Consultant James Levine was used to seeing female faces when he started giving seminars on balancing work and family in the 1980s. Sure, there would be a few men scattered here and there in the audience, but they rarely spoke up. If they had any questions, they would wait until the room cleared out before approaching Levine with their concerns.
Then Levine, director of the Fatherhood Project at the Families and Work Institute in New York, got a grant to take a look at fatherhood and the workplace. In 1990, he contacted Apple Computer and asked if he could conduct a focus group just for working dads. He wasn’t sure anyone would show up.
The response was overwhelming. Levine extended his stay for nearly three days as men queued up to talk about the tug and pull of being a working parent. As he listened, Levine realized something important had been left out of the national debate on the role of working parents.
Fathers.
Men make up more than half the workforce, but when it comes to family-friendly work policies, it’s moms, not dads, who most people have in mind, says Levine.
That’s a mistake for everyone concerned, he warns. “Working parents come in two flavors, mothers and fathers, and for the sake of their business, (employers) need to start paying attention to both.”
Levine makes his case in “Working Fathers: New Strategies for Balancing Work and Family” (Harcourt Brace & Co., $13). The book is a blend of social analysis and how-to tips for balancing the sometimes-contradictory roles of employee and dad.
“Men’s values really have changed,” Levine says. “Today’s fathers want to have a different relationship with their kids than they did with their fathers. They grew up thinking something was missing, and they want to change that.”
Studies bear out Levine’s theory. A 1991 Gallup poll found that 50 percent of American men derive “a greater sense of satisfaction from caring for their family than from a job well done at work.” In a 1996 poll of men in their 30s and 40s working at Levi Strauss & Co., 84 percent equated “success” with being a good father.
But that doesn’t mean devoted dads are abandoning their career goals. In fact, one national study found that men with children under 18 are slightly more likely–53 percent compared to 50 percent–to want more responsibility at work than childless men or those with adult children.
Like their female counterparts, men are no longer satisfied with choosing between family and career. They want both.
“Today’s dad doesn’t want to only be the breadwinner; he wants to come home and sit down and have dinner with his family,” says psychologist and author Bruce Linton of Berkeley, Calif.
As a result, work patterns are changing. Many workers are seeking out family-friendly companies, where policies such as flex-time and telecommuting make it easier to pick up children from day care or coach a Little League team.
And many, Linton included, are becoming their own bosses so they can schedule their time the way they see fit.
Sonny Massey of Pleasant Hill, Calif., falls into that category. He traded a corporate job for a position as a diversity consultant for R. Taylor O’Neale Associates, traveling about six days a month and working out of his home the rest of the time.
“The thing I love about the consulting is that it gives me an opportunity to spend more time with my daughter,” says Massey, 52. “I love the idea of getting her up in the morning and ready for school, or reading in her classroom. I couldn’t do that when I was in corporate America.
“In my old job, there were many instances when men came to me and said they wanted to stay home with their new baby, and their wife wanted to go right back to work, but that people were telling them they would be committing career suicide if they did that because they were the man.”
Experts and dads credit a number of factors in the evolving attitude toward working fathers. For starters, the Family and Medical Leave Act gives men legal clout if they want to take unpaid time off to care for family members. More companies are offering paid paternity leave, although it’s still a rarity.
Some fathers, such as David Platt, 38, of Walnut Creek, Calif., say the national trend toward having children later in life may also play a role.
“Personally, having waited to have children means I’m really focused on fatherhood,” says Platt, whose children’s ages are 14 months and 3 years. “I really want to be there with my kids.”
There’s no doubt that parents and children benefit when they have more time together, says Levine. But there’s also an economic advantage for businesses. Working fathers are more likely to stay with a company that honors their commitment to their family.
“Loyalty is no small thing,” says Levine. “First, it’s costly to recruit and train someone new. But second, in a service-oriented job, successful workers take their customers with them. So it’s not only the cost you incur to find and train a replacement, but also the business you lose when someone leaves.”
Platt says Chevron’s father-friendly environment plays a big role in his long-term employment at the company. He likes working for a company where picking up kids from day care is considered a valid reason for leaving a meeting.
“I’ve considered what it would be like to leave Chevron. I would probably have to give up the family-friendly environment, and I wouldn’t want to do that, not even for more money. It’s more important to be part of my children’s lives.”
Studies show that men who feel good about the job they are doing as fathers are more likely to be productive at work, says Levine. And conversely, men who feel respected at work are more likely to be happy at home.
