“Wednesday Evenings” aims to show there is beauty in every family’s evening, even if we need an outsider to see it. Thanks to a continued partnership with Allstate, I am flying lifestyle photographer Raquel Langworthy across the US to document the nighttime routines of 12 families in four different cities.
Our first Wednesday Evening begins at 5:30pm in Glen Park, San Francisco (“a small neighborhood nestled between the much more fashionable Noe Valley and much more hip Bernal Heights”) when Marcy gets home from her job on the Global Public Policy Team at Facebook. Her husband Dave, like most people from San Francisco, works in the tech industry as well.
Marcy and Dave have two girls, Lila (almost 5) and Ivy (age 2.5). They use a nanny during the school year but for the summer, Marcy’s mom, Susan has moved in to take care of the girls when they are not in camp.
“The transition has been relatively easy, although yesterday, Lila burst into tears and said, ‘I miss Gladys! She took such good care of us!’ But they love their grandma so I feel like it’s easier than it would have been with a new nanny.”
I asked Marcy what their plans would be in the fall.
“Unfortunately, we’ll need to find a new nanny. We just don’t need as many hours anymore and Gladys really wants a full-time job.”
Marcy described their typical evenings as “chaotic, noisy and mommy-focused”, stressing how much more the bathing and bedtime routine falls on her shoulders than her husband.
“My husband really works to be a somewhat equal partner in the evenings but ends up being all mommy all the time. I usually bathe them solo (no small feat, as you can see from their hair!) while Dave ‘gets their rooms ready’. Basically, this means he pulls the shades down.”
Marcy talked about how their evenings have changed since Marcy’s mom started living with them.
“My mom told me to take advantage while she’s here. But I also don’t want her to feel like she’s working all the time. She’s going through a pretty hard time right now personally, so I want to make sure being with us is good for her soul and she doesn’t feel drained by it all! I want us to be helping her as much as she’s helping us.”
I asked Marcy how her parenting style meshes with her mother’s.
“My mom loves to say, ‘When you were a kid, parent wasn’t a verb.’ She’d probably say I coddle my girls and let them get away with more than she would.”
Marcy makes dinner for Lila and Ivy and sits with them while they eat, but the grown-ups wait to eat their own dinner until after the kids go to bed.
Bedtime for the girls is 7:45pm which means, as two working parents, Marcy and Dave “try to cram a whole lot of family time into a couple of hours”.
Marcy says her favorite part of the evening is after the girls have finished eating, which is typically when Dave gets home from work, when they all have time to hang out together as a family.
“We’ll go for a walk if the weather is nice and we can cajole them outside, or we hang around the house and they re-enact their favorite scenes from Annie or Peter Pan. It really is the most fun part of the day… and they tend to be at their best during this time.”
Marcy’s least favorite part of the evening is when playtime is over and she has to herd everyone upstairs to start the bedtime routine, including her husband.
“I go from being fun mommy to fun police. It feels like it’s all on me to keep things moving toward bedtime and then everyone gets cranky with me” making selecting pajamas, washing their hair, brushing their teeth, etc. “a real challenge.”
I asked Marcy why she thinks Dave doesn’t do as much heavy lifting and she said he tries but the girls are resistant and don’t cooperate unless she gets involved. She also wishes Dave wouldn’t fold so easy when the kids ask for mom.
After bath time and hair washing is over, the routine doesn’t get any easier.
“Ivy ran around like a lunatic with a diaper on her head for like ten minutes while I was trying to get Lila dressed for bed.”
The girls brush their teeth with the help of Mom, Dad and a musical playing on the iPad.
“Getting them both to stand still while brushing their teeth is a NIGHTMARE, so we let them watch a video clip from a musical while they do it. We don’t allow much screen time, so these tooth brushing videos are a real treat!”
Then Marcy and Dave divide and conquer getting the girls to bed in their respective rooms.
“There’s always big drama about who is putting them each to bed… usually they both want me, which is hard. We spend a lot of time trying to convince one of the girls to let Dave do it. Often times, it’s Dave reading to one of them while I do the bedtime thing with the other and then I come back to do the final bedtime thing after he’s finished reading. I’m tired just writing it down.”
Marcy says Ivy always cries when she leaves the room which is “only a few minutes but brutal to hear.”
During bedtime routine, Susan cooks Marcy and Dave dinner so it’s ready when they come back downstairs.
This is way different than their previous routine which consisted mainly of ordering out and eating really late or fending for themselves with a bowl of cereal. Marcy says she wasn’t sure how a grown man living with his mother-in-law was going to play out, but they both love it.
