Becky Diffen Interview. Ep 40

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vanderkam. I'm a mother of four, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hart Hunger. I'm a mother of three, practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This is episode thirty nine where we'll be talking stay at home dads with Becky Diffin. Becky is a partner at a big law firm and she and her husband made the decision when they had their first child that he would stay home with their kids. And I know that's something that a lot of our listeners are interested in, and you know, sometimes we idolize that as an idea, but she wants to talk about with the upsides and some of the challenges with it. So it's a great episode, doesn't it. Sarah. Yeah, I thought it was one of our more fascinating conversations. Just a lot of food for thought and one of the best hacks I've heard in a long time. All Right, so that's what you're about to hear. So we'll go ahead and dive right in. Or we're excited to have Becky Diffin on the program. She's going to be talking about stay at home dads. I know that's an option or a family setup that a lot of our listeners are curious about or considered. So Becky, welcome to the program. Can you introduce yourself for us? Sure? Thanks for having me. So. My name is Becky Diffin. I live in Austin, Texas, and I am a renewable energy attorney. So I work for a major law firm in what is considered big law with crazy big wall hours, but I get to do it living out of Austin, Texas, which is pretty fun, and I have clients all around the country, so I travel quite a bit. My husband has been staying home ever since we had our first child. We now have a seven year old boy and a six year old girl. Wonderful, So he's he made you guys, made that decision shortly after your first was born? Or did you make it beforehand? I mean when? When? What was the timeline of that. You know, It's funny because I went back and asked him and I said, I don't remember us having a specific conversation about this. How in the world did we end up in this situation? And I think for us, I mean, it was always clear that I was going to be the one that had the crazy career. I mean, just it's who I am. You know, always was very ambitious and very much wanted to have that kind of career. Originally thought it would be a business and it became in law, but same sort of thing. So I think, you know, even when we got married and whatever, we just kind of always knew that my career would probably take precedence. And I don't think we had specific conversations about him staying at home, but we kind of knew that we would be he would be taking on a big part of the childcare no matter what. And I think once I got into law school and got my first summer associate position and knew I was going to end up in big law and the hours that that would entail, but also the financial side of that that that would entail, I think that was when we started to say, Okay, this is probably something that when the time comes for us to have kids, that we would want to explore. He's a bit unique and that his dad actually stayed home and so he it wasn't a new concept to him. His dad was an older dad and so had been able to kind of retire early with a pension, and so really was the parent that his mom didn't work crazy hours. But his dad was the one that was home there. And his dad's the one that went up and volunteered, you know, in the library at the elementary school, and he was the one that did, you know, certainly took the lead on the housework. So it wasn't a totally new concept for him, but it was definitely something that we just kind of in some ways fell into. And then we had I had my first actually very early for big well purposes. I had him at the very end of my full first year at the firm. So it was really important for me to be able to dive right back in after I had him, and I mean, I took my maternity leave, but when I came back, I wanted to be all in. And so my husband at the time had was a teacher. He was in his seventh year of teaching, and so you know, I think we would have done it regardless. But if you look at the economics of a teacher salary, you know, it won't pay for one kid's child care, but it'll pay probably for two kids child care. And we knew we wanted to have to and we'd probably have them if we could pretty close together. So from an economic perspective, it made sense, and you know, at the given time, and then it certainly made a lot of sense if you were looking forward at the future, because teacher salaries, you know, they just don't have a lot of upside, whereas obviously in a professional capacity, you know, my upside was huge. So we looked at it, you know, from that economic perspective, but really it just it made a lot of sense. So what we did the year we had the first baby, he was born at the end of December, so I had my three month maternity leave, got us through March, and so we really only had April and May left of the school year. So my mom took care of the baby most days for those two months so that he could finish up that school year, and then he stayed home ever since then. The following April, we had our second and so I was home from maternity leave while he was home, which was actually really fun. My second maternity leave was way more fun because I wasn't home by myself and we were both home, we had two little ones. And then when I went back in, I was I actually dove into a huge deal when I went back, and I was able to do that because I had him home with two. I mean, he had two under two at home, and I could still you know, dive in and be able to work the same hours as any other which, particularly as a young junior associate, was really important to be able to make sure that I wasn't setting myself behind since very few of the associates at that point had kids. So can you tell me, because what sort of has that enabled for you in terms of I mean, you have the ability to take a late call, for instance, you're not yes, living there for a lake care pickup, although I would imagine having you know, experienced having many small