Our Turn by Stewart Kirstine;

Author:Stewart, Kirstine;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Schwartz Publishing Pty. Ltd

In 2011, I married Zaib Shaikh. We’d met at the CBC when I was head of English language television and he was starring in Little Mosque on The Prairie. We weren’t the first couple to meet at work, and I knew the protocol; when we started dating, I recused myself from decisions involving his work at the CBC. Also, unlike my first time around, long before we exchanged vows, we talked at length about how we’d structure our home life as two busy professionals and, more importantly, we agreed on how we’d try to do it.

It takes a brave man to take on everything I now brought to a relationship. I wasn’t a fresh university grad. I had a big job, with big demands that spill outside office hours, regular travel cross-country, and now out-of-country. And two kids, whose custody I shared with my ex (ironically, divorce had managed to create a more even split in our parenting duties). One time early in our relationship, Zaib was out with another actor friend who asked if he was truly ready to “take it on.” Not just the kids and the work, but the idea that when we walked into a room together, there would be certain times when he wasn’t going to be the centre of attention—that would be me. Zaib insisted he was ready. He is a brave man.

And I knew that Zaib—an actor, director and producer with jobs that have taken him to the far corners of the globe; and, more recently, his role as Toronto’s first film and entertainment commissioner—has a schedule as erratic as my own. But we are a team. We make decisions together, whether it’s about what to order for dinner (and we order in a lot), or whether I should leave the CBC for Twitter, or whether he should become the city’s film commissioner. And when it comes to sharing parenting responsibilities, I may be the preferred PB&J-maker on Saturday after tennis lessons, but Zaib is king of the paratha lunch and a valued wardrobe consultant. When my eldest went shopping to buy a prom outfit for her boyfriend, she sent Zaib pictures so he could advise on the tie she picked out. They have their own relationship and I couldn’t describe what it is exactly, but it is exactly what it should be.

Today, I’d tell any woman considering marriage, my own daughters included, that they need to discuss how they want their future homes and families to operate, and that the discussion needs to be detailed and explicit. I’m convinced that the item that has been sorely missing from the have-it-all debate and the narratives of working mothers is men, and their expectations of their partners, career ambitions and visions for raising the next generation. For women, not spending enough time with their children is a source of guilt; for men, some are realizing that they miss out on something special, too, when they let themselves be chained to a desk and career.

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