I was going to write about what I learned from my daughter’s Preschool class, when I went to give a little lesson on Hanukkah in December (I’ll save that for next time). But then I read Miss Britt’s post over on “full time, all the time” and I could not resist a response.

Heregoes:

Among the working parents of the world, you women/mothers have the true rotten end of it, without a doubt. Yes, there is a reason why “working mom” lands you millions of results and “working dad” many fewer - it’s because you mothers are indeed the primary parents, and while I do think of myself as a working father, it is my wife who holds it all together: the schedule, the snack, the breakfast, lunch, dinner, birthday presents and everything else I am forgetting.

In our family at least, I am the support staff, my wife the chief executive. I “help” her. We both work, we both parent, but I defer to her.

Is the “I can have it all” mentality in play? Maybe, but I think we all know by now that no one can really have it all - something has to give.

Sure, I can scramble eggs, I take our daughter to the doctor, stay home from work when she’s sick, but it’s my wife who really plays double/quadruple duty.

And so I have the same question as Britt: when and how does one become a working dad? Furthermore, am I one, and are you married to one?

Fire away!

Okay, I’m a tad tardy in getting to comment on this great piece by Judith Warner (warning: link has been down recently) a few weeks ago, but at least I finally got around to this post, which will make your jaw drop. Yes, lofty expectations I know.

Are you ready?

If you didn’t follow that link to read Warner’s piece of naivete, I’ll give you the Cliff’s Notes: We men really are simpletons. Much to Warner’s surprise and dismay, she discovered this truth, but I am here to tell you that you should stop holding your breath while your wait for your male companion - if you have one - to become the emotionally intelligent and sensitive being that you long for. It ain’t happenin’.
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On Tuesdays, I drive our daughter to her pre-school. And I love Tuesdays because I don’t have to run off to work and can spend the morning being less rushed. So this morning, after breakfast was consumed and she was chewing her gummy vitamins, she sat on my lap as we looked out the window, watching the rain and looking for squirrels.

And then we packed it up, I dropped her off at school, and I went to work. And I felt okay about all of that, even happy.

Which is why the recent Charlie LeDuff piece in “Men’s Vogue” really pisses me off.
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I was a little late to the game on this article from the Boston Globe (posted for Father’s Day), but in order to prepare my personal fireworks display to celebrate our country’s independence, I have been a wee-bit busy.

The article is titled “Celebrating the hands-on dad,” and it pretty much tells you what the article will be about - no real mysteries here. What it does do is introduce us readers to a couple that has embraced “Equally Shared Parenting” (ESP for you acronym-lovers). I must admit that I did not know what this was, but it turns out we’ve been trying to practice it all along, we just never labeled it.

So check out this site - click here.

What do you think?

Is this for real?

Can both parents work part time, make ends meet, love their children, and really be happy, or do they ultimately have to give up too much professionally, personally, and all the rest?

For me, the degree of ESP that this couple practices and preaches would not work, nor do I think it could work for my wife - we have serious professional ambitions and a part-time work gig at this stage would not allow for the kind of dedication that is necessary to grow.

I am very curious to know if this is more a man thing, or if professional heights can only be reached by one or the other. Or, perhaps it’s all on how you define success.

Sound off!

Neal Pollack IS the ever-elusive Hipster Dad, or so he claims. He has penned the mighty book Alternadad
(link to Amazon) and he writes a great blog, which you can check out by clicking here. Warning that the blog’s rosy title is “The Continuing Adventures Of An American Family In Hipster Parenting Paradise.”

I will let his answers to my very invasive questions speak for themselves, but please sound off on what you think about all of this parenting stuff.

1. Please use three adjectives to describe yourself.

Hmm. Aging Jewish Psuedo-Hipster? Self-absorbed libidinous rabble-rouser? Are those adjectives? How about well-meaning, cranky househusband?

2. Please tell us a bit about your family - number of kids and ages.

I have one son, Elijah, aged 4 and a half. My wife Regina and I also have two Boston Terriers.

3. What do you do professionally, for how long, and do you enjoy it? What about your wife?

She’s a painter and I’m a writer. I’ve been writing professionally for more than 15 years, and I couldn’t imagine another way of making a living. I don’t even know if I’d be capable of making a living any other way. As for my wife, I think she’d enjoy having more time to pursue her actual artwork. We’re trying to get to that point.

4. Talk to us about your own work-life balance as well as how you and your wife manage the joys of parenthood and couplehood (or chaos, whichever you prefer).

Well, we both have work spaces in the house, and are both used to working at home, and in proximity to each other and our kid. But I think we’d both like more time. The major challenge, with my work being in the house, is staying away from the work when it’s supposed to be “family time.” That said, sometimes I can blow off work during supposed work time to have family time. The fluidity may not be ideal, but I’m used to it.

5. You don’t have a typical 9-5 office job - does that make things easier and more flexible? How does a typical day in your family unfold?

Sometimes I wish my life had more structure, but I’ve had a flexible schedule for so long that I think I’d be miserable within a week. We usually are all up by 8 AM, and then we take the kid to school. Depending on who’s doing the chauffering, we get anywhere between five and a half and seven hours to work. A couple of days a week, a babysitter picks Elijah up from school, which adds another 6-7 hours to our workweek.

6. What is the most difficult thing about life as a father?

No one could have prepared me for all the paperwork. Also, seeing your kid in pain, or even afraid of pain, is no fun.