children at home, but it's still you know, your husband probably would like you to come home at a reasonable time to help out with it. How have you guys made that work? Yeah? So, I mean definitely the biggest advantage is what I would say is flexibility, and so it's flexibility. The conference calls. That's a huge one. So you know, invariably, particularly because I'm a deal lawyer, stuff is just constantly popping up and you're on the phone. You think it's going to be a ten minute call. An hour later, you're still on and those calls are always at you know, five thirty or six o'clock, right when you're trying to walk out the door. And so it is on that particular point it has been a point of contention, and it's one we've worked really hard on communicating about because he would get really frustrated when he thought I was going to be home and then I wasn't, And so anything I could do to say, I have a call it might go late, just so he could kind of mentally prepare himself that I may be lead on a given day. That is a huge one, and it's one that actually, I think really took some work, and he understands that there are days that something totally unexpected happens and I just may not make it home when I thought I was going to. It's a little easier now that the kids are in elementary school. I think definitely you know, when you're home with the kids all day by yourself, you're counting, whether you're a guy or a woman, you're counting down the hours so your spouse gets home and you get a little bit of a break. So definitely, when they were little, it was really really important to him. Now I think we've got it more figured out, and I also I think have more control over my schedule, so I have a better feel for when the calls are and which days may go late. But back to your other question, So I mean flexibility. So conference calls, I travel a ton because my client and my practice is really all around the country. I go to a lot of conferences. I have clients in all different states, and so that's huge that I don't ever have to consult him, you know, other than his one guy's weekend that I get on my calendar the beginning of the year. I know he'll be able to cover. And it's also stuff like the after hours client development. It's you know, I realized a lot of the women's networking groups in town always do lunches and breakfast because that's what's easier for women who are getting home that have kids. But the general networking things the happy hours and such. You know, it's really hard to do those when you're trying to get home to do daycare pickup or just to get home and see your kids, and so it's nice to have the flexibility to do that. I mean, obviously, I still want to get home and I still want to have dinner with my kids. I don't have I don't. We don't make a rule that I do it every day because it's just not realistic. But it's nice that I have the ability to do that. But I don't. But I also have the ability to go to a dinner or anything else I need to do, and I don't have to worry about those things. For me, I also am a total night out, and partially that's because just what my job is, I'm on calls all day, so I need the evenings with quiet time to actually work through documents. And I also just find that my most productive times is often after the kids go to bed, so I definitely do somebody who very regularly most days does that second shift after the kids go to bed, and sometimes I'll do that until very very late, but then I'll sleep in in the morning. And that wouldn't work if I had you know, to be on a regular schedule to get the kids to daycare. I can just kind of work on whatever schedule works for me based on for me personally and for my clients. Yeah, that's so fun, certainly. Yeah, sorry, go ahead, sir. I was going to cut in and to say, like, it's so interesting to hear this, and I think our listeners are gonna have a lot of feelings reacting to this because my I have this weird, like powerful, like jealousy issue when I hear you say all this stuff, because it's like wow, like that that is like an element of freedom that I can't imagine. And you know, many of those forces that you talk about that you don't have to deal with, like the pressure to come home, are the things that kind of prevent me from doing certain things that I'd like to do at work. So you know, in our situation, we we have carefully thought through it too, and it wouldn't make sense for it to be like yours. But I think this can be eye opening for a lot of people, and we may find a lot of people reacting powerfully because there are different I would say, there are there are downsides too that so let's let's let's be clear on this, because there are there are the upsides of the career flexibility, like the going to happy hour, being able to travel without like finding lots of different caregivers to cover or whatever, you know, extra hours and all that. On the other hand, like if Becky wants to scale down right, Becky is where the money's coming in, So like there are a lot of WNT talk about the pressures that come with it too. Yeah, and then I also have some thoughts on what Sarah just said. So I mean, Ji, I think one of the big ones is what you just said, Laura, which is is just that you know, soul breadwinner pressure. So I lateraled and switched firms almost two years ago now, and when I decided that I was going to start looking at moving from my original firm, I really laid everything on the table, from going in house to going out on my own, going to a small boutique, going to a mid sized firm, going to another big law firm. And it definitely from an economic perspective, was very impactful, but I was the only person that was working. Now. We have always said, and particularly when you're an associate, there is no guarantee in big law of making partner, and so you know, we had always said, well, our plan is as long as Becky still feels like she wants to make partner and she's on partnership track, that's fine. But if we ever got in a situation where for whatever reason, whether because I didn't make partner or just because of what I wanted to