The Audacity of Hope

BOTH MEN AND women have had to adjust to these new realities. But it’s hard to
argue with Michelle when she insists that the burdens of the modern family fall more
heavily on the woman.
For the first few years of our marriage, Michelle and I went through the usual
adjustments all couples go through: learning to read each other’s moods, accepting the
quirks and habits of a stranger underfoot. Michelle liked to wake up early and could
barely keep her eyes open after ten o’clock. I was a night owl and could be a bit grumpy
(mean, Michelle would say) within the first half hour or so of getting out of bed. Partly
because I was still working on my first book, and perhaps because I had lived much of
my life as an only child, I would often spend the evening holed up in my office in the
back of our railroad apartment; what I considered normal often left Michelle feeling
lonely. I invariably left the butter out after breakfast and forgot to twist the little tie
around the bread bag; Michelle could rack up parking tickets like nobody’s business.
Mostly, though, those early years were full of ordinary pleasures—going to movies,
having dinner with friends, catching the occasional concert. We were both working
hard: I was practicing law at a small civil rights firm and had started teaching at the
University of Chicago Law School, while Michelle had decided to leave her law
practice, first to work in Chicago’s Department of Planning and then to run the Chicago
arm of a national service program called Public Allies. Our time together got squeezed
even more when I ran for the state legislature, but despite my lengthy absences and her
general dislike of politics, Michelle supported the decision; “I know it’s something that
you want to do,” she would tell me. On the nights that I was in Springfield, we’d talk
and laugh over the phone, sharing the humor and frustrations of our days apart, and I
would fall asleep content in the knowledge of our love.
Then Malia was born, a Fourth of July baby, so calm and so beautiful, with big,
hypnotic eyes that seemed to read the world the moment they opened. Malia’s arrival
came at an ideal time for both of us: Because I was out of session and didn’t have to
teach during the summer, I was able to spend every evening at home; meanwhile,
Michelle had decided to accept a part-time job at the University of Chicago so she could
spend more time with the baby, and the new job didn’t start until October. For three
magical months the two of us fussed and fretted over our new baby, checking the crib to
make sure she was breathing, coaxing smiles from her, singing her songs, and taking so
many pictures that we started to wonder if we were damaging her eyes. Suddenly our
different biorhythms came in handy: While Michelle got some well-earned sleep, I
would stay up until one or two in the morning, changing diapers, heating breast milk,
feeling my daughter’s soft breath against my chest as I rocked her to sleep, guessing at
her infant dreams.
But when fall came—when my classes started back up, the legislature went back into
session, and Michelle went back to work—the strains in our relationship began to show.
I was often gone for three days at a stretch, and even when I was back in Chicago, I
might have evening meetings to attend, or papers to grade, or briefs to write. Michelle
found that a part-time job had a funny way of expanding. We found a wonderful inhome
babysitter to look after Malia while we were at work, but with a full-time
employee suddenly on our payroll, money got tight.