Celebrate your child's love of learning

© Wondertime

Dad on a Lark

As I sit down to write this, I'm in a hurry. But I'm always in a hurry. The hoofbeats of all the things I haven't done thunder after me, a posse that never stops.

Since Larkin arrived, Molly and I are perpetually behind. Laundry piles up. Bills pile up. The yard grows thick as a jungle. A light bulb in the bathroom burns out, and we don't replace it for days. Who has time to replace light bulbs? We have a cleaning woman twice a month (we finally caved in and hired one), and just getting ready for her is all we can manage. We run around like maniacs, taking our junk and tossing it into the "guest" room — really now the cleaning-woman-preparation room.

When you both work full-time, having a baby throws a very big monkey wrench into the works. Part of the problem is figuring out the division of labor. I grew up in the heyday of the single-paycheck family, when Dad did his thing at work, Mom did her thing at home, and efficiency ruled. Nowadays, who knows who's supposed to do what anymore? Molly and I divide up the money-making, the household chores and the childrearing, task by task, hour by hour.

We both work a lot to begin with. I'm a freelance writer with a half dozen projects on my desk at any given time. Molly's a high-school English teacher and brings work home every night, and weekends too. And now there's Larkin.

"I have no life apart from school and this baby," Molly says.

Recently we pried two hours free one Saturday night and rented the movie, Little Children, where Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson play parents who conduct a steamy affair while accompanying their toddlers day after leisurely day at the playground and pool. All we both could think was, You have time for an affair? Get a job!

We hardly have time for anything. We rise at 5:45 a.m. and rush through breakfast to get Molly off to work and Larkin to the babysitter's. I cram as much writing in as I can before picking Lark up at 1 p.m. When Molly comes home from school we have a couple of hours of family time, a hasty dinner, and then she tucks Larkin in and heads into her study. We're in bed by 10. Get up tomorrow, turn the crank all over again.

As for chores, Molly handles the mountains of laundry and picks up Larkin's toys, and we split the food shopping. I do most of everything else. If that seems a little lopsided, it's because while Molly and I earn roughly equal money, it takes her longer. She works 60 hours a week, while I've cut down from 50 per week, pre-Larkin, to about 35.

Neither of us is happy with this system. She would like to work less at her job. I'd like to work more at mine. But we need both incomes, and we really need the benefits Molly gets. I'm sure there's underlying ambivalence on both sides. Molly never wanted to be a full-time mom — but did she expect to be the one driving off to work every day, while her husband stays home? And there are certainly moments when I resent doing more than "my share" of the household chores. Meanwhile, I still have more free time than Molly, and when I go out for a beer or a movie with a friend, leaving her with her schoolwork, I know she's envious.

It's easy to get testy with one another. We have these conversations full of twisty recrimination, things like "Are you saying that I'm saying you're not doing enough?" That's how it is for overworked parents. You keep this little internal list of all you've done, and when the squeeze is on, you both take your lists out and wave them in each other's faces. Time is the precious resource, and you're always rationing it out — or fighting over it. You feel you'll never catch up. Panic sets in.

One weekend Molly had all her quarter grades and comments due Monday, a huge task. The plan for Sunday was for me to take Larkin from 7 a.m. till 10 a.m., and again from 2 p.m. till 6 p.m. But that morning Molly asked me, "What are you doing between 10 and 2 when I have Larkin?"

"I don't know," I said. "Working on a story." In fact, I was also hoping to play some basketball.

"Well," she said, "Would you let me assert a need and not give up the middle of the day? I have an absolute deadline on these grades, and I'm getting scared."

I could feel my jaw stiffen. "All right," I said, slowly. "So when do I get my hours?"

She sighed. "Could you please do this without making me feel guilty?"

I wasn't sure I could. It was 7:10 on a Sunday morning, and I didn't have a cup of coffee in me yet; and now I wasn't going to play basketball, or make any headway with the short story I'd planned to work on, or the two articles I had to edit, or the overdue magazine essay, or or or.

"OK," I said, grimly. "You got it."

I took Larkin to her room, shutting the door behind us, while Molly went into her study. I felt a mix of self-pity, aggrieved righteousness, weariness, and the vicious pleasure of anger. This is not a good state to be in, and we're there way too often. I worry about the wear and tear on our marriage, on how we see one another. But what can a stressed-out parent do about it? Molly and I try to go a little easier on ourselves and on each other. It's important not to cling to an idea of a serenity we could get back to, if only we could catch up. Instead, I'm learning to let go.

And children — for all they do to complicate family logistics — can help with that. In her room Larkin and I sprawled on the carpet, and she looked at me with her mischievous smile and her large, inquisitive, hazel-gray eyes, that seem different colors in different lights.

"Hi there, Monkey Wrench," I said to her.

"Waaarrrrgh!" she said.

We read a book. We waltzed to "The Rainbow Song." We played the game where she puts a plastic organizer bin over her head and "hides," uttering muffled giggles of glee while I repeat, "Where's Larkin?" We had a blast. I didn't really want to work, anyway.

I had almost forgotten that.