Pulling the Curtain Back

What's child care like for our own house? Well, I'm about to tell you.

The pre-kid days, circa 2011

Before I get to child care, I want to say a few things about Substack.

I spent about a year mulling over creating my own Substack before I finally decided to do so. I wasn’t sure I’d have enough to say, or that people would read it, or even if people would decide to - gasp! - pay money to support it.

And while I’m incredibly happy with this platform and outlet and have had no shortage of things to write about, one of the people most formative in encouraging me to take this step was

Lindsey Stanberry

, who has her own Substack,

The Purse

.

If people here also read

The Purse

(or follow Warren or me on social media) then you may have seen our Division of Labor series that ran last week. Lindsey had us track our days and write up how we spend our time with regard to home, care and paid work. She has been kind enough to allow me to share with my own Substack audience, and I have an addendum at the bottom to address some of the comments/questions that came our way (all positive, constructive ones).

If you’ve already read

The Purse

post and want to skip to the new stuff, scroll down to the bottom.

And if you don’t already subscribe to

The Purse

and want to read some smart, savvy content about money, life, kids, parents and gender roles, I encourage you to sign up!

Name: Rebecca Gale
Age: 43
Spouse’s Name: Warren Margolies
Spouse’s Age: 43

Number of children and their ages: We have three kids: two sons (a fifth grader and a second grader) and a daughter in pre-K. 

Your job and how many hours your work per week: I’m part time and work 25 hours a week, though I often take on freelance projects to try and work (and earn) more. 

Your spouse’s job and how many hours they work per week: Warren is a partner at a boutique law firm and works full-time (sometimes evenings and weekends, too, if need be).

Type of childcare you use: Our main source of childcare is our daughter’s pre-K program. She attends Monday to Friday from roughly 8:30 to 4:30/5 depending on our schedules. The boys come home from school on the bus and can let themselves in, though my work day often ends early enough that they are not home much on their own. Once a week on Wednesdays, when I go downtown to work in the office at New America, we have a sitter come who helps us with laundry, meal prep, and other chores. She is a college student and amazing, but she is graduating in May, so we will need a new setup for the summer and next school year. 

Two to three times a week, the grandparents pick up our daughter from school, and once a week, my mother takes her to school. 

How do you split up household responsibilities: I do most things at home with kids, especially the oldest and youngest, but Warren has a better time encouraging our middle child to do things—like wake up and get on the bus. We are constantly rearranging schedules to maximize flexibility, work, and sanity. I do most of the cooking and meal planning; Warren does more in-store grocery shopping. Warren is also better with administrative tasks and paperwork, so he does a lot of the kid camp and activity sign-up, insurance reimbursement, random forms that need to have detailed explanations, those sorts of things, which is great, because I really can’t stand that stuff. I will often put a list together of things to order, and Warren will be the one to place the order. 

How did you decide who does what: Warren and I work in very different fields and make very different incomes. Because of this, we give Warren’s work priority and deference. It’s not the way things originally started in our marriage, but it’s evolved that way. I wish we could say money doesn’t matter, but we have three kids and a mortgage and plenty of bills to pay. I do contribute to our household financially—and I also carry the kids on my company benefits—but it’s not like we could ever live on my income alone. 

Do you feel like it’s a fair division of labor: 
Rebecca: For the most part. I think (and I want to give Warren space to respond to this, too) that we both do A LOT. But it’s also sort of never ending, so it can seem like you’re still leaving the kitchen a mess even after having cleaned it up for an hour. Our middle kid has some challenges in life. We are working on things with him and have some great resources, but it does strain things to have someone who is less cooperative in general, and it can often take many reminders and warnings before he completes a basic task like getting up in the morning.

Warren: I think we came to the realization a few years back that we will do our best to accomplish a fair division of labor, but in the event of any tiebreakers, Rebecca will handle the more time-intensive child care tasks, and I’ll prioritize my career. So within that framework, I think we do about as well as we can as far as both doing our share. The framework itself brings with it some inherent tension, though. Communication goes a long way, I’ve (eventually) learned. On the day we shared,I had designs on unloading the dishwasher before I left for yoga, but it just wasn’t going to happen if I wanted to get back in time to make my way through the rest of the morning. As our younger son has gotten older, and we’ve learned more about him and what parenting techniques are effective for him, I’ve taken on a much larger share of helping him, which at times can be frustrating, but I’ve come to view it more as my calling. I try to remember in moments of frustration that everyone’s intentions are good, and that we all love one another—just carrying that mantra with me goes a long way in helping me through the more challenging moments.

