More Proof the Media Gets the Day Care Studies Wrong

I've long whined that the hoopla around the government-funded study of childcare misses the point, despite the media frenzy that happens each time. Of course, I've never delved into the numbers to back up my complaining. But no worries -- Slate has done the work for me. Well worth the read. [via Daddy Types]

Back to the Numbers

(Warning: I talk below about men and workplaces and flexibility and balance. Apparently, the readers over at On Balance are sick and tired of the topic. You folks tend to be more forgiving, but if you've had it with the topic, then you may want to hold off reading until tomorrow.)

I have been thinking and thinking about the latest at-home dad number (159,000 in 2005) in the hopes that I can find something new to say about it. As longtime readers know, the Census Bureau releases these figures every year, and every year I struggled to say something new. (Here's my take from the 2002 numbers, the 2003 numbers and the 2004 numbers).

But there's nothing new there. The numbers are so small as to be useless when looking for trends, and the only conclusion that can be safely drawn is that at-home dad numbers are rising. It's probably not even safe to hazard a guess at how fast the numbers are rising.

Of course, the biggest sin continues to be the omission of fathers who -- by any other definition -- are the primary caretakers. In the age of broadband internet, work is not an all-or-nothing proposition. You can be an at-home dad and still bring home some cash on the side, which take you right out of the Census stats. I imagine the same problem compromises the at-home mom numbers.

There's a new book out there (which -- full disclosure -- I haven't read) that underscores that the  workforce is shifting, and pigeonholing men and women into a "work" box or a "home" box is increasingly futile. It's called The Opt-Out Revolt, and from the sounds of the early reviews, it's a pretty comprehensive look at the way parents (mostly moms) make constant shifts in their work-life responsibilities to pursue their various goals.

I'm prone to prattle on about how technology has freed knowledge workers from the old notions of "work" as something that must be done somewhere else for eight straight hours. The future will be a lot more subtle. You'll see a lot more dads who will be able to stradding the work-home divide and play a key role in their children's lives. But you won't see those dads show up in the Census stats.

More Documentary Details

Peter Baylies has continued his trend of actually talking to people to fill his blog, rather than mindlessly linking to the work of others. Yesterday, he reported on his conversation with "The Evolution of Dad" filmmaker Dana Glazer. It gives some nice background on the project.

At-Home Dad Numbers Up Again in 2006

I'll get into the numbers more later, when I have more time, but it's worth noting that the nearly worthless Census numbers nonetheless continue to show a growth in at-home dad numbers, to 159,000 in 2006.

In context:

2006: 159,000
2005: 143,000
2004: 147,000
2003: 98,000
2002: 106,000
2001: 81,000
2000: 93,000
1999: 71,000
1998: 90,000

Last Hirshman Post (Fingers Crossed) For a While

I've only just noticed that Linda Hirshman has posted a new response to my response to her original response to the whole Mother Load thing that (again) questions the personal choices RebelMom and I have made. At this point, I really have nothing else to say. If the way that my wife and I have arranged our affairs doesn't meet Hirshman's standards for an egalitarian family, then I'm not convinced that she's actually interested in finding practical solutions to the work-family thing.

Admittedly, Hirshman doesn't have all the facts on us. While that's certainly an explanation for her posts, it doesn't excuse the jump to conclusions.

Documenting Dads

Filmmaker Dana Glazer has put up a website for his documentary-in-progress,
The Evolution of Dad. Should be an interesting project, and it sounds like he has Scott Coltrane on board, too. If you want to participate, Dana is interested in hearing your story.

Rebel Dad: A Threat to Equality Everywhere?

I have to agree with everything my wife** says in the post below about Linda Hirshman, and I'm almost at a loss for words when it comes to responding to her blog entry from yesterday. She makes her usual argument -- women should focus on work and forget about the family side (or the balance side) of work-family balance -- and then closes with a strange, somewhat misleading ad hominem broadside against the arrangement of the RebelFamily.

Regardless on where you come down on Hirshman's viewpoints, I can't imagine a less productive exercise than holding up me (or Jeremy Adam Smith, for that matter) as a symbol of all that is wrong with fatherhood today. Look, I have no illusions. I am not a perfect dad or husband. But I -- like Jeremy -- am trying to deal with modern fatherhood in an open and public forum. I'm about telling the stories of dads who are seeking better work-life balance or have chosen to stay home. I think that is a helpful exercise. Hirshman apparently feels differently. I have no idea why.

