How to create a fair divide of labor at home without keeping score. Ep 9

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercam. I'm a mother of four, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hart Hunger. I'm a mother of two and soon to be three and a practicing physician. 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. In today's episode, I think it's episode nine. We're talking about going towards a fifty to fifty split. How to create a fair division of labor at home without keeping score a topic we hear from people about a lot. Many of these episodes we're doing around now are come from listener questions. So if you do have a topic I think we should be talking about, would be glad to hear it. You can always email me Elvanderkam at yahoo dot com. Reach out to Sarah on social media as well. Another way of dividing things at home. How's that for horrible segue? We were talking earlier about room sharing, sharing rooms, how we split bedrooms in the house, because you are pondering how to do this when kid number three arrives, Right, Yeah, we are going to be entering into the world of having more people in the house than rooms to house them, and so this is gonna be a new challenge, and of course we I'm really excited actually about the gender kind of order that we have. So we have girl who's a five year old girl, a three year old boy, and then we're gonna have another girl. But that doesn't really lend itself towards a really natural room sharing situation. So right now, since moving at least within our immediate app area is not something that's gonna work financially, we are planning on putting the two kids together and then having a nursery and then kind of taking the long term. I'm going to leave that open because I guess I just don't really know how long a you know, end of bolling my daughter and son would want to be together, and then how awkward it would be for the two girls to share a room when they'll be six years apart. Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I don't think there's anything problematic about little boys and girls sharing room. Yeah, no, no no, no, absolutely, it's just the when they become like twelve and six, it's like, there's twelve and ten. You know, that was a long time. Now, it's a long time for now, I'm planning years. They might be unhappy about this, that's true. I think, well, you'll come up with an entirely different solution by then. We we also have a room sharing situation because our goal is two, so we have three boys and one girl. My daughter has her own room, which is just going to be I think her privilege as being the only girl we locked out. She looked out on that one. She has her own bathroom too, a little girl. She's very excited about that. But then we have this Jack and Jill bedroom situation. So that means that there's two bedrooms with a bathroom between them. And the idea is that we would like to have the three boys be in those two rooms, and ultimately I want the configuration to be completely up to them and sort of have it in theory be changeable too that if they decide all three of them would like to be in one room and have another room as a playroom. Or have it move around depending on who's doing projects together or whatever, that they can do that, and that they'll sort of all be in those two bedrooms with that bathroom and that self contained boy world. But currently, basically my seven year old just keeps getting the shaft on this one. So we bought this lovely bunk bed for the room that the two year old is currently sleeping in, and we wanted the seven old and the two year old to be together. Once the two year old is old enough to do that. I thought it would have happened by now. I mean, he's going to be three before very long. It just hasn't. I mean that because his sleep is so disjointed, problematic, all that stuff. Does he want to be with your seven year old? Like? Does that motivate him? Oh? Once he starts, I think I don't know anything that motivates him. I haven't figured that out at all. So, you know, that was the idea is the two of them are going to have the really cool bunk bed, and I think it will work in another year or two, but right now it's just not. So. The seven year old is still in with the nine year old, our ten year old, and they they've been together for a long time. I mean certainly since the two year old was born basically, and before that they had separate rooms. They each you know, had the two of the Jack and Jill, and so the seven year old is kind of just not really gotten his own room ever, and he may never get seven room. But it's just the way it is. And it makes more sense, certainly for a ten year old and seven year old to be sharing right now than the seven year old and the two year old. But that's how does it influence the bedtime routine, because that's what I'm sort of wondering. You know, you can't really read them. That's the problem. Is the ten year old does not sleep. He doesn't ever want to sleep. He likes to stay up late, and he still wakes up early and then he does not fall asleep during the day or in cars or anything like that. He just has very very low sleep needs and always has. The seven year old is not like that. He will if he goes to bed at the same time as a ten year old, he will sleep quite late in the morning and he loves us sleep too, And so we've had to sort of there is no good way to send the seven year old to bed before the ten year old if they're sharing a room. That is the reality of a shared room situation. And so we make the ten year old go to bed on time. As far as I know, he's just kind of lying there. I don't know with his thoughts, you know, but at a time that the seven year old