Every day, our work is affected by our home life. A good night’s sleep can foster productivity, while an argument over breakfast can ruin your day. Long term, our family lives can deeply impact the resources we have to carry out tasks at work. In this chapter, we draw on our experiences as adoptive parents—a type of parent who is not often explicitly included in discussions of life in academia—to discuss caring for and growing a family while working in the acad- emy. We use our experiences to illustrate the sometimes unexpected ways that family stress and complexity can impact an academic career, and we discuss strategies for achieving balance.