** For the record (because this is an actual topic of discussion in the TPMcafe comments), my wife does exist. She is not a figment of my imagination or anyone else's.

RebelMom Takes On Linda Hirshman's Latest

Linda Hirshman is apparently upset about more than my decision to reveal her age, taking on the RebelFamily toward the bottom of a post that went up at TPMcafe yesterday. Here's RebelMom's reaction:

In her blog entry at TPMcafe, Linda Hirshman writes: "Rebel Dad took his rebellious self right into full time work in public relations, leaving his former lawyer wife with a newborn and a kindergartener." This "fact" came after she "studied up" on Rebel Dad’s biography. I’ll leave it to RebelDad to debunk the errors she made regarding him, but I will do my own talking thank you very much.

So now that I, RebelMom, have been brought into the fray, let me clarify for Ms. Hirshman (and all readers) my situation. Quite aside from the picture of "RebelMom: at-home mom, taken advantage of" as painted by Ms. Hirshman, I am a happy, educated, employed (shocking!!) feminist (shocking!!) woman whose career has taken center-stage throughout my marriage ... much to the chagrin of many extended family members.

Error One: I am not a "former" lawyer. I have an active practice in federal sex-based discrimination litigation. I am also an adjunct professor of law -- where, irony of ironies, I discuss Ms. Hirshman’s views in my feminism-based classes. I am proud that I have maintained my feminist legal practice and my involvement as a parent. As a feminist, I wonder why Ms. Hirman ASSUMED I was not working outside the home?

Error Two: I was not "left" with a newborn and a kindergartener. I happily did not assume the role of primary caretaker of our eldest while I was a federal law clerk and large firm litigator. (RebelDad took care of our eldest from birth until K -- Five years, that’s Error Three.) I wanted the chace to care for our newborn daughter (our last) and had wonderful work opportunities that allowed me to continue my career and be an active parent. RebelDad was quite sad to give up his role—and frequently reminds me that he’ll take it back anytime. And I must ask, if being the primary caretaker for a child until she goes to school isn’t enough for a dad to do, what is?

There is an element of personal judgment in Ms. Hirshman’s writing that undermines her quite valuable arguments. In my teaching experience, this undercuts her ability to "reach" young feminists and would-be feminists. Her sometimes snide rhetoric makes it so easy for people to ignore the nuggets of wisdom in her work.

As I have said in the past, I find many of Ms. Hirshman’s points valuable.

I am quite happy to overlook her factual errors in this instance and wish her, and all feminists (male and female), great success.

Dads Get Counted (Sort Of)

The latest overblown child-care research is out today, with this go-round focusing on the evils of day care (never mind that parental factors swamp any effect from institutional care). But what's really new, really noteworth, is that the giant government study is finally acknowledging dads:

Parents have criticized the NICHD study in the past for defining "child care" as care by anyone other than a child's mother. Thus routine care by fathers and grandparents was defined as "child care." The latest findings address the problem by comparing care by relatives with care by nonrelatives.

Now, I haven't seen the text of the study, so I don't know if dads and moms are still stuck in different buckets, but I am happy to see that dad is now statistically something more than just a unique form of daycare.

Back

I've returned from a quick trip to Disney with the RebelFamily (apparently, there's some sort of governmental mandate that you must travel to Disney with your kids at least once). Lots to talk about. Posting will resume as soon as I get my act together.

The Coolness of GeekDad

For the past year or so, I have been waiting for the dadblog from wired.com's Chris Anderson.
Geekdad is now live, and I have to say that it looks like some big-time geeky fun.

Welcome to the Social

In dad-land, we've moved beyond the blogs, with a couple of new efforts designed to bring all of this nifty Web 2.0 stuff. Dad Daily is building a full-function social network, and DadStaysHome now has a Digg-like front page for stories about dads.

I have to be honest, though ... I just don't have the time to be an active participant in either forum (and I think there may be a third dad-focused web 2.0 site out there, too, but I can't remember), but it's nice to know they're out there.

