Division of Labor No. 18: A professor and a drywaller raising 2 small kids in Canada

Managing two kids under four when neither parent has a flexible schedule

Division of Labor is one of my favorite series, but it’s also one of the most difficult to pull together each month. While I do have a form where people can submit their stories for consideration, I usually try to ask people I know to participate. It’s quite a bit of work to do the diary for the day, and if both people in the couple aren’t invested, it can turn out sort of meh. “

But this series is one that keeps me up at night because I worry a lot about it being diverse enough. A year and a half in, I still haven’t profiled a same-sex couple or divorced parents—though not for lack of trying. I’ve featured a lot of families where at least one parent has a very flexible job, and I’ll admit there have been too many writers! I would love to share stories of big families and parents with older kids, too. I know the series would be more fun if I was telling a wider range of stories.

When I put a callout in this month’s Home Economics, I got a flurry of new responses (yay!), and so I’m trying that again, this time with DoL. If you’re interested in sharing your story, please fill out this form. It’s lower touch than the Home Economics form.

And if you have a friend who has an interesting story, please share! I learned about Amrita Vijay and Andrew Stephens, platonic life partners raising a child in Brooklyn, after their friend emailed me.

I’m so grateful that Stephanie Chamberlain and her husband, Trevor, were available to participate when I emailed them at the very last minute. They are based in Edmonton, Canada, and they aren’t writers (yay! lol), plus they don’t have flexible schedules. They are very busy with two under four, and reading through their day is a good reminder of just how much parents get done before 7:00 a.m. and after 5:00 p.m.—truly, I think it’s one of our super powers! I’ll let them take it from here!

Name: Stephanie
Age: 35
Partner’s Name: Trevor
Partner’s Age: 43

Relationship Status: Common law. It’s funny reading this because I sometimes forget that we aren’t married. We got engaged and planned a wedding for September 2020. But once we had to cancel it, we never had the energy or desire to plan a wedding again. Now with two kids and a busy life, I can’t imagine being able to dedicate time or money to planning a wedding. Maybe someday, but I think at this point most of our family and friends have forgotten we didn’t have a wedding.

Number of children and their ages: We have a daughter (three and a half years old) and a son (15 months old).

Your job and how many hours you work per week: Assistant professor, full-time (50ish hours per week). My work fluctuates based on the time of year. The beginning of a semester is always chaotic because I need to be on campus more, and it gets busy when I am submitting grants in the fall and early spring. I am pre-tenure, so I feel quite vulnerable in my career at times, but I have to remind myself that I do not do great work when I am exhausted and not taking care of my body or mental health. It is a bit unique to have young children while on the tenure track, but things have been slowly changing in my faculty, and I am pleased to see so many people setting better boundaries and recognizing that even without kids people have care work and responsibilities that take time.

Your spouse/partner’s job and how many hours they work per week: Trevor is a drywaller/framer for a commercial construction company. He works full-time, so about 45 hours per week. He works earlier in the morning, so there are some days he will be done early and can come home and walk the dog before getting the kids. He does not have any flexibility in his job; he obviously has to be on-site. He has had to go out of town for work a handful of times the last two years, which has gotten tougher with small kids.

Type of childcare you use: Both our kids are in full-time daycare. My oldest is in the preschool class, and my son is in the infant class down the hall at the same center.

How do you split up household responsibilities: A mixture of who is better at the task, who cares more, and who has time. I manage the household finances, including paying bills, managing investments and savings, and organizing the kid schedules. I do all of the grocery shopping and cooking. Laundry is whoever sees that it needs to be done. Trevor manages the yard and all household fixing and maintenance. We split kid stuff pretty evenly. I have more work responsibilities outside of traditional office hours (e.g., work events, conferences), so Trev manages the kids and the house if I am gone.