could have roughly enough sleep, and you know, he catches up a little bit of it, I think on weekends. And yeah, so it's not it's not a perfect solution, but I do think that once the two year old is a little bit older, when he's like four or so, I think he'll be able to because he's also a kid who doesn't need sleep. Apparently, he and the then eight year old nine year old will probably actually go to bed around the same time and sleep about the same amount. So that's going to work in the future, I believe, but not now. So listeners, sounds like we would both love you to weigh in on things that have worked for you if you have kids that are sharing a room, and how you how you customize the sleep hours and bedtime routines and all that, because yeah, it sounds like we still have some things to figure out. So our main segment we've was also today coming from a listener question. You want to read that one for us? Sure, Hi, Laurence Sarah. I am a position and had my daughter when I had a little little over a year of residency left. Wow, I never really heard guilt. I never on that one for a moment of silence because that is rough. And again, as I mentioned previously, I actually never experienced that I had my first during fellowship, which is definitely less intense than residency. So we'll just leave that there. Okay. I never really had the mommy guilt that's in quotes. I had heard about leaving her because I had been pretty happy at work. What did take me by surprise was the guilt I felt about how my frequently long hours impacted my husband, who had to do the bulk of the childcare during those periods. Because of that, and because I wanted to spend the time with her, I did pretty much all the daycare drop offs and pickups, putting her to bed et cetera when I was not in the hospital. Now, a couple of months out of residency, I am still doing most kid duty when we're home, even though my clinic hours are now normal. I would like to split things more evenly so that I have time in the evenings to do the research and writing I will need to do to advance in my field. But I still feel guilty about asking him to do more that he shouldn't have to do more child household stuff than he would if I had picked a less intense career path. My husband, although not a doctor, also has a pretty rigorous job, so he is not jumping to volunteer to do the bedtime routine, although he is a devoted dead and will take her whenever I ask. I would love to hear how you two approach the idea of what's fair when dividing responsibilities with your husband. Oh my gosh, I have so many thoughts. All right, let's hear them. My first thought is, I always think it's very useful to take what you've written and sort of reverse the genders and see how it sounds to you and how many men would write something similar. And I think the answer is very little. And therefore we have to really look at, like, what is sort of motivating some of these feelings, because how much of it is coming from you know, what you feel like you should do, and what is based on reality. So that is my first thought. I'm like, I want to just sort of like read this whole thing switched around and see how we all hear it, because it would sound very different. And then my other thought is it really sounds like you have taken this role as default parent unless I'm not there, And so to me, the primary thing we need to figure out is how how do you want to change that? And how could we change that? Because it's really interesting how now that you both have sort of reasonable jobs, you're still kind of the one doing anything quote unquote unless you ask. Yeah, now, the default thing is is I think what gets a lot of women is it's not that you know your husband is trying to be unhelpful or trying to be some sort of neanderthal here, because clearly you would not have married him if that was the case. Like, we're not talking people who are under the impression that children are women's work and they have no responsibility to that whatsoever. I'm guessing like ninety nine percent of our listeners that is not the case for But it's easy to become the default parent, I mean just from things that happen, like at the beginning, I mean, if you're the one breastfeeding the kid, like, you wind up doing more of the stuff because you're with them more. Maybe if you have a maternity leave, if you're off for a couple months, you wind up being like one who knows how to do stuff, like you know the routine for getting the kid down for nap, whereas if dad's been at work the whole time, like he doesn't know the routine for getting the kid down for nap. And it is just all that stuff winds up playing out into mom becoming the default. And since this couple had the default if she was home, then she would do X and do all the kids stuff, it becomes very hard to change it now that she's home more because she's still doing everything. I find that interesting, you know, it's a I think honestly with stuff like that, I mean, one thing you can do is disappear, because the default thing is about both of you being there, and so you feel like even if you're both there and you both want to relax, they come to you because you're there, whereas if you're not there, they can't do that. And dad can't sort of automatically default to you either. And so for instance, you could just have a conversation about that, be like, well, you know, this week, I really have this, you know, crashing toward this deadline. I have two nights that I would really appreciate being able to work late. So as we talk about it, what two nights of the week would it work for me to not be here for you to cover and then you know, I will be home the other nights, And that seems like