What are the four quadrants of equally shared parenting

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What are the four quadrants of equally shared parenting

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My husband, Marc, and I, and an increasing number of couples have chosen to live a lifestyle called Equally Shared Parenting and we think of it as four domains or quadrants of a couples' life together with kids. The first is child-raising. You're both raising your children together and you're going to spend about the same amount of time doing so together or as solo parents. The second is bread-winning. You're going to spend about the same amount of time out in the work place, both attending your own careers and you're both going to be considered equally valuable to the family, even if one person may make more money than the other person. The next quadrant or domain is that of housework or household chores. Nobody thinks of that as fun per se, but we all got to do it so we're going to share it equally in Equally Shared Parenting relationship and the time and effort it takes to run the home. And the last one, the one people tend to forget is time for yourself and in an Equally Shared Parenting home both of the parents in a couple will get that time to pursue a hobby or to meet with friends or just relax or chill out, anything they want to do to rejuvenate. The mark of success that you achieve in equally shared parenting is looking at are you spending an equal amount of time in each of these domains on average, a typical week, and are you equally involved or invested in these four domains so that there's not one primary parent and one say helper parent. There's not someone with a primary, more important career and kind of a junior career for example. There's a magic that occurs when you are sharing each of these four domains, not just one or two of them and that's the magic of Equally Shared Parenting where you're walking in each other shoes and you've created something that's quality and balanced which are the two foundations of Equally Shared Parenting and really why we choose this lifestyle in the first place. We have an equal partner to walk with us in every step of our lives together and we each are afforded balanced lives to fit in everything we feel is important.

Learn about: What are the four quadrants of equally shared parenting from Amy Vachon,...

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Amy Vachon

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Marc and Amy Vachon are the authors of Equally Shared Parenting: Rewriting the Rules for a New Generation of Parents, and founders of www.equallysharedparenting.com. They are dedicated to helping parents achieve their dream of an equal partnership, and to providing both mothers and fathers with a roadmap to a balanced life of parenting, breadwinning, homemaking and time for self. Their work has been covered by the New York Times, Boston Globe, Guardian (UK), Fitness Magazine, The Today Show, Parenting, and other media. They have written their own personal story of equally shared parenting in One Big Happy Family, an anthology by Rebecca Walker. Amy is a clinical pharmacy director, and Marc is an information technology manager. They live in Watertown, Massachusetts with their two children, ages 11 and 8.

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