do with my career that I wanted to was going to move into a different career or a different salary level within law because in house tends to pay a lot less that you know, he could go back to work, and that was an advantage of him being a teacher, is that actually is something that is relatively easy to go back to. But it definitely when I was making this move was a huge factor. And I mean I didn't only stay in Big Law because of that. It was the right choice for me, but it was something I thought a lot about. And you know, if we were both working high power careers, would I maybe then choose to go in house at some point? Maybe so, But there is a lot of pressure there, and there is you know a lot of worry of just making sure that you do things to continue to grow your career because it's all on you. So that is definitely I think for me one of the things. The other big thing for me is I mean I'm a lawyer. I'm completely type as just like the giving up control, and so I have to let him do stuff and I have to realize I can't do all the stuff that I want to do in terms of, you know, micromanaging summer camp registrations and communicating with the teachers and working on their date their weekly schedules and what all they have going on in their after school activities. You know, We've had times where I'm like, why haven't they gotten registered for whatever sport? And it's like, okay, I just need to let him do his stuff. And that's a hard thing, I think, to give up control over, you know, certainly as a mom. You know, I wanted to plan the birthday parties. I wanted to be at every doctor's appointment. When I was growing up. My mom worked some sometimes she was home, but she was always the one that took a start doctum as my dad would never have done that. But because I'm the one working, I still want to try to go to like as many as the physical the annual physicals, just to hear what the doctor has to say. I want to be more involved in planning their birthday party, even though I really should be letting him take on more and more of that, and I think it's something I'm doing better with. It's definitely a process of letting him take control of more and more things. And you just have to pick your battles, you know. I mean, house works a huge one, right, like what state is appropriate for your house? And that was another one that has taken us some like getting used to over the years. And ultimately it was one where even though he's staying home and so we don't have the second income, we still threw money at the problem and we have somebody who comes and cleans the house every week. You know. At first it was like once a month, and we booked it up to every other week and now it's just once a week, and it just it's less and that stress and it's less than that tension. So you know, so yeah, yeah, can you talk about that, Vivie, Because I have looked at some of the time diary data on different family situations, right, and stay at home dads often do not consider the housework to be as much a part of the job as a stay at home mom. Might that I think for many men, those are two separate jobs, and so looking at how time winds up being spent that they've taken on the kid part but not necessarily taken on the house part. And so I'm curious how that discussion went with you guys, how you work through that in terms of what your expectations were, what his were like and ultimately you did decide to outsource part of it too. So why don't you talk through how that all evolved. Yeah, So it was one of those things where I would just, you know, get frustrated because I was I would come home and I was like, well, you know, this is your view of clean, but maybe that's not my view of clean. And so we just realized that A I just have to like either have it be something that I do, or I need to not bug him about it so much. I mean, he never It's not that he wasn't that he's at all opposed to doing housework. He does it, but I think it's more for us. It was just what he thinks is clean, you know, might be well everything's put in a pile on the counter, as opposed to maybe the pile isn't on the counter, and that's not a big deal. And I mean this is something that I think people talk about a lot in the context of two working parents as well. It's just you have to lower your standards. And I think that's something about maybe just being a professional woman, is you have to lower your standards about certain things. And regardless of whether your husband is staying home or is also working, maybe that's something you just have to lower your standards, or if it's something that is really that important to you that you just can't stand it. And that's not me. I'm not like a super clean person anyway, so I don't it doesn't bother me that much. But I think if it was something where I was one of those extremely clean people, like my counter has to be clear and I can't handle life without that, then you would just have to priority that and realize that that's something you're still going to have to do yourself, or you know, you guys are going to have to work out. But I mean, with any of these things, it's just it's communication, right, and so you know, having those conversations. But definitely it was that was one of the points where we had a lot of communication about it. I'm lucky in terms of him taking on other health stuff. He does, I mean, he does so much, but he also loves to cook. Cooking is one of his passions and so something that for some people is more of a chore for him is actually something that he really enjoys. So that's been great because that allows him to do to do something and enjoy it. That also takes that, you know, off my plate. And we've just as I've progressed in my career and you know, income levels have increased, we've made the decision that you know, yes we've we're down one income and so he theoretically could do everything, but we're now in a position where, like I said, we have the person that comes once a week. We also have you know, a yard service that does just kind of the base six stuff. And so those are things that he could do if