It’s the lead up to the school year, and my child’s preschool is emailing me about updating their medical form. “Thanks”, I respond, “Also, a reminder to please be sure to include my husband on all emails as well. His email address is …..”.
I am a type A person, which means if there is paperwork to be done, I am likely the one to tackle it. But I am also a busy working mom, married to another busy working adult, who is also capable of filling out forms, remembering picture day, signing up for teacher conferences, etc. The thing is though, often my husband never even knew about them. Why? Because I was the only one getting those emails.
I don’t know when schools decided collectively that mom was the one they were going to email about everything, but one year into preschool, and I was over it. I am sure there are a slew of reasons why that system is the way it is {which is a whole other blog post}, but for me and my family, it wasn’t going to work. I refuse to be the keeper of all of the information, or the family secretary forever forwarding emails just because some administrator can’t remember to CC another person.
When my husband and I were planning our wedding, one of the tips I read was to create a wedding specific email address. You could give it to vendors, sign up for websites, and have everything in one place without flooding your regular email with spam for years to come. We did it, and it worked well. An added perk that we didn’t realize would happen was that both of us got everything at the same time, because we both had access to the same email account.
Fast forward to me being fed up with asking school/gymnastics/swim lessons, etc. to please also include my husband on the email, or passive aggressively copying him on everything, when I remembered. We were about to have two kids in two different schools, which meant the emails would double, or let’s be honest, triple. I thought back to those days of wedding planning and decided what we needed was a shared email address. We set it up in minutes, and we’ve never looked back. We personally used Gmail, but I assume you can have the same concept with any provider. Here’s how a shared email address has helped us:
We both get information at the exact same time
Emails from the teacher? Yes. Notifications of school delays or closures? Yep. Gymnastics canceled? Got it. Our logistical exchange of information has decreased greatly because we aren’t playing the game of telephone of one person getting an email and then verbally or otherwise manually sharing that information with the other person. Same information at the same time.
I am no longer the default email parent
It took a little adjustment and redirecting of people, but all of our kid-related email content is in one place now, and none of it is only going to me. Women are already more likely to be the default parent in so many areas of their children’s lives, and this is one that I have some control over, vs. things like which kid wants cuddles from me when they are hurt. I’ve unburdened myself of being the sole person to track all of the tasks and information that come via email for our kids. This has been the biggest benefit for me, and also aligns with my partner’s and my goal of both being hands on and egalitarian parents.
We can divide and conquer
Since we both get information at the same time, we can then tackle things as they come and when it makes the most sense. If it is my husband’s day off, he is following up on that medical form with the pediatrician. If it is my morning to get the kids ready for school, I am making sure the picture day outfit is ready to go. If it is something we need to discuss we talk it through and make a plan together. We are making the best use of our time, not double booking ourselves, and covering tasks as they make sense for our family and our schedule that week. In the never ending project management that is having children, this helps so much.
This, along with our shared Google calendars, are probably the two organizational tools that keep our family running the most. Managing kids, work, and life is a constant balancing act, and getting it all in one place through a shared email address? That makes the balance a little easier.
