Dammit…work is hard.
I don’t mean to say that any one of our jobs is more difficult than the other. I do mean to say that almost all jobs have varying degrees of suck-itude. Very few of us would show up at the office tomorrow if we won the Powerball Lottery tonight. Paychecks are a good thing, but they keep many of us from striking out and finding our one true purpose.
My good friend Larry and I have been discussing this topic for the last 14 years. We’ve thought all this time that we had some unique insight into the nature of work in the 20th and 21st centuries. That may still be true; however, I’m starting to think that we’re also part of a much larger movement that is redefining the role of men in the workplace and how our jobs affect our personal/family lives.
Just yesterday, the Families and Work Institute released the first study that’s really defined this phenomenon for me. Entitled “The New Male Mystique,” this report says that 60% of men in dual-earner couples feel “very conflicted” about their work vs family roles.
The report goes on to summarize the new male workforce quandary thusly – “Today, men are experiencing what women experienced when they first entered the workforce in record numbers — the pressure to “do it all in order to have it all.” This is the essence of the “new male mystique.”"
This study is already garnering attention outside the typical work/life balance crowd. Following its publication, the Washington Post asked the follow-up question, “Can dads have it all?” According to Janice D’arcy in that article, “many employers may expect a woman to need flexibility for family life. Men may need to forge a new path. They might be less comfortable asking for flexibility or their office culture may not have caught up with the change in the air.”
I can still remember reading Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique” in a colloquium on 60′s society and culture during my freshman year at the University of Arkansas. Even though I read the book almost 30 years after its publication, Friedan described with such clarity the modern dilemma of the professional woman that I’ve felt some residual male guilt for early 20th-century female repression (over which I had no control) ever since.
While reconciling my inheritance as a dude in the modern workplace (with the statiscically higher wages and job security that position conveys,) I’ve always felt some degree of tension between my professional persona and my home/family persona. It’s damned difficult today to walk the line between dedicated professional male and loving father.
Larry just wrote a painfully accurate day-in-the-life account of the modern professional dad. It was so accurate, in fact, that it made my own wife tear up with the recognition of moments in our own day-to-day management of shifting priorities in work-family-kid schedules.
I love every moment I have with my kids, and I don’t have nearly enough of them. I regularly fantasize about the time I had with my kids as a work-at-home dad. I think that’s one reason I’m so enamored with the philosophy and writings of Leo Baubata, When you’re constantly pulled between work and family obligations, the idea of eliminating many of life’s unnecessary distractions is incredibly attractive.
I don’t have any solid answers today, but I’m more convinced than ever that we owe it to ourselves and our children to define the new solutions that work best for our generation. Nine to Five and Working Girl created engaging stories about the struggles of women in the workplace over 20 years ago. It’s a definite measure of progress that Work/Life issues are no longer an women-only issue.
I don’t mean that we’ve fixed all the problems women have in the workplace. A pay inequality gap and a glass ceiling still exist in far too many workplaces; however, I think precious few of us are living the lives we want to lead. And life is too short, dammit, to work unfulfilling jobs hoping that one day we’ll have more time to send with our wives, with our kids and on the projects we really love. If we wait long enough, the decision will be made for us…when are kids are grown and we no longer have a choice on how much time we spend with them.
About Brad
