Where Are All the 'Working Dads'? Cont'd

I’ve been following your discussion about work, parenting, and gender. It’s one that my husband and I have been working through over the past couple of years, and I wanted to share my experience.

I was a National Merit Scholar in high school and went to college on a full scholarship. I was able to cram my bachelor’s and master’s degrees into 4.5 years of college, which meant I graduated with no student loans. I work in financial risk management, and my job pays well enough that, since I’m not repaying student loans, my income is enough to support us.

My husband has a high school diploma. He started his career selling cellphone contracts, and was promoted every year or so until he was running five cellphone stores in our city. He was making a good income, one which could have supported our family if we were willing to make some sacrifices in our lifestyle.

However, managing retail stores is a stressful job. He spent evenings and weekends taking phone calls and handling crises, and 60-hour workweeks weren’t uncommon. While I was pregnant, he had started having medical problems that his doctor partially attributed to workplace stress.

When I became pregnant, we both just assumed that we’d both continue to work.

I took a 12-week maternity leave and we hired my husband’s sister as a nanny. We thought that we had the best childcare arrangement possible. Our daughter would receive one-on-one care from her aunt, and since my mom is retired, we even had free, readily available backup care when my sister-in-law needed the day off.

Our setup worked for about two months. My sister-in-law got pregnant, immediately began having complications, and was told to rest and stop lifting anything heavier than ten pounds. She told us that she didn’t plan to continue to nanny after she had her baby. My husband quit his job.

I specifically want to comment on the following paragraph from Li’s piece on The Mindy Project:

The assumption that Danny wouldn’t even consider being the stay-at-home parent—all other things equal—captures the prevailing nature of existing norms about parenting and the need for a fundamental shift in perspective. The question shouldn’t by default be, “Will Mom stay home?” if parents decide this would be best for their child, but rather: “Which one of us will?”

The downsides of being a working parent are felt more keenly by women. When we were both working, I was always the one who took time off when my daughter needed to go to the doctor or when we had a childcare crisis. My bosses, having had past experience with women who came back from maternity leave only to quit a few months later, went out of their way to provide flexibility and incentives to keep me working.

When my husband made these types of requests, his bosses started to view him as unreliable and less of a team player. So despite our most deliberately equal of marriages, responsibilities started shifting to me—since, after all, my workplace allowed for it.

I spent an hour of my workday locked in the mothers’ room, pumping breastmilk. I handled all the nighttime parenting, since all my daughter really wanted when she woke up was to nurse. Since I was able to leave work earlier (see flexibility), I found myself handling the afternoon pickup, arriving home alone and immediately needing to settle my daughter and start dinner all at the same time.

The downsides to taking time off to care for a child are felt more keenly by men. Social isolation is a big one. My husband knows one other stay-at-home dad, whereas I know many stay-at-home moms who are constantly arranging play dates and lunch gatherings.

My husband would love to find some side work that could generate some income, but all of his useful skills (yard work? painting houses? trimming trees?) are hard to pull off with a toddler in tow. If I stayed home, I’d have gotten my sewing machine out during naptime and re-opened my old Etsy shop. My husband, too, is likely to have a more difficult time explaining his resume gap to a future employer.

Because of the differences in our careers and our health, these factors weren’t enough to change our decision for my husband to stay home. It was, and is, the right thing for our family. But if all else was equal, I’m certain that they would have tipped the scales toward me staying home instead.

I don’t know exactly how I feel about all of that. Is it something that workplaces need to change? Are all of these things just social assumptions that will gradually shift as more women enter STEM careers and out-earn their husbands? Are women biologically designed to be the primary caregiver, and we’re doing something unnatural by outfitting them with breast pumps and sending them back into the workplace after 12 short weeks?

The only thing I can say definitively is this: The question by default won’t be “will Mindy or Danny stay home?” until Danny is also shown dealing with a childcare crisis by stashing the baby in a supply closet, fretting about the nanny’s qualifications, and having to cut his workday short to go home and take a sick child to the pediatrician.