Anything else you’d like to share? A quick side note on our Wednesday after-school babysitter. When Warren and I agreed to do this Division of Labor for The Purse, I wondered which day of the week we should pick, because they all tell a slightly different story. Wednesday is the day we have the most help because it’s the only day when we have paid child care help outside of our daughter’s pre-K (which is a substantial expense; it just takes place outside of our home). I opted for sharing our Wednesday schedule because I wanted to be up front about how much we benefit from having someone help us—even for just a few hours on a single day each week. I was also mindful that I didn’t want things to appear easier than they really are. Even with a super competent sitter who helps out for three hours a week, we are constantly juggling things and going back and forth about who does what. Also, no matter how many hours both of us spend cleaning the kitchen, it never seems to be done. 

I also wanted to pick a day when we were both home for dinner, and I wanted it to be a day where at least one of us was commuting downtown. So here you have it. If we had chosen a different day, it might be telling a slightly different story, so this is really just a slice of life and not the whole pie. 

Rebecca and Warren shared a recent rainy Wednesday in D.C. 

5:00 a.m.

Warren: Alarm goes off at 5:15 a.m. I immediately turn it off, get up, spend two minutes checking my phone for last night’s sports happenings and any emails that came in while I was asleep. Floss, head downstairs, put on Monday’s Baseball Bar-B-Cast podcast episode, feed the cat, drink a glass of water, do 40 body-weight squats, and fill up a water bottle and to-go mug with the coffee I prepped last night.

5:30 a.m.

Warren: Drive to yoga while listening to a podcast. Get to the yoga studio at 5:50 and start my practice by 5:55 a.m.

6:00 a.m.

Rebecca: My alarm goes off at 6 a.m., but I stay in bed and scroll through my phone for 10 mindless minutes, mostly as a delay tactic. I try to get out of bed by the time my snooze alarm goes off. My writing group has a Google meet from 6-7 a.m., and we try to log on, mute ourselves, turn off cameras, and write. I make a cup of tea and feed the cat (hmm, this apparently is her second feeding of the morning, sneaky kitty) and do some dishes from dessert last night while the water boils. I also update the shopping list on a Google doc for the sitter. I’m not sitting in front of the computer until 6:25 a.m., but I write until about 6:45 a.m, when I stop to fill out this form and then get dressed before waking the kids up. (Only one other guy from the writing group shows up, but it's nice to say hi to him.) I showered last night, and I’m going downtown today, so I want to wear something that looks more business professional/presentable, even though I have a fairly casual office.

By 6:55 a.m., I am dressed, and I make the bed. I pack up my work things to bring downstairs. 

6:30 a.m. 

Warren: Yoga practice is done around 6:50 a.m. Get back in the car by 6:55, turn the baseball podcast back on, and head home.

7:00 a.m.

Rebecca: At 7 a.m., I wake up my oldest. He’s in 5th grade and generally self-sufficient getting ready in the mornings, except if he’s tired or having trouble waking up. He has to leave the house before 7:40 a.m. to catch his bus, so he gets my priority focus for the next 40 minutes. (His bus stop is a few blocks away, and he does have to cross a double yellow line street, but there is a well-marked crosswalk, and he has good judgment on such things.) I open the door to my daughter’s room. On Wednesdays, I drop her off at preschool on the way to the office, so it would be a great day if she were ready to go by the time my oldest left for the bus. But that doesn’t always happen. My goal this morning is to be downtown in time to get the early-bird parking that ends at 9 a.m.

It’s apparently pajama day for my oldest son’s class, so he debates if he wants to wear PJs or not. He decides against it. It’s a gross rainy day, so I get that. I carry my daughter downstairs and put her on the couch with a blanket, where she hangs out until she is ready to eat. I bring down her clothes and help her get dressed. She can dress herself, but if I’m on a tight timetable (or any timetable), I do it with her. 

Today, both kids eat oatmeal, which we make in the rice cooker on a timer. Daughter negotiates for endless toppings—bananas, sprinkles, raisins, cinnamon, more sugar, more sprinkles. My oldest son is fine with the standard banana, cinnamon, and sugar. I braid my daughter’s hair while she eats. Her preference today is two braids. I’m fine with any braids. We have (knock on wood) never had lice in this house, and I want to do whatever I can to keep it that way. 

