The Daddy Shift: Men of Tomorrow
Everything is politics.
Certainly within the family the issue of who takes care of the kids is highly charged and highly staked for all concerned. It seems to me that the next wave of feminism must be for men and women together to take on changing the workplace so both can have a life while earning a living and making sure their children are in fact well cared for.
That’s why this Washington Post article, “Get Ready to Step up, Dad” caught my eye. Here’s an excerpt”
There’s a good bit of chatter these days about what some are calling “The Coming American Matriarchy.” National Journal columnist Jonathan Rauch, drawing on census data, suggests that American women will soon outnumber men in top professions and enjoy increased earning power. This is largely because they will have had more years of formal education, a trend already established among Americans in their mid-20s to mid-30s.
This raises the question: Who will take care of their children? Will women continue to run themselves ragged trying to be boss at work, full-time caregiver at home and on call for either obligation day and night? Or will they look to their mates, who, should projections hold, may not be putting in as many hours at work as they?
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If the latter, some things are going to have to change, not the least of which are women’s attitudes toward their men as parents…
My own father figured large in my childhood. He was affectionate and affirmed me often in a sort of mixed message way by telling me I could do “anything your pretty little head desires.” But fix dinner? Change a diaper or give a bath? Ha! My son, in contrast, has been intimately involved in every aspect of his sons’ lives since conception. He’s even made clear that he would forego career advancement if it means he can’t put his family’s wellbeing first.
The women’s movement has changed men as profoundly as it has changed women. Now it is up to both to apply the principles of movement organizing to get the companies they work for to establish policies that enable them to live up to their parenting responsibilities equally.
After all, in the politics of the personal, doesn’t everybody benefit from that?
GLORIA FELDT is the New York Times bestselling author of several books including No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power, a sought-after speaker and frequent contributor to major news outlets, and the Co-Founder and President of Take The Lead. People has called her “the voice of experience,” and among the many honors she has been given, Vanity Fair called her one of America’s “Top 200 Women Legends, Leaders, and Trailblazers,” and Glamour chose her as a “Woman of the Year.”
As co-founder and president of Take The Lead, a leading women’s leadership nonprofit, her mission is to achieve gender parity by 2025 through innovative training programs, workshops, a groundbreaking 50 Women Can Change The World immersive, online courses, a free weekly newsletter, and events including a monthly Virtual Happy Hour program and a Take The Lead Day symposium that reached over 400,000 women globally in 2017.