Leslie Comes to Our Defense

Leslie Morgan Steiner -- as I've documented here -- does not always have the best record of seeing dads as actual (or even potential) contributors when it comes to family responsibilities. So I was obviously a bit shocked to see her On Balance post today , which is the most pro-dad piece she's ever written. I'm nearly speechless ...

The Life of a Dad, by the Numbers

The Washington Post today took a crack at the Maryland time diary stats (the New York Times had the data a few months ago, but this is worth taking a second look), with a page one story that was focused on misplaced mommy guilt. But ... they also ran a sidebar on what the dads are up to. As we've noted before, the hours of child care that dads are putting in are up, and accelerating, but we're still lagging way behind moms.

The stats show that the problem isn't the lazy, couch potato dad -- it's the workaholic. The piece noted:

Perhaps even more striking, the total workloads of married mothers and fathers -- when paid work is added to child care and housework -- is roughly equal, at 65 hours a week for mothers and 64 hours for fathers.

In short, the time not spent with the family isn't spent fishin' or drinkin' beer or watching da Bears. It's spent at work. So if we want to revolutionize the American family, we gave to keep working to revolutionize the workplace.

Fatherhood, in Just a Few Hundred Words

My other blog, On Balance, does a pretty good job of covering the waterfront when it comes to work-life stuff. Every Tuesday, the blog is open to a guest blogger, which can be a hit-or-miss affair. Today, we're running a piece from a regular commenter who manages to cram a memoir of his 55 years as a father and a son into just a few hundred words. It's well worth the read.

Clicking Over from the Feed

By the way, for those of you who occassionally click over from the RSS feed, I have no idea why the formatting looks so squirrelly. It happened after Blogger upgraded, and I just have not had the time to get to the bottom of it. Apologies.

Update: Fixed it. Thanks for your patience.

The Umteenth Opt-Out Observation

Thanks to Cathy Arnst and the BusinessWeek Working Parents blog for first bringing to my attention the CJR piece bursting the opt-out bubble . I don't know what more can be said about the subject, so let me renew my persistent (though narrow) objection to both the opt-out story and its critiques: any story (or critique) that doesn't mention out that men are part of the "opting" equation is -- by definition -- missing a huge point.

I'll also second Greg's point from Daddy Types: this has been out there for months. While I'm glad it's getting some traction, I would have loved Joan Williams' analysis to have penetrated the work-life conversation a bit quicker.

Dad Voices

I promise that -- at some point -- I'll quit with the Mother Load thing. But until then, I wanted to flag this Our Bodies Our Blog post on the lack of men's voices in the Prospect package. Christine is right, of course. This will take effort from fathers as well as mothers.

Along those lines, I was happy to see that there will be a dad regularly blogging at The Juggle, the Wall Street Journal's work-life blog.

technorati tags:worklife, dad, motherload

Dear Linda Hirshman: I Apologize

Dear Prof. Hirshman,

I am flattered. You have taken me to task in the New Republic's Open University blog for my post on your post on the American Prospect's Mother Load series. And I'd like to offer an apology of sorts (I'd post it back to the New Republic forum where you are more likely to see it, but I don't have subscriber priviledges): in posting your age (gleaned from Wikipedia), I did not mean to try to strike a fatal blow by questioning your mental edge or the revelance of your voice in the work-life debate. Indeed, any mention of age almost certainly diminishs the weight of what *I* write -- lack of wisdom is a well-known failing of thirtysomethings.

No, the age thing was meant to reflect that I have a certain first-person perspective on the whole Youthful Male thing (though perhaps not a perspective that is entirely representative of my peers) that may differ from that of an, ahem, older academic. You make the assumption that young men are not willing to make sacrifices for equity in the home, and I remain convinced that that is an increasingly unfair and inaccurate assumption.

But despite the generational differences, I'm happy to report that we are in full agreement on Keillor's odd and uncomfortable look back.

Also, for the record, my favorite (adjunct) professor -- RebelMom, who teaches a law school class on sex discrimination -- agrees with your take, not mine, on the unwillingness of the average man to work for equity at home.