“We are both so tired when we get home, neither of us wants to cook anything. Having my mom cook is AMAZING. We aren’t eating as late and we actually sit down and have an adult conversation.”
After dinner, Marcy and Dave sit on the couch with their laptops and have what they call the “third shift” which is getting work done they weren’t able to finish at the office because they left to be home with their kids.
“It’s the only way to make it work. Otherwise, we’d both have to stay at work pretty late and we’d have even less time with the girls. The third shift allows us to have these few hours in the evening to really be together as a family without distraction. I’m pretty clear about getting home, putting down the phone and being with the girls. There’s so little time with them during the week, we try to make the most of it.”
Marcy also stresses that she enjoys this time and wouldn’t want a job that ends at 5pm.
“I love that I’m engaged in my work and that it’s challenging. I’m willing to put in the extra hours to be part of this amazing company that is doing amazing things in the world!”
Marcy said that in the days leading up to the photo shoot, “I was really paying close attention to our evening routine, wondering how it would look on film. So in some ways, just the idea of the shoot made me tune into our evenings a little differently and helped me appreciate the time we have together.”
After looking through the photos, Marcy was surprised for a few reasons— good and bad.
“First of all, I thought our house looked… not that messy. That was something I was stressed about so I was pleasantly surprised. My kids, on the other hand, looked so raggedy! I had to laugh. Just so you know, it was ‘crazy hair day’ at Lila’s camp, thus the one braid and one pigtail!”
Marcy also said the photos helped her see how present she is for the girls when she is with them, making that time “playful and energetic” even though it seems so short.
But she also wondered why the pictures didn’t reflect how much more “the brunt of bedtime” falls on her than her husband.
I told Marcy that it’s hard to reflect length of time in a photo and obviously, Dave could have been more present than on a typical night. I looked back through the photos and really couldn’t find many where Dave wasn’t pictured. Even during the bath when Marcy was washing their hair, Dave was still hanging out by the sink.
I emailed Marcy a few more photos and she admitted, “They actually have me appreciating Dave a bit more… maybe I don’t give him enough credit??? I love that he is in most of the pictures.”
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This post is part of the “Wednesday Evenings” series sponsored by Allstate. From bath time to bed time, every family has a special evening routine. This series aims to show the beauty in the day winding down. As the nation’s largest publicly held insurance company, Allstate is dedicated not only to protecting what matters most—but to guiding families to live the Good Life, every day.
I didn’t even notice the one pigtail/one braid until it was mentioned. Crazy how hard we are on ourselves about things no one else sees! Can’t wait for the rest of the series!
Its nice to see other working parents with the same “rush for quality time” as we have. But I wonder why they separate their meals, especially if Grandma is there to cook. There is value in sitting down as a family.
unfortunately the girls need to eat dinner earlier than my husband gets home from work. occasionally it works out that we can all eat together on a weeknight, though not often. we are usually eating together fri-sun, though! hopefully when the girls are older we will be able to time it right!
We eat separately on weeknights too. I think this a hazard of two working parents and keeping an early bedtime. I would actually be fine with eating at 5:30pm but Mike likes to cook and he doesn’t get home until around 6:30pm which means dinner is ready after the girls are asleep. I think the only way I could change this is if I started doing the cooking.
I have an almost identical routine in my family. While I think eating together as a family is valuable, I think it is the idea of spending time together — not actually the eating part. I feed my toddler at 5:30 most nights. He eats while I sit with him and ask him about his day. Once he goes to bed at 7:00 PM, I start dinner for my husband and myself. Because I do all the cooking, I would lose a chunk of precious time with my kiddo making our nightly meals. Once he starts staying up a little later, I can see our routine adjusting, but for now, this works best. We all get quality time and we all get fed!
We only have one working parent but he is not usually home until 6:20/6:40 and the kids can’t wait that long – we eat together once a week for sure, usually Sunday, where we chat and attempt to get the smalls to try new food – and more during school holidays but school days the kids get overtired if they aren’t down on schedule and Daddy prefers play time than “trying to get kids to eat something” time. I too married a better chef than I am so he cooks while I finish up bedtime and I kinda cherish the grown up dinners for now as it’s time to connect with the hubs.
Same here – I am the one who does pick up and home early with our little man. I make his dinner for 5pm and will sit with him at the table and talk about his day. If I am starving, I too will have something to eat. My husband doesn’t arrive home 6pm (on a good day), just in time for booksbas lights are out at 6:30pm/7pm. As such, I prettying do the entire night routine and will be classified as fun mommy, and then bossy mommy! My hisband will cook dinner once he is home and we eat once I am back downstairs.
