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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am a successful academic, a mom and the default parent.  BUT, being the default parent has entailed considerable sacrifices during my academic career.  I have male colleagues who are not the DP who are able to travel every summer on research trips, take sabbaticals abroad and attend multiple international conferences per year.

When my kids were little, I published like a fiend and did a great deal of academic reading and writing in bizarre venues (in the cafeteria at a local high school while my kids were in youth orchestra, in the stands at day long swim meets).  I made it work.  BUT I also had to play the mom card on occasion.  For years I didn't teach evening graduate seminars because I needed to be home.

However, if your husband doesn't have tenure yet he needs to be on campus, doing all the crappy facetime things that we expect.  He needs to attend other people's research presentations, volunteer to lead the club, etc.

We made it work in our family because we all sacrificed and pitched in to make sure mom got tenure.  This meant a lot of frozen pizza and precooked chickens and crazy weekends where both parents drove kids to activities and did errands in between.  It meant lower expectations for holiday decorating and meals and birthday parties and things.  It also meant paying more for a house cleaner, online shopping, etc.  because one person cannot do it all.

Even if you think you can convince your husband to kick back and put family first, the whole family needs to understand that until he gets tenure, you may be looking at a dirty house, etc.  It also means teaching your kids to be independent as soon as humanly possible -- doing their own laundry by the age of 9, making their own lunches and not forgetting their crap and expecting someone to deliver it to school!

It will not be a walk in the park.[/quote]

OP here. Thank you for your perspective.

I think I am really having a hard time imagining exactly what having a kid will be like. My husband will get tenure (or get kicked out) well before our first kid is in kindergarten. I am picturing day care drop offs and pick ups and sick days being the major obstacles to either of us having uninterrupted work. Based on how I am imagining kids, don't the activities and really time consuming things start when the kids are a bit older? I am not planning on having a 3 year old do a lot of activities. Am I missing something in my perspective (serious question)?

I don't have high expectations around how the house is run. We have a roomba (LIFE SAVING), and we keep the house clutter free. I expect post baby we'll hire a twice monthly cleaner to do bathrooms and dusting.

I don't care about holiday decorating. I don't care about elaborate cooking.

Here is what I would want from my husband if we were to have a kid:

*Do child's laundry and put it away (I do his and mine currently to ensure we have unwrinkled work clothing). I figure he can do cotton children's clothing without too much trouble. I also don't care if the kid looks like a fashion icon or even matches. 
*Do morning routine with child so I can get to the office early (I get most work done in AM as I am a morning person) and my office in general is morning office (Lot's of people leave by 3:30 or 4 to pick up kids at daycare). 
*Clean up dinner, load and unload dishwasher in evenings (I am picturing that I would do daycare pickup, dinner and bedtime routine with child)
*Be primary contact with child's doctor and be the one responsible for keeping on top of that, arranging dr.'s appointments around his teaching and seminar schedule 
*Be primarily contact with daycare in case child is sick, needs to be picked up early, etc. UNLESS it conflicts with his teaching schedule (his teaching requirement is 2-1, so as light as it gets)

Am I missing anything major or am I being unrealistic?

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