mamazine.com: Before you had Henry, how did you think you'd split the responsibilities involved in caring for a baby? What happened when the baby was born?

Amy: Well, we'd been sharing caregiving duties (of Vincent, who was about 20 months old when we started dating) for a few years when Henry was born, so I had some fantasies about how that would go that just proved to be ridiculous when Henry actually arrived. I pretty much assumed Chip, who had been a single dad when I met him, would be the same kind of father to the next baby: the kind who got up in the night with his child, who never referred to being with his own kid as "babysitting," who hated that he had to work from 8-5 Monday-Friday because he felt like he was missing out on so much. I really thought we'd have a fifty/fifty arrangement…I'd spend a little bit more time with the baby because my job is more flexible, but we'd be a team. I conveniently overlooked the fact that I planned on breastfeeding, which Chip wasn't going to be able to help much with, and that I hadn't actually known Chip and Vincent when Vincent was a newborn, and so I had really no idea what caring for a baby was like.

When I was pregnant, I figured Henry would be born in the spring, I would be home through the summer—which I already had off work, as a teacher—and then in the fall, he'd be about four months old, and I'd teach classes while my mom or sister watched him, he'd sleep in a Moses basket while I graded papers and Vincent played with blocks, and everything would be beautiful. Never mind that I'd never been able to grade papers with even just Vincent around, or that we didn't have a Moses basket…

Henry was breech, and I had a c-section, which made me more dependent on Chip during my recovery than I'd expected—it hurt to raise my arms, so even drying myself off after taking a shower was torture for a while, and I ended up having to get him to come in and do it. Henry also didn't latch on to nurse until he was a few weeks old, so we were working with lactation consultants, I was pumping and using the SNS system because I was so sure that nipple confusion would happen if I gave him a bottle, and of course I insisted on feeding Henry myself, since the ultimate goal was for him to get his food straight from my body. I was pretty sure that if he didn't breastfeed, the world would end, I'd be a failure as a mom, etc.

It was this crazy time, because I was just deliriously happy to have Henry there finally, and I was convinced, of course, that he was beautiful and brilliant and truly just a wonder baby, but at the same time, we were really, really stressed about feeding issues and weight gain. Plus, I was trying to be a martyr and not take the Vicodin I'd been given to deal with the pain from the c-section. I was bowled over by how much love and worry had come along with this baby.

I was also pretty shocked by the inequities of parenting: I was the one breastfeeding, and so I was the one waking up with the baby, and I was really exhausted for a long, long time. Then, when Chip went back to work when Henry was a month old, I was furiously jealous of his lunches with friends and chances to sit in a clean office, drinking coffee, talking to adults, going on the internet. I'd expected to have the same experience that he had as a parent, but the reality was that I was a mother and he was a father, and we were having different experiences.

Chip: Well, I always figured we'd split the responsibilities as evenly as possible, given our situation with me working a full time, 8-5 office job and just physically not being home for 10 hours a day, five days a week. With Amy's much reduced teaching schedule during that first period following Henry's birth, it was a given that she'd have more face time with him. So, I guess I knew, obviously, that she'd be doing much more actual caring for the baby.

This pretty much played out, but what we didn't count on was just how incredibly needy Henry would be. He wasn't so much colicky as he was just generally fussy and uncomfortable. Amy was committed to breastfeeding, and Henry couldn't get the hang of latching on. It became a six month struggle to get him to eat, because we didn't want to give up and go the formula route. So there was lots of breast milk pumping, storing, freezing and labeling of milk, the dozens of special feeding accoutrements. The point here is, even though we thought we were prepared for the difficulty of having a new baby—since I had a son already, and Amy had been helping raise him as well since he was almost two years old—we were totally unprepared for having such a needy baby. Amy still did most of the work, but when she left for a couple hours at night, two or three times a week to teach her class, Henry would scream…sometimes for hours. He was fed, he was dry, he was healthy, he just really, REALLY, wanted Amy. Sometimes I lied and told her he had been fine while she was gone. Sometimes I told her the truth. I still don't know what the right call was there.

mamazine.com: How is paid and unpaid work balanced in your household, and what creative ways have you come up with for sharing or breaking up the responsibilities of both? What role does gender play in your decisions about caregiving? Finally, how has your sharing of caregiving duties changed over the years?

Amy: I have what in some ways is the ideal job for a working parent, because I teach at the college level, but as adjunct faculty, which in my department meant I could drop down to teaching a lighter load for a while when I had kids, and because no matter how challenging my schedule is, it's only for fifteen weeks. I'm off at Christmas and during the summer, when my kids are out of school.

