Tuesday, February 18, 2003

I finally stopped shoveling long enough to read my new issue of Parenting. Turning to "Work+Family," I was pleasantly surprised to read a short piece titled "Are You Ready to Go Back to Work?" It was wonderfully gender-neutral, and I was all set to send a nice note to the author ... until I reached this line: "How does your partner feel about working? Would he be willing to pitch in more around the house?"[ital. mine] It's not a flagrant foul, but sometimes I gotta be nitpicky.

Below that story were results from a parenting.com poll that found that found that only 10 percent of dads took off more than a month when their baby was born (dads who took off NO time came in at 15 percent). This is the number I'd love to see change -- the Family and Medical Leave Act means that guys CAN take the time (if they can afford it -- a giant obstacle in a great many families). Rebel Dad clearly believes that patenity leave is parental crack -- once you've spent a good deal of time with your little one, you'll want to spend even more time with 'em. That opens the door to an honest debate about whether dad or mom (or neither) will stay home.

Finally, there's a short piece on tag-team parenting for parents who may have split shifts. These are families that make hard choices -- Rebel Dads and Rebel Moms trying to make the work/family balance viable -- and it's nice to see some attention paid to it. That's a real reservoir of Rebel Dads who don't often identify themselves as at-home fathers, but who nonetheless are responsible for a giant chunk of this nation's fathercare.

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