???? so many typos! I blame the iPhone!
We eat separately during the week too! It’s just too hard to cram family time, cooking/eating, and bedtime routines into those few short hours! Beautiful family you have, Marcy!
We too have a family with two working parents in the bay area as well. My husband is an exec chef of a catering company and has crazy early morning hours and he insists on cooking our dinner. I want a family time dinner but I don’t get home until 5:30/6:00 pm. Our son doesn’t nap and needs to be in bed by 7 ish (So the night routine starts around 6:30. It is quite a crunch to cram any family time for all of us during the week. We try to make up for it on the weekends. . .
I would bet that as Marcy’s kids get older and have later bed times that it will be easier for the whole family to eat together. It’s just hard when the kids go to bed so early. You don’t want to try to eat at 7 and put the kids to bed less than an hour later!
my daughter is 20 months and eats solo. I sit with her, but she is the only one to eat as she starts eats at 5.15-5.30 so we can have bath time, story time, and bed time all wrapped up by 6.30.
I wish we could all eat together by my husband doesn’t get home until 5.45-6.15.
Keeping her bedtime at 6.30 works best as she is getting tired then and according to what I’ve read she needs 11 hours of sleep at night at this age, so she gets up at 5.30-6 (the latest, really rare) and we do out morning routine to get out the door by 7.30.
I know has been mentioned re: value of family meal times (not just this comment but in multiple parenting sites). But things that were realistic when we were raised do not always translate to now. I prefer to think of parenting issues such as these in terms of what is the underlying benefit? (1) the benefit of eating as a family is to expose kids to new foods. That can still be done, and I have found dinner time is the WORST time to force new/different foods on hungry, cranky kids. I was never a short order cook, but would also make food for my kids that covered the basic food groups without setting up a fight to eat. So for example, my youngest hates pasta sauce – fine, she gets plain noodles, then we add sauce to ours, and I have other simple veggies cut up. (2) the benefit of sitting and talking. Well, it used to be children were “seen but not heard” so that is an arbitrary rule. It is hard to sit with younger set, usually the conversation isn’t great until are more school-aged and can have dialogue other than “More milk!” “Say please” “Don’t like this!” “That’s your dinner, eat it” “Want up, UP!”. From the photos it seems like there is great bonding time AFTER the kids have eaten. (3) Not having extended food times, but one set dinner time to eat /clean up. Well it looks like having grandma there helps with division of duties so the parents aren’t just cooking/cleaning up so not getting in kid-time- they seem to get in plenty of kid time.
I could go on, but I think my point is made – there absolutely are benefits to family meals- but like with all polarizing parenting topics, what tends to be missed is the underlying value can be easily recreated in different ways. The ACT of eating together helps promote new foods, family time, sitting and conversing – those things can be recreated in different ways if family dinner time doesn’t work out.
Also for those thinking it may get easier when they are older – it can actually get worse – my oldest is in dance lessons 4 nights during the workweek, and the one night she isn’t is when I have my activity. So our family meals tend to be only on weekends, as I can’t value eating dinner together for 30 minutes over her doing a sport she loves or me getting my one night out per week for my sport. But we make up the time in other ways, and I talk to my kids all the time about healthy foods/healthy choices, so that benefit of family meals isn’t missed out on either.
I’m a stay-at-home mom and my daughter goes to bed around 7 or 7:30. My husband often works until 6 or 6:30 so he would rather spend his time with her playing, and I take that time to prep OUR dinner. So my daughter eats around 5, I sit with her and munch and talk about our day. Whenever we’re able to bump her bedtime later we’ll eat together as a family, but for now that works. It’s a balance, I swore I’d always have family meals but she hits a wall by 7 and we’d rather spend that time when my husband gets home playing, not rushing a dinner.
Beautiful! I didn’t notice Lila’s one pigtail/one braid hair do either! I thought the girls we beautiful and have awesome hair, for sure not “raggedy!” It really is nice to see that other families also have the same “issues” of trying to fit in quality time in the evening when the kids go to be so early!
What a lovely photo essay and beautiful family! It’s helpful for me to see how other families cope with balancing two careers and raising kids.