a relatively reasonable thing to ask for, you know, especially if there are seven nights in a week. You being gone too gives five others that you are still there, but then on those two nights you aren't the default, and then you have the space to do that work that you're trying to do to advance in your career path. Yeah, because this person has a specific thing that she would like to do, and in her case, she said she wants to do more research and writing. So I agree with you. I think that being like, well, Tuesdays and Thursdays, I'll be home at eight because I'm doing research and writing might help solve some of this. It still doesn't quite sort of cure the default parent idea, but it's a great strategy, but it helps, right because if a couple nights a week, the parents, the kids know they can't go to you, that they have to go to death, then they become more comfortable with dad. Right, And the more times they become comfortable with dad, the more it is less of a default parent thing because they've seen that Dad is actually perfectly capable of reading them their bedtime stories and getting them their bath and whatever else it is. And you know, I think pointing out to the husband maybe that he could take the other couple of the other nights, so so you know, in this particular case, she is something she'd really like to do, and her husband sounds like he's just sort of casually hanging back. I don't know if he's tired because he has a rigorous job, but maybe like sort of offer something concrete to the husband, so like, oh, I heard that you wanted to like start working out more, or you wanted to you know, whatever he wants to do, you wanted to read more? Like how about on you know those other two days, Mondays and Wednesdays. Don't worry, I totally got bedtime so that you can take that time for you. I think that sort of making sure and again this isn't about necessarily keeping score, but sort of pointing out to the husband specifically that he's getting husband time rather than letting it default kind of just flop, you know, lie into place. However it happens, could be really useful because then she will feel less guilty and more justified in taking that time that she wants for herself. And this word guilt is also interesting. One thing I have found over the years between men and women. I mean it's I think women often would like to not to have to ask for things that they sort of assume that things should go a certain way automatically, like because having to ask is hard, you know, whatever, We're socialized not to necessarily ask for things that we would like. That's why many women have trouble ass for raises, for instance. And but little, you know, boys are less socialized that if you just think of something, like you know, in many couples, the guy is the one who asks the woman out first. He may have asked her to marry him, like you know, little boys are actually socialized that you do have to, in fact ask for what you would like in life. And we don't grow up with that. And so but the truth is Guys will tell you no. If they don't want to do something, they will absolutely tell you no. Women will often be like, oh, he asks, so I have to do it, Like no, that's actually not true. The guy will tell you no, So you should not feel guilty about asking, because he will tell you no if he's not going to do it, So you may as well ask for what you want and again he might say no, but he might say yes too. And then, you know, asking somebody to read your mind about what you'd like is just not helpful. I mean, why would that you know, so, don't feel guilty about asking. And so when she says that he will take her whenever I ask, then maybe you're just going to have to ask for now and say, I think we need to develop a different split so that I can do my stuff and you can do your stuff occasionally. Let's talk this out. Let's talk about what would be the right split for us. And you know, this idea that I feel guilty about asking, that he shouldn't have to do more household stuff than he would have if I have picked a less intense career path. I mean, that's a very funny way of looking at it, because he gets the upsides of your career path too, Like I'm sure that you earn decent money right in an intense career, let's hope so, right, Or you know that you have interesting things to talk about and all that, and it's just there's there's upsides for a career as well. It's not just all bad news for him. Yeah, and a shout out to our last episode, don't forget about that third party option. So let's say you both do want to do something on Wednesday nights, maybe that's your night to plan for childcare on that night, or maybe there's household stuff he really really hates, I don't know, like cooking or loading the dishwasher, Like, maybe you can figure out another answer to those other than either of you as well. So that's something to talk about. Yeah, And I would say another thing, because there are some households where, for whatever reason, it's probably not going to be a perfect split. And that probably is more the case in mind, and there's a variety of reasons for that, and we've gotten better about certain things over the years. But the thing is, if you wind up doing more than a fifty to fifty, the default should be fifty to fifty so if one party is not, I guess the default on a population level should be fifty to fifty. But I would argue that actually the situation is going to vary based on the choices that people are making. Like in our house, it doesn't even though I outsource a ton, I'm not sure fifty to fifty is quite the ideal, just because I actually don't physically have as many work hours as my husband has. But I mean, I think on a