Superdads: How Fathers Balance Work and Family in the 21st Century

SIX: Superdads

141 SIX Superdads While much of the previous research on fathers and employment finds that fathers work more hours than men without children do, supporting an emphasis on the breadwinner role, there is mounting evidence that the relationship between parenthood and work hours is not so simple.1 Some studies show that the effect of a first child on a father’s work hours has weakened among more recent cohorts of fathers.2 Other studies show that married fathers do not increase their work hours.3 Furthermore, other studies show that some groups of fathers, namely, men with continuously employed wives and egalitarian fathers, actually reduce their hours of employment .4 In fact, a recent report by the Families and Work Institute finds that, in general, men’s work hours fell more between 2002 and 2008 than women’s work hours did, resulting in a smaller gender gap in work hours.5 We already know that lots of fathers experience work-family conflict, and balancing work and family is a challenge for men as well as women. We have seen “old” dads who fit the description of breadwinner, making little adjustment to their work lives and facing little conflict as they align their worker role with their father role. We have also seen “new” dads who struggle quite a bit and make small adjustments to their work lives, often working within the system to take advantage of benefits they already have, Superdads 142 such as consolidated schedules or autonomy, or making the most efficient use of their time by separating or blurring their work and family roles. Now we come to the superdads, those men who make large changes to their work lives in direct response to their role as father. Among their strategies, these fathers quit jobs, change careers, change positions, start their own businesses, adopt flexible work schedules, take on shift work, and work from home. Among couples who are trying to share parenting, flexibility is crucial in choosing jobs, and shared parenting is on the rise, as almost one-half of men and one-third of women report an equal or male-skewed division of childcare.6 For superdads, shared parenting and greater involvement with their children drive their decisions, especially when it comes to changing jobs and careers. These fathers also make use of workplace flexibility, the most commonly mentioned family-friendly policy.7 However, flexible scheduling looks quite different for professional fathers compared to working-class fathers. Among fathers with professional occupations, arranging part-time work and flexible start and end times is a good strategy for balancing work and family. On the other hand, shift work is a common strategy among working-class parents as it allows for reduced daycare costs and increased time with children. In fact, 32 percent of American preschoolers with employed mothers are regularly cared for by their father, and this number itself is a notable increase over just the past few years, from a figure of 25 percent in 2005.8 Finally, while older studies have found that women’s but not men’s decision to work at home is influenced by their family responsibilities, this may be changing as more men become involved fathers.9 This chapter focuses on married and cohabiting superdads, while the next chapter focuses on single superdads . Jacob’s Story—Quitting As soon as I sat down to talk with Jacob, he brought up the fact that he works around his kids’ schedules. With two children in elementary school, one of whom attends half-day kindergarten, Jacob generally does not have more than two or three hours at a time to work during the day. As a writer, he has the flexibility to set his own hours and place of work: Superdads 143 I work at home, and I typically work in the morning, take my kids to school in the morning, work, pick my kids up from school, play with my kids. Then my wife comes home. We deal with dinner stuff, put the kids to bed, and then I usually work at night. So I’ll work from 8:30 in the morning—usually by the time I get back home, I’ll work from 8:30 to 11:15 in the morning, and then I’ll work from 9 to 1 a.m. Then I get up and start it all over again. Jacob uses his flexibility to work...