A New York Times’ article gives enough numbers to make your head spin and your blood boil.

Try this: 49 percent of men said they provided most or an equal amount of child care. But only 31 percent of women gave their husbands that much credit.

Or this: 59 percent of fathers report some level of “work-life conflict,” compared with about 45 percent of women.

Perhaps most maddening are the generational changes that seem to be taking us even further down a rabbit hole in which each of us suffers from emotional/spiritual inequity – the kind that we look to relationships and family to heal but which now seem only worsened by family ties. For instance, in 1970, about two-thirds of married couples had a spouse at home (usually the wife). But today, only 40 percent of families have a stay-at-home spouse to handle domestic demands during the workday. Couples now work a combined average of 63 hours a week, up from just 52.5 in 1970, according to a 2009.

Numbers like these sometimes read to me — oddly — like some sort of argument for single parenthood. I haven’t done the algebra – it’s just a gut feeling. But it’s 100 percent mine.

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