we needed him to do him, if we needed to cut costs, but if it makes everybody happier and it opens up his time to do some other things, that that's just a decision that we've made, and so that also I think helps because it's not all on him. There's certain things that just neither of us do and I think it's okay to do that even when you have one of the people staying home. I think sometimes people talk about that a lot of the context of two working parents, and I think it's like telling yourself, you know what, just because he's home doesn't mean he should have to do everything. And so I think that's been something that we've kind of learned over the years of how to balance things, and the truth that is, you're not. I mean, if you are lucky in a position to be able to outsource stuff on one income, there's no reason to suffer based on principle. And I will say, like I live in a community where there are actually a number not the same as you, but one income family is where it's the man working and earning a lot, and a lot of these women have multiple people helping them around the house, nanny's books, yard, god like a army, and yet no one that's seene as sort of normal for that echelon. So I think it's, you know, more power to you that you're that you guys are able to do that kind of thing in reverse, and nobody needs to clean just for the sake of saving face, whether that's a man or a woman at home if the family is lucky enough to be able to do that. Yeah, I'm with you. I wonder if you could, yeah, you know, talk a little bit about the social aspect of this and how people react to your family and how your husband has dealt with it to because I'm sure there's some specific challenges. I know that many many stay at home moms feel isolated in their lives and yet there's like tons of mommy and me stuff out there. Yes, so can you can you talk about that aspect of it? Yeah? And I think this is probably the single biggest thing about say at home Dad, and it's something that I think is really important. You know. I know there'll be listeners that will say, well, my husband would never stay home, so this whole episode is not relevant to me. But I think this is actually a point that is really great for everyone to understand. So I think when we first talked about it, we were worried about just that general social stigma of like people like thinking that the man should be the one working and the woman should be the one staying home. And first of all, anyone that knows us knows that that would just never work like that. He defends staying home is not going to happen for everyone's sake. But we've been pleasantly surprised in that we I don't think he's really ever run into people being like, you know, your man's place is in the in the office, and why are you staying home. He's never really run into that. It's been at a different level where these things have come up. And so I'll give a few different examples. So one is just so frustrating, but the assumption that everyone makes that they should call the mother first. For we literally entire time both of our kids were in preschool, never managed to get them to send emails to both of us. It's like the class monthly email. They would only send it to one of us, and they could not figure out how to get both of our email addresses on the list. I still I just last month got a call from the school nurse at the elementary school about my daughter because she had fallen in herself and I was out of town, and I said, well, did you call my husband? And she said, oh, well no, I'm like, well he's the first call. I mean, yes, call me. I'm the backup and I will deal with it. But he's home he can run up to the school right now, and like, we have that notated, So why is that difficult? And I think people just make this assumption, which is not a good assumption, particularly when we have marked that one thing we've done on the communication thing that is huge, and we finally figured it out this year, and I wish we had done this forever. We created a family email address, so it's you know, just our family at gmail dot com, and we use that now for anything with the school, the teachers, the sports teams, all the after school activities, the summer camps, everything goes to that email and we both have it as an additional email that pops up on our phone genius, and so we both see the emails that go in there. I've never heard that, and I'm like, that's okay, Like I want everyone to take a breath and have heard that. That's fantastic. It is. I read it on the Corporeate blog and I want to give a shout out to them because it was just seriously life changing last September. And now we're both seeing the communications and it makes such a huge difference because, like I said, when I'm saying the differences, I think between maybe a working mom versus versus at least some dads is some days just don't care about any of that. I'm never going to not care about that, even if he's the primary running it. I still want to kind of get a sense and a lot of it. I need to know for scheduling and things like that. So that is absolutely huge. We both get to teach your emails, we both get everything that's going on. So that's one thing that's kind of actually a small part about the social thing, but it's actually makes a really big difference in our daily lives. The big thing on the social thing is that women a women socialize differently than men. You know, they spend a lot more talking a lot of guys. And my husband's actually relatively social. He's actually very social, I think compared to most guys. But it's still just different the way women socialize and the way men socialize. So just you know, there are a ton of moms groups out there, right, you can pick which bonds group you mesh with. If you're lucky, your city might have a stay at home dads group. A city like Austin I would have expected to have like a really strong stay at home dads group, because I know lots of stay at home dads, but there's still there's not really ever been a group that's really had any cohesion and really done anything. And I think it's because that's