“On Mars there is never anything to laugh at. All the things that are funny to us humans either cannot happen on Mars or are not permitted to happen—sweetheart, what you call ‘freedom’ doesn’t exist on Mars; everything is planned by the Old Ones.”
“What Vitalis called a delightful comedy was really a pantomime; naturally it had to be for the very good reason that two of its principals, Pretty-Heart and Capi, could not speak, and third, myself, was incapable of uttering two words.”
Then Miranda advertises for a cleaning lady who will look after and mind the children after work - and Daniel gets the job, disguised as Madame Doubtfire.
You get a better sense of how they were in their own homes but also how the children felt about the whole mess, because that’s what divorce creates, a mess.