My wife stayed home with our daughters. After all of our kids were in school, she worked similar hours to their school hours. This helped us a lot, but I also pulled as much weight as I could at home to take the stress off her plate too, because she would do the same if I had a week of long hours.

Most Dads aren’t very active, but I was not one of them. I made the kids lunches every other night (my wife and I took turns), took the kids to school every day since my wife picked them up every day. I would take off of work for doctor/dentist/vision appointments for the kids (again we took turns). We just shared responsibility 50/50 no matter what it was chores or parenting.

Depending on the demand of each of our schedules, my wife and I would have nightly meetings kind of splitting up the work load to make everything run smoothly in the household.

If she was feeling stressed, she’d tell me and vice versa. We just talked a lot because we enjoyed having and raising a family. There would be times where we would have a competition (coin toss, picking the highest or lowest number in a deck of cards, etc that kind of stuff) to see who would wash dishes or do little chores similar to that and laugh about it later. This is if we forgot who did the chores last, which happened from time to time 😂

That’s what it should be about. Working together, laughing together, and just talking to your best friend. We’ve been happily married for 45 years.

The childcare cost is a bit steep these days, but if you can do it, stay home… communicate with your spouses and do the best you can to make things work. Just speaking to the young adults thinking that having kids are impossible.