Work Life Balance No Longer A ‘Woman’s Problem’

Dads with full-time jobs and demands at home are feeling the heat in the office, a new survey shows. Some findings in late May have revealed just how much times have changed with 56% of employed dads saying  that they have taken time off to take care of the kiddies. Interestingly, these same committed fathers have encountered “negativity or problems” with work conflicting with the needs of their kids. Of the dads surveyed, 56% say that these problems have been recurring.

Dean Debnam, CEO of Workplace Options, an employee training consultancy based in Raleigh, N.C., which conducted the poll, and a father of five children himself noted that the workforce is quite different than it was even five years ago. He noted that with changing attitudes “the pressure for fathers to succeed both as professionals and as parents is greater than ever.”

CNN points out that today’s daddys are having to make choices at work their own fathers rarely had to make, yet employers still assume that by hiring a male — these won’t be issues that they’ll have to handle.

It’s often women who speak out against policies that aren’t considerate of families but that doesn’t mean that work life balance is a fundamentally female problem. As these numbers demonstrate, our expectations of male and female workers are completely outdated and out of sync with the reality of many American families.