with Britt Reints
Forget the 9 to 5; Full Time, All the Time is a blog about the mobile working life - when you have the freedom to work from anywhere and the responsibility of always having your smartphone turned on. Britt Reints works as a freelance writer while traveling fulltime in an RV with her husband and two kids. She explores balancing real-life bills with an unconventional work life, and finding time to maintain relationships with family and friends.
You can also find Britt at InPursuitOfHappiness.net.
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If you google the term “working moms” you’ll find roughly 5,410,000 results.
If you google the term “working dads”, you’ll find 365,000 results.
The top results for working dads come from articles posted as far back as 2002. The top results for working moms were created just a few days ago (and, incidentally, from the Work It, Mom! site. Go us!).
Any guesses where I’m going with this?
Why is it that Working Mom is an identity all its own, with support groups and message boards and blogs and research - and Working Dad is little more than an after thought?
Why am I conferring with my friends about finding a better work-home balance and writing blogs about my unique experiences as a mother in the workforce and explaining to teachers that no, sorry, noon on Wednesday is NOT a good time for me - and my husband is… not?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a man hater (considering I was raised with two of them, married one, and am raising another one of my own). And I understand that men love their families. I’m also aware of a growing trend for men to stay home with the kids while their wives become the primary bread winners.
But even that… is different.
A man stays home with the kids and he’s progressive and in touch with his family and oh my God how cute is that? he is so good with those kids!
A man works - and he works. He works. He has a family. The two are seperate roles, complete identities that need not interfere with each other.
A woman works and she is a working mother. She is, at all times, one as well as the other. She wears multiple hats and juggles all of her responsibilities simultaneously. She does not choose one or the other, for fear of failing at all of it, but instead insists on having it all.
Oh. Crap.
Is that the problem?
Did we do this to ourselves?
Have men known all along that the secret is not in trying to have it all but in picking a ball and running with it?
Do we, as women, get stuck holding the briefcase and the backpack and the diaper bag and the grocery list because we insist that we can have handle all of it? Or do our male counterparts simply get let off the hook too easily by being expected to work or stay home?
Surely, the answer must be somewhere in between.
Perhaps it’s because I’m a spoiled brat, but I just can’t stomach the idea that I have to choose to either work or be a mom. And at the same time, it doesn’t seem right to me that parenting and housekeeping should only be a female responsibility - especially if both parents are also working to provide the family with much needed income.
Maybe it comes down to expectations. Lowering ours and raising theirs so that we can meet somwhere in the middle, in a place that is a better representation of equality and fairness and no, I’m sorry, I CANNOT DO IT ALL.
What do you think?
Do you know any “working dads”? Does it matter to you if you don’t? Do you wish, sometimes, that you were married to one?
I’m a working dad. To my puppy Jigsaw!
Avitable | January 7th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Men have traditionally had women to do the domestic duties for them while they made the money. Society hasn’t caught up with the new reality. The good news is, many men have and are working on this balance just as we are.
The main thing, I’ve found, is that we women have to insist on it and not try to take on everything ourselves. Younger men seem to have a much easier time with this concept, especially ones raised by single moms.
Finn | January 7th, 2009 at 9:25 am
Technically, you’re a work at HOME dad to your puppy Jigsaw.
Which isn’t exactly the same.
Miss Britt | January 7th, 2009 at 9:25 am
Ooh, you’re right! I’m a WAHD!
Avitable | January 7th, 2009 at 9:27 am
@Finn - I think that women and men definitely have to both play an active role in finding that balance. I know, in reality, a lot of women end up frustrated and wondering why things are different without ever asking - out loud - for anything else.
Miss Britt | January 7th, 2009 at 9:29 am
I don’t think we’ve necessarily done it to ourselves; I think things just changed so fast that we haven’t had time to evolve and catch up yet. Most people I know, men and women alike, are just really confused about what their role is supposed to be in the home and in the workplace. Women are unfortunately picking up more than their fair share of the slack everywhere, but they’re expecting more from their husbands too, in my experience. I think we need a generation to shake all this out.