Beautiful! I love seeing how you make it work! You look present, fun, the kids eat a healthy, sit down dinner, and everyone gets some individual attention. Looks like you are finding a great balance 🙂
Thanks to Marcy for sharing her story and home with us. We’re also a two ‘working outside the home’ parent family that feels like we’re in a mad scramble in the evenings. It’s always great to see that other families are in the same boat and making it work. We eat together because we’re in the Midwest and 5:30 dinners are fairly normal. And we definitely have the same third shift phenomenon – post kid bedtime, we head right back to the computers (and sometimes are on them very early in the morning, before they get up, too). As for bedtime – same issue. Super involved Dad, but they want Mom. We drew a hard line and flip-flop nights between kids. They don’t like it but they know it’s a predictable pattern.
I love this series. Thank you Marcy for sharing! I too often feel that I take the brunt of bedtime routine but looking at this has me thinking of what it would look like in our own home – and my husband is actually in the picture a lot too. Maybe the feelings we have about the lion’s share of the work is really a reflection of the pressure we’re putting on ourselves as moms. Like thinking about staying the “fun mom” and not the “fun police” and watching the clock to be sure they get to bed on time, and watching the clock to make sure you squeeze in enough hugs before bed and still trying to be present to the little things the kids are saying… all while thinking about how hungry I am!
Thank you for saying this. You make such a great point…one I will try to remind myself of OFTEN!
What an insightful comment, Anna. I too often feel like I am doing the bulk of certain routines–watching the clock, etc. I feel often like I put in all the worry time and husband gets the in time. I think you nailed it on the head–I feel immense pressure to take care of all of these things–when I should let go of some of it sometimes. Marcy–you have a beautiful family and I am grateful you shared your evening with us. I am laying with my youngest getting her to sleep now.
Agreed. This is an insightful comment. I think we also put pressure on ourselves to ensure that our husbands are present. My husband also gets home later than me, so I’m always trying to make sure that the small window of time he has with the kids is “quality” time.
This is a great photo essay – thanks for sharing your family’s evening with us. My husband comes home later as well (6:30-6:45) so we eat dinner later – 7-7:30. This has inevitably led to later and later bedtimes for our almost 4-year old son – during the summer this seems ok and if he takes a nap at preschool, it all works out, but it means very little time for us in the evening just as a couple and to put in hours on the “third shift”. I am always amazed at all of the working parents out there and how they fit everything in… the fun, the snuggles, and the work.
My favorite picture….the diaper on the head! Typical at our house as well 😉 You’re very fortunate to have your mother be such a huge part of your children’s lives. We live on the same property as my MIL and couldn’t do half of what we do without her. Beautiful girls, cherish every moment!
So happy the photo series is back!! These are so beautiful 🙂 Thank you for sharing your family with us Marcy. I loved your perspective on the “third shift”. I am a stay at home mom but my husband works the third shift every night so that he can be home to spend time with our boys before bed. I sometimes struggle with him needing to get back to work every night but if he didn’t, he would miss those same precious few hours a day with our kids. He makes their day when he comes home to play before bed and he always has more energy than me and contributes so much in that first hour home! I loved how you said you thought your kids were at their best in that after work playtime with both of you!
Getting the room ready = “pulling the shades down”… !!! 🙂 Funny & well said!! I really agree on the giving credit part… I feel the same way about my husband, both of us work.. but as I was reading through this, I did realize that my husband helps out more than I realize.. and more than I give credit for! Normally bath time means I tackle the 1 year old, and he tackles the 4 yr old (1-2 days in a week, I am left to tackle both). bed time is again divided too… And for the dinner part, we all eat together – we normally eat out / order in 1 day of the week and we cook 2 days each. But since the weekend cooking lies on me, I really don’t give enough credit and feel I am cooking all the time! 🙂
I’m not sure if it is possible or not, but what we do is take turns with each kid at bedtime. So one night I tuck in our son and my husband tucks in our daughter. The next night we switch. Each kid gets quality time with that parent and they are used to the routine of switching every night. Kids love routines! I will say that my 2.5 year old does prefer her daddy to tuck her in but instead of buckling every time she makes a fuss we just remind her that daddy will tuck her in tomorrow. She usually understands and we carry on. This way you’re not wrangling two kids at once and taking time to read with just one kid and listen to their stories and give them undivided attention is pretty special. You have a beautiful family and Marcy… you’re doing a great job. 🙂
Oh Marcy, your family is simply darling!!! I loved reading about your routine and love the idea of third shift (I may even suggest that to my boss)!! As a mom of many, I usually do the majority of the heavy lifting with the kids too and totally get the “pulling down the shades” part! Lol! I love that your girls want you for bedtime routine… I think there’s something beautiful, nurturing and wonderful when kids really just want their mommies (sorry daddies!!)!