We make lunches the night before—usually I do this—but they need to be prepped in the morning with an ice pack and lunch box and put into backpacks. I also pack my own breakfast and breakfast for Warren, too, so both of us can eat in relative peace and not while rushing around in the morning. Most days, I also pack lunches for us, too, but we’ve got lunch plans today. 

The bus is running late, so my son texts his friends from our home phone while he waits for it to come off the highway (we have an app that tracks it with GPS). It’s only when he leaves that I see he didn’t take his warmer sweatshirt, and it’s raining out.

Warren: Arrive home around 7:20 a.m. Rebecca is in the kitchen helping our oldest son and our daughter make their way through the breakfast routine. I drop off my water bottle and coffee mug in the kitchen, spend two minutes saying good morning to everyone, and then head off to get myself ready for the day. At 7:25 a.m., I can’t resist the urge to play today’s Immaculate Grid game. I spend roughly five minutes racking my brain trying to remember the name of the former Phillies shortstop who blamed his poor 2020 season on getting vaccinated for COVID. (It was Didi Gregorius. Don’t worry, I remembered eventually.)

7:30

Rebecca: My daughter and I leave by 7:45 a.m. I bribe her with a treat if she will use the bathroom before we leave, and she complies. I boil hot water for tea for Warren and myself before I go and take mine in a to-go tumbler.

Warren: My Immaculate Grid procrastination over. I have about a 20-minute window to shower and get myself dressed and ready for the office before I need to wake up our younger son and get him out of bed. I’m nearly dressed when I hear Rebecca call out goodbye from downstairs. I call out a hurried goodbye from the bedroom to her and our daughter as they head out the door.

I finish getting myself dressed right at 7:50 a.m. Our younger son is not what you would call a morning person, and left to his own devices, he would sleep for another couple hours. But he and I have a morning routine that works for us. I turn on his light and get him out from under the covers by taking his breakfast order. This morning he wants Peanut Butter Puffins with soy milk and a glass of OJ. I go downstairs and prep everything for him in the dining room and use the excuse of needing his help deciding how much soy milk to pour in his cereal to help lure him downstairs.

8:00 a.m.

Rebecca: Daughter dropped off, and I begin the commute downtown. I actually love the drive downtown in the morning. I use the Marco Polo app to talk to my two best friends and my sister, plus, I have my seat warmer, and I eat my breakfast and drink my tea. I also listen to audio books or sometimes podcasts, especially if someone I’m interviewing is on. I consider this part of my background research. 

Warren: While our younger son eats his breakfast, I pack up a tote bag to bring to the office with a novel to read on my commute and the breakfast that Rebecca packed for me (a jar of steel-cut oats, a banana, and a bit of cottage cheese).

I used the last of our soy creamer in my coffee this morning, so Rebecca and I trade texts on whether it’s worth it to have the sitter go to Whole Foods rather than Trader Joe’s this afternoon.

I sip the cup of tea that Rebecca made me while I quickly check my work email. I note three separate small work tasks that I’ll need to square away once I’m in front of a computer, which of course won’t be for another 90 minutes or so. I remind myself that the world is not in fact going to end if these tasks don’t get done for a couple hours, and then I clean the kitchen from the other kids’ breakfasts and load the dishwasher. I run the dishwasher so that the dishes are clean for whomever arrives home first this afternoon to unload. I load the GPS tracking page for my bus to the Metro. It’s scheduled to arrive at the stop down the block at 8:37 a.m.

Our younger son finishes his breakfast sooner than I would have expected, around 8:10 a.m. His bus typically arrives right at 8:30 a.m., so he’s in great shape timing-wise. I praise him accordingly and tell him that if he’s quick with bringing his dishes to the kitchen and getting himself dressed, there’s time for him to have a chocolate-covered pretzel before his bus arrives. He’s back in the kitchen, fully dressed by 8:15 a.m., without me even having to head upstairs to keep him on task. (He is rarely quite this straightforward with morning prep.) Mildly amazed with how well this is all going, I offer up a chocolate-covered cherry in addition to the chocolate-covered pretzel, which he gladly accepts. He brushes his teeth, and I tell him that he has about 10 minutes to read and hang out with the cat before the bus comes. It’s now 8:20 a.m. I check the Metro bus GPS tracker. The bus is scheduled to arrive at my stop at 8:39 a.m. now, giving me a two-minute cushion.