just not the kind of world that a lot of guys play in. That doesn't really fit with them. So that's hard and definitely like the isolation and lininess. But the biggest problem that we had, particularly when the kids were younger, was him not getting included by the moms, and it was for a couple different reasons. I think sometimes you know, the moms just didn't really think about it. I think there were absolutely some moms or some husbands of some of the moms who were simply not comfortable with him, say, you know, going to the park with a mom and the kids and that awkwardness of their being a man and a woman going to the park or going to someone else's house. Just some people. And this is still true with just some of the people that we can tell they're not comfortable with that, and there's been others. He finally once our daughter, he made really good friends with a couple of our daughter's friends moms when they were in preschool and then it resolved so much better once he had those moms, And some of it was they did a lot of group stuff, so there were like three or four of them all together, and I think maybe that helped, you know, deal with it. One of them was our neighbor who we know super well. So like, I don't think there was ever going to be any concerns about you know, him hanging out with her or anything. Like they're both ex teachers, so they had a ton in common, and you know, I but I think it's really important, you know, in my position to have ultimate trust, which I completely do that there is no I have no concerns about him hanging out with other moms, but I understand that's not true for everybody. And it was really hard and he'd have you know, moms say oh yeah, we should let them get together sometimes, but they never respond to his text messages or his phone calls about trying to set up a playdate. And it was really really hard on him. And so you know, I say that to all the moms is you know, remember those dads, please include them too. And you know, if you're at the park and there's a bunch of parents hanging out and one of them is a dad. You know, like, don't you know, don't isolate him because he's just hanging out with his kids the same way you are, and you probably have a lot more in common than you do differences. So that was one I've also I don't know that we experience this, but I have also heard of some parents being uncomfortable letting their kids go on a playdate to a house where only the dad was going to be there. Oh I've experienced that, yeah, because like if I'm on call and they're like, I'll be like, oh, like Josh's home, and then sometimes they'll be like this hesitation and I'm like, dude, really like to do the hospital. He's home this weekend, so you're gonna come over or you're not. But like, I get it, And I think that lessons as they get older and they're more self sufficient, but I think when they were like little in preschool and diapers and stuff and you know, needed potty help and all that sort of thing, I think there are some parents that feel uncomfortable with that. And you're I mean, I'm with you. Theres it's crazy to be I'm like, they we have small little kids, He's we have a little boy and a little girl. You've seen it all. It's kind of like but I guess, you know, in some ways that's the world we live in, and some people feel very uncomfortable with that. So I just felt like maybe they thought, like, oh, they won't get as much attention, like you know, he's gonna be watching sports and the kids will be like running up. Like I don't know what they thought, but I have I definitely it hasn't happened a lot, but I've gotten that little like hesitating pause, or maybe they didn't want to put him out, Like maybe it was that like they felt like, oh, how could I ask your husband to like watch my kid? You know what I mean? Like, so, yeah, it's very interesting, that is yeah, that's yeah. I mean, things you don't necessarily think about when you're viewing it from from that perspective. But I mean, Becky, if we sort of transition to like advice you might give. So let's say one of our listeners is, you know, trying to figure out the situation. Let's say that they are perhaps in an economic situation where or her jobs has more upside or you know, has longer hours, or might you know his job doesn't necessarily cover the cost of childcare for multiple kids or something like that. If a family is considered, what would you suggest they think about. Yeah, so I think when you're making the decision, I mean, first of all, I think there was a there's been a lot of articles published that there had been a lot more stay at home dads since two thousand and eight because when we hit the recession, there started to be a lot of layoffs, and so dads involuntarily became stay at home dads. And I think that's a very different situation than someone like in our situation, where it was a very active choice, and I sense that the people where they got forced into it. You know, for some people it ended up working out great, but I think for others that you know, really hurt because they also then have I think more of that, Oh, I didn't make even my career, so now I'm staying home as opposed to it being an active decision. So if you're able to have it be something where you know the husband is is excited about it and it's something he wants to do, I mean that makes a huge difference. So I think, you know, number one in all of this is of course, just really strong communication and talking about it and understanding too that where things are at the time you make a decision, I mean, particularly if you're making the decision when you're having a baby, what things are going to look like then are going to is very different than what his mate look like in five years when they start kindergarten, and that's this has been a huge transition year for us because ours are in first and kinder so this is his first year with them both in school full time, and it's a totally different ballgame. His schedule now, his free time is like in the mornings, but then he's super busy in the afternoons and early evenings because