Does Equal Parenting Have to Mean 50/50?
Most parents who feel the weight of an uneven load aren't looking for a perfect split. They're looking for something that feels fair. That's a very different question — and it changes everything.
If you've ever found yourself silently tallying who did the school run, who remembered the dentist appointment, who noticed the PE kit was still in the wash — you already know that the problem isn't really about numbers.
The phrase "equal parenting" can sound, on the surface, like a bureaucratic impossibility. Parenting is too diverse, too nuanced, too loaded with years of ingrained gender assumptions to be reduced to a ledger.
But here's what I think gets missed in that reaction: equal parenting was never really about pure equality. It's a principle. A direction of travel. And the moment you understand it that way, something shifts.
The Real Problem Isn't the Doing, It's the Knowing
Most conversations about the division of labour at home focus on tasks: who cooked dinner, who did bath time, who drove to football practice. These are visible, countable, easy to argue about.
But the deeper, more corrosive imbalance is invisible. It lives in the mental load — the anticipating, the identifying, the deciding, and the monitoring that happens before any task gets done at all.
When one parent is doing the doing, but the other is doing all the thinking that makes the doing possible, you don't have equal parenting. You have one person running the operation and another executing individual tasks. Over time, that gap builds resentment — and quietly erodes joy.
This is the real conversation that Equal Parenting Week, led by Elliott Rae, is trying to open up. Not a guilt trip. Not a competition. A genuine invitation to look honestly at how care is shared in your home — and whether it's working for everyone in it.
Five Things That Actually Move the Needle
Systemic change, in terms of parental leave reform, workplace culture, flexible working policy, matters enormously. But, it can feel overwhelming when you're standing in the kitchen wondering why you're the only one who noticed the fridge was empty.
So here are five things you can actually do, starting now.
1. Let go of perfect
Don't let the pursuit of perfect be the enemy of progress. If a task gets done differently to how you'd do it, that's usually fine.
But this works both ways — it's worth acknowledging that the social jeopardy around "being a good parent" are genuinely different for mums and dads. The pressure to get it right is not evenly distributed, and ignoring that doesn't help anyone.
Sadly the bar for what a ‘good’, ‘competent’ dad looks like is set painfully low.
2. Divide by workstream, not by task
Rather than splitting individual jobs, try giving end-to-end ownership of whole areas.
Perhaps one parent owns school admin,
The other owns medical.
Maybe you divide by child?
Whoever owns it anticipates, plans, decides — not just executes when asked. The moment someone is only "helping" rather than leading, the mental load stays with one person.
3. Line managers: ask, don't assume
If you manage people who are parents, resist the urge to assume what they need. Some want maximum flexibility. Some want to be left alone. Some are quietly struggling and would welcome the conversation. Curiosity is free, and it goes a long way further than well-intentioned assumptions.
How often do workplaces assume they know what a mum returning from mat leave wants and needs?
“When I first met Lisa, I didn’t think she had kids, because I didn’t think a mum could do this job”
4. Dads: you're not a helper, you're a leader
There's a subtle but significant difference between being a supportive helper and being an active, responsible co-parent. The first requires being directed. The second requires showing up before you're asked. If you're waiting to be told what needs doing, you're still off-loading the mental load onto someone else.
5. Mum doesn't know best — she just had more practice
This one tends to land with a wince, but it's true. The competence and confidence gap that sometimes exists between parents isn't innate — it's experiential. The more one parent does, the better they get. The solution isn't to accept the gap; it's to close it through repetition and ownership, not delegation.
"Equal parenting is about sharing care more equally. It's recognising that caring is not 'women's work'. It's supporting dads to be active, visible caregivers. And it's about creating workplaces, policies and cultures that make this possible in everyday life."
Elliott Rae, Founder of Equal Parenting Week
So… Does It Have to Mean 50/50?
No. And the sooner we stop measuring it that way, the sooner we can have more honest, productive conversations about what fairness actually looks like in each family.
What matters is that both parents feel they are genuinely co-leading — not one leading and one following. That both have capacity, and space, and yes, dare I say it, joy in their parenting lives. And that children grow up seeing care as something both parents own, not something that falls to one by default.
Equal parenting isn't a destination. It's a practice. And the direction you're travelling matters far more than the exact point you're at today.
If this resonated — whether you're the one carrying the mental load or the one who suspects you should be doing more — I work with parents who want to navigate this better.