I head upstairs to Rebecca’s office, which has the best vantage point for watching down the block for the school bus. Since I have an extra few minutes, I read the recap of last night’s Wizards game on my phone. I spot our son’s bus pulling up at 8:29. It’s go time. I alert him accordingly, and we head downstairs together, put his books of choice into his backpack and his sweatshirt on as quickly as humanly possible. I tell him I love him and send him off on his way. It’s 8:31 a.m. I grab my tote bag, pop in my AirPods, and turn on today’s episode of The Mina Kimes Show (an NFL podcast) for the quick walk to the bus stop. Amazed that I actually have about five minutes before the bus arrives, I’m feeling great. Only to get to the end of the backyard and notice that my bus is stopped at a traffic light but will be at our stop in roughly 30 seconds. So I sprint the 300 yards or so to the stop and get there just as the bus pulls up.

8:30 a.m.

Rebecca: Traffic is not great because the weather is terrible—rainy and gross. But I make it to early-bird parking with time to spare. I get to my office by 9 a.m. I find my daughter’s treat—a Trader Joe’s tea cookie—in my jacket pocket. We both forgot about it once we got in the car. 

Warren: Now safely on the bus, I pause the podcast and switch to reading my novel. I love my commute, and it’s one of my most treasured portions of the day. At some point last fall, I had the realization that I’m in a better mood on days I work downtown, and I think the zen of my public transit commute is a large contributor to this. It’s about a five-minute bus ride to the Metro. Then I hop on the Red Line to Dupont Circle, and from there, it’s about a 10-minute walk to my office. Shoutout to the guy in my car on the Red Line air-drumming to whatever song he was listening to on his phone.

9:00 a.m.

Rebecca: Among the non-work tasks I need to do, our youngest son’s Individualized Education Program (IEP) meeting was moved, and now I need to reschedule the two meetings that overlap. The teachers have less flexibility than we do, so if we get a time to meet, we’re inclined to take it. 

Warren: I arrive at my office at 9:15 a.m. I stop off in the kitchen and prep my breakfast. I eat at my desk while hurrying to square away those three small tasks from earlier in the morning before my 10 a.m. Zoom meeting.

I stash my phone in a desk drawer in my office. During the work day, I find I’m significantly more productive if I stick to a schedule of looking at my phone and checking my Gmail for a few minutes at the top of every hour, rather than having constant access to them.

10:00 a.m.

Rebecca: Spend some non-work task time uploading receipts for health insurance claim reimbursement. They do not make this process easy, but I set a timer and spend 15 minutes working on it, and I will do more tomorrow and next week until they are done. Small batches are the way to go for me. Otherwise, I procrastinate on this forever. 

Warren: Attend my one scheduled Zoom meeting on the calendar for the day. Once it’s done, I know I’m set for the rest of the day to get some actual uninterrupted work done.

10:30 a.m.

Warren: I finally get started on the one larger-scale work task I’m aiming to get completed today, and other than a few minutes of Gmail catch-up, I work on that straight through until noon.

11:00 a.m.

Rebecca: I send an email through a portal to our son’s therapist and also confirm some babysitting plans for our daughter’s spring break in late April. I promise I do some actual work, too. 

11:30 a.m.

Rebecca: We are doing a virtual cooking class with our son through his school this weekend, so Warren and I email back and forth about the grocery list, discussing what he can get this weekend and what we should ask the sitter to pick up today. 

12:00 p.m.

Rebecca: Warren and I have never actually met for lunch downtown since I began working here, but today is the exception. I take a work call on the 20-minute walk over. I don’t typically work out on the days I go to the office, so this is all the movement I am going to get today. 

Warren: I do a quick Gmail catch-up at the top of the hour and then head out to lunch. Hilariously, on today of all days, our friend Eli made plans with both of us to meet him at a lunch spot in between our respective offices. Both Rebecca and I are fairly certain this is the first time the two of us have actually managed to meet up for a lunch date in the time since she’s starting coming back downtown once or twice a week. Lunch is about a 10-minute walk from my office, so that gives me an extra 20 minutes of roundtrip podcast listening. Mina Kimes and her guest are doing deep dives on the various quarterback prospects in the upcoming NFL draft. Who should the Commanders take at #2, Drake Maye or Jayden Daniels? (Editor’s note: They went with Jayden Daniels.)

