193JENNERS VS.
HADIDS
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 170
Recently Kim has been working for crim-
inal justice reform and studying indepen-
dently for a law degree.
Jenner was last at the White House in the
early ’ 90 s, visiting George H.W. Bush with
Bruce Jenner and a fun cast that included
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dr. Ruth Westheimer,
and Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon from
Saturday Night Live, who came in costume as
their characters Hans and Franz. “Look at
me,” Jenner says with a laugh, holding the
phone away so her daughter gets a better view.
“I’m dressed as Alexis Carrington. Yolanda is
Krystle. Isn’t this a hoot?”
“I don’t know who Alexis Carrington is,”
Kim deadpans.
“You know, from Dynasty? Played by Joan
Collins?”
“Mom, I’m sorry,” says Kim. “I don’t know
who that is.”
“Go Google it,” commands Jenner, “and
I’ll call you back.” ■
BUSY
PHILIPPS
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 182
by myself, and I’m done, dude.’”
Rather than bring down their house of
cards, he agreed, and together they began
to rebalance their roles at home. “And he
made the call: He should be the one to stay
home with the kids.”
Silverstein started supporting Philipps by
taking over the morning and bedtime routines
for Birdie, plus preparing both weekday and
weekend meals. My research shows that these
immovable grinds tend to fall disproportion-
ately on women, so I inwardly applauded
Silverstein for stepping up to the plate.
“I was fully out the door,” Philipps remem-
bers. “I wasn’t expecting anything from him,
but what we ended up doing was creating
our own system.”
Philipps is speaking my language. And to
her delight, Silverstein embraced the extra
responsibility. He enjoyed doing more.
“He now loves his mornings with the
girls,” she says. “He’ll make my Bulletproof
coffee and bring it into the bedroom while
I’m still sleeping, and then leave to take the
kids to school. He has conversations with
them that I’m jealous of. The closeness he
now has with these girls, it’s really special.”
What Philipps described is 100 percent
consistent with my interviews with hundreds
of men. Those who reported feeling the most
invested and happiest in their relationships
are empowered by their partners to “own”
aspects of domestic life and raising children.
“Can I be honest with you?” Philipps asks.
“Sometimes I’ve wondered about Marc tak-
ing over Birdie’s bedtime. I’ve thought to
myself, ‘Is this the right thing for her?’ But
I’m not going to call him out on what I think
is right or wrong because he’s doing it!”
And then, as if on cue, Silverstein walks
into the taqueria.
“My ride,” she says, looking happy to see
him and waving him over.
After casual introductions, he takes a seat
next to Philipps. Recognizing this as a golden
opportunity to get his perspective on the
gender divide, I jump right in. “We were just
talking about how you’ve successfully taken
over Birdie’s bedtime routine.”
Silverstein smiles at Philipps.
“Do you want to add your two cents to
the conversation?” I prod him.
Just like his wife, Silverstein is an open
book and agrees that the public depiction of
their difficult years is accurate. But why,
I have to ask, did he leave Philipps to parent
“alone” after the birth of their first daughter,
as was widely reported in the press?
“I like being good at stuff,” he replies. “And
I didn’t feel like I was good [in the home],
so I stayed away.”
But Silverstein says that when he was
confronted with the real possibility of los-
ing his marriage, and after therapy, he had
his aha moment. “I realized that deep hap-
piness comes from my family,” he recounts.
“And once I figured out what I could bring
to the table, things changed. I wanted to
do more.”
Silverstein explains that he and Philipps
started communicating not only emotion-
ally but also over actionable steps forward.
“Once Busy said, ‘I need you to put Birdie
to bed every night,’ I owned it. And I wasgood at that. I started with one thing and
it grew from there.”
“Today,” adds Philipps, “Marc literally
spends so much time with the girls that they
accidentally call me ‘Dad’ sometimes. Like
when did that ever happen?”
I chime in to support what they had intu-
itively done—that my research has found
that couples thrive when they intentionally
sit down to discuss who is better to own each
household task based on individual prefer-
ences, capabilities, and availability.
“[In a partnership], you have to decide
what works for you,” Philipps says, becoming
serious. “And you have to think about your
children. I want everything for my girls, but
the only way they’re going to believe it’s
possible for them is if they see me have it.”
And by having everything, Philipps doesn’t
mean doing everything. Those days are over.
We wrap up our interview by coming full
circle: She and Silverstein are tired and ready
to get home. They’d flown across the coun-
try that morning with their daughters.
“We had a situation a while ago when we
were vacationing and two of Birdie’s favor-
ite stuffed animals were left at the hotel in
Hawaii. This was on Marc,” Philipps asserts,
“because he was the last one out of the room
and I assumed he did ‘the Mom check.’ But
of course he didn’t because I hadn’t told him
about the Mom check, so I ended up calling
the hotel and tracking them down in an
industrial laundry facility that services all of
Kona. And who knows what Birdie left behind
this time,” she adds, turning to Silverstein
with a smile. “She probably forgot her new
blanket that we bought her in the airport.”
“No, I got it,” he says with a calm confi-
dence. “I put it in her carry-on before we
got off the plane.”
Philipps and I look at each other and say
in tandem, “He did the Mom check!”
By telling a story of how things used to
be, I got to see how things are done today.
Quite a dramatic reversal for a couple who’d
been on the verge of getting a divorce.
“We’ve built a new house of cards,” says
Philipps. “One that stands.” ■Eve Rodsky’s Fair Play: A Game-Changing
Solution for When You Have Too Much to
Do (and More Life to Live) (G.P. Putnam’s
Sons) is available October 1.