Being a working father can be pretty challenging. But it seems that’s not something that everyone is willing to discuss or acknowledge.
Writing in the Harvard Business Review last year, author Bruce Feiler observed that “while the transition that new moms face – everything from postpartum depression and career anxiety to a heightened sense of pride and purpose – has been deeply studied by academics and oft-discussed in popular culture, the transition that new dads face has been woefully ignored by researchers and reduced to little more than a punchline in popular culture.”
You can find anecdotal evidence to support Feiler’s claim simply by running a Google search for research on working fathers; many of the top results reference 20-year-old data, thereby expressing the opinions of a previous generation of fathers. And along with those results, you’ll find attitudes that often date to generations even further back. For example, the outdated perception that dads are either aloof, unwilling or incompetent when it comes to the task of raising children.
If you know any working fathers, you’ll know that such perceptions are far removed from reality.
One of the more recent pieces of research into working dads was the Dad Index 2018, commissioned by the DaddiLife blog. It looked specifically at fathers in the Millennial age range and found that an overwhelming 87% of Millennial fathers in the UK say they are involved with the day-to-day duties of parenting.
In other words, most modern fathers are and want to be, playing an active role in the rearing of their children. How is it, then, that the perception of fatherhood is so distanced from the truth?
Perhaps it can partially be chalked up to the lag that often exists between popular perception and reality. Consider the way some films still tend to portray smartphones as ‘new’ and ‘cutting edge’ while, in real life, your grandmother has been using one for more than a decade.
Fathers themselves may also have something to do with it, unwilling, for some reason, to admit their eagerness to play an active role. David is a graphic designer based in Wales, where the number of fathers who say they are involved in day-to-day parenting is just 53% – considerably lower than the national average.
The father of two children, he says he felt that admitting to being interested in his kids’ lives might negatively impact his standing amongst work colleagues.
“I’m not really sure what I was afraid of,” he said. “It wasn’t a masculinity thing, I don’t think. I just felt that somehow they wouldn’t take me seriously.”
He says the pandemic provided an opportunity to reassess his relationship with his children and his attitude toward fatherhood. Like many across the country, he spent almost two years working from home, which meant spending more everyday time with his children.
“I thought: ‘Hold on; I actually really, really love my kids,'” David explained. “I mean, obviously I’ve never not loved them, but before… I was leaving at 7:30 in the morning, getting home after 6, and not really seeing or having the energy to see who they were. There’s all this stuff… All these little moments I wasn’t fully observing. Before, my energy was in just telling them what to do. But now… I suppose I don’t see them any differently but I reflect that differently to others.”
All that said, David still asked that we not use his full name or mention his workplace, for fear of having to suffer ribbing from colleagues. Some fathers may want to be involved in day-to-day parenting but they’re apparently not quite ready for everyone to know it.
According to Han-Son Lee, founder of DaddiLife, that could be because many fathers don’t feel supported. Quite a few can feel ostracised for simple things like needing time off work or needing to leave early or, even, needing to leave exactly on time.
“The pace of change that’s happening at home isn’t necessarily matched by the pace of things happening at work,” he told The Green Room podcast.
Employers who don’t catch on, however, are at risk of losing experienced employees. Lee explained that a third of fathers surveyed had left their jobs to try to find a better work/life balance, while another third were looking for opportunities to leave their jobs for the same reason.
There may be something of a vicious cycle taking place: fathers don’t feel supported at work, so they’re not open about their feelings about fatherhood, so businesses are failing to realise that they need to do more to support fathers.
Christopher Phin is head of DEI for a major UK publisher. He was working as a freelance writer when his daughter was born and therefore unable to take paternity leave. He says that now that he is in a full-time position he is a strong proponent of fathers taking an active and visible role, with an emphasis on that last part.
“I once read that one of the best things men can do in a workplace… is loudly announce that they’re leaving early to pick the kids up from school or whatever,” he said. “It sets a context.”
To help fathers make their presence more known in the workplace, Bruce Feiler offers these 5 tips:
- Accept it: Fathers can sometimes have mixed feelings about being a dad, perhaps feeling a nostalgia for life before kids or fearing that children will somehow have a negative effect on their career. Feiler says dads should acknowledge this part of the process and give themselves time to work through it.
- Make it real: Similar to Christopher’s advice, it’s important that fathers find a way to outwardly acknowledge and make note of the fact that they have moved into a new stage of life. Creating a journal, writing music or simply filling up your social media with thoughts on being a dad are all ways to normalise and process the feelings of fatherhood.
- Don’t look back: As is the case with David, previous generations and their perceptions of what fatherhood was and/or should be may not be helpful as you come to grips with being a dad. Feiler says “new fathers must… turn instead to fathers of their own generation who are forging a new set of expectations, habits, and priorities. Your role model as a working father is more likely to be a colleague or a friend.”
- Forge a new path: Part of embracing fatherhood and changing old perceptions in the workplace involves leading that change. This is especially true for dads who are also managers, by taking advantage of flexible working, work-from-home options or compressed work weeks you can help normalise these options and make them more viable for others.
- Live it every day: Feiler says that fathers should hold onto the joy of new challenges even after the initial thrill of being a new dad wears off. You won’t be going back to your old life, so embrace this new one and all the new highs and lows it has to offer.
Ultimately, the more working fathers make themselves known, the more they’ll be helping out all working parents. As Han-Son Lee points out “The end goal should be about quality at work.”
“This isn’t just about dads. This is absolutely about moms as well,” he told The Green Room. “And we need to make sure we’ve got all the right elements in place to ensure progression between both parties – whether that’s ‘Mom and Dad,’ or that’s ‘Dad and Dad,’ ‘Mom and Mom’ – and to make sure that all the appropriate pathways are there.”
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