Best wishes,

Brian

Take Paternity Leave, Or Else

I can't believe it's taken me over a week to get to this* -- it's one of those topics too big to just dash off a quick post on -- but I really need to flag the news that the UK's Equal Opportunity Commission has come down and said bluntly that kids whose dads don't take leave are more likely to have developmental problems. I found the conclusion so pointed that I scarcely believed the newspaper report. I had to pull the source material, which did indeed say that you'll screw up your kid if you don't use leave:

In the case of fathers, children were more likely to have developmental problems if their father had: not used their employer's flexible working options compared with using them; allowed the mother to do all the home based childcare instead of sharing; taken only annual or sick leave around the time of the birth compared with a mixture of paternity and annual leave; or taken no leave around the time of the birth.

I have to be honest ... that's a pretty radical statement, and I couldn't find the raw data from the survey (which looked at 30,000 parents and 19,000 kids born in 2000 and 2001) to back it up. But still, the idea is now out there.

The report was filled with all kinds of other nifty nuggets about fatherhood in the our mother country: 4 of 5 dads said they'd be happy to stay at home and look after the baby and 70 percent of new dads want to spend more time with their kids.

* Thanks to Katie for the reminder.

With the Caveat ...

... that posting has dried up the last couple of days, is the shorter-but-more frequent approach working?

Linda Hirshman Loves to Throw Them Firebombs

I have absolutely no idea where to start with her American Prospect piece that asserts that a) men always have and always will put family second and b) ... actually, I don't know what b) is. I assume that Hirshman is sticking by her advice that women should enter the workforce and stay there, but her suggestion to the women of America ain't exactly clear in her essay:

So here's a novel idea: Instead of passing around last year's Working Mother magazine and looking for help from the boys who tell Gerson they'd love to have a just family if it didn't cost them anything, why don't women use their power at the ballot box? If women used their voting power to legislate the redistributive agenda they need, including, for example, required paternal leave, Goldman Sachs would look like a Swedish cooperative nursery. Martin is correct that the mommy groups must be addressing the men in their strategy. But they should be making concrete demands, not settling for wishful thinking. In the words of the famous feminist economist Larry Summers, no one has ever washed a rented car. Until women refuse to participate in the unjust world the men embrace, there will be no forward progress.

"Required parental leave"? "Swedish cooperative nursery"? Huh? And can anyone translate the last sentence?

I've let the Prospect know that if they'd like to know what young men are really thinking about work and family nowadays, I might be able to offer a slightly different perspective than a 62-year-old lawyer/philosopher.

Work-Life Policies: Fair and Balanced (Gender-Wise)

Just when I think I'd caught up on the American Prospect's huge Mother Load effort, Elizabeth over at Half Changed World notes that there's new, web-only information up there. So I'll get to that. At some point. But Elizabeth raises some good questions about whether "family friendly" policies end up exacerbating gender divisions. The answer -- as she points out -- is probably "yes." This is why corporate policies aren't enough ... we need to change the culture and get to a tipping point where it is more acceptible for men to take advantage of these policies. Despite my constant musing on the topic, I don't know how to get there other than highlighting guys who are thriving by doing the family friendly thing ... other suggestions?

Cross-Promotion

With my new policy of quick-n-dirty posts, I don't feel bad about directing you to my On Balance column each week. This week, I defend dual-worker households (even as I run a blog about at-home dads).

Dads and Housework

I've been sitting on this Working Father post on the dads and housework for a few days now. I pulled the source report, and I'm just still not sure what to make of it all. Is it good that we're up to seven hours of housework? From a gender equity standpoint, it's bad that dads are lagging behind moms (more than 21 hours a week), but 21+ hours a week on housework -- no matter who is doing the work -- seems like overkill. Surely there are better ways to spend three hours a day.

Let the Daddyblogging Begin

Peter Baylies at athomedad.com is running a contest to find the best new daddyblogger. If you haven't started blogged yet but mean to, you still have some time -- he'll name winners in January '08. The first post has to be from 2006 or 2007. My vote right now? Daddy Dialectic.

Another Mom Perspective

Today, in the On Balance guest blog, a mom with an at-home dad agonizes over her choices. It's interesting -- as someone who has had to make the transition away from primary caregiver, I can understand the feeling of giving as much as possible and still worrying that you're coming up short and not doing right by your kids.

But the author seems to miss a larger point: whatever her own work-family issues are, it appears that the kids are in great shape (despite her concerned about the children having needs "that are not being fulfilled"). They have a mom who clearly sounds loving and devoted, plus they have the constant attention of a "great dad." It may not be perfect, but it sounds pretty good to me.

