How much do you respect your partner's career?

How much do you respect your partner’s career?

Traditionally men have been the 'breadwinners' in heterosexual relationships, they have focused on work - gaining power, money and prestige though their progression. If they existed at all, women's careers were only a supplement to their partner’s income and this allowed the man to be "all in" for work.

Times are changing... by the time they marry, 'settle down' and have children more and more women have careers that are at least the equal of their partners - definitely true in our family!

Men aren’t always a comfortable with this change.

But one thing is true expectations within relationships have changed. Men are expected to share more of the home and child rearing activities and many of them want to.

Harvard Business Review

Research published in the Harvard Business Journal looked at how men within a global strategy consulting firm responded to the tension between work and family commitments.

Men at the firm believed that to be ‘successful’ they had to be fully committed to work at the expense of their wives' work, the reality of their lives was that most had wives in full or part time work - this created a clear tension between how men thought they should be acting and the reality of their lives.

Creating "career angst and marital conflict".

So how to did these high performing career men reconcile their careers with those of their spouses?

Breadsharers

• 60% of the sample conceived of themselves as 'breadsharers'

"Valuing their wives’ work so highly, these men positioned themselves in sharing terms: placing importance on both partners being able to pursue their work and family-related desires, hopes, and dreams. They supported their wives’ work alongside — and sometimes ahead of — their own."

Breadwinners

• 40% of the sample 'positioned themselves in terms consistent with the traditional male 'breadwinner' identity.'

"These men accorded low social status to their wives’ work, which seemed to prime them to view this work as having little financial importance to the family. This happened even when wives seemed — to an external observer — to be quite financially successful."

We can see from the article that identifying yourself as a ‘Breadsharer’ or ‘Breadwinner’ had nothing to do with any intrinsic financial value the wives' careers had. 

The perceived social status was entirely at the discretion of the man involved.

However, devaluing the status of their wives' careers did allow some men to claim the identity of primary breadwinner and make their personal success at work the most important aspect of the family life.

“How to be a Great Dad AND Have a Great Career”

At Inspiring Dads we believe that long term commitments require a balanced outlook, with both partners' career needs and desires requiring equal focus.

We don't say that Breadwinner = bad and Breadsharer = good but...

• Are you that guy who's wife puts the kids to bed and then sits up at home every night waiting for you to make it home? Wondering why she made all the sacrifices...

• Maybe your wife is pissed off with you because you won't ask to work from home, you know it would make such a big difference for her career but you don't want to be seen as uncommitted?

• Be honest... how do you see your wife’s work - greater, equal or less important than yours?

Working together towards shared goals is what Inspiring Dads is all about.

Great men work together with their partners to establish shared goals.

As one respondent in the HBR article says

“OK, wait. Our life is not going to be the one where I get to do whatever the [expletive] I want job-wise, just because my life is not the center.”

This article was originally written in August 2018 and updated in March 2020.

---

If you liked this, you might like this:

Mental Load - what does your partner say behind your back?

66 per cent of the GQ State Of Man survey respondents chose "being a present father" as the number one aspect of modern masculinity. 
Source - GQ Magazine 

But modern masculinity goes way beyond that.

Some of you will get it, for the rest of you this might be informative...

✅ Real men not only want to spend more time with their families, they understand and help with the mental load.

Its not just about your quality time with your children - life is a partnership and your presence has to be more than getting home on time and making great memories at the weekend. 

Your role doesn't begin and end with money in the bank and feeling good about yourself because your kids love you and you get to work from home once a week. 

It has to be about taking on the "burden" of life.

It's about pulling your weight, not waiting to be asked, about managing at home as well as at work.

*** In fact research from Germany found that when Men worked from home they actually worked longer and did less childcare than if they were 'at work' that day, by contrast women did more childcare than they otherwise would. *** 

<<< This is what “Mental Load” looks like and generally men aren’t very good at understanding it and then doing something about it.

Source: The Guardian

If you're wondering what your wife says behind your back this may be an eyeopener...

