Working Dads Need to Make Time For Baby

By Christina Elston

Even Dads Putting In Extra-Long Hours Can – And Should – Make Time For Baby

Working dads – especially new dads – have more to come home to than ever before. But the economic downturn means they might also have more reason to stay at work, if they’re lucky enough to have work. As of early February, the Labor Department reported that 3.6 million jobs had been lost since December 2007. Half of those losses came during November and December of 2008 and January of 2009, and experts and regular folks alike are still feeling for the bottom of this long, steep slide.

This means that people with jobs are doing what it takes to keep them.

So how can men balance their jobs as “providers” with their new roles as “dads”?
And why do they want to?

Why Dads Care

One reason is that more dads are going along on OB-GYN appointments, attending ultrasounds, and singing to the baby in Mom’s tummy, says Greg Bishop, founder of the nonprofit orientation program Boot Camp For New Dads. “You have a lot more men becoming a lot more involved a lot earlier,” Bishop explains. And after a bit of time off for the birth and more bonding, many men don’t feel right leaving that new baby all day. “By the time they go back to work, they know what they’re missing,” says Bishop.

Unfortunately, even though dads Want to be as involved as possible, our society hasn’t quite caught up yet. Dads are still supposed to be the providers, and they mainly still fulfill that role. “For all the hoopla given to stay-at-home dads,” Bishop says, “the fact is that we’re still a fairly traditional society.” An American Time Use Survey released June 25 by the Labor Department backs this assertion. It found that on an average weekday in households with kids under age 6, moms spent more than four times as much time caring for those children as did dads. On the weekend, dads did a bit better, but women still put in twice as much time.