population level, I would it should be fifty to fifty ideally, But I don't know that there should be guilt about it being forty five, sixty or forty Well that's yeah, yeah, it's an individual case. You know, you shouldn't feel guilty about outsourcing some of this stuff if the other party is not doing fifty to fifty, right, because you're not outsourcing you, you're outsourcing him, right, And yeah, so change that mindset. I mean, we've had some women say, well, you know, my husband works late every night. I feel so guilty about getting a sitter so I could go to the gym. It's like, again, you're not outsourcing you, you are outsourcing him. If he doesn't feel guilty about it, then why would you. I mean, it's his time that he's lost with the kids, like it's not yours. H So that's another way to view that perspective. And maybe that's okay. You know, there is no right percentage for any one household. One household, maybe you know forty percent dad doing everything and thirty percent mom and thirty percent an outside party, and there's going to be a different sort of ratio. I just made that one up for every single family. The question is have you sort of in an unbiased fashion, thought about what works best in your particular situation, and now you sort of have the setup where you guys take different times of the day and that works for you guys. Yeah, that works really well for us. And that's been something that's evolved and that we've like talked about, Like it's not even just like, oh, it just kind of happened that way. It's like, Okay, since I can't count on you to come home, I'm not in a bad way, but like, since I don't know when you're gonna get home, you know, I'm going to be the real sort of routine evening parent so that I'm always going to be home to greet the kids by six o'clock at the latest, and I'm not going to really plan on doing stuff for myself most nights, so the nights can be yours. So if you'd like to go to the gym after work, go for it. And then you know, on the flip side, in the morning, since I can't get that time at night, it's great for me to be able to grab time in the morning to work out or do a post, or prepare for a podcast or you know, do the things that I want to do to keep myself happy and sane. And that has been sort of an intentional time split for us that works really really well. Yeah, or if one party travels a lot for work, for instance, the party that is not should feel very unnguilty about asking for time on the weekends, you know, I know in our household, that's something that I've been a bit more insistent about, like if I want to do something on the weekends, I really don't. I mean, I asked my husband, but I don't expect that he would be like, no, you can't. And so I've done more stuff on the weekends that I enjoy for fun, just because he is traveling more often than I am, and so I feel like that's fine. If you've been gone Monday through Thursday and I've been the parent who's on during that, than Friday through Sunday should be more your time. And you know, I'm often using that time to work as well. It's not like it's all, you know, fun and games, but that is a split that we try to do, and sometimes it works less well than others. You know, I make sure that what is important to me still happens, like the running, like joining a phrase, making sure that what's important to you still happens. And to me that that tells me, like it's not about keeping score, it's not about hitting a specific number. It's like last weekend, my husband's like, Okay, can I work for four hours on Saturday? And I said sure, And I really, for me, I didn't have anything specific I wanted to do on the weekend other than I said, that's fine. I want time to run both days, Like that's what I needed that particular weekend. I didn't need a ton of like sort of free time because I had had a day off earlier in the week in that particular case, if I did, I would have asked for that too. But it's like figure out what you need and what you want and and make those exchanges. They don't have to be even, but they have to be thought about, and you do. You are allowed to take time for yourself. Yeah, and sometimes it might help to assign specific things to a person as well and say, like, you are totally responsible for this. So I had, you know, taken on a lot of the kids' activities and all the stupid paperwork that comes home at the start of the school Oh, my goodness, it's been ridiculous, right, And so I said, you know, I also happen to have two children who have early fall birthdays, and so I get slammed with this every year that we have parties at the same time as we have started school all that, and it's complicated because you don't know who's in their class, so you don't know who to invite, and they don't get the directory till October, which is after both of their birthdays, and so, like, you know, it's always just a source of stress. You know. At one point, my husband was like, well, what are we getting Sam and Ruth for their birthdays? And I was like, I Am not going to do that. Question, Like, why don't you go by whatever you think. I'm glad you brought it up. It means it's on your mind. It's your mind. It's not going to be on my plate. Like I have just enrolled them in ex zillion activities and done all with that. And so the Amazon boxes have been arriving fast and furious. And there was a trip to you know, best Buy and wherever else over the weekend to get something for the seven year old he's turning eight. And you know, so that's done and it's off my plate. And I just did do a little something because I knew there was gonna be issue with it. I just ordered a bunch of wrapping paper from Amazon because I took a wild guess