tips for future moms on how to do it all...?

<p>I didn’t want to hijack Jolynne’s thread, but it started me thinking… I’ll certainly keep tabs on her thread because it’s already given me food for thought, but I have some questions of my own. </p>

<p>Provided that my husband or I find jobs within 100 miles of one another in the next year or so, I’m staring down the barrel of motherhood starting within the next two or three years. So far, I’ve been the quintessential high-octane mid-twenties Career Girl, powering through nine hour days and working weekends in the male-dominated field of structural engineering. My apartment and desk look like Container Store ads. Papers are sorted and filed, laundry and dishwasher are constantly going, I’ve named my vacuum cleaner Clive and we have a passionate relationship, and everything is uncluttered and sparkling. </p>

<p>That’s… obviously not going to work forever. High-powered job, sparkling house, kids, and sanity: pick three, maybe two, and kids has to be one of them for me. My utterly supportive and wonderful husband once jokingly mentioned that hey, HE could stay home with the kids all day and <em>I</em> could support the family, and much to both of our complete surprise, I immediately burst into tears. (Where on <em>earth</em> did that come from?? I’ve been trained from birth to ‘do it all’! I went to a super-feminist girls’ prep school for thirteen years-- my parents paid good money for them to beat those instincts out of me!)</p>

<p>Is it feasible to work part-time from home as a professional woman, provided I’m able to finagle that somehow? Has that worked out for anyone? Did the respect for you in your professional community wane any as a result of your choosing motherhood AND career? If I start out hyper-organized, will I be able to maintain a semblance of disclutter, or will I just drive my family insane and go all “NO WIRE HANGERS!!” on them? </p>

<p>You’re successful mothers who seem to have not strangled your children, and you’ve seen to it that your kids are educated, productive members of society. What’s your secret?</p>

<p>I quit when I had kids, because I knew I could not raise kids and work at the same time. I have a need to control things, and I am an overachiever. I enjoyed being home … and I was in charge of everything in my wake … school, church, neighborhood. I made the choice to do one thing, and I have never regretted it. By the way, I have four brothers & my mom would not let me have a Barbie because it was sexist. I was raised to be anything I wanted to be. I was a trailblazer when I first began my career. Just the same, I chose to stay home because that was what I wanted to do.</p>

<p>If you want to do both, I would suggest a housekeeper … at least once a week. That will be a big help. </p>

<p>If respect wanes in the workplace because you are a mother, find a new job. </p>

<p>I feel that my life has been successful because I did things on my terms. My husband is awesome. We never spent more than we earned. I kept my sense of humor. I found an outlet for my talents (my bossiness!) by volunteering where my kids were welcome.</p>

<p>Since each child arrives with a distinct personality only think about this in generalities. Assuming you’ll have maternity leave you’ll have a few weeks at least to figure out how you want to do things…babies have a funny way of rearranging any schedule you might plan.</p>

<p>Line up good day care.</p>

<p>Make room in the budget for a once a week house cleaner.</p>

<p>Cook ahead on your days off.</p>

<p>Remember your husband isn’t “helping” or “babysitting”. He’s a parent, too, with shared responsibilities.</p>

<p>Look for a job with some possibilities for telecommuting.</p>

<p>All of the above work for my D who has 3 children under 4 and commutes by train into NYC with a breast pump in a satchel.</p>

<p>Aibarr:</p>

<p>Everybody does things differently; some have colicky kids, some have kids that are enormously cooperative. Some have great support systems, and some have none. And some have commuting relationships…</p>

<p>H and I were lucky that we did have jobs in the same city, that our schedules were somewhat flexible and bosses understanding (but we needed to make up a lot of the work in the evenings or weekends). We also have access to terrific though super-expensive daycare. Despite the fact that my kids did not sleep through the night until abominably late (9 months for one, four years for the other!), I was able to return to work full time within less than three months of giving birth. The daycare center accepted children who were not toilet trained (not all do!), and as young as 2.5 months. It ran from 8am to 6pm. We chose it partly because of its high reputation and partly because it had a parking lot. We could thus take our time saying good-bye in the morning, hang out with other parents, talk to teachers at the end of the day.
Both kids were in full-time daycare until kindergarten, which ran until 2;30 and was followed by on-site aftercare.
We were lucky that our kids were never sick, so we did not have to take time off to get them to the doctor; they were also sunny tempered, and never seemed to get into trouble. The terrible twos were not particularly terrible. But I know other kids who were moody and difficult.
You won’t know what kind of kids you’ll have until you have them. And you won’t know if you will want to be a stay-at-home mom until you have to make that decision. There really is no right or wrong way to be or to be a parent. When the time comes, you’ll know what to do.</p>

