This essay is based on a conversation with Tracy Gunn, 50, who is based in Dublin. In 2021, she cofounded Platform55, which helps businesses create more equal and diverse environments. It has been edited for length and clarity.
Before my husband and I had children, I earned more than him.
I had a senior role at a well-known brand and then, 20 years ago, started a leadership development consultancy. When we had children, I decided to work fewer hours to take care of our boys, who are now 14 and 12.
As I was self-employed and could therefore be more flexible with my work hours, I took charge of everything at home, including getting the boys ready for school, picking them up, and cooking dinner. As they got older, I chauffeured them to their evening sports activities, which also required washing and drying their uniforms in time.
My husband, meanwhile, took care of things like our finances and maintaining our house and car, for instance by getting the boiler serviced or the car winter-ready.
He was a great partner and dad who was doing a lot. But many of the things he did weren’t time sensitive, and could either be done at any time or maybe once a week or quarter. However, a lot of the tasks required to run a house need to be done every day.
He started earning more than me quite soon after I scaled back at work to look after our kids, as I went down to working three days a week, term-time only.
It was a choice I made, and I was happy to do it. My earnings taking a significant hit made me subconsciously feel like I should spend more time running our home and looking after the boys day-to-day, so he could focus on his role as the head of information security at an insurance company.
We both fell into our roles at home, and I don’t regret choosing to step back at work to be with the kids — I’m very happy I did.
But as they got older, I felt the need to rebalance our workload; otherwise, my career and earnings would never catch up.
‘I would love to swap roles‘
I remember a moment in January when I was deeply engrossed in a proposal for my business when I looked at the clock and realized it was time for school pickup, to prepare dinner, and get the boys ready for their sports. My husband, meanwhile, could carry on working uninterrupted.
I felt really cheesed off and told my husband: “I would love to be you for a week, and for you to be me. I’d love us to swap roles.” Later that night, I told him I was serious and felt I was doing a lot of the heavy lifting in the household.
“I want you to see what that’s like,” I said. He replied that he’d be happy to.
We agreed to do it in one of the two weeks he had free before starting a new job later that month. We acknowledged it wouldn’t be a true swap, because he wouldn’t be juggling daily household responsibilities with a full-time job like I typically do, but I was happy to take what I could get.
Swapping roles gave my husband a different appreciation of what goes into running a home
As I had hoped, the experiment was eye-opening. My husband said he hadn’t realized how much work I did in the background.
On the first day, I went into our home office at about 8.45 a.m. When I came out at around 5 or 6 p.m., dinner was ready, and homework, laundry, and all the other stuff that just has to happen at home daily was taken care of. It gave him a different appreciation of everything that goes into running our home.
I couldn’t believe the mental freedom I had and what I was able to deliver. I wasn’t constantly watching the clock and thinking about where I needed to be. I could focus on one thing at a time.
A big part of what we do at my company, Platform55, is emphasizing the importance of both men and women “parenting out loud” by being vocal at work about when they have to take time out for family responsibilities.
A 2025 report by McKinsey suggested that the gender pay gap partly stems from women taking time away from work and stepping down from senior roles for caregiving reasons.
The more that men parent out loud, the more we can break down stereotypes around who is the “breadwinner” versus “caregiver,” and we can work on reducing gender pay gaps.
Each week, we agree who is the “on” parent each day
Now, every Sunday, we share our plans for the week. For instance, my husband goes into the office once a week, and I sometimes need to be on-site with clients. I also travel regularly from Ireland to Scotland to see my mother, who isn’t well at the moment.
We decide who is “on” at home on what days and is responsible for pick-ups, drop-offs, cooking, and other household tasks, while the other person is free to concentrate on their work.
Our workload is more balanced now. It’s not always 50/50 every week, but I feel it evens out in the end. My husband was also able to start his job with this new balance in mind, which was helpful for setting expectations with colleagues that he will be doing school drop-offs and pick-ups on certain days.
A lot of people resonated with my story on LinkedIn
I posted about our role swap on LinkedIn and was surprised by how many people it resonated with. My post received over 22,000 impressions, 500 likes, and around 100 comments, mostly from women who strongly related to the experience. Some men commented to share how much work they feel they do at home, leading to some interesting discussions between commenters.
I think sometimes men feel like they’re being criticized. So, I’m working on a framework to help more people have this conversation without it turning into an argument or making it seem like someone’s doing something wrong.
I learned to let go of control
I learned some valuable lessons during our role swap, too, including letting go of control. If my husband is doing a task, having me supervise and comment on how I would do it doesn’t help. I’ve had to back off and let him do things his way, because when the other person feels that they’re constantly being critiqued, they’ll just end up thinking, “why would I bother doing it, if you’re just going to tell me I’ve done it the wrong way?”
I also made the important realization that I do like being involved in family life. During our role swap week, I missed being part of what the boys were doing.
That’s not to say I want to go back to how we were before, but it was a good reset and helped us find the right balance for us.
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