What labor do you outsource? We just started a twice-monthly cleaning service; it took me a long time to rationalize the cost, but I’m in a busy season of life on the tenure track. When I asked more senior professors what they advise for new faculty, all of them said to find a reliable cleaner, and I hate to say they were right. We do weekly grocery delivery. I usually sit down on Friday night and clean out the fridge, plan meals for the next week, and put the order in for delivery the next morning. I also have a service that comes every week to clean up dog poop in the yard. This is absurd to my family who live on a farm, but I love it so much, and I would scrimp in other areas to keep it.

How did you decide who does what: Some of it is based on skills and abilities, and some based on schedule. Trev has to leave early for work, so he often doesn’t see the kids before he leaves in the morning. This means I need to do all of the morning tasks like making breakfast, packing lunches, and doing daycare drop-off. Because I have a busier morning with the kids, he does daycare pickup so I can make up some of the time working a bit later in the day if need be. We have had a lot of talks (and some fights) since having a second kid about roles, and I was frustrated that I take on more mental load and household chores (e.g., making meals, kids lunches, cleaning). He has stepped up to do more for the kids, so I am not as resentful, but it is something we have to talk about a lot, because we slide back into old patterns if we aren’t paying attention. We are constantly juggling who stays home when one or both kids are sick. I technically have a more flexible job, and I am salaried, whereas Trev works hourly and has to be on-site. I am working toward tenure, and when I am teaching, I can’t easily cancel a class, so Trev will sometimes stay home with a sick kid, or we will each take a half day. It feels like this changes based on what is going on that day and who needs to be somewhere in-person.

Can you share one “parenting hack” that’s worked for your family: We have really long cold winters where we live, and it can feel like you are slowly losing your mind with the kids inside. I wouldn’t say I am a permissive parent, but I think the only “hack” I have is knowing when to let them run wild with an activity. If they want to be messy, we get the paint and head into the bathtub. If they want to tear all of the linens out of the closet and build a fort, OK, let’s do it. I know that it can all be cleaned up once they go to bed, and sometimes the mess and overall chaos feels totally overstimulating, but I have just had to care a lot less and let them get weird. As long as no one is getting hurt, it’s probably fine.

Do you feel like it’s a fair division of labor: No, but it’s getting there. I don’t know if it will ever be fair. I think I will always take on more of the mental load of the kids and the cooking, which is quite frustrating at times. But there are things I really like doing, like the finances, where it might seem quite uneven, but this just works for us. We are doing a lot better at telling each other what we need to do to make it better, but I feel like I keep saying we are in a tough season of life, and it will pass. We are both so tired, and there is not a lot of time to sit down and really hash things out, but I can feel that things are starting to shift now that the kids are getting older.

Anything else you’d like to share? We don’t have any family support, so a big thing on my to-do list this summer is to try to find one or more reliable babysitter(s). My parents live a four-hour flight away, and my husband’s family is a nine-hour flight away. It is tough because our siblings all live close to our parents and get a lot of childcare and support. It feels strange to feel jealousy in your 30s and 40s about that support, but I would be lying if I said I don’t feel jealous. After a string of long weekends, PD days, sick days, and no childcare, I long for my mom to come and play with my kids for an hour to give us a break. We are working on building more of a village, but it takes time.

Stephanie and Trevor shared a recent weekday.

4:00 a.m.

Stephanie: My son wakes up around 4:00 a.m. having lost his pacifier. I go in and find it, and then he rolls over and goes back to sleep.

5:00 a.m.

Stephanie: That doesn’t last long. My son is a habitually early riser, and I have tried everything the internet moms and some suspect sleeping experts suggest, but it’s just the way he is (sigh). He and my daughter share a room, so I try to grab him as soon as he is making noise so he doesn’t disrupt her too much. We go down to the living room, and the baby has a bottle on the couch, and I make coffee and drink it while watching the news.

5:30 a.m.

Trevor: I wake up and get dressed for work. I head downstairs and make tea and get lunch from the fridge. I almost always take leftovers from last night’s dinner and a sandwich for morning break.