<p>Oh, sweetie. We all have different paths. I was all about the career but haven’t worked in six years, choosing to stay home once my oldest entered middle school. So I’ve done it all – single working girl, married working girl, working mommy and now flat-broke SAHM for six years. I was so blessed to have a job with flexibility – I used to like to say “I’m so lucky; I get to work day AND night.” Because sometimes that’s what it took to get the job done so I could stay home with a sick kid the next day. As long as I got my work done – and continued to do it well – my employer didn’t care when I worked. And, at the time, I thought it was great because I would load up some days so the next day I could do a field trip or a class party or a performance.</p>

<p>I will say that the big boss, my main champion, wanted to groom me for bigger and better things. But, as a mom, I just didn’t want to take on greater responsibilities, and my boss grew a bit impatient with me. My immediate supervisor, a woman, explained it to him like this: Men see a career ladder – up, up, up it goes. For working moms, sometimes it more like a jungle gym – up a ladder, through a tunnel, across the bridge. I thought that was a great description of how I felt.</p>

<p>I guess if there’s any wisdom to impart, it is:</p>

<p>1) Get the best day care your money can buy. The peace of mind of having a wonderful woman taking care of my babies is the only thing that made a career possible.</p>

<p>2) Don’t feel guilty. About anything. Cloth vs plastic. Bottle vs. breast. Work vs stay at home. Full time vs part time. Guilt is wasted energy. I believe 99% of us are really doing the best we can at the time with what we have to work with.</p>

<p>Good luck. Parenthood is so transformative.</p>

<p>Remember that it takes two to make a baby because it takes at least two to raise one. Never ever forget that it is a partnership and you do not have to do it all! I have worked part-time since my children were born and have risen to the top of my profession in the state, serving on state boards, national boards, doing major projects, consulting, etc. The one thing that worked for me was that I had and have complete and total confidence in my husband as a father. I never once questioned that his devotion to our children was any less or any less special then mine. He is in academics and our schedules have always worked out that his downtime coincided with my busy season, so we would swap off being the primary care giver based on whose job was busiest at the time. The result was magnificent. Both of my sons have very tight and very special bonds with both of us and seem to really respect us for who we are as individuals. Your children need time with each of you. That special bond that women want with their children is so special and wonderful that men deserve it too. (One of the great things was both boys discovered early on that Daddy was much better at dealing with throw up then Mommy was so they always woke him up in the middle of the night!) So if your husband wants to stay home with the kids for a while, let him, secure in the knowledge that you children will have a richer relationship with the most wonderful man in the world.</p>

<p>You’ve gotten some great answers on this thread.</p>

<p>First, you can’t do it all, no one can. I applaud the other responders on this thread who chose to be stay at home Mothers. We were never in a financial position where I could do that but I was able to go back to work part-time which I will forever be grateful for.</p>

<p>I echo the other posters who told you not to feel guilty. Since I had no choice about working I never did. Where there is no choice, there is no guilt.</p>

<p>If you do have to work then things will be chaotic, dinners won’t be a good as you like, your house won’t be as clean as you want. So what? Your kids will survive.</p>

<p>Always take care of yourself. Get enough sleep, exercise.</p>

<p>Wow, I was married 7 years before I had our only Daughter. Husband and I had a very nice life, both working and doing whatever we wanted. We knew we wanted children, but it took a while before it happened. All the plans in the world go out the door when you finally give birth. It is difficult to really see where life is going to take you with baby on board. But you can actually accomplish everything you set out to do when you have the support of a husband and famiy.
I have continued to work full time in my profession since my Daughter was 3 months old.
Aflexible work schedule is extremely beneficial. I know mothers who cut down their time in the office and carry the extra day working from home.
Husband and I would take turns calling in sick when she was ill and needed to stay home from school.</p>

<p>All your priorities change, some things are no longer as important as they were in the past.
your child becomes the center of attention, not the house, the laundry, the perfectly cooked meal. Flexibility, spontaneity and sense of humor will get you through.</p>

