It wouldn’t be the first time I had brought the kids on assignment. Paulo and I had brought Rafael on various stories we did together, from Florida to Japan, running around with him in the baby carrier when he was as young as four months. Yet those were stories where we had a lot of time, and of course there were two of us. The point being that as a photographer there are stories you can take small children on, and others that would be quite impossible or outright dangerous. Children have needs, and when I’m involved in a shoot I can’t always satisfy them.

The irony of the situation was not lost on me. My assignment, in advance of the elections in Italy, was to portray the lack of services for women — in particular the continual chipping away at maternity support for working mothers. And here I was again in my all-too-familiar routine of scrambling for child care.

Often on mornings when I’m not shooting and I take Olivia around the neighborhood, Italian grandmothers question why she is not in school. She is clearly in need of social interaction. Unfortunately, the only space that became available for her at a Roman public day care was 40 minutes away by car or an hour-plus commute on multiple buses, for just three to four hours of care. With private schools and nannies out of the question financially, we do what working parents do, from the United States to Italy: We improvise.

What’s troubling to me about the situation in Italy is not that one in four women quit working after childbirth, but that this is the case in a country in which family infrastructure plays such a big role in daily life. The Italian “Nonni” (grandparents) are an institution, and for many families with children they are the only means of survival. I have lived in Italy for 10 years and Paulo has lived here for 13. We get by without the infamous “Nonni” with whom we lived in the United States and Brazil. We rely on good friends for emergencies and each other for the rest — something we are able to do because we are freelancers.