More Fathers Fighting for Flexibility in the Workplace, but why call it "Daddy Wars"?

Here I am. With my head held high...over my toilet. Why? USA Today.

"Accountability Central: As dads push for family time, tensions rise in workplace, Demands for leave, flexible hours reshape careers and fuel conflicts" Initially I was happy to see a story about Dads and workplace flexibility. Unfortunately after reading the piece it made me feel queasy. I am sorry to seem like I am picking on one particular news outlet. I realize many have gotten on the sensationalism track, but then again USA Today has published quite a few "Mommy Wars" stories recently. This sentence in particular, "As dads demand paternity leave, flexible work schedules, telecommuting and other new benefits, they've ignited what workplace specialists are calling the Daddy Wars." Had me holding my own hair back, falling to my knees and waiting to worship the porcelain god.* These are "new benefits"? Hardly. As the story states, the benefits have traditionally, when offered, been used by mothers.

What really had me floating over the bowl, so to speak ,is USA Today missed the real story. Hello! Hello out there! Fathers are standing up for their caregiving responsibilities and not backing down. Even if there is some tension.

Here is the real story in the USA Today Article:

"The survey also found that working dads are increasingly tapping into benefits that until just a few years ago were used almost exclusively by mothers: 71% of fathers with a child under age 5 took paternity leave when it was offered by their employer."


and

"When Ernst & Young began letting fathers take parental leave in 2001, dads made up 46% of those taking it. Today, slightly more than 50% of those who take such leave are men."

If these quotes are accurate, this is a HUGE deal. It would mean a shift in the paradigm to include fathers as caregivers AND to identify benefits need to be made available to every employee, regardless of gender. (Aviva and I have spoken to hundreds of parents, we know caring for kids is no longer being handed down from the maternal side of a family. Dads are in the mix and are having their say. GOOD! This is GOOD! This is good for families! After all, most of us either have a family or came from one.)

But let us all resist the temptation to get wrapped up in a mom lament of, "Oh, those dads just want a pat on the back when moms have been doing this for way longer with few accolades, we've been suffering about this for years. Now they want in? Oh no they just didn't." Hell to the no! Dads and moms band together! The root of family benefits is the employer/employee relationship, not parenting. When we get sucked in to believing moms and dads are "warring" this just lets employers and our government off the hook. Again, hell to the no!

Keep in mind we need to be on the same side in order to get these flexibility benefits. It doesn't serve anyone, other than an employer who wants any excuse not to offer flexibility, to fight amongst ourselves. No argument that the majority of women have had to fight far more longer and harder than the majority of men, but why should mothers have to continue the battle all by ourselves when dads want what we want too? C'mon parents, depend on each other, everybody get together and support one another. RIGHT NOW!

It is painfully obvious much of the media concentrates on perpetuating the notion moms are warring against each other. But what about the dads? Oh! Hey! Here they are! And now it's fathers drawing the battle lines? Oh come on! Someone needs to shut their pie hole on the negative spin. Didn't the media just get our collective call to end one war ? This isn't a "Daddy War" this is a sociological, economical and psychological argument for accommodation for family needs and workplace flexibility! Call it that.

Tossing around the battle banter is a distraction from what is really going on here. Men AND women are doing carework (not just of children either, we've got others we care for in our family and friendship circles!) Men and women are uniting and presenting what they need to our employers and there are growing(even if it is slow, but it is nevertheless an increase) number of employers who are taking those concerns seriously. Moms AND Dads are making positive changes in the workplace. Even if they are considered minor. Slow and steady can, and does, win a race. Report it!

You there, you in the power seat at TV, Radio and newspapers. Support us. Let me give you one big hint on how you can do that. Don't start a "Daddy War." Resist the temptation to capitalize on reporting family flexibility as whiny, demanding or unnecessary. Stop presenting flexibility as something only white privileged MBA executives need or care about. Maybe those folk have more time to discuss it because they aren't as consumed with figuring out how to maintain 3 hots and a cot because they have more resources to switch to Plan B if necessary. When you work part time at McDonald's, have 6 kids and live in a box, the plan is Survival. So yeah, those of us with the time, let's try to bring more happiness into the workplace in the way of instituting carework policies here and there. It's not a deep dark secret that happy workers are better workers. Being flexible in the workplace is beneficial to the bottom line. Label it as being so!

It is high time companies realize it makes sense to change the focus. And you know what? Some of them are. We're just not hearing and reading about it in the media very much because it's not as sexy to report. I remember a time when Yellow Journalism was something that occasionally creeped into a newspaper or tv news program. Now? There's so much yellow, I shade my eyes much of the time from the glare.

But is it just the media's fault or responsibility? No. Am I at war with the media? Absolutely not. Journalists are not our enemy. We do need them in our corner and it's not like journalists don't have families they would like to go home to. Journalists have high pressure and crappy work conditions too. Flexible options would be good for everyone. Including journalists. Aviva and I created Parentopia Props for the purpose of bringing attention to those journalists who write sans the mommy (and now daddy) war rhetoric.

The rhetoric isn't merely perpetuated by journalists. It also included the sources who's loyalties aren't quite where I would like to see them. I've said before and I will say it again, I am perfectly willing to take a pass on an interview if the focus of a piece it to pit parents against each other. I will turn away from an article if it perpetuates "mommy wars" (now I'll be including "daddy wars" too.)

And you know what? It's not about Work/Family. Why should work come first? It's about Family/Work. Use that from now on!

And if you do? I won't ever have to post a picture of my head over toilet on the Internet again.

*(If you are thinking "Damn, maybe it is that ugly floor and wallpaper getting to Devra" you'd be right about that too. Change is coming, in our bathroom and beyond!)