that that wasn't something he thought about. But that was simple enough. That was a two second phenomenon. It will show up and that he can wrap the stuff too. So that is off my plate. Assign a certain project, the kids going to the dentist also not my project. He couldn't make it at the time that they were scheduled for most recently. He took that on himself to move it right. He didn't say, oh, could you go take this? They just moved it. And I was like, that's when I know you've taken on fullerish responsibility for this activity rather than just start tossing it at me. And you guys do the dividing on weekends, who gets who has to wake up early? Don't you? We do usually, that's that's the idea. I mean, one of the I like to run on weekends too, so sometimes I'm up early anyway. I mean, you know, but but then I make sure that you know I'm I'm I mean, I'm gone, right, I'll just go for a long who's on kid duty in the morning? That's true. If you didn't want to sleep, then that's one thing. Yeah, we do that too. And I feel like I've heard from so many women who are like, oh, I've never gotten a day to sleep in. It's like, there's two of you. You could make that happen. It's a reality. But don't. Don't just suffer right, just you know, have that conversation before you go to bed, and don't you don't even have to do it the way like, oh, could you please get up with the kid and be like, hey, tomorrow morning is your morning to get up with the kids, and then wait and see what happens. I mean, you know, he may grumble, but if you say, like, you know, I did it yesterday and the day before, you know, and then just sit there again, like you have to develop the ability to say. The guys will grumble, but then they will come around to doing stuff, and often it just takes them a little bit too. I don't know what it is. I mean, this is probably not all guys or whatever. But if you read men are from bars, women are from Venus, there's some certain things that they'll grumble and grumble. But if they're grumbling, that means they're considering it, and then they do it. And then once it becomes their task, then they become like you know, the hunter executing on getting the you know, bison, Like they're gonna, you know, make that happen in their way, and so you just have to get to that point. I don't get tons of grumbling, but I do think it's always just nice, like when you're asking for that kind of thing to be like I'll do Saturday and you do Sunday, and then you just both get this lovely gift to look forward to. So communication, right, yes, communication it really like not being afraid. And I hope that this episode maybe inspires the woman with the surgeon husband to maybe maybe don't play the podcast for him because that might be a little much, but to really have an open conversation about all this, because part of me is just like, you need to tell him exactly how you feel, because like that's probably half the battle here, and yet we don't. We don't always go there because it's hard. Yeah. I don't think he was a surgeon. He was something else. I forget what Oh sorry, Oh yeah, no, you're right. The second question was the surgeon. The first one she was the one who was residency and he had another intense job. That's what we're talking about exactly. They need to have like a intimate, like afternoon date where they kind of talk about this with a lot of eye statements. Right, we learned this from the lots of eye statements like pressure, not in the moment when somebody wants something, but like, you know, sort of a family meeting style discussion. I think if there was more openness in a lot of couples, that these these issues would get solved in a in a in a more productive fashion and get rid of the guilt about asking for what you need. I mean, it's really sort of a pointless emotion. It's not going to stamping out guilt. Stamping out guilt, that's what we're all about here. So if this should bring us to the our love of the Week segment here, which I think we're gonna have to geek out on a little bit. So Sarah, you just got a giant haul of something this week. Yeah, So can we do a whole episode on this future. I don't think I can stop myself, but as as anybody who reads my blog, and by the way, my blog is the shoe box dot com t h E s h U b o X and I've had multiple people say, no one's going to find you. I figure people can google. But that's what it is to you, Like Sarah Hart hunger. It's not shoe like you wear on your foot, but it's a pleasure exactly right. And if you want to see a lot more sort of planner discussion and inspiration, you can go there. But my love of the week is I am obsessed with this Japanese brand of planners called hob They've been around since two thousand and three, but really only became more popular in the last five six years, and you have to order them from Japan. They're made of this super thin paper so that you can have a day per page, but not have this giant brick that you carry around with you. To me, they're like the most sort of flexible and comprehensive planning system that you can possibly have. And I really prefer bound to ring because the rings always getting my way. I don't know if it's because I'm left handed or what, but these like lie perfectly flat. I really, I just think they're just like otherworldly perfect. So every year I make a big fun ritual out of like placing my order, and I think a lot of other fans do the same thing. And the company totally builds it like all all they always release their stuff on September first and all through August, like they'll release one new tidbit of information like every day, so that by the time you get to September first, you just can't even help yourself and you order