A Fine Balance – The Podcast’: Season 2, Episode 6 Out Now
How does a married couple – with a young child (and a puppy) – find a balance between each partner’s career and home life, when they both work full-time?
My guest this episode, investigative journalist Paul Morgan-Bentley, claims to have the answer: they parent equally.
In fact, so convinced is he that inequalities reinforced by gender stereotypes hold men and women back from attaining a fair balance, both in the home and the workplace, that he’s written a book about it.
Paul’s book, ‘The Equal Parent’, is based on his perspective of sharing the parental load in a same sex marriage.
For Paul, parenting equally with his husband contributes significantly to his contented sense of balance. It means that since becoming fathers through surrogacy, they can both continue to build careers that they love, while at the same time be equally equipped to care for their son.
Neither is the “primary care-giver”, as such. They are both, in Paul’s words, “able to do everything”.
Throughout our conversation, Paul describes how this practically works. His honest and thought-provoking viewpoint sheds light on an approach to finding balance that this blog and podcast hasn’t explored before. And it includes practical advice that all parents may find useful.
Recorded during Pride month, this podcast episode also contains Paul’s reflections on his experience of coming out, and we discuss what impacted his sense of balance during those formative years.
Having reluctantly resigned himself to accept that as a gay man, fatherhood was a closed door for him, Paul’s life changed when he and his husband discovered that surrogacy was an option.
“I mourned my fertility”, Paul says, as we discuss how his assumed infertility has gone on to impact his work-life balance choices as a parent, and he generously shares some insight into what helped him maintain his balance in those difficult times.
Underlying our entire conversation are Paul’s repeated references to “acceptance” being a fundamental component of his sense of balance.
He describes how accepting who he is, what he wants, and what has been available to him at any given point in his life, has helped him find the balance that is right for him; and how this approach could help others too.
You can listen to the episode by following this link.