Caring For and Caring About

People use the word "care" for two different things, and in families the difference matters more than it sounds.

Caring for someone is a set of actions: the appointments, the meals, the clean clothes, the logistics of another person's daily life. Caring about someone is an orientation: interest, attention, noticing how they are doing. Most of us assume the two go together. In many households, they belong to different parents.

Two jobs, often split

Here is a pattern I hear often. A father loves his children and spends real time with them. He plays, reads, coaches the football team. He cares about them in every sense. But he couldn't tell you the name of their dentist, when their vaccinations are due or which one has outgrown their winter coat. The caring for is done by their mother.

The 2021 KFF survey of American parents shows the scale in health care. Around two thirds or more of mothers said they usually chose their children's doctors, took them to appointments and made sure follow-up care happened. Fewer than one in five fathers said the same. It was a pandemic-era survey based on self-reports. It still describes the split clearly: one parent holds the logistics of the children's health.

The monitoring in between

Between caring for and caring about sits a third thing: monitoring. Keeping track of how a child is doing at school, with friends, in their mood. It looks like caring about, but it works like a job, because someone has to notice the change, decide whether it matters and act.

In 2019, Lucia Ciciolla and Suniya Luthar surveyed 393 mothers. Nearly nine in ten said they were mainly responsible for organising the family's schedules, and feeling responsible for monitoring the children's wellbeing was linked to feelings of emptiness and lower satisfaction with life and with their partners. The study is correlational and the sample fairly affluent. Still, "emptiness" is a striking word for something usually described as love.

Why the split is hard to see

Caring about is visible and rewarded. It shows up in photos, at the school play, in the bedtime story. Caring for mostly shows up when it fails, as I described in What Is the Mental Load?

Cultural expectations widen the split. In 1996 the sociologist Sharon Hays described "intensive mothering": the expectation that mothers give child-rearing huge amounts of time, money and emotional energy, guided by experts. Fathers face no equivalent standard. A father who cares about his children is seen as a good father. A mother is expected to care about them and care for them, and is judged on both.

Why it matters for couples and children

When one parent does the caring for and both do the caring about, the arrangement can look balanced. Both love the children. Both spend time with them. One of them also carries everything that keeps the children's lives running, and gets little credit for it, because it looks like part of loving them.

It affects the children too. A parent who only cares about them can't easily step in when the other is away. Fathers I interviewed who took on the practical care often said it changed their relationship with their children. They knew them differently. I wrote about how much rests on knowing the practical details in The Number on File.

How parents can share both kinds of care

The fix is for both parents to do both kinds of care. In practice, that means each parent owning specific areas of the children's lives completely. One has health, the other has school, and each handles every appointment, form and follow-up in their area.

Caring about is what makes parenting meaningful. Caring for is what makes it work. A household is fairer, and usually happier, when both parents do both.

Questions people ask

What is the difference between caring for and caring about?

Caring for means practical work, such as appointments, meals and logistics. Caring about means attention and emotional interest. Both are care, but in many families one parent does most of the first.

What is intensive mothering?

A term from the sociologist Sharon Hays for the expectation that mothers devote extensive time, money and emotional energy to raising children, a standard not applied to fathers.

How can parents share caring work more fairly?

Give each parent complete ownership of specific areas of the children's lives, such as health or school, including every appointment, form and follow-up.