12:30 p.m.

Warren: I’ve learned over the past few years that catching up with friends is something I need in order to maintain whatever degree of sanity I’ve held onto in the face of the day-to-day stresses of work and parenting. We had a great lunch with Eli and heard about what's new and exciting with him. We also got a date on the calendar for our annual gefilte-fish-making event. Rebecca and I debate whether to arrange a babysitter for the gefilte-fish making or bring one or more children along.

Any time spent with Rebecca without our loving but nutso children doing anything they can to kill the momentum of our conversations is lovely. This adult lunch was a really welcome break during a hectic day.

1:30 p.m.

Rebecca: I update the grocery list and send it to the sitter with the instructions about going to Whole Foods. I am going to miss her so much when she graduates. We have only about a month left of her coming on Wednesdays. 

Warren: Back from lunch. I fire off a couple texts to the carpool group for our older son’s Wednesday evening dive practice. I’m driving both directions tonight, so I need to know who all is coming to practice and where I’m picking them up.

Once that’s out of the way, I largely have the next three hours to get as much work done as possible before the commute back home.

2:00 p.m.

Rebecca: On Wednesdays when I go downtown, I often bring one of the office snacks for my daughter when I pick her up from school. Unfortunately, our office is out of snacks today—I go to the downstairs kitchen to double check and even stop by the front desk to confirm the snack-less situation. This is not going to go well in a few hours when I have to do pickup. 

2:30 p.m.

Rebecca: I email with another therapist for our youngest son about getting into a program that he and I can do together in-person over the summer. We finally got off the waitlist. I email back and forth with the admin—much easier than calling her—and she says she will send over paperwork soon. I’m hoping Warren will be up for filling it out. I really dislike paperwork.

3:30 p.m.

Rebecca: Around now is when our sitter is starting her shopping trip for us. I know the rain will add more time to my commute, so I prep my to-do list for tomorrow and aim to leave here before 4 p.m. At the moment, my to-do list for tomorrow only has one non-work item on it—doing more of the insurance forms. Though I love my morning commute, the evening one is less desirable. I wade through traffic and listen to more podcasts. 

4:00 p.m.

Rebecca: Our oldest son gets home from school right about now. He can let himself in and get himself settled, and the sitter will be there soon if he needs anything else. (Mostly, I want him to work on his homework before watching TV.) Our youngest son gets home around 4:30 p.m. His bus comes right to our driveway, so he can let himself in, too.

4:30 p.m.

Rebecca: I get to our daughter’s preschool at 4:50 p.m. She is hard to cajole and angry about the lack of snacks on offer, so her teacher gives her two crackers. On the way to the car, it is still raining, and she throws a fit about one of her art projects getting wet. Once at home, she wants to watch TV, and I let her because I don’t really care anymore. I change into jeans and a sweatshirt and chat with the sitter, who is making chicken stir fry. That is her usual dish for Wednesdays. We use Julia Turshen’s recipe, and she has it memorized by now. When the sitter first started working for us, almost two years ago, we used to switch up meals. But it got hard to plan, and we realized there is a learning curve to getting a meal made properly, so we decided it was better to stick to a handful of dishes and rotate periodically. 

Warren: I didn’t get quite as much work done during that three-hour block as I was hoping, due to a couple calls from clients that I had to take, but that’s typical. It’s another reminder to myself that the world isn’t going to end if the work has to wait until tomorrow morning.

Before I head back home via Metro and bus, I stop by my office building’s fitness center and do a quick five-minute guided meditation. I make a point to meditate every day for the sake of my mental health. Typically, I do it when I first get to the office in the morning, but today there just wasn’t any time.

5:00 p.m.

Rebecca: I start setting the table for dinner and ask my oldest about his day at school. I also tell him to practice piano before dive practice. He tells me he did some homework earlier when he got home, which I do not independently verify. He winds up helping me set the table, so I pivot and start emptying the dishwasher instead. He wants to make mocktails, with these fancy vinegars that my cousin sent me as a gift—he mixes them with a few ingredients to go with dinner.

5:30 p.m.

Rebecca: I brought a salad home from work to go along with our dinner (one of the programs at my office had a catered lunch with leftovers). My oldest decides he wants to prep it and puts it in a fancy salad bowl. My youngest son skips dinner—he often eats on his own later. My daughter is difficult during dinner with all sorts of inane requests and then finally cooperates and eats something resembling normal food. 

