While more and more men are embracing caregiver responsibilities, Morra Aarons-Mele thinks they need to become more visible.
I travel a lot for work, and I usually feel terrible guilt about leaving my two little boys. But I had a transformative moment while Skyping with my husband back home. Because I’m away, he’d had to leave work early to relieve the sitter. And the boys had an amazing time. They went to the YMCA, they had dinner; they had a playdate. It was a way more amazing time than they would have on a typical evening, when I rush home in time, their father gets home after dinner, the kids go to bed and the adults log back on. And all of a sudden my mom guilt was replaced with joy.
This is a simple, even trite example. But to me, the solution to work family conflict is simple. Until we see more men doing caregiving, things will not change at work, because most workplace systems reward workers who are present and “at” work a lot. The very nature of caregiving demands you make time away from work to take care of people in your life. The maternal wall and the burden of care giving cost women dearly in terms of advancement and earnings.
The rallying cry in the women’s leadership movement has been “You can’t change what you can’t see.” Women are encouraged to get out there: to be visible in offices, in the media, in political office. From the White House Project to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s new effort, women are encouraged to “Get Off the Sidelines” and into public life. Do we encourage men to get into private life, though?
Guess what: until we see more men at the grocery store on weekdays, doing school drop off regularly, at the pediatrician’s, at the nursing home, managing the plumber’s appointments and vet and kissing the skinned knees of their sons and daughters, our norms won’t shift and the mommy track will surge on. Power between women and men will not be equal.
Even in Canada or Northern Europe where maternity leave is mandated, paid, and accepted, women don’t advance to power at the same rates as men. Because if women consistently duck out to give care and men don’t, guess who gets ahead?
Things are changing. Tom Matlack, founder of the Good Men Project, said that if feminism worked to get women out of the house, men now are trying to figure out how to get back into the house. As Brad Harrington from Boston College’s Center for Work and Family writes,
Young fathers today know that they will have working wives. Their wives are likely to be at least as well if not better educated, just as ambitious as they are, and make more money than they do. More importantly, these men feel that being a father is not about being a hands-off economic provider. It’s about paying attention, nurturing, listening, mentoring, coaching, and most of all, being present. It’s also about changing diapers, making dinner, doing drop-offs and pick-ups, and housecleaning.
In 2008 almost half of employed men said they take equal or almost equal responsibility for child care; 25 percent of women said their husbands do most or an equal share of cooking.
Both men and women agree overwhelmingly that if the wife works full time, her husband should share equally in the household chores. But women still take on the second shift—a 2009 University of Michigan study finds by all accounts, women take on a significantly larger portion of the housework and spend close to 20 hours a week on these chores, vs. 11 for men. Child care shows a similar gender pattern, with men devoting about half as many hours to child care as women.
And it seems to me difficult for men to take on truly equal and engaged care giving roles without judgment or scrutiny. No wonder many men who are taking care of children or the elderly want to stay invisible.
I’ve heard from more than a few dads that they feel strange participating in typically female-led kid activities during the day. How can we take small actions to make big change, get men back into the house, and make work and life better for us all?
What is your part in this equation? Here’s a simple one for women: if you see a dad hanging out at preschool, do you talk to him? Do you make him feel welcome and natural being there?
I’d love to hear other ways both women and men send signals to men that being a caregiver is not the ideal fit for a man.
This piece is my contribution for National Work and Family month.
Originally appeared at the Huffington Post.
