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

FIVE: “New” Dads and Partial Solutions

106 Five “New” Dads and Partial Solutions While some fathers stick to a more traditional view of their role as father, most of the fathers I talked with see themselves as involved dads. They are not completely dismissive of their monetary contributions to their family, but they do not define themselves as breadwinners. With a continued sense of financial responsibility for their families and a desire to be highly involved in their children’s lives, these “new” dads make an effort to combine their work and family roles in a way that the “old” dads do not. Whereas the old dads tended to maintain the same work schedules as before having children, the new dads tried to make some adjustments to their work lives in order to better balance work and family. However, new dads are not revolutionaries but rather work within the system, taking advantage of flexible work schedules already in place or making small changes that have a limited impact on the workplace environment. In fact, new dads are the norm today. While our society still holds on to aspects of traditional fathers, the simple fact is that their numbers have declined dramatically, and in their place new dads have increased. As fathers attempt to better balance work and family, it is important to consider the concept of work-family balance or fit. Rosalind Chait Barnett, a psychologist and women’s studies professor, defines work-family fit as a “New” Dads and Partial Solutions 107 process whereby workers adjust their work conditions and sometimes their own characteristics in order to meet personal needs and others’ needs. Barnett sees this process as occurring within a social system in which individuals consider their connections to others. Importantly, adjustments or strategies are implemented in order to gain a sense of work-family fit.1 Furthermore , family adaptive strategies may be defined as “the actions families devise for coping with, if not overcoming, the challenges of living and for achieving their goals in the face of structural barriers.”2 These strategies may prevent conflict, reduce existing conflict, or encourage balance.3 In this chapter, I examine new dads’ strategies for reducing work-family conflict. Some of these strategies require limited effort. As mentioned already , some of these fathers already have family-friendly jobs. These new dads do not make any work adjustments but instead recognize the advantages their jobs provide in allowing them to spend more time with their children. Other fathers, particularly professional workers, also benefit from having jobs with a high degree of autonomy, which allows them to exercise greater control over their schedules. Another strategy is to lower one’s career expectations. By downplaying opportunities for advancement at work, these fathers can focus more on their family life. Two seemingly opposing strategies involve some attention to scheduling and the extent to which fathers are willing to separate or combine their work and family roles. On the one hand, some fathers make a considerable effort to completely divide their work life from their family life. While this involves some restraint in leaving work at work, it is more of a mental strategy. On the other hand, fathers may blur the lines between work and family, bringing work home on a fairly regular basis, in order to reduce their stress levels. This strategy allows fathers to come home a little earlier to spend time with their children while picking up work after bedtime. Some fathers become new dads more through their role at home than at work. Often this involves some adjustments in response to a wife’s job. These adjustments may be fairly minor, such as leaving work a few minutes early, but often act to throw off fathers’ sense of work-family balance. Finally, I consider whether these strategies are effective. While new dads seek a better work-family balance, they often experience more workfamily conflict than either old dads or superdads, and their solutions are only partially effective in helping fathers to increase their time at home. “New” Dads and Partial Solutions 108 The Perfect Job Some fathers have just found a really good fit between their work and family lives. It is not necessarily that they have made major adjustments to their work lives but rather that they find themselves in positions that are amenable to family life. Ross, a 34-year-old school psychologist, is one of those fathers with a family-friendly job...