<p>And yes, I don’t feel guilty for working, it is paying off now, daughter is now attending her dream school. Something that would not have happened if I had ever cut down on work.
There are a lot of mothers working. You actually form wonderful bonds with these women. You share stories and advice with one another, go on playdates. Really wonderful memories. Some of my best friends were women I worked with when our children were young.</p>

<p>I worked for ten years in a male dominated industry (software) but have been home since my oldest started middle school.</p>

<p>My observation is that part-time work seems easier to negotiate if you are a valued employee who has worked with the company for a number of years. However I do think it is harder to find part-time work in professions where the norm is to work 60 hours a week or more. Are there many part-timers where you work now? It is worth giving some thought to how you would pitch a part-time arrangement to management.</p>

<p>Many people who have full-time demanding jobs hire live-in help (nanny). We used a day care center - in our case, it was open from 7am-6pm and did not close for the summer or school breaks (important thing to investigate if you choose a day care center!) I chose a center close to where I worked (the baby commuted in with me) so that I could run over and breast feed. Also having daycare close to where you work means you have more time to spend at work.</p>

<p>The early months (went back to work when the older baby was 10 weeks, and after 7 weeks with the second) were tough. One of us would make a big pot of something on the weekend and we would eat off it all week. </p>

<p>I can remember going on a business trip and finding it blissful to have an uninterrupted hour to read a book during the flight.</p>

<p>I started to write my answer here about four times, and each time I erased it and started over. The take-away from that: You don’t know how you’ll feel. You don’t know how you’ll cope. But be assured that weaker women than you have handled this, and both they and their children and their husbands have survived and, in fact, thrived.</p>

<p>I went back to work after each of my sons (two of them) was three months old. In both cases, I had a wonderful nanny who lived in our house, and – while I commuted a very long distance – my husband worked much closer to home. </p>

<p>I was tired for many many years. But, as I put it at the time, “I do two things – I work, and I take care of my children.” Anything else was gravy.</p>

<p>There are only so many hours in the day and you need to determine your priorities. At the time, getting exercise was not in my top three goals, nor was keeping a tidy house. But things change, and all you can do is all you can do.</p>

<p>You will figure it out, and your children will thrive knowing that their mother is happy with her choices.</p>

<p>"I’ve been trained from birth to ‘do it all’!</p>

<p>Nobody does it all (not even men). The people who appear to be doing it all tend to be grossly neglecting themselves and their own needs or they’re not really there emotionally or physically for their families.</p>

<p>You need to prioritize what you think is important and then you need to focus your life so that you meet those priorities. Keep in mind, too, that you can’t make everything your #1 priority.</p>

<p>If you really do want a high powered career and a child, and your husband is willing to be a stay at home dad, that may be an excellent option. I know women who happily live that kind of life.</p>

<p>These are good, sensible answers. What I can say is it’s likely your definition of “it all” will change with children. For me, it was staying home 5-6 months with each baby, and then returning to work part-time. I happened to be working for the federal government when I had my first and have long counted my blessings for that. I’m still in that job because they have been so accommodating and reasonable. Honestly, private industry is more cutthroat, more demanding. Would I have had a different career/made more money if I hadn’t had kids? Of course. Do I regret it? No freakin’ way.</p>

<p>And I cannot stress enough the being-comfortable-with-your-childcare aspect if you return to work. I was so exceedingly fortunate to have my mother as my babysitter for the first 5-ish years. Another woman in my office ended up quitting completely because she could not find someone she felt comfortable with. Even after a move took us out of the area, I found a lovely (also older) woman. I’ve never had to think twice about my children’s well-being when I was at work. I can’t imagine leaving the house if it was a concern.</p>

<p>I never did consider staying at home full-time. I’m a little too selfish for that. I needed some space that was mine, and the working world has provided that. On the other hand, I feel like full-time work outside the house would have been too much. I love the idea of part-time for working mothers. (I ended up working part-time for 12 years, then going back full-time, although two days a week are from home.)</p>

<p>And fathers can do more than you (and they) think they can. When my kids were 5, 3, and a little under 2, we moved three hours away for my husband’s job to a much smaller community. I’m in a very small profession and could not have found work in the new location, so for the last 14 years I’ve spent three days a week away from home. My husband has really been a single dad two nights a week for most of my kids’ lives. He had to do the homework help, the backpack, the lunches, the getting them ready in the morning, the field trip forms. Dads really can do all this stuff. Sometimes they just need a little nudge (like being the only adult in the house).</p>

