ESP

Equally Shared Parenting. Half the Work. All the Fun. For fathers and mothers who have made a conscious decision to share equally in the raising of their children, household chores, breadwinning, and time for recreation.

Unless your spouse has Aspergers Syndrome. Then you feel blessed just to have a second parent in your home who has a job. Or may be looking for a job. Or may be planning on looking for one in the near future.

Shared housekeeping? I have actually read about Aspies who have OCD to the point that their homes are immaculate. My hubby suffers not from that malady. Horders syndrome perhaps, but definitely not obsessive, compulsive neatness.

Shared parenting? By the time Steve finishes ranting and raving about a specific child, they're applying for adoption to another family. I spend a lot of time mediating.

When I was a kid the term ESP stood for extrasensory perception. A sixth sense. As in ‘I see dead people’. I have never met nor read about an Aspie with perception or communication outside of normal sensory capabilities such as in telepathy or clairvoyance. Quite the opposite, actually. Aspies tend to have obvious lacks of perception and communication.

In all honesty, most of the time I enjoy the setup in our family. I get to spend a huge amount of time with our kids, both together and one on one. Most parenting issues my hubby doesn’t want to deal with, so it’s “whatever you want, dear” from him. Big issues such as skydiving lessons or ultimate fighting lessons for our fifteen year old, or backpacking across the Middle East by our twelve year old I will try to sit Steve down to get his thoughts and opinions on.

Otherwise I just set up the schedules, make arrangements for transportation and procure equipment and physicals, and try to leave enough funds in the bank for food and gas.

I do have to admit that the concept of shared parenting is intriguing to me. If I had my druthers I would hire a housekeeper like Alice in the Brady Bunch to clean, bake and keep up on the laundry. But the money I save by doing those things myself is going into our retirement funds, so we get to play sooner.

Unless Steve wishes to remain working as he is. He mostly seems to enjoy it. Or he might go into teaching more classes and quit the aerospace field. For now he’s happy with status quo.

You know, with all of the new marriage laws being enacted, perhaps I just need to get myself a wife since I already have a husband. Then I’d have one of each.

That thought makes me laugh! As does the idea that we could all stand together in matching shoes long enough to have a photo taken...