6:00 a.m.

Trevor: Our daughter is making noise, so I bring her downstairs before leaving for work.

6:30 a.m.

Stephanie: The kids alternate between playing with toys, destroying the house, and eating breakfast. Today, we keep it simple with cereal for both and some fruit. Daycare provides meals for my daughter, so she will usually have a second breakfast once she gets there. I still have to pack all of my son’s meals and snacks, but that will change in a few months when he moves into the toddler class, and they start feeding him, too.

Trevor: I drive to work. It’s about a 20-minute drive to this site, but I work at job sites all over the city, so the commute time varies day to day. Today, I am at one of the large hospitals, where we are doing renovations and adding in a new pharmacy space in the basement.

7:00 a.m.

Stephanie: The kids are watching TV so I can make lunches. My son eats anything and everything right now, so he is easy, and I throw together some leftovers and snacks into my lunch bag to take to the office. Once lunches are made and dishes are in the sink from breakfast, we head upstairs to get dressed.

Trevor: Today, I spend most of my time framing walls in a new section of the building and then drywalling the parts that are framed.

7:30 a.m.

Stephanie: One of my goals since coming back from maternity leave five months ago was to get dressed and try to make an effort on days I am in the office. Academia is pretty casual, at least in my faculty, but I feel more professional when I put some effort in. I am perpetually tired, so I do my best to take at least five minutes to throw on some makeup. Half the time I sweat it off while chasing the kids to the car, but the effort is there.

Kids are dressed and in the car. We live really close to daycare, which I love. It takes me less than 10 minutes to get them both dropped off and back into the car to work.

8:00 a.m.

Stephanie: I drive three minutes to the park and ride. I take an express bus to the train station. There is not much difference in the commuting time between driving and taking public transit. It is convocation season, so there is no parking on campus anyways. I try to take transit most days because it is better for the environment, and it saves me money on parking and gas. I rationalize that I can use that money for the cleaners. It also gives me a chance to look at my email and calendar for the day and listen to a podcast.

8:30 a.m.

Stephanie: I get to the office around 8:45 a.m.. The train stops in my building, which is really handy. I get upstairs and turn on my computer and start the day.

9:00 a.m.

Stephanie: I have a grant due in a few days, so I am adding a few last-minute collaborators to the online application, and then I will review the proposal again.

Trevor: Our first coffee break is at 9:00 a.m. I always have a sandwich and a tea that I bring from home, or I buy tea if it is somewhere close. There is a cafeteria at the hospital, so I get tea and then get back to work.

10:00 a.m.

Stephanie: Grant stuff is done, so I move to some admin. I need to approve my research assistant’s hours and approve a student’s expense reports. I had a student go to a conference that was paid for through a grant, so I approve their receipts to make sure they get paid back as soon as possible. Delayed repayments are very challenging for students, so I always try to prioritize any admin related to payment so they aren’t waiting too long. I answer emails and respond to what feels like 20 Doodle polls. All I do is answer Doodle polls.

Trevor: Continue framing and then move on to drywalling.

11:30 a.m.

Stephanie: I make a lot of progress on my emails, and admin is done, so I go downstairs and grab a coffee. I need some caffeine to get me going for a few afternoon meetings. We have a coffee shop on the first floor of our building, which is nice, and it gives me an excuse to get up and walk around. Once I get back to my office, I get my lunch from the fridge. I made pasta salad on the weekend. I have to review a paper for a journal, so I start to do that while I eat my lunch at my desk.

12:00 p.m.

Trevor: I eat my lunch, which today is leftover shepherd’s pie from the other night. I get 30 minutes, so I usually just heat something up from home and scroll on my phone. I text Stephanie to see how the kids were this morning and what time she will be home.

12:30 p.m.