Of course, there are some major trade-offs for that flexibility, but it has meant that my work schedule has been able to change according to my kids' needs at the time. When Henry and Josie were born, I dropped back from teaching four classes a semester to teaching one class a semester for the first year of each child's life. I've added to my class load as they've grown. For several years, I taught in the late afternoon and evening. We'd have a babysitter come—usually a relative, since we live in the town we were both born in and are rich in relatives—and then later Chip would get home from work and the babysitter would leave, and even later on, I'd get home. A few semesters, after my siblings got too busy to babysit on a regular basis and my mom got a full-time job, I taught only in the evenings, four nights a week, so he'd come home and I'd hand him the kids and drive like a maniac to get to my class on time.

We were lucky to have this kind of flexibility, because we just couldn't have afforded childcare for three kids, but it also sucked in many ways. I would spend the whole day with small children and then go teach my writing classes—sometimes the first adults I'd talked to all day were my students. Finding time to prep for classes and grade papers was hard; I ended up spending the weekends in the library because it was impossible to get work done at home. So we weren't seeing a lot of each other, and the time we did have together was often spent with me being frustrated that I'd come home from work and the kids would still be awake and the house would be thrashed, while I think Chip felt like he was working his ass off at work and then coming home to continue working really, really hard, with no thanks. This was not one of the high points in our marriage, to say the least.

In terms of some of the outside work of raising kids, like taking them to appointments, getting them together with friends, and volunteering in their schools, Chip does a lot of that. Chip's always been the one to make dentist appointments and take the kids to the dentist. I've done the pediatrician appointments for Henry and Josie, and he does them for Vincent. [I used to do most of this for Vincent—for about two years—but found that since I'm not a parent who is legally allowed to consent for treatment for Vincent, it was just better for everyone if Chip and/or Vincent's mom took him to his appointments.] He goes to more baseball and soccer practices than I do, and he tends to spend more time on that part of the kids' lives than I do. I've spent slightly more time arranging playdates for Henry and Josie, but I'd say he does more than half of that work—and I do see that as a kind of work—for Vincent. We both try to help out in the kids' schools; he drives on pretty much every field trip they ever go on (my nightmare!), and I work in Henry's class once a week and fulfill the parent hours requirement at Josie's school by doing the school's laundry once a month or so.

We've definitely changed our caregiving patterns over the years. It's more equitable now than it's ever been. For the past year and a half, Josie has been at school every weekday morning, and I've worked during that time. I take Josie to her school most days, while Chip takes the boys to their schools. I teach in the morning, and then I pick the kids up at their schools in the afternoon.

If I could go back and make any changes in those earlier years of being a mother, it would be to have found Josie's school earlier—and to have been able to send Henry there as well. I had a very black and white view of mothering for a while, and part of that view said that daycare was bad. Once I started feeling like low-quality daycare myself—irritable with my kids, burned out from not having any time to myself—I was forced to start questioning this mentality that said mothers were always the best caregivers for the kids.

Also, being so financially dependent on someone else, as I was when the kids were babies, was much harder than I'd thought it would be. No matter how feminist we both feel we are or how much we both recognize the value of the unpaid work I do, it was and still is hard to see that he's continued to get raises and promotions, while my own raises, which are based on number of units taught, are very slow to come when I don't teach a full load of classes. These are real trade-offs, in my mind; my retirement account is building much more slowly than his is, and I don't receive Social Security credit for the caregiving I do.

Chip: That's an interesting question. I don't really see it as paid and unpaid work. I work more hours than Amy and earn a higher salary, but she works plenty of hours and without her financial contribution we would not be able to stay afloat. However, I see all the money coming in as the family's money: what we as a family have earned to continue to live the way we do. If there's an imbalance, it comes from my being away from the house as much as I am, and physically not being there for a lot of the hard daytime kid and household work.

I think Amy sees the gender roles as very pertinent, and fairly traditional, and I don't think she likes that. I certainly don't feel that "since I'm the man, I should be off working while she takes care of the kids." I don't consider child care woman's work. If we could find a way to bring home the same income, but with me working 15 hours a week to her 40, without sacrifice of retirement earnings, health insurance, etc., I would switch. Not because I think she has it easier—I know she doesn't—but because it might break things up a little. Really, I wish we both earned individually at a six figure rate so either of us could work half time or quit entirely for a period of time without too much sacrifice to the household.

mamazine.com: Has access to childcare been an issue for you in any ways—finding it, paying for it?