<p>(Housework is not something I stress about. It’s at the bottom of my priority list.) (I could show you the list of things I’ve resigned myself to not getting done until my youngest has gone to college. I’d much rather spend my time watching kids run around on a soccer field, or talking about a book one of them is reading. The house stuff will still be there when the kids are gone.) (And they will be. All too soon.)</p>

<p>H and I waited for 5 years before we had our first child. Everyone I worked with laughed at me when they found out I was pregnant. I was the least likely candidate in their eyes to be a nurturing mother. I was working 12-14 hours and weekends too. Another firm recruited me away when I was 6 months pregnant. They offered me 3 months maternity leave (off the book) and work from home for a few days a week until 6 months. They had a home office set up for me (20 years ago) with someone running mails(no emails back then) to my apartment in the city. I planned having a full time help, even weekends. Everything was planned out.</p>

<p>After D1 was born, everything went out the window. I couldn’t wait to get home, work just didn’t seem as interesting as before. I stuck it out for 2 more years, moving to another firm in the mean time. I decided to go part time, which was very rare back then in my line of work. </p>

<p>After D2 was born, H and I had a discussion on what we want for our kids and us. We decided it was important to always have one of us be at home for our kids, AND be financially comfortable for our family. We didn’t want to be both gone 12-14 hours day and have someone else raise our kids. It didn’t mean it had to me to stay at home. My H was also traveling 25 weeks out of a year back then. We also wnated to make sure we had enough money to provide a good life for our family and able to pay for their college education. Time with family and financial security are two things very hard to balance.</p>

<p>Over the last 15 years, we have taken turns to stay home with our kids. I worked from home for 5 years before I decided to come back to the Street again. I started a technology company, which I sold. Currently, it is my husband who is taking the back seat. He is working from home on a business he started a few years back. I am the one that’s back to 12 hr work day again. I told him this is something that I want and probably my last horrah. Now the kids are older, it is not as important for me to be home as much.</p>

<p>Most of my friends and colleagues know motherhood and family are two most important things to me. They define me, not my work. At the same time, everyone knows at work I give 110 percent when I am here. They have seen me, when I couldn’t do both I would leave before I let my work suffer. </p>

<p>It hasn’t been easy, but I am glad I didn’t just stay home or just focus on work. I do agree woman’s path is more like a jungle gym, not a straight ladder. But I think our life is probably a lot more interesting.</p>

<p>I left my nursing job to be a SAHM when S1 was born. When he was a year old and I was planning to go back to my old job part-time, we moved to a new town. Shortly thereafter, I was pregnant with S2 and became a permanant SAHM. </p>

<p>I ended up staying at home with the kids until youngest was in seventh grade. At that point a I got a PT job that allowed me to be at home every day by time the kids got home fr. sch… </p>

<p>The bottom line is that kids change things. Your best laid plans may go awry.
Be flexible. Be willing to let some things go if they really don’t matter in the whole big scheme of things. I’ve always heard that the kids won’t remember if the kitchen floor was scrubbed once a week but they will remember the times you spent with them playing games, riding bikes, showing up and cheering loudly for their sports/games/activities.</p>

<p>Now that mine are grown up and off to college and life, I realize that there is no perfect way. You just have to do the best you can and don’t stress about the rest. The time you have with your kids is short and priceless.</p>

<p>**S1’s college roommate is the oldest of three kids. His mother has had a very well paying job his whole life. In their family, it worked out best for the Dad to stay at home with the kids. He hasn’t had a full-time job in twenty years and it has worked out great for them. I see him in the grocery store all the time:)</p>

<p>If you go back to work, I would suggest having your H take a paternity leave if at all possible. My ex-H took 3 months off (after I took 3 months off) with both of our Ds, and I think it was great for them. He really internalized things in a way that he hadn’t when I was home full time. He “got” their schedules, preferences, the logistics of taking them places with all their gear, etc.</p>

<p>I also second the idea of making sure you have great daycare. I looked very long and hard (while still pregnant) for the right fit; I bet I visited 20 places before settling on a daycare on a college campus that employed both full time teachers and college students. It is worth every penny. Do the same thing for selecting your child’s school if you have options; you want the same kind of peace of mind about your kid’s happiness and safety when they go to school as you do during the daycare years.</p>