Stephanie: I meet with my colleague to discuss a grant we are writing together. We booked a meeting room so we can use the white board to diagram the components of the proposed study. My research is on older adults, loneliness, social isolation, and health-service use. I spend a lot of time thinking about how we can screen and track loneliness in our health system so that people can get referred to appropriate community-based services. This project is going to be situated in primary care for people who were recently diagnosed with dementia, so there are some things we need to sort out related to workflow and how caregivers will be integrated into the project team. This is the part of my job that I love. It is fun to work with smart people to try to solve problems in hopes that we can create something that will help older adults. We have this room booked for 90 minutes, and then we both have to leave to head to an all-faculty meeting.

1:30 p.m.

Stephanie: I go back to my office to log into the faculty meeting. We meet quarterly as an entire faculty, and there is a list of updates and things we have to approve. There are things that are not directly relevant to my work, so I sort of tune out at parts and answer emails on my other monitor.

2:30 p.m.

Stephanie: The faculty meeting is finally finished, and I made decent progress getting through my email.

3:00 p.m.

Stephanie: Our annual reports are due soon, and I need to update my CV with new publications and conference presentations. I spend some time doing that and reviewing the guidelines for a new CV format our main national health research funders are introducing. It is meant to make it more equitable and demonstrate impact rather than just numbers of grants and publications, but it is going to be very time-consuming to generate this new CV for every single grant that we submit. I suspect it will impact people like me who are early career researchers, and who don’t have dedicated admins to help update things like this.

3:30 p.m.

Stephanie: I find a webinar about the new CV format and watch 15 minutes of that before getting bored and turning my attention to my faculty annual report. Even though I was on maternity leave most of last year, I still have to complete the report and try to demonstrate my productivity during my leave. I have recently submitted a number of grants, but I will not hear back before the report is due, so I will make some notes for how to update the report in the coming week.

Trevor: I need to do some paperwork documenting everything that I worked on today, and then my boss calls about the details of tomorrow’s job.

4:00 p.m.

Stephanie: I do a final check of my emails to see if anything needs a review before I pack up and head home. I always check my calendar for the next day. I usually decide if I will be in the office based on in-person meetings and teaching. My spring semester course just ended, and I need to make progress on a grant, so I decide I will write from home tomorrow. My commute usually takes me about 50 minutes in the evenings with the added traffic, so I try to leave shortly after 4:00 p.m. unless something is scheduled to go later.

Trevor: I pack up my tools because I will be going to a different site tomorrow. I complete my paperwork and then head out. Depending on traffic I usually get the kids anywhere between 4:30 and 5 p.m.

4:30 p.m.

Trevor: Pick up the kids from daycare.

5:00 p.m.

Trevor: I take the kids to the backyard, and we play until Stephanie gets home and then while she makes dinner.

Stephanie: Home and into the pre-dinner chaos. The kids are playing in the backyard with Trevor. I say hi and ask how their day was and then go inside and get started on dinner. I usually prepare various dinner elements the night before, so it doesn’t take too long to throw something together. The kids are going to have homemade chicken pesto meatballs, broccoli, and McCain smile fries. Trevor and I will have meatballs, broccoli, and a baked potato in the air fryer. While I am prepping and heating up dinner, I take all the lunch containers and bottles and put them in the dishwasher.

5:30 p.m.

Stephanie: Kids sit down to eat. We try to eat with them, but they get so hungry I am often sitting them down to eat while the rest of dinner is cooking. My daughter is a terror at meal times and won’t sit down, so we do our best, but it’s a lot of up and down. My husband and I often take turns eating so that someone is watching the kids while the other eats.

Trevor: Once the kids are eating, I go up and have a shower. I am covered in drywall dust, so I usually shower as soon as I can when I get home.

6:00 p.m.

Trevor: Kids are done eating, so I take them up for a bath and referee various fights in the tub for 30 minutes.

Stephanie: While Trev handles bathtime, I clean up the kitchen and figure out what we will have tomorrow night for dinner. I take out some chicken to defrost overnight to make a curry and double check that I have enough chopped veggies I can throw in. I finish cleaning the kitchen and go up to help with the kids.