he's running them around do taller activities, and then he fits in the errands wherever he wants during the school day and gets all that taken care of. So that's a really different situation than when we had, you know, two under two. So I think understanding that it's a conversation that you have to continue to have and recognize that things will continue to evolve over time. I think that's important. You know, we talked about the economics, and certainly that's part of the decision. I think you have to look not just at the economics at the time that you're making the decision, but the future economics. Obviously, there's been tons of articles written about women becoming stay at home moms and then trying to get back into the workforce and how difficult that is. Well, of course, that same thing applies to a man, and in fact, I think there has been research that shows that it's even harder for a man because you know, workplace would say you took time off to stay home with your kids, and now you want me to think you're serious about your career, and which is I mean, it's completely unfair, quite frankly for men or women. But some jobs work better than others. So we always knew with him as a teacher that would be a lot easier of a job for him to get back into. It also allowed him to do some things along the way, especially in the early years when we weren't totally sure if this was something we would do, you know, in the long term. He made sure to keep tutoring so that he kept something on his resume. He also did some coaching, some swim lessons, and did some stuff just so he still had things on the resume. And kept him busy. Was also just a good outlet for him. Now that has become clear that this is like our long term plan, he's actually been writing novels and he's just written the first two books of a three part trilogy, and we're working on publishers and trying to find you know, all that kind of world. And so now you know, and I think this is true of a lot of stay at home parents and in particular dads. A lot of times they're not one hundred percent not working, but their work is something like this where he's writing or tutoring kind of side jobs. I hear a lot of consultants. One of my good friends is also a lawyer. Her husband is kind of quasi stay at home. They go through different phases and he'll take a contract job and sometimes they would get a nanny for a while while he was on a contract, and then he'd you know, be totally off for a while and they wouldn't need any help, and so they would kind to go back and forth balancing that. So there's a lot of scenarios like that where it's maybe part time or gig style work, you know, in the new gig economy that we're in. So I think thinking about those those choices, and then obviously also thinking about you know, for either side somebody's choosing to stay home, are they what are they doing to their long term earnings potential? So while you know it might make sense to stay home right now, if it's going to limit your salary potential for the rest of your career, that's very different than something like a teacher, where it's not going to go up very much over time. And also looking at the fact that your family costs are going to change a lot. So you know, one can in daycare, but if you have a second shortly thereafter, suddenly you're paying for two or the cost of a nanny, and how does that, you know, offset the lost salary. And then also I think realizing that I think sometimes people make their economic calculations only thinking about daycare and don't think about the fact that there's still are costs once you're are in elementary school. And so when you are looking at like your cost savings, you know, we don't have to have the kids in summer camp all summer because we put them in a few for fun, but he's home, so we don't have to have that you know, care during the summer, we don't have to worry about off days and things like that. And I think the other thing about communication is is really communicating about things like what we talked about earlier about the housework, and you know, what are the expectations and who's going to be responsible for what. For some families, I think they end up even if it's you know, with a stay at home spouse, maybe you know, obviously it's no longer fifty to fifty, but maybe it's like eighty twenty, or you know, sometimes it's maybe ninety five to five. For some families, I think it they kind of settle into these are the things this person does, and these are the things that person does for other families, And I'd say we're probably more of the latter. It really fluctuates over time, depending on what, like how busy I am. So right now, I'm in a crazy deal cycle and I'm working really really long hours and I'm doing very little. But then you know, this deal will close and I'll have a time where I'm a little slower and I'll suddenly start doing a lot more stuff. And so our balance really changes on a cyclical basis, just depending on what I have going on at work at the time, So I think thinking about that, and then I think it's really important for the stay at home spouse and certainly for dads not only the social stuff that we talked about having that sort of outlet, but also having both like a brain outlet, like something they're doing to use their brains. And that's something you hear all the time too about stay at home moms, right is like they feel like they're just sitting around little kids all day and like they're not using their brains anymore. So finding you know, whatever kind of activity or hobby they like that allows them to do that and to have adult conversation and still you know, be able to do that. And also, I think a lot of guys are different about hobbies like women are. A lot of women like to do lots of different things, and like we targular earlier, a lot of women's hobbies, you know, are very social. It's really really important for guys to figure out what is going to be their time. For my husband, that has varied over time, and now a lot of this is his new right has been new passion for writing and spending time working