Katie Dill
I am Head of Design at Stripe. We make financial infrastructure for the internet. My husband and I live in Berkeley, CA, with our twin 2.5 year old girls. They’re a handful—the terrible twos are real!—but we’re having a ball!
What does your normal working day look like?
I usually wake up around 730am to the sound of my daughter Bryton yelling from her crib “I want to get out.” One thing about kids, I haven’t had to use an alarm clock since they were born!
We have a nanny that comes 8am-5pm everyday. She’s a godsend! Outside of the hours when she’s with us, my husband and I take turns with “morning duty” (730-8am) or “night duty” (5-630pm) every other day. We always do family dinner and bedtime together from 630-8pm. This means I need to cut off from work at 5pm every other day, but I’ll get back on to take care of a few things after the kiddos hit the hay.
How long have you had this routine?
We’ve been doing this routine since we had our nanny and I went back to work – so a little over two years.
How has it changed as your children have gotten older or as your family has grown?
It hasn’t changed yet but I imagine it will when they go to school and or I start to drive into the office more.
What boundaries have you set around your work, and how did you work with your colleagues to enable them?
I have blocks on my calendar for kiddo time at the start and end of the day (based on the above schedule). They are labeled as “childcare” which helps make clear the importance. My colleagues are pretty good at not scheduling during those times, but I will admit it helps to have an EA to help protect those blocks.
What systems do you have in place to have a successful day?
As described above, my husband and my schedule is super helpful. With this, we make sure we both get as much time as possible for our personal stuff and work, and are sharing the load with the kids. We also still have time together as a family. For us, it feels like the best of all worlds.
Our nanny is absolutely amazing. We feel very lucky to have her in our lives. She takes great care of kids and is helping them learn and grow.
It’s a real treat to be working from home. I get to see the girls throughout my day and I love it. My desk is in the hallway outside my girls’ room so I get to see them throughout the day as they walk by to/from nap time – as do all my zoom meetings!
Switching to weekends, what are the most important things to get right to have an excellent weekend day?
I’ll admit, we haven’t gotten this dialed yet. My husband and I often feel quite overwhelmed, trying to balance kids, work, rest/relaxation, and hobbies! Luckily the kids still nap, but that’s just 2-3 hours a day and that’s not really enough time to do all the things. So my husband and I have been trying to do a little time swapping. We will take turns watching the kids solo so the other can have some “me time.” My husband is an avid golfer so he might get in a round, and I am learning to fly so I’ll head to the sky! Taking time to do our personal hobbies really helps us with our sanity.
What principles have served you best in your parenting?
Our friends once told us, “our kids came into our lives, not the other way around,” and it really stuck with us. What they were saying is that you can’t bend your life around your kids; you can't lose who you are just because they’re now on the scene. I can’t say we have lived this advice perfectly well, but we’ve tried to hold on to things that are important to us even though our kids have certainly taken centre stage.
Is there a primary parent in your household or do you split the parenting evenly?
We split it all and I can’t imagine it any other way. We both have pretty hectic / time-intensive jobs, and a boatload of other things we’d love to put time into (fitness, reading, relaxing, hobbies etc!), so to make sure we both have time for as much as possible – we share the load evenly. I’ll admit, sometimes we can’t get a little carried away with it and pay too much attention to time spent on/off, but overall the system works pretty well. Key to it is that we do the most important things (dinners and weekend breakfasts, outings, etc) together as a family!
How do you divide the work and make sure that it is fair?
On Sunday night we go over the week and determine who has night or morning duty. It usually just goes every other day, but of course, from time to time we have things for work requiring a switch. And then on the weekend, we plan in advance when each of us is going to take “me time” and when we’re all together. Again, it can feel a bit over-planned but the structure means that we know what to expect and can ensure we have time for ourselves and that the kids always have support.