarding child-rearing and project-building. These norms can provide the glue for a relationship. They can give the couple a sustaining meaning and purposefulness that helps both partners weather many domestic storms and life intrusions.