Amy: Yes, although I didn't choose to see it that way for a while. Finding it hasn't been a huge problem—the city runs a great afterschool program at the school which we used for Henry when he was in kindergarten, and Josie is at a small school near our house which she got into just at the right time in terms of my work schedule, and then of course we've been really fortunate to have had relatives from both our families help us care for our kids.

Paying for it, though, is something we struggle with. For years, I couldn't afford to work more and to work during the day, because daycare for three kids, even with Vincent in school and only needing afterschool care, would have eaten up my salary, and we needed that money for basic needs. So Henry went to the preschool at a local church, which was fairly inexpensive but not useful in terms of my work—I couldn't teach during the short time that the school was open, the hours weren't flexible, and kids had to be three, so it wasn't a place Josie could go while Henry was there.

If I'd taught a full load of classes, we could have just managed to pay for childcare for two kids while Vincent was in school—but as an adjunct at the college, I'd lost my entitlement to a full load of classes when I dropped down to teaching just one after Henry was born, so even if I could get a full load of classes, they'd be at inconvenient times for a semester or two until I'd regained my full entitlement.

I often feel like I have the relative luxury of choosing each semester whether we'll be strapped for money or time. Early on, it was easy to say, "Oh, the kids will only be babies once, so let's opt for more time." We've made conscious choices to free up more time for family—to live close to our workplaces so that we don't have long commutes, for instance. We've been parenting together for eight years, though, and Chip's been a dad for ten. After a while, that "time or money" equation began to seem way too simplistic to me, especially as I've learned not to underestimate the amount of stress financial difficulties can put on individuals and on a marriage.

Chip: It used to be "we just can't afford it." Then we kind of snuck up on it by putting Vincent in daycare at the college's preschool a couple days a week, and that didn't cost too much money. Maybe $80.00 a month or so. Eventually Henry went to Fremont Presbyterian Church's nursery school six hours a week, and we were up to $165.00 a month. Then there was 4th R through the school district for both boys, and finally Montessori for Josie. Yes, finding quality, affordable daycare was, and remains for us and many people, a big issue. Daycare just seems to be all or nothing. They either need to go full time, or they only get to go Tuesdays and Thursdays from nine to eleven. I don't see a lot of really flexible options for working parents.

Now Josie's daycare costs $465.00 a month, but she can go 20-25 hours a week. That bill would have been unthinkable when Henry was little, but we make a little bit more money now, and the daycare enables Amy to work more, and that helps pay for it. Still, we're looking forward to next year when Josie goes to kindergarten at the local public school. Ka-Ching!

mamazine.com: How do you share the work of caring for your home?

Amy: I didn't feel like, at least for the first two years of Henry's life, that Chip was doing 50% of the household work and caregiving. But I also have to say that being home during the day made me focus much more on cleaning and cooking than I'd ever thought possible. I can remember saying to Chip early on that I missed being able to say, "I did this today" and get praise for it—as a teacher, the feedback from students is pretty instantaneous, and my annual evaluations were sort of like grades in my mind, and I was used to getting that kind of positive feedback on my work. So to suddenly be home with small kids, cleaning up one apple juice spill after another, and not get much recognition for that was a hard, hard transition, and I started feeling like having a clean house and baking bread from scratch and all kinds of other things I'd never, ever done or cared about were important.

It got to the point where I was doing almost all of the housecleaning because I was home more and because I didn't think Chip did it well enough, or fast enough, or both—and I was pissed off about it, and tense because the minute I'd clean anything, it would, in this small house with three kids, get dirty. I found myself resenting him for doing the dinner dishes, because he'd listen to music he liked and take his time, while I was left caring for the kids when I'd already been with them all day, and then just hating myself for being the kind of person who gets mad at her husband because he does the dishes slowly. But that's the kind of petty detail that matters when the only time you have to yourself is the five minutes between when the kids went to bed and when you go to bed.

Once Josie was about two, I decided to just let it go, to let the house be dirty. Dust doesn't really bother me, but clutter does, so just clearing the toys and books and backpacks and shoes off the living room floor became my nightly goal. Cleaning the bathroom is something we do when company is coming. Sweeping the kitchen floor happens when the crud under the table is piled too high for one of us to ignore. Laundry is something I'm trying to give up control of while also trying to convince Chip that taking the clothes out of the dryer and not folding them is a sin.