This was such a great read! It’s always nice to see what someone else’s routine is like. As a new, stay-at-home mom, I’m finding it difficult to make my husband feel “included” on the weekends (he works until 11pm, sometimes 1am, so no nighttime routine for him) without being a control freak, or even the opposite end of the spectrum where I’m putting it all on him. I do find that, even though we decided that I would stay home with the baby, I still need some me time though and that’s where things get tough. It’s hard and I feel guilty asking my husband to do baby-related things before he leaves for work because that should be his down time (I guess? I don’t know? Clearly we’re still working it out, 7 months later. I do think there’s something in the previous poster’s statement about feeling weighed down because of the pressure we put on ourselves as mothers, so there’s that as well.
Anyway, thank you Marcy and family for sharing! I needed to see this tonight, I was feeling the struggle!!
Love love love this series!!
My mom worked long hours while raising us and always kept our hair short. Whenever we asked her if we can grow it out she said “not until you can take care of it yourself.” Seeing how much Marcy works and how much hair her daughters have, I can really understand why my mother was so strict about it.
Love this series! My husband and I both work full-time outside of the home so I can totally relate to busy, busy evenings. I, too, put a lot of pressure on myself to “do everything” but also feel very grateful that my husband is as involved as he is. I pick-up our 3yr old daughter from daycare most days and immediately start dinner when we get home so we can all eat together (we usually eat between 6 and 6:30 during the week). She usually has to entertain herself (doesn’t always go well – usually ends with her whining “Mommy come play with me!”, which kills me). I usually feel like I have to handle everything BUT when my husband comes home from work he can play with our daughter while I finish dinner. This is good for a number of reasons, mainly because he gets some good daddy/daughter time (she’s a momma’s girl 100%) and it keeps her out from under my feet while I quickly get dinner on the table. We usually have about an hour after dinner to do something together – go to the park, go for a walk, get ice cream, etc. before bath/bed. It’s amazing that I go for a run most nights after she goes to bed – I’m usually wiped!
I love this series. You’re a good momma, Marcy!
I love this series, really looking forward to reading the rest of the stories.
I love the picture with Marcy and the girls on the floor looking at each other.
Thank you so much for sharing your family with us! We have 2 dinners as well – the kids (4 & 8) eat at 5:45, bed time is 6:30 for kid 2 and 7:05 for kid one, then we eat at about 8. For bedtimes, I do stories and their Daddy does the putting to bed. Sometimes they want me but nothing doing – my mummying stops after stories – I am done!
Love the girls hair, btw.
I sort of feel sorry for the husband! I find that sometimes as mothers we take it upon ourselves to do everything, giving our husbands little opportunity. Then mom doing everything becomes the norm, the kids get used to it and therefore like it, and the dad’s role becomes superfluous as dad is shut out of the routine.
I bet if Marcy went out after work with some friends a couple times a month and left Dave to fend for himself with the kids, it would help. It might give Dave some confidence/practice handling the routine on his own, plus it’s just great bonding time.
Beautiful pics and wonderful family. But so strange to read this compared to our own bedtime routine. Babygirl sleeps from 9pm to 8am and as I am still at home with her while the husband works, it’s ALL about daddy when he gets home and he does the bedtime routine from dinner to bathtime to reading to sleep all alone. He wants that as it’s the only time he gets with her except on sat/sun. He did the same back then with his now teenage sons he had with his first sons. I feel really lucky about having time for myself starting from 7pm after a whole day of amusing the baby 🙂 but this also means if daddy is on one of his many business trips babygirl is confused, angry and tearful because she is used the bedtime routine so much and I struggle very much to replace daddy. She can’t talk yet but she crawls around the appartement crying dadda, it’s heartbreaking.
*with his now teenage sons he had with his first WIFE.
I loved this photo essay. Thank you for sharing your family, Marcy. I, too, feel like I do the lion’s share of the bedtime routine. We just added our second child this summer, and I’ve worried about how I could be pulled in two directions. Looking at your pictures helps me see the way my husband steps up and is involved in the evening routine more than I give him credit for. (He makes dinner most nights, and plays with the baby while I bathe our daughter. Then he lounges about while I do everything else. Ha!) I also appreciate your honesty about saying you DO do the lions share. I feel like there’s so much pressure to divide parenting equally. Sometimes I worry because it’s really not an even split in our house. But that’s OK too.
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