Can parenting responsibilities ever be divided truly equitably? If so, do you have to be well-to-do to make it happen? Takeaway contributor and New York Times 'Motherlode' blogger Lisa Belkin talks about equally shared parenting – the benefits, the drawbacks and logistics.

And real-life couple Marc and Amy Vachon – who wrote the new book "Equally Shared Parenting: Rewriting the Rules for a New Generation of Parents" – talk about the joys and frustrations of sharing all the responsiblities that come with running a home and raising a family.

A quadriplegic mother is at risk of losing her five-month-old son in a custody battle with the baby's father, who cites her quadriplegia as a reason to deny her custody. Should the courts be involved in such cases? If so, where does ADA regulation end and family law begin? Lisa Belkin introduces us to various custody cases involving parents with disabilities, and Dr. Corinne Vinopol, president of the Institute for Disabilities Research and Training and a hearing officer in disability disputes, shares her insights about parenting, disabilities, and the law. 

Follow along with New York Times' readers at Lisa Belkin's blog post on this story.

Getting together with one's family during holidays is a pretty natural affair. But it’s also a time when you all get together and rediscover each other’s differences ... and this can be particularly true when it comes to religious beliefs.

How you do respectfully take on those differences, particularly when your kids may have become MORE religious than you? We talk with Lisa Belkin, who writes the family and parenting blog Motherlode for our partner The New York Times, and Laurie Dinerstein-Kurs, who has some of her ten grandchildren home at big holidays.

Thanksgiving is all about spending time with family. As college-age kids return home, however, it can be difficult for parents and children to figure out how the rules have changed. Takeaway contributor Lisa Belkin, who writes the family and parenting blog Motherlode for The New York Times, says the time can be highly stressful for families. We're also joined by Chris Shea of Towson, Md., a father, and 21-year-old Cortez Riley, a student from the University of Minnesota who is about to head home to his mom for Thanksgiving break. The three give us some tips on how to make the break less stressful and more harmonious.

Voters in Maine voted yesterday to revoke gay marriage in the state. Opponents of gay marriage frequently bring up the hypothetical effects of gay parenting on kids as a reason to deny gay couples the right to marry. At this point we don't have to rely on hypotheticals, however: We now have a generation of kids who have grown up with gay parents and can speak for themselves. One of those kids, Becca Lazarus, tells us about her life with two gay dads, while New York Times Motherlode writer Lisa Belkin explains the results of recent research.

Everyone knows that it's better for families if dads are involved in the parenting process, but some researchers say moms might be making it harder for them to get involved and stay involved. We're joined by Takeaway contributor Lisa Belkin, who writes The New York Times family and parenting blog Motherlode, and psychologists Marsha Pruett and Kyle Pruett. They say recent research shows that women could be more supportive of how their husbands act as parents.

For our family segment today we look at some recent studies on housework: kids doing chores at home as their parents work more hours, and gender differences in how much parents pay their kids for helping out around the house. Joining us is Takeaway contributor Lisa Belkin, who writes the parenting and family blog “Motherlode” for our partner The New York Times, and Bob Elston, father of four, who believes chores are an important tool in raising kids.

Are there parenting lessons to learn from Spike Jonze's new movie, "Where the Wild Things Are?" New York Times blogger Lisa Belkin says Jonze's film, and the classic children's book that inspired it, could serve as guides for the parents of so-called wild boys. She joins Anthony Rao, child psychologist and author of "The Way of Boys: Raising Healthy Boys in a Challenging and Complex World," along with his co-author Michelle Seaton, to find the parenting lessons in Sendak's tale and Jonze's movie.

Read a chapter from Rao and Seaton's book in The New York Times' 'Motherlode' Blog: "When Time-Outs Don't Work."

Anthony D. Marshall was recently convicted of stealing from his mother, wealthy New York philanthropist Brooke Astor. In most families, questions of inheritance don't result in criminal activity, but families all across the country sometimes face lengthy squabbles over the family fortune — even if the family fortune isn't much. We speak to Lisa Belkin, Takeaway contributor and author of the "Motherlode" blog at The New York Times; and Eve Rachel Markewich, an estate lawyer and partner at Markewich and Rosenstock. They both say it's important to talk with your family, early on, about what you want to happen after you die.

Experts say that the way siblings treat each other early in life can be a good predictor for how they'll relate to each other down the road. The relationship you start out with, though, doesn't have to be the one in which you wind up: Parents, it turns out, can take a more active role to help kids communicate better with their sisters and brothers. We speak with Takeaway contributor Lisa Belkin, who writes the "Motherlode" blog for The New York Times. We're also joined by psychology professors Laurie Kramer from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Valerie Purdie-Vaughns, assistant psychology professor at Columbia University.

This week's look at family issues tackles the impact of technology in the household. Blackberries, laptops and mobile phones may increase access to knowledge, but do they isolate children from their parents? We talk about this with Sherry Turkle, director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, and author of the book "Simulation and its Discontents." We're also joined by Lisa Belkin, who writes the blog Motherlode for The New York Times.

As some public schools experience steep budget cuts, they turn to parents for help. Among other things, they're sending letters home, asking for cash to help keep school programs running. To find out what else schools are asking parents to do during a budget crunch, we talk to New York Times Motherlode writer Lisa Belkin, and Jody Becker, a mom and journalist based in Irvine, California who is helping her daughter's school.

It’s Monday, when we talk about family issues on The Takeaway. Takeaway contributor Lisa Belkin, who writes the parenting blog Motherlode for The New York Times, is here to talk with us about what happens when parents make the decision to dissolve an adoption. 

We also talk wtih Anita Tedaldi about this painful process. Tedaldi wrote an essay for Motherlode about her very personal experience of terminating an adoption. She had adopted a baby from an undisclosed country and after months of raising the baby, decided that she and her husband were not equipped to take care of him.

For our family segment, we take a look at a recent government report that shows a 30 percent increase in the number of women arrested for drinking and driving in the past ten years. This report comes out amidst a vigorous discussion in the blogosphere about mothers who drink. Are mothers more stressed out than they used to be, or has the feminist movement made it more socially acceptable to drink than a couple of generations ago?

To discuss this we speak to Lisa Belkin, writer of the New York Times' MotherLode blog; and Tara Trower, assistant features editor at the Austin American Statesman and writer for the Statesman's Mama Drama blog.

While working fathers are content with their job-life balance, moms are increasingly angry as they try to balance being great employees and great parents. Who are they mad at? The dads. Joining The Takeaway to discuss the continuing inequality of parenting are Lisa Belkin, author of the Motherlode blog for The New York Times, and Jeremy Adam Smith, author of The Daddy Shift: How Stay-at-Home Dads, Breadwinning Moms, and Shared ParentingAreTransforming the American Family.

Read an article that Karen Day wrote Why Have a Baby After 50?