on his novels. For another one of my good friends, it became the gym and he has literally his group of mom friends are a group that he picked up at the gym and he goes. And when the kids were really little, he could put them in childcare, so it was, you know, a time for him to have a break. Now they're in school, so he doesn't need that, but he still goes all the time, and that's become both a social environment but also then allows him to work out regularly, so that's kind of his outlet. He's also always kind of seems to have some sort of side project going on that he's always working on, and so whatever it is, making sure that they find what that outlet is. And then I think, for for the working spouse, it's really important to respect that time. And I actually have started working home a lot from home a lot more in my new firm, and so I'm home and I think he at first felt bad when I would see him, you know, at ten o'clock in the morning, like playing video games or or recognizing that he needed to build time into his schedule for his writing. And I was, you know, I was like, it's fine, I get it. This is your downtime. You know, it's okay that your downtime is in the morning because you don't have it maybe in the later afternoons and evenings. But I think he felt kind of bad about that, and we did, especially when he decided to take his writing to a new level and start treating it like a part time job. We had very honest conversations about like being very respectful that he was going to block out times and this was his writing time, and you know, I could I needed to respect that time. And because we had that conversation up front, it made a really big difference. And I think it's been a really really great outlet for him. Oh wonderful. Well, yeah, this has been all great, lots lots to think about and good advice for people who are considering this topic. Do you have anything else? I don't, but I suspect we're going to get some good reader comments and questions on this. So, Becky, when Laura posts a blog post on this episode, hopefully if you're able to chime in, absolutely, because I suspect you're going to get some feedback and I think it'll be really fascinating. So we always do our Yeah, we always do our Love of the Week to wrap up, so we can go first if you want, Sarah, what's your love of the week. Oh, mine's very simple, and I will go first. There's a chance I may have to my baby. Apparently it's hungry. I got texted during this speaking of primary parent at the moment, so I'll throw mine in there just in case I have to jet. But the TV show this is us. I know, like everyone watches it, but we relate to the party. I love that show. It got me through pregnancy, it got me through and now it's like our favorite. Like it's like the only thing we do at night right now because I'm in that sort of season of where you're just waking up to feed the baby. But I just love it and I just finished the seas in two and I can't wait for the next season. Awesome my love of the week, which I'm sure I feel like I've already done this, But Uber again, Uber again. I took Uber downtown yesterday because it was we're recording this in April. We just had the Villanova National Champion parade through Philadelphia, and I knew like I was gonna get stuck somewhere with my car, so I ubered down and then walked around the parade to get an uber to go back home. So it was perfect. And it's so great to be able to go places in other cities and not be trying to figure out how I'm getting a cab service back to the hotel. So that's that's my love of the week, Becky. You know, it was funny because I was trying to decide between two, but I already got to mention the concept of the family email address. So my other one, as I travel so much, is my new Briggs and Riley suitcase, which is called their carry On Upbrak garment bag, and it's a half garment bag, half suit case, all in a rollerboard size that easily fits in any overhead and I mostly wear addresses and it is for work and it is the most amazing suitcase. I mean, I know it's crazy, I think that a suitcase could be like changing, but it allows me to pack really efficiently and none of my dresses get wrinkled anymore. And it is my new current love. All right, that's a good one. Well, thank you, Becky, we really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. So that takes us to our question and answer time, we're going to be talking about vacation days. So we got a great question from a listener asking how She says, how do you and Sarah handle taking vacation time from work? So obviously I work for myself, so it's a little bit different. I have a lot of flexibility, she said, But perhaps you're can to address this in conjunction with your husband's work schedule too. How much vacation time do you take? Do you always do it when the kids are off of school, or do you ever take time off and stay home or various other combinations. By way of background, she lives in Colorado, but she and her husband both work for New York based companies. Her husband travels a lot, she works from home. They both officially have three weeks of vacation, but she says that taking vacation time is maybe neutral or possibly slightly frowned upon in their corporate culture. They tend to use vacation for family type events, long weekends, weddings, Thanksgiving, etc. They have some particular situations with one of their child children that makes it difficult for both of them to go simultaneously, but that's obviously a different issue. But she says, if I look at the vacation time I took last year, it works out to taking about twelve days out of my fifteen vacation days. I am very conscious of taking time off because I do work remotely and I never want to be seen as taking advantage of the situation. Also, her employer has been understanding about her son's health issues the special needs she needs to deal with, and she says, I'm very thankful for that flexibility. She often works at night in the morning's to compensate her she needs to take time off with her kid, but she's also trying to minimize vacation time. However, before