This article was produced by Capital & Main. It is published here with permission.
Daphne Dunstan is the first one up in her Benicia, California, apartment. She knows her son William will wake soon, and she’ll need to help him get dressed, prepare breakfast and be ready for when the bus comes by to pick him up. Soon after he leaves, Dunstan rouses William’s younger brother, Edward — “Not a morning person,” she notes with a chuckle — and the routine begins again.
It is in many respects a typical family juggling act, one that Dunstan knows well — she has been doing it for more than two decades. She makes sure her sons get the vitamins and medicines they need, and later she’ll prepare different food for each of them, as William enjoys his mother’s traditional Filipino dishes but Edward doesn’t. In the evening, Dunstan and her husband help them bathe and get ready for bed. Occasionally, both of her sons sleep through the night, but not often…