Meagan Francis | January 7th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Actually, I envy the fact that mothers get to be “working mothers” and we dads just are “workers.” My boss is understanding about family concerns (even though he has no kids), but my company’s policies regard me as if I have no family duties to uphold.
I’m not allowed to use a sick day if my child is sick. I need to use a “Personal Day” of which I only get 3 per year. Any parent knows that kids get sick more than 3 times per year. I have Vacation Time too, but I was admonished when I tried to take a Vacation Day to care for my sick child.
When my wife gave birth to our second son, she was able to take maternity leave. I, however, had no such option. Sure, I could burn through a week’s worth of vacation time, but there was no legal requirement upon my company to allow me to spend time with my wife and newborn son. Right when my wife and son needed me the most, I was all but forced to go back into the office.
In Europe, men get paternity leave when their babies are born. They, just like women, get to stay home and bond with their kids for a few weeks after birth. It’s really sad that companies still seem to regard taking care of infants as “woman’s work.” It’s like corporate policies are stuck back in the 50’s.
A normal day has be see my boys for a rushed morning getting ready for school/work. Then I see them for a rushed session of get home-change-prepare dinner (yes, I cook!)-eat dinner-get kids ready for bed. My wife is a stay-at-home mom now, and I envy the time she gets to spend with them. All in all, I’d rather work less and be at home more.
TechyDad | January 7th, 2009 at 9:43 am
I’ve just started reading the book Feminist Mothering and it talks about how the whole “institution” of motherhood is a very male imposed concept. Mothering, on the other hand has allowed mothers to define who they want to be as a parent.
I am the mother of 2 children, wife to a SAHD, and an executive-level management consultant. People often assume that because I work, my kids must be in day care. Um, no….not the case. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but the assumption bothers me and undervalues the contribution that my husband is capable of making and does make.
My husband will go back to work when our daughter is 3.5 years old and starts preschool. I expect he will be a working dad (or if he isn’t there will be a problem!!!) and I’ll be a working mom. There will be days when he is having to say that he can’t stay late because he has to pick up the kids at school, while I go to a dinner meeting and other days it will be the other way around.
I do know other families where the dad is a “working dad”. A number of our friends are involved in cooperative day cares, where one parent has to volunteer 1 day per week at the day care. In some cases, the father has a more flexible job that allows him to do that whereas the mother has a Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 job and can’t do that.
But I agree that in general in society, men get to separate their roles whereas women have to juggle theirs.
Annie @ PhD in Parenting | January 7th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
As she reflects on her business career at the end of A MERGER OF EQUALS, my character Jane says, “‘Working mother’ continues to be a loaded phrase and ‘working father’ continues, annoyingly, not to be a phrase at all.”
This phenomenon amazed me during my 25 years in the business world and it amazes me now as an author. I think it stems in part from the burdens we impose on ourselves and in part from the fact that society’s expectations in this regard aren’t as hard on men as on women. No one thinks men should have to choose work over parenting or parenting over work. No one thinks men are of necessity bad parents if they work or bad workers if they have kids. But women hear these messages all the time, including, sadly, from one another. And it can be much harder for us to believe that it’s completely possible to do both well & simultaneously, whether one is a mother or a father.
Thanks for the eloquent and thought-provoking post!
Debra
Debra Snider | January 7th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
I agree that we need a generation to shift societal thinking. Women are still seen as mothers who work, while men are seen as workers who may/may not have kids. I think you see this dichotomy a lot in the political arena, too… Sarah Palin is a “working mom” - how will she manage?! - while no one mentions that Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and John McCain all have several kids. They’re just guys doing a job - no need to be concerned about how they’ll balance their time because they have wives to take care of it.
I also agree it is an unfortunate situation about paternity leave. I’ve seen this situation play out several times in my workplace with men who wanted to take time off and had plenty of sick leave (which is what I used for my maternity leave), but they were unable to use it because they were not “sick”. I think that’s a shame - opinions about working moms/dads will never change if we don’t give equal respect/time to both parents, esp dads who want to take that time with their newborns (or stay home with sick kids of any age later on). Luckily, my husband’s employer is so understanding of family issues and needs, and it is easier for him to stay home when our daughter’s sick than it is me!