Warren: I arrive home from the bus right around 5:30 p.m. Given the short timeline of getting our older son out the door to dive practice right at 6 p.m., I quickly take stock of where everyone is at. Our older son is with Rebecca and the sitter in the kitchen, making mocktails. Rebecca mentions in passing that he hasn’t practiced piano. I remind him that we’re leaving for dive practice in 30 minutes and pull him away from his mocktail prep to help me bring in the recycling bins from the bottom of the driveway.

Our younger son and daughter are watching TV in the basement. She comes upstairs when she hears it’s dinnertime, but our younger son remains in the basement playing with Legos. It’s his safe space, and he rarely eats dinner with the four of us, very much preferring to do his own thing and eat on his own timetable, which I respect. But I do head downstairs and snag the TV remote from him so that he can’t keep watching TV for an open-ended period of time.

Our daughter had some strong feelings during dinner as far as whether I served her enough stir fry and whether the appropriate way to eat rice is with a spoon or a fork, but I tend to find her outbursts far more endearing than Rebecca does, and eventually she calms down and the four of us have a nice (if slightly rushed) dinner.

The second I’m done eating, I hop up from the table and try to do as much kitchen cleanup as I can in the roughly six minutes before our older son and I are out the door for dive practice. Normally I do the majority of the post-dinner kitchen cleanup while Rebecca preps tomorrow’s lunches for everyone. As the kids have gotten older and increasingly go and do their own thing after dinner, this has turned into some nice catch-up time for the two of us. But that isn’t the case tonight with dive practice.

6:00 p.m.

Rebecca: Warren and our oldest leave to do the dive practice carpool. I am very big on carpools and always try to set one up whenever an opportunity exists because it makes life so much easier and allows for much more flexibility when dealing with multiple kid schedules. I will often cold-email people about setting up possible carpools, and while not everyone says yes, a lot of people do. The sitter makes lunches for two kids (I end up making the third one tomorrow morning), while I make lunch and breakfast for Warren and then get started washing dishes and doing other kitchen cleanup. The younger two kids are playing by themselves in the basement, which is great, except I know it will make bedtime harder because they won’t want to stop.

6:30 p.m.

Rebecca: Quick break to fill out this report, and I have to restart my computer because I think my oldest son was on here earlier. I don’t know what happened, but with a restart it’s up and working again. Then back to the kitchen to keep cleaning up.

The sitter helps me look for overdue library books, and I get in an argument with my youngest son about where they are. (He’s the one who checks out the most books in our family.) Eventually we find them. Before she goes home for the night, she stops by the library to drop off the overdue books and pick up new ones on hold. 

My daughter negotiates a deal where she will put on her pajamas now but will not take a shower. I agree because I’d rather have her ready for bed now and not argue about it. 

Warren: My goal for dive practice (which lasts 90 minutes) is to get caught up enough on work emails that have come in since I left the office at 4:30 p.m. that I have time to watch an episode of Boardwalk Empire before we head back home.

7:00 p.m.

Rebecca: I give our youngest son dinner, and then dessert to both kids, which involves a lot of sprinkles. I am still cleaning the kitchen. I slice fruit for both of them and Venmo the sitter for her time. We pay her more than a regular sitter because she does so much for us. It’s not something we could afford multiple days a week, but it works for just one.

The new library books arrive, which occupies everyone. My oldest got a copy of Number The Stars, which he is reading for class. I pick up the book and proceed to read it again because it’s still so good all these years later. For the next half hour, I ignore my kids and kitchen cleanup and read on the couch.

7:30 p.m.

Rebecca: I read two different Pinkalicious books to my daughter. My younger son reads an Elephant and Piggie book to her, then they fight over who gets to sit in my office chair while I type this.

8:00 p.m.

Rebecca: Daughter not yet asleep. She comes out of her room, and I have to cajole her back to bed. 

8:30 p.m.

Rebecca: Warren and our oldest come home. Youngest son takes a shower with the promise that he can look up something on Google maps afterward. Our oldest tells us he has not done math homework and tries to do it before I cut him off and tell him it’s bedtime. His math is really hard, and doing it late at night just makes everyone frustrated. (The piano practice never happened.) Our youngest son finally cleans the cat litter box after we asked multiple times. I put away his game of Risk that he left out and some reaction ensues. 

