Gender Roles -- Steve '85 and Pam Prichard Skillman '85: "It's so rewarding. You get so much back."

Steve Skillman '85 and his wife, Pam Prichard Skillman '85, live in Cranford, New Jersey, with their three children, who range in age from seven years to 16 months. Before children, Pam worked in portfolio management for a mutual fund company. Steve continues to work in foreign exchange sales at Chase Manhattan Bank.

But Pam is plenty busy, thank you very much. She's actively involved with her children's activities and their schools. "My hunch is when you're a stay-at-home mom, you get involved with more of those kinds of things - helping with the school play, being a homeroom mom, carting the kids to soccer," says Pam. "At least in our town," where she says most of her contemporaries are also home with children.

And there's no question that Pam does most of the household chores, say both Pam and Steve. "Even before kids, I was always sort of the chore person," says Pam. "Maybe before, it was 70-30 and now it's 90-10. My husband used to do his own laundry and he doesn't anymore. But this is how we've divvied things up. Weekends are a different story."

Both parents say Steve is a very involved and devoted father, both by choice and demand. Their special needs family requires a little extra attention - their son is physically handicapped, and their youngest daughter is adopted from Korea.

Steve says he had a good role model; his own father was a very involved parent. "It's so rewarding," he says. "You get so much back."

Steve says part of the reason he is able to be so involved with his kids is because Pam stays home and picks up the slack of whatever needs to be done. "That makes a big difference," Steve says. "Locally, most of our friends, the wives don't work. That seems to give the fathers more flexibility to spend time with their kids. The Hobart buddies I keep in touch with all have wives who work full time, and life seems to be a bit crazier for them. They might be scrambling just to keep the house in order."