I noticed, too, that once I was working more outside the home and earning a little more money, I just didn't care as much about what my house looked like. I also wasn't nearly as likely to feel like I did more around the house when I was getting time to interact with adults and to do work that challenges and enriches my life in different ways than raising young children does.

Chip: Well, we have semi-defined roles. We never really sat down and said "OK, you're going to do all the laundry, and I'm going to do all the yard work." It just kind of worked out that way. Amy does the more big ticket items: laundry, cooking, dishes, cleaning and straightening, shopping. I'm kind of Mr. Miscellaneous. Yard work, trash, bill paying and debt shuffling, fixing stuff when it breaks, breakfast, some dishes, paperwork, car care. We both do baths, supervising of teeth brushing, story time and bedtime.

Amy is the more focused worker, and I tend to get distracted more easily. She certainly does more work around here, but in my defense, it's not like I'm loafing while she's working. I can see her seethe, "I'm on my fourth load of laundry and he's STILL making the coffee for the morning?" But see, in the middle of making that coffee, I activated our new Chevron cards, put some dead batteries in the dead battery bag in the garage, called my voice mail at work to remind myself to go buy Dora the Explorer Live tickets tomorrow, gave the kids vitamins, and thought of four things to write on the shopping list. So "yes, I'm still making the coffee…but it's all getting done!"

mamazine.com: How do you both claim time for yourselves among your busy work/family life?

Amy: I've been known to take off by myself to see a movie when I'm just burned out, and the internet has obviously been a great resource for connecting with people I might not have time to see in person or talk to on the phone. Email is my lifeline; my kids don't make it fun to talk on the phone. I read as much as I can, because that's always been a major form of sustenance for me. I squeeze in work on mamazine whenever I can, too—usually while kids are playing or asleep, but often while they're playing on the floor of my tiny little office.

Now that getting kids to bed isn't the Herculean task it used to be, I think we're both a lot more generous with allowing the other to go out with friends at night. Chip's more social during "his" time than I am, maybe because I get to spend a lot of time with other parents during the day—those conversations at the park and at school pick-up, for instance. So for me, relaxing often means having some time alone. Getting other mama friends to go out at night is sometimes hard—most of us are on pretty tight budgets, and we're all, honestly, just exhausted at the end of the day.

Chip: This was more of a struggle early on, but we seem to have settled into a pretty good routine now. Basically, we give each other space to have "self-time," with the realization that self-time is needed to keep one happy. I probably go out more than she does. The unwritten rule is one night a week is about the maximum I think one could expect to go out with impunity. I probably take one night every week or two to go out with my friends and do whatever (poker, movies, dinner). Ideally, it gets on the family calendar in advance, that way there are very few surprises about what's going on that week. It probably helps that I don't drink: no DUIs, no accidents, no $60.00 cab rides home, no crashing on buddies' sofas.

Obviously, as often as I go out, I am totally OK with Amy taking the same amount of time. However, she tends to use it less. That may speak more to her mother friends not feeling like they have the freedom to just up and go out.

But even around the house, she needs time to write and work on her website, and I need time to play (and play with) music. As I write this, the house is a mess, the kids are still up, and stuff needs to get done. The guilt starts to kick in, so I'll likely stop soon. We try not to nag and guilt trip each other. We've seen so many people divorce in the last few years, I think we kind of feel like: freedom to be yourself and do, more or less, what you want probably leads to more internal happiness. Happiness inside me leads to happiness outside of me, such as in the marriage, in the family, etc. And that's absolutely the same with Amy. I've seen too many people give up who they are, their friends, their personal interests for the sake of "the family." Sure, being in a family means a LOT of sacrifice, but when you lose yourself too much, you're headed for divorce court. That's my theory anyway.

In the first few years of our marriage, I got really into a couple of new hobbies that Amy resented because she perceived them (rightly) as solo hobbies: backpacking and motorcycling. It very much disturbed her that as soon as we got married and started having kids, I got into all this stuff that could not be shared with the family. To her, I think, that translated into "he doesn't want to be in a family" at least on a subconscious level. Now, I denied this was the case, but there may have been something to my needing alone time and solo activities. However, my commitment to being in a family was never a question.

mamazine.com: How did having Josie change family life and all its responsibilities for you?

Amy: Josie was a joyful addition to our family. Before she was born, I'd had an unexpected pregnancy and then a miscarriage at 13 weeks. One of the side effects of the miscarriage and then my pregnancy with Josie was that I went through two full first trimesters of pregnancy in seven months, which is definitely not something I'd recommend—I was in my first trimester of the first pregnancy during the fall semester of 2000, and I was in the first trimester of my pregnancy with Josie during the spring semester of 2001. So when she was born, and she was healthy and able to nurse right away and just this beautiful, alert little baby, I was sort of amazed by how smoothly things had gone.