<p>I can’t claim to be a success because I ended up divorced…but I think that would have happened sooner if I’d been a SAHM. I also have a ridiculously messy house. I can truthfully say though that I was/am a good mom. Even my ex, who hates my guts, admits that. </p>

<p>In deciding where to live, choose a neighborhood with lots of working mommies. Reality is that stay at home moms and hired help do not mix. If you are the only working mommy in the neighborhood, your child will have no play dates. Plus, when they get older you child will wonder why you don’t stay home like “all the other mommies.” </p>

<p>Observe what kind of child care these families use. If you have a strong preference for the kind of childcare you will have, choose a neighborhood with that sort. If you don’t, when you hire a “sitter” choose one from the dominant type/ethnic group. In NYC, where I live, different types/ethnic groups of sitters tend not to mix. One of my neighbors hired a lovely 35 year old married woman from Portugal to care for her children. NOBODY socialized with them because their “sitter” just didn’t fit in with any of the other “sitters.” If you want to use daycare, live in a neighborhood where other families use daycare and, if possible, use the same daycare facility as some of the other families in your neighborhood. If you want to utilize the services of a stay at home mom willing to take care of one or two other kids too, make sure you live in a neighborhood where there are mommies who do that. I don’t think it sounded like you had a mom or mon-in-law who might care for your kids, but if you do, again, find a neighborhood with some older people she can socialize with. </p>

<p>Reality is that when your child is little, (s)he will socialize with the children that your sitter’s friends take care of. You want your sitter to have lots of options for making friends with people taking care of the kind of children you want yours to socialize with. That is KEY. </p>

<p>If you choose in-home care in your home or someone else’s, cultivate a good relationship with anyone who is home all day in your neighborhood. Make it clear that you are a caring mommy who is quite willing to hear bad reports. In a classic case in my own neighborhood, the doorman “busted” the housekeeper. She was leaving a sleeping infant alone in an apartment for several hours at a time while she went down to the laundry room to socialize with the other housekeepers. The doorman knew it because the laundry room has a security camera visible at the door station. Had the professional couple involved been snobs, the doorman might have kept quiet. However, they were always friendly and kind to the building staff and so, he asked them one night if he could come up to their apartment when he got off duty. Then he told them what was going on. </p>

<p>Be especially kind to any sitters in your neighborhood. They will know more about what is happening to your child when you are not there than anyone else. You want them to like you and feel that if they see anything inappropriate involving your child, they can approach you. </p>

<p>You get the idea. It DOES take a village–and let the villagers know you appreciate their help. Elderly retired neighbors, the cashier at the local grocery store, the doorman if you have one, any stay at home moms, are all people you should start befriending before you bring the baby home. You want them to know who you are and how to get in touch with you if they see anything they think isn’t right when your baby is with a sitter. </p>

<p>Have a back up to your back up to your backup. Your sitter will get sick, the fire sprinklers in the day care center will go off accidentally and close it for a day or it won’t care for kids with strep throat or measles. Have a plan in place.</p>

<p>it’s all along time ago now for me, and there was a lot of luck involved. But much more than I ever expected to be, my neighborhood was important.</p>

<p>Very planful and foreward thinking, alibarr, to look ahead this way!</p>

<p>There are a few things I’d keep in mind. In my case, I insisted to hub that I stay home w/baby daughter after maternity leave – even thought we’d just bought a pricey house based on 2 incomes. I couldn’t face putting her in daycare. It worked out, eventually. </p>

<p>I’m big on keeping options open. </p>

<p>I’d first check out day care options early on (do they have daycare at your work? how is it? are there high-end day care facilities near by that have waiting lists of over a year? this can happen). I’d find out about the waiting lists & put in a deposit on a few of the best places as early as needed. I did this (at my work). </p>

<p>A good plan is to also start trying to live on one income, thus giving you the option of doing that should you decide you want to stay home w/the baby. Sometimes, that’s a variable you cannot predict – how you feel when you look at your baby (as when you got emotional at suggestion that hubby staying home – I felt the same way – kind of a primal, maternal thing that no logic in the world can argue against…). </p>

<p>If you start saving as much $ as possible now, you’ll keep your options open for later. As to the house organization stuff – that’s not my forte. :slight_smile: My biggest concern was my decision to stay home w/the baby vs go back to work. Once that’s straightened out (whatever your choice might be) the other stuff falls into place, albeit not perfectly, but it works out.</p>