6:30 p.m.

Trevor: We let the kids jump on the beds while I put away the laundry that I brought up earlier from the basement. Stephanie usually does at least one load a day, and I bring it up and we put it away while the kids get their pjs on.

Stephanie: We each take a kid and wrangle them into pjs. We head downstairs, and the baby has a bottle on the couch before we put him to bed.

7:00 p.m.

Trevor: We alternate who puts which kid to bed, and tonight I take the baby. I put him in the sleep sack, and he is rocked to sleep for maybe 10 minutes before passing out. He dropped to one nap when he started daycare a few months ago, so after a full day, he is really tired.

Stephanie: I sit on the couch and scroll on my phone for a few minutes. My daughter has her tablet, so we both zone out on our respective screens until Trev comes back downstairs.

7:30 p.m.

Trevor: There is a hockey game tonight (our team is in the Stanley Cup Finals), so I watch that while my daughter alternates between the tablet and playing with toys. She will watch something and then leave the tablet and go play and then come back to it for about an hour before bedtime. In between periods of the hockey game, I walk the dog. They are playing like crap, so it’s not even worth watching the game.

Stephanie: I aim to run three or four days a week. I would prefer to do it in the mornings, but I don’t have the time during the week, so I usually go once my son is down for the night. If it is nice weather, I go outside, and if it is cold or raining, I use the treadmill in the basement. Tonight, I am scheduled to run 7k. I use the Runna app. I did a 5k program when I was postpartum and then progressed to 10k and a half-marathon. Now I am in a maintenance program, so nothing too long or extensive, but it is nice to have things programmed for me so I don’t have to think about it. I go after Trev gets back from walking the dog.

8:30 p.m.

Stephanie: I am back from my run. I go up for a shower and get on pjs. Once I am done I start to put my daughter to bed. She is already in pjs after her bath, so we read a book in our bed, and then she goes to her bed. Since the kids share a room, we usually do a book in our bed and then sneak her into their room. She tosses and turns in bed, so we often have to go in one or two times in the 30 minutes after she’s in bed to tell her to be quiet so she doesn’t wake her brother. We are just getting over a sickness and teething, so—knock on wood—right now everyone is healthy, and thankfully, they go to sleep without incident.

9:00 p.m.

Stephanie: Most nights I might watch an episode of a show, but since Trev is watching TV (and we only have one), I read One Golden Summer on the couch and passively watch the game. Carley Fortune is my favorite Canadian romance author.

Trevor: I fall asleep on the couch sometime in the middle of the second period, and that is the last thing I remember.

9:30 p.m.

Stephanie: Around 9:30 p.m. most nights I head to bed, and I usually give myself 30 minutes of time to scroll on TikTok. I try to be asleep between 10:00 and 10:30 p.m. because I know the kids will be up at least once or twice in the night and then up early in the morning.

10:30 p.m.

Stephanie: I scroll longer than I expected, but I was watching videos my best friend sent me. Since we live far away, sharing videos is our love language. I stayed up too late, but what can you do? I fall asleep sometime around 10:30 p.m.

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Thank you, Stephanie and Trevor!

Please comment with kindness!

Random Extras:

• Ochuko Akpovbovbo asked 13 young women how they feel about the way the media portrays Gen Z spending (which TBH, feels a lot like how they used to portray millennial spending). The responses are so interesting and very relatable, whatever your age. Highly recommend checking it out!

• I’ve been busy cranking out the newsletters this week. ICYMI, this month’s paid Home Economics is a good one, and yesterday, I sent out a guide to giving your kid(s) an allowance, which includes special paid-subscription offer! Don’t miss it!

• Tomorrow is the last day of school in New York City! What are we all doing for fun this summer?! Yes, I realize the geopolitical climate is fraught right now, but I still want to hear about how you’re having fun and staying cool and what you’re ordering at your local DQ. (It’s a classic dip cone for me!)