Henry was 2 1/2 when she was born, and Vincent was 6, and for at least the first year of her life we were just swimming as hard as we could, trying to stay afloat. Honestly, when I think back to what I call "the dark tunnel time," what I remember most is feeling so insufficient. I'd get Josie to sleep, but then Henry would wake her up by just being a normal noisy toddler, and I'd just feel like I wasn't going to make it through the day. Just getting everyone dressed and out of the house to go to the store was a challenge at that time.

This was also when we were really kind of forced to share caregiving duties more. I went back to work teaching two nights a week when Josie was nine weeks old because that was when the new semester started. It turned out that although I'm sure it wasn't the best job of teaching I've ever done (I was seriously sleep-deprived and worrying a lot about leaking milk through my shirt during class), it was really nice to put on work clothes and leave the house those nights.

This meant Chip was spending two nights a week getting dinner for the boys while caring for Josie, so he had a pretty clear idea of how difficult my days were at that time, and when I walked in the door, my head full of work-related stuff, and the kids attacked me with hugs and I just really wanted five minutes alone to change my clothes, I had a pretty clear idea of how he felt many days when he came home and we were all sitting out in front waiting for him because I'd been counting down the seconds until he came home, and he'd want to take ten minutes to change his clothes before he took over with the kids.

Chip: It's almost like Josie was an extension of Henry. Once Henry started coming out of his demon years, there was Josie to take his place. Henry turned into this cool little kid who was happy to let me care for him for the most part. He'd hang out with me all day long. We watched Josie like you watch for a cancer recurrence. "Look…she doesn't cry like Henry did…she slept for two hours, Henry never did that!...she only screamed for five minutes…SHE'S NOT LIKE HENRY! HUZZAH!" That's what I remember anyway. She was still far from an easy baby though.

I don't know how much things changed moving from two kids to three. What really became clear was that now there just wasn't any fucking around anymore. It was ALL work, ALL the time. Diapers, baths, dishes, working, bedtimes, stories, and of course when Josie is a baby, Vincent is full into school, baseball, soccer, and all the billions of practices, games, picture days, pizza parties, field trips, conferences, homework projects and the like. So, no, no more screwing around once Josie showed up. Full speed ahead.

mamazine.com: What advice would you give to a couple expecting their first child?

Amy: Be kind to yourself. Don't try to do it all "the right way,"and please don't think that the birth determines the kind of mother you'll be, or that even the first six months do. Know that everyone struggles—and that no one else has your kid, so no one can tell you they know just how you feel. And for god's sakes, find yourself some mama friends who tell it like it is and who let you speak your truth about motherhood without making you feel guilty or ashamed.

Chip: Just to not worry so much about doing the right thing, but being the right people. Meaning being true to themselves, taking time for themselves. How many times have you heard a couple say "Gee, I can't even remember the last time we went out just the two of us!" I think that's sad, moving from a couple who probably had a terrific life together pre-children. You can't just throw that away. You have to keep that primary relationship sacred, as hard as that is when you're each wiping piss off the ground in different parts of the house.

mamazine.com: Considering the society and culture we live in as parents today, what one thing would you change that would make parenting easier for you or would make you feel more supported as a parent?

Amy: High-quality, flexible, and affordable childcare. That would have changed my life as a parent in huge ways during the baby years. Just to be able to take Henry and Josie somewhere and go grade papers for two hours, or even go to the grocery store by myself, would have been a gift. We both have jobs we've been in for over ten years, vacation and sick leave time, relatively flexible schedules, and relatives in town who are willing to help out with childcare; if it was hard for us, I can't imagine how difficult it is for most people.

Chip: Well, being a parent is always going to be hard. Caring for small crazy people versus watching a little TV and going to bed? No contest. But in terms of how society could make it easier, my number one wish would be for more family friendly businesses and corporations. Telecommuting, job sharing, flexible schedules, company provided childcare, lactation rooms, paid maternity/paternity leave. On the social front, I'd like to see part of our taxes put toward subsidizing day care centers so that day care was more flexible and more affordable for working people, and so that day care workers could perhaps earn a better wage and really make it a career if they so desired.

Have something to say about this piece? Email contact@mamazine.com. In your email, please let us know if we can post your feedback and name in our "mama likes" section. It just might happen. —Sheri & Amy