In honor of Father’s day, the Times ran a story arguing that now dads are just as stressed out as moms in trying to find a work-life balance. In some ways, its actually even harder for men, because employers generally don’t expect them to actually care about their families to the degree that women do.
The research highlights the singular challenges of fathers. Men are typically the primary breadwinner, but they also increasingly report a desire to spend more time with their children. To do so, they must first navigate a workplace that is often reluctant to give them time off for family reasons. And they must negotiate with a wife who may not always recognize their contributions at home.
Part of this, is the changing nature of the American workforce:
It doesn’t help that work eats up more time. In 1970, about two-thirds of married couples had a spouse at home (usually the wife). But today, only 40 percent of families have a stay-at-home spouse to handle domestic demands during the workday. Couples now work a combined average of 63 hours a week, up from just 52.5 in 1970.
Though, count my vote for women still having it significantly harder. I think this statistic is telling:
Men may be stressed out, but try telling that to their wives. Although men do more vacuuming and dishwashing than their fathers did, they still lag behind women when it comes to housework. When both husband and wife work outside the home, the woman spends about 28 hours a week on housework. Her husband can claim only about 16 hours
And, I think the real rub is somewhat buried at the bottom of the article:
Then again, some contributions may be unrecognized by the other partner. For instance, a father may prepare school lunches half the time, so he thinks he’s sharing that chore. But he doesn’t factor in the time his wife spent shopping for the ingredients, planning healthy, appetizing menus and emptying and cleaning the lunchboxes every day.
“Women remain psychologically responsible, and that’s a burden,” said Dr. Galinsky. “That psychological responsibility adds to the sense of feeling like you’re doing more, even though it may be somewhat invisible.”
When Laurel Elder and I did our own survey of parental involvement, we did our best to measure this sense of psychological responsibility with questions about which parent plans for activities, health meals, health concerns, etc. From my own experience, that’s where a lot of the parental action is really at. In our case, we have 2 of 3 kids who require high-intensity parenting (2 IEP’s, many specialist doctors visits) and Kim takes primary psychological responsibility for Alex and I do for David (Evan’s just easy, though Kim’s the primary on him, too). I think that’s actually the most important sharing of responsibility we do, as in many ways that is the most burdensome part of being a parent.
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