Warren: I get home from dive practice with our older son right at 8:30 p.m. On the car ride home, he lists all the things he still wants to do before bedtime: eat dessert, do his math and reading homework, and practice piano. We talk about how it isn’t realistic for him to do all of these things given the late hour. I attempt to gently impart upon him that he should have done at least one of these before dinner, as opposed to making mocktails. Such is the life of a 10-year-old.

He puts his wet clothes from dive practice into the laundry. (Both Rebecca and I remind him to do so. A few hours earlier, we realized that a previous batch of dive clothes had been sitting wet in his dive backpack for roughly two weeks.) I serve him a slice of leftover pie while he sits down to do his math homework. He wants one of us to help him, but I think I speak for Rebecca when I say that we’re both pretty exhausted by now, and we’re rapidly losing energy. After about five minutes, Rebecca convinces him to cut his losses and get ready for bed. 

9:00 p.m.

Rebecca: Warren and I make tea and finish cleaning the kitchen. We eat our dessert and talk. On some nights we watch a show, but not tonight because it’s already 9:30 p.m. when we are done. 

Warren: I prep coffee for tomorrow morning. Once all kids are upstairs in their rooms, Rebecca and I have tea and dessert and talk, but the tricky part at this point (at least for me) is that once we get past 9 p.m., my ability to take part in an adult conversation greatly diminishes. Still, it’s great to get 20 minutes together. Sometimes these conversations are more substantive, and sometimes it’s just squaring away the various logistics of the rest of the week.

9:30 p.m.

Rebecca: Upstairs and getting ready for bed. Two kids asleep, youngest son is still reading. 

At 9:45 p.m., I call to him to turn his light off. He says he wants to finish one thing, but shortly after that, the light is off. Warren is already asleep, and I turn my own light off a little after 10 p.m. 

Warren: Given that I wake up at 5:15 a.m. every morning, I really try to make a concerted effort to be in bed with my eyes closed by 9:40 or so. This is complicated by the fact that our younger son now wants to stay up later than that. But we’re working on managing that. I wash up, read a few pages of a novel, and by then I can barely keep my eyes open. We’ll do the whole thing over again tomorrow.

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Post-publication notes

Not an actual picture of Warren and me, but a representative sentiment as to how we feel the Division of Labor turned out. Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

I found this exercise to be more far more rewarding and introspective than I’d initially anticipated. Not that I’d doubted the editorial integrity of the Purse, but because I hadn’t realized how much I would enjoy chronicling our day and seeing just how many hours are geared toward caring for others.

But based on some of the comments we received, I wanted to respond/update on some aspects:

• Several people pointed out that allowing our middle kid to eat dinner on his own reminded them of their household. It was interesting to see how much that point validated a conflict for some families (like ours), who felt that for some kids, having their own timetable and space was more important than keeping a more traditional dinner table where everyone eats at once. It would certainly be more convenient for us if we all ate together (and even more convenient if we all ate the same thing) but that hasn’t worked out for us yet. And it’s not really something we’re trying to solve for at this point.

• I went back to read how many times one of us was cleaning the kitchen. It’s like we’re always in motion, and yet it’s never done.

• I wound up cold-texting someone for another possible carpool, drawing on my own advice to “go for it” and hoped they’d say yes. Instead it was more of a “she’s just not that into you” no. I still stand by my empowerment message to any parent who wants to make schlepping to kids events easier - find the carpools, and if someone says no (or just doesn’t respond) move on and find another.

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Back to Child Care

Elissa Strauss is out with a new book detailing the unexpected benefits of caregiving: When You Care: The Unexpected Magic of Caring for Others. The Better Life Lab at New America and the CareForce are hosting an online event with Elissa and Sian-Pierre Regis, a New America National Fellow, who is featured in the book and whose journey as a caregiver to his mother was the focus of his debut documentary, Duty Free.

The event is on Wednesday, May 15th at 2pm and should be interesting to anyone wanting to do a deep dive into understanding the historical context of care and some of our deeply held narratives. It will feature remarks from New America CEO Anne-Marie Slaughter, and will be moderated by Katherine Goldstein, who many people may know from her Substack,

The Double Shift

(another one I highly recommend reading for people following care, parenthood, work and gender).

Sign up for the free webinar here.