<p>I haven’t read all the replies, so sorry if any of this redundant or controversial. </p>

<p>My philosophy: If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. </p>

<p>So my advice for keeping the family strong is that Mama must be able to define her own version of happiness and be encouraged to go out and get it. Whether WOHM or SAHM, or something in-between, make the how-much-should-I-do decision based YOUR definition of happiness, not society’s expecations. </p>

<p>That’s a very tall order for most women. All our lives we’re given subliminal messages that we must be martyrs. But it’s not true. Don’t listen. Learn to say “no.”</p>

<p>You don’t HAVE to do it all. I never held a single PTO office. But I was a very reliable volunteer. Never led a single troop/den. But I was a great cookie mom. I was never a room mom. But I was in charge of the teacher gifts. I love to help with party food, as long as I can order it from a pro.</p>

<p>Do as much or as little as you want. Listen to YOUR happines, not the expectations of others.</p>

<p>Twenty years later, business is a lot more friendly to parents. Within my group, I have 2 mothers working from home. They come in 2 days a week and work at home 3 days. I was worried if they would be productive, but they are the best workers I have. One of them got a promotion and a very nice raise last year when the market was very bad. This type of working arrangement wasn’t really available to many of us. If you took a mommy track, then it became very slow. The key is also to be in a profession that would allow you to do that. Before you get pregnant be an invaluable employeee, make sure your manager feels he/she could trust you. When you do work from home, make sure you are doing an excellent job.</p>

<p>Well, one message that’s coming across here is that there really is no way to “do it all,” if by that you mean work at a full time job and do the house and kids as well as a SAHM and keep the relationship going with your partner. Choices will be made, compromises taken and options weighed.</p>

<p>The second strand is that while it’s important to plan ahead you will not know how you feel about these issues until you are in them; and even then it may be difficult to separate out how you feel from what you think you want (referencing your bursting into tears when H mentioned staying at home).</p>

<p>Being open and flexible was, in retrospect, our greatest strength: being able to juggle the kid care and the house work between us as we both moved forward in our careers. Turned out that my wife was happiest having split responsibilities: part time work that allowed her to both take care of kids and to work while I worked fulltime on a 4 day schedule, leaving me to the POD (Parent On Duty) for three days. </p>

<p>Some crucial pinch points I’ve noticed for ourselves and others were these:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>Best situation for those that split child care is that BOTH parents need to be available for changing their work plans to take care of all those glitches that arise. </p></li>
<li><p>Parents that split along traditional lines (SAHM and full time working Dad) have some things easier - e.g., much less need to decide who the POD is - and some things harder - e.g., Dad reconnecting into the family dynamic and Mom needing husbandly support upon his arrival home.</p></li>
<li><p>There are inevitable learned societal behaviors that impel toward Mom as the main parent and Dad as the helpmate. That starts as soon as the baby is born:somebody has to get enough sleep to think clearly, and it ain’t going to be Mom. Continuing along that path can lead to pressure for “we’ll share the oparenting” couples as biological Mom feels responsible for the quality of parenting even when not on duty and the Other Parent feels that her or his style of parenting is somehow “less than”.</p></li>
<li><p>The concept of the Parent On Duty. The POD is in charge and gets to parent the way he/she likes to; the parent who is not the POD is off duty as a parent and gets to do what he/she wants to: golf, yoga, sleep, whatever. That clean separation gives one parent a full break and lets the other one be a fully empowered parent. </p></li>
<li><p>Cleaning house. My favorite household work study found that “(l)esbian parents, gay parents and heterosexual fathers all look the same on paper when it comes to cooking and cleaning — they all report doing between 6 and 10 hours a week. Rothblum found that it is only heterosexual mothers who do the lion’s share of housework for the family each week — between 11 and 20 hours for her survey respondents.” Get a weekly housecleaner and a Roomba to help redress this problem . . . or do as two of our dear friends have done: be satisfied with a cluttered messier house.</p></li>
</ul>

<p>As the kids got older our specific details changed: we both worked full time, we share doctors appointments and sick kids and all those after school activities. But the key was that all of our close friends had different parenting styles and arrangements: SAHM and working Dad; full time Mom as POD all the time; two unmarried partners sharing it all much more equally than us; SAHD and fulltime working traveling Mom; full time working Dad and part time working Mom who was also fulltime POD. </p>

<p>Each of us found our own path, and you will too.</p>

<p>Kei</p>