Reports show that many fathers feel as if they don’t spend enough time with their kids.Getty Images
Even as fathers spend more time with their kids than ever before, they're also getting harder on themselves as parents. In many cases, dads feel more guilt than moms do about the amount of time they're devoting to family, according to figures from the Pew Research Center, a Washington-based think tank.
Some 48 per cent of working fathers said they spend too little time with their children, compared with just 26 per cent of working mothers. The guilt swelled even as 46 per cent of dads acknowledged that they reserve more time for their children than their own parents did for them.
In other words, modern dads are juggling competing responsibilities and feeling hugely conflicted about it – just like modern moms.
"They're feeling guilty and they're feeling torn," says Brigid Schulte, a Washington Post journalist and author of the book Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time, a powerful wake-up call about our overscheduled lives in North America.
Schulte says men are now experiencing some of what women went through as they entered the work force in droves in the sixties and seventies. The assumption then was that men simply had to make room for women at work, but could expect them to continue doing everything at home.
"That just made everybody crazy," said Schulte, pointing to burned-out mothers and strained relationships. She says what we're witnessing now in involved (and stressed-out) working fathers is "the natural second step of this massive sea change in gender roles."
Half of the dads in the Pew research found it challenging to balance their job and family life; 34 per cent reported that they "always feel rushed." What's hampering involved fathers is an inflexible and retrograde work culture that demands face time in the office – especially from men. "Our workplace cultures still expect men to act as if it's 1950 and they're the breadwinners," Schulte said.
The author said stigma lingers at the office for really involved dads: "An occasional coaching of a little-league game? Everybody gets a pat on the back. But if you're going to leave at 5:30 every day to do child-care pickup, studies show that in certain work-first cultures, men are punished for that."
Kim Parker, director of social trends research at Pew and a co-author of the report, points out that part of the reason dads feel worse about not being home more often is they are in fact still spending less time with their children than mothers are. But it's certainly more than fathers in generations past: "Men not only feel like they have to or should spend time at home being more involved and helping – they want to," Schulte said.
So what's the fix for daddy-guilt?
For starters, progressive parental-leave policies that include provisions for men would help normalize involved fatherhood. Governments that have implemented "use-it-or-lose-it" daddy quotas for parental leave see skyrocketing uptake among men. That includes Quebec, which has encouraged fathers to take five weeks off, and Iceland, which doles out three months to women, three months to men and three months to both parents. If dads forgo their chunk of the leave, it's ixnayed.
What's fascinating is what happens in these communities after the parental leave is over. A recent study of Quebec's policy found that men who took advantage of the leave were more involved parents three years later: 70 per cent of married or co-habitating couples reported splitting child care equally between mom and dad after men took time off with the baby.
"You set up how the family is going to work from the start," Schulte says. "Men take that solo parental leave and really learn how to take care of a baby. They realize that it's not biologically wired into only women – it's wired into them. They develop confidence and competence. That changes the family dynamic. Several years down the road there's much more equal sharing of parenting, housework and work time. One small policy change can have enormous impact down the road."
Ultimately, it will take more flexible workplaces to truly ease working fathers' growing stress and guilt. If companies and governments don't model involved fatherhood as important, men won't take leave: "They don't see the boss taking it. The informal culture grumbles about it. It still hasn't been normalized," Schulte says.
Still, some of the fix lies with parents themselves, who'd do well to take a deep breath and let go of the guilt – it certainly won't help their sons and daughters. New research backs this up-too: Recent findings co-authored by a University of Toronto researcher suggest that the quantity of time parents spend with children three to 11 doesn't really affect their grades or emotional well-being – it's quality time that matters.
The groundbreaking study should be a heads-up for increasingly fretful dads.
"It's the feelings of inadequacy, the worry, the exhaustion, the killing yourself to be there all the time – it's the stress that's bad for children because it's bad for quality of time and your relationship," Schulte says. "If you're just yelling at your kid, 'Come on, get in the car! We've got to get to ballet class!' it's not fun and it's not good for anybody. Far better that you don't try to do it all. Make the most of what you do have."
By the numbers
48 per cent of working fathers feel they devote too little time to their kids.
66 per cent of working mothers said they spend the "right amount" of time with their family.
3 per cent of employed dads claimed to spend too much time with their brood, compared with 6 per cent of working moms.
50 per cent of fathers say it's difficult for them to balance work and family.
2.5 hours per week was what working fathers spent on child care in 1965. That rose to 7 hours per week in 2011.
10 hours per week was the time working mothers devoted to raising children in 1965. That ballooned to 14 hours in 2011.
Source: Pew Research Center
Zosia Bielski