everything. So I just got my box and I just cannot wait to use this thing for next year. And it's very beautiful and I'll have to discuss it more in details because there's not just like one notebook here, like let's be clear, there were exactly got to cover a week's insert for anybody into this. The actual planner book, we have a little auxiliary notebook. I don't get how that works to have to leave the mothership from time to time or like why, I mean it might be used like next to the mothership, but then it's always stored in the mother ship. Yeah, because if you want to keep like sort of accessory lists, well, again, we will have to do a whole episode because I would enjoy doing it, although I almost feel like I need video for that, but that's okay. But yes, that is my love of the week. If you are in planner searching mode, check out my blog because I do discuss some of them. I'm trying to. I'm going to review a couple because I couldn't help myself, and I ordered at least one other that I just wanted to look at and I just love talking about that stuff. So but you can tell she's seriously the Hobunichi stuff because like, didn't you have to order it and yen basically like you had to do the Yes, well, their prices are in Yen, I mean you can the website is completely in English, like if you google who Hope at each you'll find their website, and then if you find the Japanese website, there's a little English chab at the top and it's all translated into English, so that part is actually not too difficult, but you do have to calculate the prices in yend. The Japanese take their planners very seriously. But but but this is the American version of it because it starts in January, right, Like you didn't get the one that starts in April, which is when, Yes, I got the one that starts in January. And again I don't want to geek out too much. They actually they there's one that starts in April, but there's I do get the one with the Japanese language, but that it doesn't impede the use of it at all, Like all the numbers aren't are easily readable, and some of the headings are in English too. But the reason I get that one is because there's that one's divided into two volumes. Anyway, that's again I don't Yes, I'm not sure how many people listening to That's even knew that most Japanese things April, like, so why Japanese planners start in April. Yeah, that's seeking your exactly what is your love of the week? Oh my gosh, So I use just I'll talk about my calendar. I just use this daymind or weekly calendar, which is just this like spiral bound little you know, per size calendar. And I do use a paper calendar because I like to keep complete control of it. I don't like electronics stuff that much. I don't want to look at it. I just like writing stuff down and I can also see if the day is getting too cluttered. I use a just a regular notebook as a planner. I may need to step up my game, we'll see. But I have a system. So this is the problem. I have a system, and I'm not sure that any commercially available product would match my system. And I think in general, I'm not going to change my system. Like my system works for me, and so I need something that works for me as opposed to trying to, you know, plan my life. According to the question is how much do you care about the aesthetics of it all? Because I care a lot and I'm not an underbuyer. Maybe you don't care as much. Well, I care, but I care in a sense of like I mean, I don't want it to be a crappy notebook that, like you know, is on the on sale at Target for you know, two for a dollar or something. I wanted to have a little bit harder of a cover, and I want it to lay flat so I can open it and writen it. Oh good, then I can bring you to the dark side. You can bring me to the toxic. But within that, like you know, there are commercially available, like you know, less than twenty dollars stuff that you can get that does yeah right, And there's a lot of really pretty stuff actually that's that's at a lower price point and that you don't have to order in another curiously enough, so I ordered my Dayminder, like I feel like it was two weeks ago. I ordered it from the Dayminder website or at a glance I guess at the parent company or whatever. It hasn't come yet. I'm a little concert. I actually have to start filling in dates for next year, Like I've booked a speech in March, I booked something in January, Like, I gotta get my calendar. This is not working. So we'll say maybe that won't be a level of the week I have to like call customer service. That will not be love of the week at all. Okay, so this brings us to our listener question of the week. So you want to read that around with me too? Oh yeah, let's do you because you have more of an answer to this than me, because you have more children. Okay, how did you or did you decide on the spacing between your kids from your experience? Are there advantages to having them closer together versus further apart work, life, balance wise or otherwise. Yeah, there was not a whole lot of real planning and involved in the spacing of my children. Are If there was planning, it was planning that then the universe didn't respect in the way that one might like. So, you know, obviously I was excited about having kid number one, and I was I was lucky that, you know, when when that happened relatively quickly after I wanted it to happen. I wanted to have number two relatively soon after that, and got pregnant but miscarried, and so then there's more space than between one and kid two. Then I ideally would have liked. There's still only two years and five months, but there are three grades apart in school, and you know, I wanted them closer together. Kid two and three