Why am I a Working Dad
I decided to call myself Working Dad because that’s what I am. The phrase is commonly associated with mothers, because:
1) Moms who work are assumed to be doing “double duty”
2) Fathers are supposed to be working, since that is their primary family function.
The generation that came of age after the Women’s Lib movement of the sixties and early seventies is faced with a very complicated view of family life and social roles for men and women. As my wife has pointed out, she is part of the first generation of American women that was explicitly told by the culture and education system that they should be able to go as far as they can out there in the world of work, of business, that they could “have it all” – a career and a family – but what they were not told, my wife and her friends, was how to do all of that. Unlike in many Western European countries, there were no family support structures put in place by government (national or local), and the men of that era only embraced women’s lib to the extent that they could accept women in the public sphere; they were not necessarily as keen on the idea that they, the men, would have to do more in the domestic sphere. The house, and taking care of it on a daily basis, belonged to the woman, even if she was a working one (of course, the BIG projects around the house went to the men – painting, putting satellite dishes on the roof, repairing appliances). Even a close relation of mine, when speaking in the abstract about raising children, assumed that his wife would be the primary child-care giver of any children they might have some day, that she would be the one to quit her job or work only part-time until the children were old enough. And no one thinks to ask a dad if he has work outside the home – something every mom gets asked.
These assumptions are commonplace, and of course when news reports scream of child care center horrors (screams that are often based on distortions of reality), it is the mother who gets the blame, the mother who feels guilty. Before President Clinton nominated Janet Reno for Attorney General, he’d nominated two other women, both of whom failed to get confirmed because they had hired illegal immigrant home workers; would their male counterparts have been subjected to that kind of scrutiny? I don’t think so. But if marriage is a partnership, then so is parenting. Both parents have to be involved in what happens to the children. There’s that great quiz for fathers that appeared, I think, in salon.com, where dads are asked if they know their doctor’s phone number, if they know the names of their children’s friends at school, etc. I bet most dads would still score pretty low.
Arlie Hochschild’s The Second Shift excellently documents the struggles of the working woman, whose work does not end when she gets home from her job. Most dads don’t work the second shift, or if they do, they don’t do as much as their wives do on the second shift. I am a Working Dad. I am “lucky” in the sense that my work schedule means I don’t have to be at an office forty-plus hours a week, but that does mean I do a lot of work for my job in my home. I work hard at my job and I work hard on the second shift. I go on field trips. I volunteer at school. I take the girls to the doctor’s office if they are sick. I take the baby to meetings when I have to. I e-mail my pediatrician about once every other month when questions arise (he gets back to us faster with e-mail). I am out on the playground. I do most of the grocery shopping and laundry (my wife is the one who fixes things). I clean toilets. I write checks and can balance the checkbook, most of the time, anyway.
I don’t say these things out of arrogance. I just want to make explain my name. I too struggle to maintain a balance. I don’t feel I “have it all,” but I have enough.