We're Number One (For What That's Worth)

So nearly five years after I started this blog, I have rised (probably temporarily) to the top spot for Google searches on "stay at home dad" and "stay at home dads," which gives me a completely unwarranted ego boost, though it does absolutely nothing to actually change my life. Thanks to all who have given me GoogleJuice by linking here.

I'm looking forward to getting bumped off the top spot. Rebeldad.com is not the end-all, be-all of at-home dad sites -- it's run by one guy in his spare time -- and I don't have any aspirations to make it the authoritative outlet for all things SAHD. I look forward to the day when there is an online home for stay-at-home dads that has the smarts of Peter Baylies' newsletter from the 1990s, the discussion level of the dadstayshome.com forums, and the audience of the old slowlane.com. I know that a lot of guys are working to make athomedad.org such a site, and it's worth a visit if you haven't checked it out yet.

At-Home Dads in Profile

I've been reading at-home dad stories for a long, long time, I have a harder and harder time getting into the local-dad story. But they're important in demonstrating that involved fathers are out there (and happy). Today's example comes from the mountains of Colorado. Great work, guys.

Update: The Summit Daily headline for the story is "Mr. Moms: the changing face of stay-at-home parents," which is irritating but OK. The headline that sister paper he Vail Daily uses for the same story is "When mom has a better job," which is not cool.

Getting With the Program

The best assets for a lot of the dads doing the at-home dad thing are other local parents doing the same thing. A lot of these other parents happen to be moms. This isn't usually a problem -- everyone is usually pretty open-minded about the gender thing, and what barriers exist are usually largely in our head.

But not always.

I received a note from a reader who sent along text and a link to the San Diego Open Minded Moms Group, which proudly stated that

"This group is for Open Minded Moms ONLY. We welcome all OPEN MINDED moms including straight, bi-sexual, tattooed, pierced, and lesbian moms. If you cannot accept people for themselves please don't join us. No Men will be allowed within the group, although husbands and boyfriends may be invited to SOME not at all of our events." (ital. mine.)

But the story *does* have a happy ending.

But if you look at their link now (http://playgroup.meetup.com/568/?gj=ej1-181_plus), they've become more inclusive: "Fathers are welcome at some playgroup events, but may be understandably excluded from our pillow fights, lingere parties, calendar photo shoot, pole and or belly dancing lessons, and other girls only adventures."

Fair enough, and kudos to the open-minded moms to opening the group to fathers, even if we're not allowed to pillow fight.

Where the Would-Be Rebel Dads Go

As I mentioned yesterday, there is a package of exceedingly interesting essays up at the American Prospect on the issue of work and family. With the weekend coming, I hope to actually sit down and ... be still my heart ... read all of them. But in the meantime I'm picking and choosing. First up (after the excellent Scott Coltrane piece) is a bit titled What Do Women and Men Want?

The essay -- by Kathleen Gerson -- answers a question I've always wondered about: if today's young men are really serious about having egalitarian marriages and playing a big role in the life of the family (and that's what all the Gen X and Y surveys say), then why isn't the involved-dad thing getting bigger even faster?

According to Gerson, most young couples set out on a path to the ideal of equality, but once those bumps hit and they realize that splitting everying down the middle isn't always posible, they go to a "fallback" position. Women begin preparing to go it alone (just in case) and men fall back into the breadwinner role. So I guess there are two challenges now: make it easier for couples to live the egalitarian dream (by rethinking workplace) and get guys to stop defaulting to the '50s style fathering model the moment work-life balance raises its ugly head.

A Different Approach

In the coming days, I'm going to try something new ... you'll see more, shorter posts, and -- hopefully -- more up-to-date items. Part of the slowdown of late has been the segmentation of my time for blogging ("free time," so to speak) into smaller chunks that make it hard to bang out one of my traditional 300/400/500 word posts. So you'll get less, just more often.

Some New Playgroups/Dads Groups on the Radar

In addition to falling behind (already) in my blogroll efforts, I have some major updates to do for the map. Until then, here are a handful of groups springing up ... drop these guys a line or drop by if you're in the neighborhood:

Indiana Dads At Home Network (IDAHN) and meets every Monday at theFishers library, 5 Municiple Drive from 10:00-11:00 AM in the stageroom.Please contact Patrick Warner at 317-490-2380

Denver Dads: Contact Doug Brown at Uke_Skywalker@msn.com. They meet once a week.