are the ones that are most what I would have planned. There almost exactly two years apart, although I got to say, you may not want to have your kids exactly two years apart. Maybe should go for like two years and two months. You can spread out here now that I'm dealing with this every fall. That the fact their birthdays are like a week apart from each other. That you know, I was like, oh, this works out. I'll get pregnant at fifteen months. I could have them exactly two years apart. Then you know, I pay for that every late September when I have to do two parties. But then you're done. That's when you're done. You only have one birthday season. So yes, and so you know number four was a surprise, shall we say that that had not actually been on my radar, and then he arrived and I still have not entirely figured out what happened there, but sometimes the universe says that to you. And he's a really cool little kid. So there's three years and three months between number three and number four. It was right around the time that she was two and a half years old. My daughter was two and a half years old that I learned that number four was on his way. But I mean, what I would say with this is is like, as you can tell from my story here, this is really not something you can hundred percent plan. I mean, it's really hard to play. It is really hard to pay, and that could be really tough. I mean, especially for people like us who are planners. Would be like, but I would like to have a baby in July, so I should get pregnant in October. It's like, yeah, you know, if you can actually do that, like God bless you. But most of us have not been able to either because we weren't able to get pregnant when we wanted to, or things happen accidentally, or it takes longer when you when you want to, or you know it happens earlier than you want to, but you thought you should get started because you didn't know when it would happen. And it's if you are able to have roughly the number of children you thought you wanted to and at roughly the times you thought you should, you should just count yourself lovely, be happy. Yeah, our story is similar. I mean it took forever to have my first we started trying in two thousand and nine January and I had her in April twenty twelve, so that was long. And then my second was like a surprise right after that. And I will say it was a little hard with them being slightly less than two years apart. So I'm actually really looking forward to round three not having a toddler to chase around. Maybe I'll find out that actually there are other challenges that come with that. So I agree with Laura. Very hard to plan, and I do think once you're ready, like, don't wait longer than you need to, because it might take longer than you think to actually make it happen. Yeah, no, that's that's true. I mean, and from the work life perspective, I mean, because I think somebody has been asking about that, Like you know, from work life balance. I think a lot of women do find it difficult to have two right next to each other, just because as you're not entirely back at everything from kid one when they then are with the pregnancy of number two and then dealing with a second leave if you have that. But obviously if you want to make it work, you will, But many people find that that taking that second leave and that second sort of slow down shortly after the first one makes it a bit harder to come back. And there's also some element of choice in that too many women do decide to scale down things after kid number two for a variety of reasons. It's more of a lifestyle choice, but some women it's because it has been more difficult to do. I think from a health perspective, I mean, Sarah may have to answer more of this. I think there are some benefits maternally. I've read that like between two and three years is the absolute like healthiest window so that your body can recover between the two. And I will say I was like really anemic with my second, and I think it was because it was so close to my first. And then I just got my labs from this one. I'm like, wow, even though I'm old, my numbers are actually way better. So that's interesting. It is hard on your body to have a baby, and then if you do it right, and being reminded of that right now, that's you're reminded of that. But the thing is, I mean, honestly, so even though it might be ideal to have like at least three years from a health perspective between the kids, Like you know, if you start late enough, that's not actually an option if you want to have a bigger family, and so I mean you should just you know. There will be upsides and downsides either way. I mean, there's efficiencies of having them close together. There'll be better friends perhaps growing up, they can do more things. At the same time, you'd be more able to pass close down and toys down between them. But if they're farther apart, you might have more energy for the baby when you are not chasing a toddler, for instance, and maybe your body will be more recovered, and your career maybe at a different place where you can you know, sort of enjoy more of that having built up the capital in between pregnancies as well, so your mileage may vary. Awesome, all right, Well, that what has been episode nine. We were looking at this episode on how to achieve a fifty to fifty split, or if not a fifty to fifty split, a split you are happy with when it comes to child raising and household stuff. We are also talked briefly about our planners, which we're going to have to do a whole episode on that, and talking about kids facing So we'll be back next week with more. Thanks so much for tuning in, 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.