—Photo Tobyotter/Flickr
Morra, I think your point about men understanding that they will have working partners is an excellent one. I live in Scandinavia, where two-income families have been the norm for a long time now, and where stay-at-home-parents (or either gender) is decidedly the exception. And this changes things. In a two-income family, both parents will have to contribute to all the routines fo caregiving – even if it’s not 50/50. This means that it’s completely normal for both men and women to have a fixed deadline for when to leave work – and possibly leave early a couple of days… Read more »
Morra, this article Traditionally Radical: The Rise of the Stay-At-Home Dad on GMP ties in with your article here
I think that these polls are highly biased and serve only an employers interest. Think about it, as long as men and women fight each other over who does what, we can’t fight for a work week that hasn’t drained us so badly that there’s nothing left for our families. Here in Canada, you’re entitled to one day off out of every seven. This means that your day off can be moved around to whatever fits best for the employer. Also, your employer can make you work 14 days in a row provided that at the end of that stretch… Read more »
In the recent Time Magazine article “Chore Wars” it was noted that when all work is considered men and women do roughly equal amounts of work (paid + unpaid). For married women with children under 18 the discrepancy was 20 min per day. Basically I find it unrealistic in this economy to cut back on the hours I work. If I break my salary into an hourly rate its close to 3X of my wife’s. In addition, due to layoffs demands on me are increasing. There are a ton of people who are out of work who would LOVE my… Read more »
There is not a single thing wrong with a husband being the primary breadwinner and the wife being the primary caregiver, if that is their choice. Who am I to tell other people that their life choices aren’t good? I have worked at home on and off for years, but have always been the primary or exclusive breadwinner in the family. When I was/am able to do daytime things with my girls, I always enjoy it and feel proud to be there knowing that I am making money at the same time. So, I didn’t feel strange at all. On… Read more »
I’ve heard from more than a few dads that they feel strange participating in typically female-led kid activities during the day. How can we take small actions to make big change, get men back into the house, and make work and life better for us all? I think one thing that would help with this is stop with the negative presumptions that surround men and children. Even though such thought doesn’t always escalate to an accusation of some sort of wrong doing its a bit hard for men to feel encouraged to spend more time with children when a man… Read more »
Danny, yeah Jenna the fastest entry into the registerher bigot corner. Not only a sexist, a bigot – but also a female supremacist too
..Women rule the world. We don’t overcome our disadvantaged gender to reach equality. We are the natural rulers who gracefully allow the men of our species the illusion of control….
Nothing wrong with dominant women(or men), as long as they choose to dominate only their partners and not attempt to organise the whole world according to their world view.
I’d love to hear other ways both women and men send signals to men that being a caregiver is not the ideal fit for a man. 1. Daddyfiles, an editor here, wrote approx(from my memory) 70% of het men are happy for their partner to be a sahm, while only 30% of het women (and once one removes the PC answerers, the number is probably alot lower) are happy for their partner to be a sahd. Hopefully he will provide you with the link to the study. (As a group)Het feminine women’s clear prejudices (‘unmanly’,’odd’,’suspicious’,’deadbeat’,’lazy’, ‘loser’,’weak’) against men being the… Read more »
Hi James,
You’re right. In a http://www.salary.com survey they asked women and men how willing they are to support their significant other if he/she expessed an interest in being a full-time, stay-at-home parent.
Out of 2,000 people who were surveyed, 64% of men said they would support a woman who wanted to stay at home full time. But that number drops to 35% for women. Furthermore, 34% of women said they would NEVER consider supporting a man who wanted to stay at home. The link to the full slideshow is here:
http://www.salary.com/Articles/ArticleDetail.asp?part=par4317
I hear from fathers quite often when they are with their kids that they get the “evil” stares from mothers, in a climate of pedophilia hysteria men have been treated like monsters and it’s one of the barriers of men engaging fully with children in the natural ways women take for granted. We have daycare, preschool and primary school teachers recieve complaints of people asking them to be fired for being males. There is a large anti-male discrimination out there in society which is disrupting their ability to be child carers. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156/is_20070422/ai_n19032105/ – “MEN who want to enter the care… Read more »
You know – if there’s one thing I associate with being a man, it’s taking responsibility for yourself, for who you are and for your actions. Blaming everyone else for your shortcomings is just not on. If me want to – really want to – play and equal role in the life of their children, change starts with men. Pointing fingers at women will never be anything but excuses. Also – have *you* ever experienced this “evil stare” from women when you spent time with your kids? I know I haven’t, and I spend plenty of time with mine. Yes,… Read more »