An excerpt from this article: http://www.timsackett.com/2014/08/08/dads-dont-get-work-life-balance-empathy/
Friends and colleagues often ask my wife how she balances her job and motherhood. Somehow, the same people don’t ask me.”
When we talk about ‘inclusion’ we aren’t really talking about everyone. That’s the problem. We wonder how possibly a woman could handle the pressures of being a CEO and being a Mom, but we never wonder, or even care, how a man handles the pressure of being a CEO and a Dad. It’s expected a man can do both, we question if a woman can do both.
There is a cultural expectation, wrongly, that as a man I can be CEO and a Dad and perform just fine. As a woman, I’ll have trouble doing both jobs, because the Mom does more than the Dad. The mom cooks and cleans and nurtures and schedules and kisses booboos and, well, does everything for the family. The lazy asshole Dad comes home and waits for the Mom to fix him dinner and his drink. Really!?! Is that where we are in 2014?
I’m a Dad and a President of a company. I feel for Max. My wife does a ton, it can’t even be measured. I don’t expect her to do everything and help out a ton with parenting when and where I can. I assume if the roles were changed and my wife was a CEO, I would have to pick up more of her home and parenting duties.
This goes beyond just duties, though, this is about emotional connection. As a Dad, like Max, why should I have less of a connection as a parent than my wife. Why do we throw that cultural expectation onto our employees, on to our executives? As a father I frequently feel failure. Maybe it’s because I missed being able to have lunch with my son at school. Maybe it’s because my wife has a stronger relationship with my kids than I do. Maybe it’s because I trying to live up to a cultural expectation that I should be less of a parent.
No one ever wants to talk about how hard a man has it, trying to be a father and work. It’s not ‘politically’ correct. Men have it easier. End of story. That sucks sometimes.
Read the entire piece HERE
