Today’s parents are supposed to enjoy the “freedom” to have it all—high-powered careers, passionate partnerships, and brilliant, well-mannered children. That’s the spin, at least, from those who have never tried to balance the needs of bosses, spouses, and those demanding little people. Unlike guidebooks or workbooks that simply replace stress with guilt, or that offer tips most parents don’t find applicable, Three-Ring Circus offers a variety of real situations and honest stories. Parents will find comfort—and genuine solutions—in this frank collection of first-person accounts that includes married paramedics who work tag-team shifts to care for their four children, confessions of a working mom who finds the challenges of her career infinitely easier than appeasing two kids home sick from daycare, and a dad who shaped his journalism career around his children’s lives and wouldn’t have it any other way. In all, thirty moms and dads weigh in on making it all work—and knowing what to let go in the name of sanity.