**Note about the “explaining to teachers that no, sorry, noon on Wednesday is NOT a good time for me” … Well, meeting after 6 is not a good time for me (I’m a teacher). I put in eight (or usually nine or ten) hours a day already, but they start at 7:00 and I’m done by 4:00 or 5:00. By the time a good time for you rolls around, I’m really more interested in getting home and seeing my own kids. It can be quite frustrating because parents really expect teachers to stay til all hours to meet, take school-related phone calls at home in the evenings, etc. but no one expects doctors, lawyers, or bankers to stay at the office until 7:00 or 8:00 for appointments or take calls at home- we work within their hours.
KJones | January 7th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Perhaps it’s not so much that we’ve done it to ourselves, but more that we feel the need to prove that we *can* do it all…and that although we work to provide for our families monetarily, we can ALSO provide for our families in the traditional care-taking/nurturing role expected from mothers.
I do know a working dad, though, and am married to him. He struggles with many of the same issues I do…spending enough time with our daughter, having energy to do it all, having some “me” time, having some “us” time, etc. etc.
Melanie (Modern Mami) | January 7th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
I cannot do it all. I don’t try to. I have a profession, and I am a mom. But that means that there are other things I don’t do. I don’t have hobbies. I don’t go out with my girlfriends but once or twice a year. I don’t bake. I don’t scrapbook. I don’t decorate my home for every minor holiday. I don’t read nearly as much as I would like. But I’m okay with it, because I can’t do it all. So I choose.
Robyn | January 8th, 2009 at 11:45 am
TechyDad,
Thanks so much for sharing that perspective. I’ve often asked my husband “why do you act like you can’t admit you have a family at work?”. I never considered seeing it from this angle!
Miss Britt | January 8th, 2009 at 11:51 am
I live in California, home of Paid Family Leave. When our daughter was born, my husband took 6 weeks of paid leave at 60% of his salary. Between disability pay and Paid Family Leave, I got 12 weeks at the same rate. FMLA requires employers of companies with 50 or more employees to allow their workers to take up to 12 weeks unpaid leave per year with the guarantee of a job when they return. It doesn’t help those who are self-employed or work for small businesses, of course.
It’s nowhere near what Canada and Europe offer, and it’s far from what American workers should get (in my opinion) but at least it’s something.
Robyn | January 8th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Becoming a ‘working dad’ is indeed possible - completely possible in the full sense of ‘working mom.’ It does require being vigilent of our culture, which steers us into traditional roles and expects men to handle one thing at once. But, a dad who wants to transcend the title of ‘involved dad’ all the way to ‘working dad’ has to truly want this; his wife can’t drive the transition through guilt or other coersion.
My husband and I are dedicated to working this out for ourselves and helping others who are interested in achieving this level of equality. If you are interested, come visit us at http://www.equallysharedparenting.com
All the best,
Amy
Amy | January 9th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Historically, moms and dads both “worked.” The separate identity for moms with a paying job maybe came along in the 1970s or thereabouts - when women would say “I work” as if the term could only be applied to a paying job.
I don’t agree that dads haven’t historically done domestic duties. They just had “different” domestic roles. My dad did domestic chores from taking out the garbage to fixing the car to unclogging the sewage drain to repairing the foundation of the house. Are those not domestic chores?
I think we could actually learn something about balance by looking back a couple of generations. Sure, there were unnecessary stereotypes, but there was also balance, at least potentially. Neither men nor women were obsessed with “doing it all.” That is healthy in my opinion.
SKL | January 11th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
In our household this really is all about what is important to each of us. The bottom line is that my husband’s tolerance for a messy kitchen, general clutter, and floors that desperately need cleaning is MUCH higher than mine.
Where I walk in and see a long to-do list, he walks in and relaxes. As frustrating as it can be some days, I definitely think I have something to learn from his approach.
Aimers | January 12th, 2009 at 10:37 am