writing this, she took off a day to spend with her son, the first one, doing something special with him, and she loved it, so she says, I would really like to have more days like that. Any thoughts you have on taking your vacation days is much appreciated. So, Sarah, what's your vacation policy? I take it all. No. My policy is I'm okay with letting work bleed into life sometimes, Like if I have extra patient notes, I'm going to write them on a Saturday because I have to get them done and I want to really give one hundred and ten percent when I am at work, and in exchange for that, I feel like you really only do live once. And in America we really get a lot less. We really don't get very much vacation. And the truth is that twelve days, it's not a lot of days. Although maybe she also gets legal holiday, I'm assuming in addition to the fifteen like she gets Christmas, etc. Yeah, So I think if you're doing an exceptional job at work and meeting expectations or exceeding expectations, that there's really nothing to be gained from leaving vacation days on the table. And I recognize that may differ, you know, based on the corporate culture. I guess I'm lucky. In medicine, I would say most doctors, No, not most, but many doctors do take some or all of their vacation time. I have some colleagues that almost never take vacation. And to be honest, like, my manager's so annoyed at this one, well, not annoyed, I shouldn't talk like that. She's a wonderful doctor, she's extremely dedicated, but we would all be so happy if she did take time for herself because rest helps and is really really important and ultimately probably helps me to be a better physician knowing that I do get that downtime and family time and kind of enjoying more balanced life. And there's certainly a push towards wellness in a lot of corporate cultures, you know, in the big Silicon Valley type of campuses, and maybe eventually that will bleed into other corporate environments. But I guess my personal take is, do an awesome job at work and take your vacation and enjoy that time with your family because you're never going to get it back. Yeah. Do you tend to take it all at once though? Or a little bits here on that? But I mix it up well. Now that I'm eighty percent time, I tend to use my actual vacation days for the big times because I get like a day off a week, you know, built in, So that's my sort of little vacation days. But back when I was full time, I did a combination, so I would do a few like one off days so I could even spend with kids or like as a like a girl's weekend, and then I'd usually take ten either five days all in a row to do a week with two weekends on the side, which made for a nine day stretch, or I would do like last year, we did a full like two and a half weeks basically because it was like, you know, each the three weekends plus ten days off will get you sixteen days off in a row, which is which feels quite cleansing, and it allows you to take kind of a bigger trip than you other would otherwise would be able to do. I'm also a big proponent of taking your vacation days. I think one thing obviously with the culture of different industries. So in medicine, you're there or you're not, right, like you're seeing your patients or you're not. Yes, I think the corporate world, I mean, especially since she already is working remotely, it's like, well, you could just take one call today, right, you know, and there you'll check your emails if anything important comes in. Right. So there's there's less of this dividing line between being officially off and being officially on, and a lot of people feel like they do need to still be available. But you're right, medicine. Medicine can bleed over, though my type of medicine does. Like if you're an er doctor, it's probably not going to. But I'll have patients that send in my work email something that you know, if I check it, which often I do, like it'll feel urgent and I'll have to deal with it, or I'll get a text for my medical assistance that's like, oh, I'm so sorry to bother you about X y Z. So believe it or not, it's not. It depends on the field. It's not always so clear cut. Yeah, but I do think that it is worth taking some time off regardless, and maybe you couldn't work it out a way too that you agree to like check in for half an hour in the morning on a day or two of your your week long vacation, that that can work for people who feel like there are situations they need to manage. That's the thing with working for myself. I could take whatever time off, I guess, but I almost never take days completely off because I'm usually at least like glancing at email in the morning or something like that. Do you feel that sometimes you need like a cleanse, like to totally go off the grid for a few days. No, I don't know, because I you know, in general, I don't feel like it's something I have to do right, I'm choosing it and so it's not quite the same thing. I probably should try taking a day or two and not looking at it just to see. But then you know, you feel like a lot of stuff comes in and then you have to never know, and that perfect opportunity we needed to give a Ted talk tomorrow, like exactly exactly, but I guess I just don't. I mean, I don't consider my work all that stressful per se. So since because of that, it you know, it's more about saying, can I keep it in a little tiny chunk of time that it then doesn't bleed into the rest of the day that I'm taking off. And because of that, I've probably taken like five weeks off in any given year, but not off like I took in my log. Talent is I'll probably have worked at least five hours during any of those given weeks. Got it? But yeah, if you, if you're working for a company, I do think take your days like no one wins by martyrdom. You just wind up dead. So all right, well this has been best of both worlds. We've been talking mostly stay at home dads with our guest Becky diffin a lot of food for that there and then vacation days. So we'll be back next week with more on making work in life fit together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.