Atlanta Area: Kevin has started a group for Gwinett dads (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gwinnettdads/):

I will be at the play area at Mall of Georgia in front of Nordstrom on Thursday, April 5 at 1:00. I'll be the one with the squealing ten-month-old.

I'll let you all know when I add these to the map. In the meantime, let me know if you have a group that's not yet listed ...

Scott Coltrane on the Importance of Real Daddying

So an insightful poster (Amy from Equally Shared Parenting) on On Balance today pointed to an amazing set of essays at the American Prospect on Mother Load and the fight for a family-friendly workplace. This is thrilling, and I am going to have to carve some time out to paw through the whole thing (which includes such luminaries/Rebel Dad heroes as Joan Williams).

But I did have time to read through the essay by Scott Coltrane, a prof at University of California, Riverside and the author of Family Man.

I am tempted to copy and paste the whole thing here, if not for copyright. I agree with pretty much every word, fact and opinion in the piece. Most impressive is his argument against the current emphasis on fatherhood promotion. I have always been ambivalent about those programs -- they've always made me slightly uneasy in the abstract, even though anything that can be done to emphasize the importance of fatherhood is a positive in my book. Coltrane puts words to my unease:

But [conservative fatherhood advocates] typically define father presence in vague and nostalgic terms -- as in marrying the mother and serving as a "masculine role model" -- rather than taking responsibility for routine, everyday tasks like changing diapers or doing laundry. Wade Horn, former president of the National Fatherhood Initiative and now assistant secretary for children and families in the Bush administration, warned fathers against acting like mothers, saying the "new nurturing father ideal," in which a man "shares equally in all childrearing activities from the moment of birth," is "of course, nonsense."

As I get through the rest of the essays, I'll post on interesting, dad-oriented stuff. From the titles alone, I'm sure there's good stuff in there.

More SAHD Video

I'm not entirely certain what to make of this local news report on at-home dad in Green Bay. While I love to see dads getting good press, the journalists involved just seemed a bit too flabbergasted at the concept (Men! Taking care of children! Who aren't worried about being manly! Even though they should be! Maybe!).

And while, on balance, it's better to have that piece floating around than not, it underscores the brilliance of the Colbert Report take on at-home dads.

Because -- let's face it -- there is no reason why men who are doing the caretaking thing is really that extraordinary, or why kids should prefer mom over dad (or vice versa) as a caretaker, or why pushing a Swiffer is any less manly than clicking away at a keyboard all day. Colbert, if you get the humor, does a great job of making that point. Of course, what makes Colbert so cutting edge is that he does the straight-face thing better than any other satirist. But I thought it was pretty clear: at-home dads have a great gig, and you have to really go over the top to make it seem otherwise.

Update: Peter Baylies actually gets the behind-the-scenes report on the Colbert shooting. Fun stuff. I want a DADMAN shirt ...

Today's Scourge: The Over-Involved Dad

New York Magazine, which has done so much to gin up parenting trend stories that are overblown, silly or patently false, is at it again with a wonderful piece on "momblocking": dads who dictate to mom how to parent (if they let her parent at all). It is apparently the gender-reversed version of overbearing "gatekeeper" moms.

The piece is wonderful not because it exposes the seedy and growing meanance of fathers who thoughtlessly cut their wives out of the diaper changing (and not because it quotes the charming and talented Greg Allen of Daddy Types). I'm fairly certain that momblocking is not a huge problem for New York mag readers. Indeed, I doubt it's a particularly big problem for anyone, even Amy Sohn, the author. (The solution to momblocking -- and gatekeeper moms -- is the simple but sometimes painful elixer of constant communication.) Momblocking is certainly not an emerging trend.

No, the piece is wonderful because the editors at New York Magazine apparently think that they can blow 1,000 words on a made-up trend that focuses on overinvolved fathers and people will believe this is really a problem. In short, it is now plausible to think that dads -- in general -- are so generally involved in family life that they're going overboard. Again, probably not true, but I'm just happy to live at a time where people think that's possible.

You Gotta See This

No real time to post today, but you absolutely need to know that the Austin at-home dad group was featured on the Colbert Report last night.

Video is still available at Comedy Central.

Brilliant stuff.