Men are just as good at sharing the load Angela Mollard writes that by letting her husband share the housework, her daughters have learned that their father is capable and calmer than she is. "MUM, when are you going to start making our lunch boxes again?" enquires my youngest. I ask. Is there a problem? "Um, Dad's doing a good job and everything," she says, "but today he put Vegemite on my cheese and bacon roll. It was disgusting. I laugh. My husband, Nige, has been doing lunch boxes for the last three months. He's also done 90 per cent of the cooking, most of the laundry, all the supermarket shopping and the ferrying to gymnastics, soccer, drum lessons and, well, whatever else they do - I've forgotten. I've been finishing a big project and so he's been single-handedly running the house. On top of his job, of course. "Don't worry darling," I tell my nine-year-old, "the roll was a one-off." Um, Mum, yesterday he gave us Hawaiian salad. I'm bemused: "What's Hawaiian salad?" She and her sister exchange "shall we dob?" looks. It's pasta spirals with bacon, cherry tomatoes, mayonnaise and, er, pineapple. I want to vomit into my coffee. But I can hardly critique. In between balling socks and filling in school notes, Nige's been fetching me the odd flat white. Actually, $284 worth of flat whites, he remarked, when he last set one down on my desk. Still, I have to ask my daughter: "Sweetheart, the pineapple? Was it fresh or tinned? Ah ha, I hear you mutter. Another story of a card-carrying control freak denouncing her hapless husband. But stay with me because somehow - more by default than design - Nige and I have morphed into the sort of model couple (in practice, not looks) that Facebook CFO Sheryl Sandberg reckons are the future of workplace success. Some background: When our kids were tiny Nige travelled. A lot. He's a photographer and, in my mind, he was always shooting Jennifer Hawkins in Rarotonga. In reality, it was probably Kevin Rudd in Wodonga, but models and cocktails suited my martyrish frame of mind. Anyway, I worked part-time and we "shared" the housework - he did 20 per cent to my 80 (he claims 40 per cent but it's my column so let's go with my stats). That set-up worked brilliantly for approximately four and a half minutes, after which I spent the next few years in a Rumpelstiltskin-inspired foot stomp, building up the sort of bow wave of resentment that makes the conception of our second child utterly confounding. Eventually I started working more, and he travelled less. The housework shifted to a 60/40 split (he claims 50/50) and my undergraduate behaviour gave way to a grudging respect. The sticking point? But for lawns and bins, I still thought I could do most tasks better. Then this project came along; if I was to finish it by the deadline he'd have to do more and I'd have to relinquish control. "It's like payback for that time you spent 12 weeks working in Fiji," I joked. Except he didn't laugh. No, because he is a man, he just got on with it (they take a similar approach to weight loss, I find). There was none of the uselessness you see on House Husbands, just a systematic processing of meals, laundry and school emails. The kids were roped in to help which ironed out the initial gremlins like him confusing my knickers with our daughters. Occasionally I'd pop downstairs and want to interfere - like when he multi-tasked cleaning out the rat's cage with cooking a roast. Or when he was lipsticking our youngest into Dita von Teese for her school dance concert. Or when toilet roll stocks reached triple figures. But, miraculously, I shut up. I even started calling him "Bill" - as in Granger - when his talent with mince stretched to grilled salmon and prawn tacos. When he knocked out a tray of Anzac slices I had to check he wasn't wearing white jeans. Last week I finished the project and we've reverted to a 50/50 share. What did we learn? That Sandberg is right when she says too many women discourage their partners from doing their share by "maternal gatekeeping" - or being too critical and controlling. As she says: "Done is better than perfect." I've long loathed those men who refer to looking after their kids as "babysitting" - but do women facilitate that view when they run the household like a puppeteer, constantly pulling the strings but never handing them over? Our daughters have learned that their dad is capable - and calmer - than me, and that they need to be more independent. "If you don't like Hawaiian salad," he told them, "make your own lunch." They've also seen that families need to be flexible to accommodate everyone's aspirations; that equity is not just fair, but delivers its own particular brand of harmony. Finally, Nige has learned it's impossible to do a job, and maintain a house and garden (the children may be alive but the lawn is dead). And that nits will forever be my domain.