I get a lot of emails from women about what it’s like for them to try to work and be mothers. Every once in a while I post them with the author’s permission, like this one from Tennessee, and this one from Baltimore.
I think it’s important to share these stories, because it shines a light on the problem so many of us are grappling with. As a bonus, readers often leave kind, thoughtful comments, which I hope might provide a little bit of comfort.
Today I want to share letters from two dads. It’s easy to talk about work-family conflict as a “women’s issue” but as you’ll see, it affects dads, too.
I’ll call the first dad Scott. Scott asked that I not share where he works or the specifics of what he does, so I’ll just say he has a white collar job on the East Coast.
From Scott:
I came across your website and read your section on “What’s the problem?” I could go on and on about our situation but I’ll just give you a short summary:
I am the dad. I have two children (ages 2 and 4).
My wife was hospitalized twice after our second child was born (my daughter). It’s not clear if it was untreated postpartum depression or something else. In any case, she cannot fully function because of the meds she has been given. She has no marketable skills, so I am the sole bread winner.
I am on salary and on-call every 3 weeks. [My employer] has no mercy for their staff and their staff’s family lives.
We are one crisis away from living on the street. We have very little to no family support (my parents have both passed away). My wife’s family doesn’t live near us.
We are both burned out, and have been for months and months. Childcare is outrageously expensive even for a modest daycare/preschool.
I am scared every day of either losing my job or having a crisis (especially medical, etc.) because we have no real safety net to cover us.
I will add we don’t spend money on anything but what we need.
The second letter is from a dad I’ll call “Jason.” He actually left this as a comment on the blog ages ago, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind. His story shows how gender stereotypes can be just as harmful to men as they are to women.
From Jason:
When my daughter turned one, my wife went back to work after taking the year off to get our daughter off to a good start. I had been doing interactive design from home, which worked out great in that first year. I have precious video of us from that euphoric time. When my wife went back to work, she went into aggressive “career” mode, and I became part-time, because as you discovered, it’s extremely difficult to give the love every child needs, while meeting the demands of American work life.
I went through many of the same struggles that women go through, the same bouts of anxiety and depression, medication, and then the medication causing more problems. Antidepressants made me feel really weird, and getting off them created incredible anxiety. I just recently weened myself off Ambien after being dependent on it for two years.
So yes, I’ve been there in a slightly different way–in my case, it was more struggling with the expectations of being a traditional male breadwinner in a situation where I had taken on the role of stay at home dad and part time worker. I think I would have been fine with that perception, except that my wife was not supportive at all. She failed to recognize that the contribution I was making gave her the flexibility to go on business trips and work late and allow her career to take off. Ironically, she seemed to embrace the old male perspective of entitlement in being the “provider” and didn’t see equal value in our switched roles.
So my daughter is nine and I’m putting my life back together, now that I understand what was happening to me. Thanks for sharing your experiences! I look forward to hearing about how you strike a balance and where life takes you.
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Got a story to share? Leave a comment on the blog, or send me an email: katrina AT workingmomsbreak DOT com.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I find it very sad that no one is responding to this post, as if fathers don’t count. So here are a few thoughts for Scott and Jason.
For Scott: I really hear you. It is truly a shame that in this country families have so little in the way of a safety net, and so little (paid!) vacation time and sick leave, to give people a chance to recharge, recover from illness and take care of their families. We need to find a way to work together and change this situation because too many families are struggling. I’m glad you’re joining the discussion and showing that it’s not just a mom’s issue.
To Jason: I hear you, too. I am dealing with the same issues, even though I am a mother. My husband works full time, while I work part time and do A LOT of childcare and housework (I worked full time and had a career until I had kids). I don’t think my husband appreciates how much I do to make it possible for him to work full time, with the flexibility to stay late or work weekends when he needs to. And it’s hard to have no appreciation for so much hard work. I can’t tell from your post where you are right now – still married? still working part time? have you and your wife worked things out in a way that gives more respect to each other’s contributions? Good luck figuring it all out, and I’d love to hear more about how you are putting your life back together.
Thanks for your comments, ShyMom. I was surprised there weren’t more comments on this, too. I guess its hard to know what to say–two really tough situations. I hope Scott and Jason will keep us posted.
I just came back from the TED conference last night, and I had a lot of discussions with men about this. These are guys who are at the very top of their careers, and most of the ones I talked to had stay at home wives (or they were divorced). They seemed to be really sensitive to what their wives were going through by giving up careers, or trying to hang on to careers. It made me kind of hopeful, actually, that they were so aware.
The lack of responses here is rather sad. I find it is similar when I speak of my husband being a Stay at home Dad. People just don’t seem ready yet to wrap their minds around the other shapes a family can take today.
To Jason – I’m sorry to hear of your struggles. Please know that your wife may have also been going through some pretty intense emotions. There isn’t much support, spoken and unspoken, for women supporting their families – it’s tough swimming upriver. Hang on to the fact that the relationship you are building with your daughter is irreplaceable and an opportunity you’ll never be sorry you took.
To the male posters I apologize that you guys are going threw what ur going Trëë and I hope your wives open their eyes and be more supportive. I would like to my story. I am a 22 year old married mother of 4 plus a step child. I’ve been threw fist. Fights with my husbands b.m and drama with my inlaws over my husband I even chose to stay with my Husband after he cheated on me before we got married while I was pregnant with my last child (now ten months old) but anyway I know were not here for that. Right now I bring in abouta 40 a year and I pay all of the of the bills provie all of the meals, pay child support for his daughter I wash the clothes and cook all the meals. All he does is complain about how tired I always am and how I don’t make lov to him enough. He calls me names and is very hard on my 5 year old boy and our 3 year old boy. I wanted to give him a hundred dpllars and take him to a.c for his birthday he told me what was he gonna do with 199 dollars. He never appreciates anything I do am I wrong for feeling like he needs to grow up and appreciate me? P.s. I offered to pay for him to go to school and other things but evertime the start day is close he backs out as if he doesn’t really want to better himself. Then when we argue he claims im the reasob he’s in the house all day with bad behind kids
I agree that the role of dads is undermined. And it shouldn’t be. I had a student write an essay about how she never saw her father (her mother was a stay-at-home mom) and she never had a close relationship with him until he switched jobs and now she realizes what she had been missing. My husband just lost his job, and as stressful as it is now for me I am happy that at least my daughter spends more time with her dad than most of her friends.
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