It’s Not Just the Laundry: Anger, Inequity, Overload, and Early Parenthood

Author(s): Christine Ou & Nichole Fairbrother; Perinatal Mental Health Working Group | Editors: Tashi Stampp, Romina Garcia de leon (blog coordinators) Reviewer: Anna MacKinnon

Anger isn’t the emotion we usually associate with new parenthood. People expect joy, exhaustion, maybe anxiety—but not rage. Many also expect that having a baby will bring them closer to their partner, that childcare will be shared and teamwork will come naturally. Instead, for many birthing parents, anger arises often toward partners in the early months and years after having a baby. Books like How Not to Hate Your Husband after Kids, All the Rage: Mothers, Fathers, and the Myth of Equal Partnership, and Fair Play point to a common pattern: this anger reflects not parenthood itself, but an overload of unequal, invisible care work.

Let’s Get Real About How and Why

Anger is a universal human emotion that tends to show up when something feels unfair or unjust. During the transition to parenthood, that sense of unfairness is often grounded in the unequal distribution of unpaid labour between parents. Research consistently shows that women take on substantially more childcare and housework than their partners, even in households where both parents work. They are also more likely to multitask while caregiving, which means carrying a heavier mental load of planning, coordinating, and anticipating family needs.

These inequities don’t stay confined to just chores. They spill over into sleep and leisure time, two things that are essential for well-being. Infant sleep disruption is common, and breastfeeding often means that nighttime childcare falls more heavily on birthing parents. One study found that even when both parents worked full-time: most nighttime childcare still fell to mothers. Nearly two-thirds did it alone, compared with fewer than one in ten fathers, while only about a third of couples shared nighttime responsibilities. Inequity also shows up in time off: fathers of young children tend to have more leisure time than mothers, while mothers are more likely to report wanting more time to themselves. These childcare gaps may lead to  fewer opportunities for rest, recovery, and personal time.

In discussions that focus on mother-father parenting roles, it’s important to acknowledge that men’s contributions to childcare and household labour have increased substantially over the past half century in Canada and the United States. These rates have roughly doubled since the 1970s. This is real progress, and yet, women continue to do more unpaid domestic and caregiving work overall. Although gains toward equity have been meaningful, they are incomplete.

When these imbalances are experienced as unfair or distressing, they tend to build over time, fueling resentment, increasing conflict, and eroding relationship satisfaction.

What Can We Do?

If there’s one thing research and lived experience agree on, it’s this: we were never meant to raise children in isolated, two-adult households, let alone with one adult doing most of the work. Anthropologists and parenting scholars have long noted that across cultures and history, childrearing was shared—childrearing involved family, friends and community members.. Childcare was distributed, not concentrated.

Modern parenting looks very different. Many families are raising children far from extended family, with limited community support and high expectations of self-sufficiency. When care is concentrated into a single household and unevenly on one person, the strain accumulates. Anger, in this context, isn’t a personal failing; it’s a predictable response for  doing too much with too little support.

Research shows that same-sex couples tend to take a more intentionally equal approach to role division within the household. In many heterosexual couples, non-birthing partners want to help but aren’t always sure how, especially when breastfeeding limits what they can do directly. The realization that “I can’t do that” can quietly become “I don’t know what else would help”. Psychoeducational interventions can address this gap by making roles explicit and reframing contribution beyond feeding alone. When partners understand the many forms of care that matter in early parenting, they can step in more confidently and consistently, reducing strain on both the relationship and the primary caregiver. This means getting specific and planning ahead: who handles nighttime care, who gets up with the baby in the morning, and who coordinates childcare.

Policy matters here, too and parental leave is a powerful policy example. When fathers or non-birthing partners have access to dedicated, non-transferable leave and are encouraged to use it—they are more likely to be involved in caregiving and domestic labor. In contrast, when leave is taken almost entirely by mothers, it can unintentionally reinforce entrenched divisions of labour that persist well beyond infancy. Early patterns matter, and the parent who stays home and learns the routines may become the “default parent”, which can often set the tone for years to come.

Culturally, it means letting go of the myth that  parenting is something families should be able to do on their own. Parenting was never meant to be a solo or even a two-person job. When support networks shrink and self-sufficiency is treated as the ideal, the strain doesn’t disappear—it shows up as exhaustion, resentment, and anger. Community organizations like Pacific Post Partum Support Society remind us that support doesn’t have to come only from partners or professionals. They provide no-cost peer support that normalizes struggle, reduces isolation, and helps new parents feel less alone in the work of early parenting.

Reducing anger in early parenthood isn’t about asking parents to be calmer or more patient. It’s about building conditions within relationships, communities, and policies that make fairness, rest, and shared responsibility possible in the first place.

Pacific Post Partum Support Society

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