7. What is the one piece of advice you’d give to a new father?

Make any sacrifices and compromises necessary for the welfare of your kid, but never give up who you are. That’s a mistake that leads to a lot of unhappiness and regret.

8. What is the one thing you could not do without on a daily basis?

I really like a cup of tea when I wake up in the morning.

9. What is one thing you wish you could change about your current situation?

I’d like to live in a slightly nicer house.

10. Loaded question: Do you think fathers don’t get enough cred?

Contemporary fatherhood is changing. The old model of silent, strong provider is giving way to a new, more nurturing model. But I wouldn’t exactly say dads are underrated. In many ways, “parenthood” as it’s currently constructed is a farce. We wouldn’t be here if people hadn’t been reproducing since homo sapiens first came down from the trees. So all this talk about “parenting” is a load of bull. We’re all just getting through the days as best we can.

You can get an up-close-and-personal look at Neal and his family on their “Nightline” spot by watching it on Youtube - click here.

Nataly here at Work it, Mom! launched a very intriguing discussion on the topic of “hiding” your motherhood (and fatherhood) in the workplace, as well as whether working mothers (and fathers) should be entitled to additional flexibility with their jobs. Charlene over at JobMom even posed a direct question back to both Nataly and myself:

How many dads are hiding their fatherhood at work?

I will start my response with a related anecdote: I work in a high-octane/start-up/techie environment. We are knowingly under-staffed, and it was recently and excitedly announced that we would be hiring a new woman into our group; in our team meeting, everyone was happy. A shocking moment came when I asked a (childless) colleague - who had interviewed this new employee - what she thought of the incoming woman, and she said: “She talked about her kid too much. I didn’t want to know about her family, I just wanted to know if she could do this job.”

Wow.

The colleague that said this knew that I have a young daughter, but I am certain she felt that because I am “just” the Dad, I would perhaps not be offended by this reaction, which implies work and family don’t mix. But I was royally surprised by her response and I definitely felt sympathy for my incoming colleague who may likely have to fight for flexibility - both with management as well as with the impressions of her colleagues - so she can manage her work/life juggling act with her toddler son.

To directly answer Charlene’s question: I have never hidden the fact that I am a father at my job; in fact, I have done the opposite. I not only pursued jobs where I knew management had kids; I also stated from day one that I plan to be highly involved in my daughter’s life, stay home with her when she is sick, and leave early as necessary. If my company is unwilling to allow me this flexibility, I will find another company that respects my priorities. And so far, it’s worked out - I can work from home as needed and no one has objected to my somewhat flexible schedule. The caveat, of course, is what Nataly pointed out: I think you must be a well-regarded employee and that you must “earn” workplace respect before you can truly embrace a more flexible schedule. I work with a number of parents, and when I see emails from them saying they will be at home with their sick children or need to leave early to pick them up from school, I completely relate. But I can almost hear the grunts, as some colleagues say “He/she is going to be out again“?

I do think there frequently exists an unspoken disdain, or at least undercurrent of tension, between childless workers and parent-workers, and I can also understand that side: Why does he/she get to skip work again, just because he/she has a child? And for employers, it’s very difficult to manage this co-existence of workers. But beyond that, I also believe that because I am the Dad and not the Mom, I doubt myself less and have much less of a problem taking whatever time I need.

I still wonder what my female colleague would have said about me, had I spoken of my daughter in my interview - would she think I would be a less stellar employee simply because I wanted to open up about my family?

More to come on this topic, for sure, but please sound off.

On the heels of my inaugural post, it seems that the question I posed has been answered: There is a fine collection of other pops out there who feel that we, the fatherly clan, are indeed under-represented. And (drumroll please) the media powers that be have even bestowed the very boring “Dad Lit” label on the recent emergence of father-written books. (You likely saw Judith Warner’s post on this topic in the NY Times.)

So, of course, I have to weigh in here.

First of all, why oh why, do we need labels for everyone and everything? I understand it makes it easier for everyone to reference, but to categorize all of this writing as “Dad Lit” is quite silly. Is “Dad Lit” any book written by a father? Or does it have to focus on the nature of being a father and all of the baggage that comes with it? Warner references a collection of recent works (none of which I have yet read, cover to cover), and all of them do discuss fatherhood, so it would seem us parents of the male gender do want to be heard. We have our own set of issues and we don’t necessarily want it to be all about the mom (even though the mom does all of the initial “work.”)

Warner - in her typical candor - writes of the fact that she is actually surprised when she ends up identifying with these fathers and their experiences. But it is then interesting to read the myriad of comments from her readers, many of whom were offput by some of these mens’ writings (and it would appear that most of these comments are by women). [I am hoping to corral Neil Pollack, author of the now highly publicized Alternadad and pseudo-leader of the "Hipster Parent" movement (more on this in a future post), to do an interview for this here blog, to get a sense of what he thinks about all this.]

I find this whole literary emergence very intriguing, and as a father, I am very happy to see the media (and our culture as a whole?) begin to recognize fathers as important - because, let’s be honest, even a few decades ago, we certainly were not.

So, talk to me, besides the plumbing, what are the real differences between mom and dad - are there inherent parental instincts that women have and men don’t? Are we perhaps in the midst of a societal transformation where dads are becoming more central to the actual parenting part of the job?

Let me know what you think, and I’ll share my own story next time.