"I’m putting the kids to bed when my daughter says, what’s for tea? 🤔. It’s 8.15 and I feel raging tbh. I was out from 4-7 but I did just assume tea would be taken care of. Am I wrong?"

"I think it's time you had a chat about this situation. Ffs we do not live in the 18th century! Seriously if you have to go out to work, then the balance within the home needs to be altered too. Atm my oh is ironing whilst I am doing other jobs. If he did not help out with the kids/ housework etc I would just down tools."

Some partners think we're stupid.

"If I’m out for dinner I leave either something pre-cooked or easy to make (frozen that just needs sticking in the oven) & give him very clear instructions on what to do, but to be honest I try to feed them before I go out... otherwise I know he’ll just resort to takeaway."

This is what they want us to do...

"Men need to start taking on board the fact that women are not born with any special skills and that not only can men organise the home/kids/social life/etc, they should just do it without waiting to be asked. They shouldn't expect those tasks to be delegated to them by women. And whilst there are men who do this, they are few and far between"

Work Life Balance

As a Working Dad, getting your work life balance right is really important but there's bigger purpose here - it's about the fundamentals of your life in partnership as a couple.

If you are just focused on your personal work life balance you are really missing a trick when it comes to your overall family and relationship happiness.

I don’t believe men are inherently selfish. Many of us were raised in households where mum did most, if not all, of the domestic chores and there’s plenty of research to show that men - and women - tend to repeat the example they were brought up with. But that also means it’s on us to set an example for our kids and muck in with the menial jobs.

Evidence also shows that the couple that puts out the bins together stays together. So it’s worth having a serious conversation with your partner about housework. It might not sound like the most convincing pillow talk but it will help you have a more mature and stronger bond.

One client, let’s call him Toby, told me…

“If there's one thing I wish we'd done better, it would have been to have those really honest discussions - rather than the more off-hand comments and observations - about the work life balance for both of us, including as a couple and as parents.

But hey - we live and learn, eh?!”

The modern dads mantra might be ‘don’t split up, split the chores’.

Engage with the mental load properly and your partner will be saying nice things about you to her friends behind your back.

The mental health cost of maternity leave

Women struggle with maternity leave, huge numbers of men want to be involved in raising their children and everyone’s mental health would benefit.

So why aren’t we talking more about Men’s flexible working?!

MENTAL HEALTH AND MATERNITY LEAVE

It’s estimated that 150,000 women a year struggle with maternity leave.

As James Millar, author of Dads Don’t Babysit describes in his blog post “That’s a mental health crisis by any standard.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46221187

What can be a wonderful time is actually physically and emotionally draining - looking after babies is no work in the park, I know this, our daughter had quite nasty re-flux from birth. Fortunately for me it was under control by the time I took over at 6 months.

We need to talk about men

“The two of you sign up to bring life into the world together. Then, after two weeks, suddenly they are out the door, whether they want to or not, and you are left literally holding the baby.

For some couples, this moment, and the clear societal division of labour, can sow the seeds of resentment.”

Emma Barnett, Presenter, BBC Radio 5 live

Source - BBC

SOMETHING MUST CHANGE

We know Men want to spend more time with their young families but society and the workplace is conditioned to treat men as providers (and women as carers).

Men who seek to spend more time with their families are treated with suspicion and are seen as ‘not committed.’ In fact, rather than spending more time with their new families men end up working harder and longer.

Lack of good work-life balance causes massive amounts of stress and potential relationship breakdown.

IT’S TIME FOR MEN TO STAND UP AND BE COUNTED

Your partner’s well being and mental health matters.

Your well being and mental health matters.

✅ Decide how you really want to live your life.

✅ Understand what your family wants and needs.

✅ Assess your work life balance.

✅ Start the conversation about flexible working.

✅ If you are an expectant Dad find out about Shared Parental Leave.

✅ Challenge the lazy stereotypes of Dads who ‘can’t’ be great parents.

✅ Sign this petition to treat ‘expectant’ Dads in the same ways as Mums.

Ready to find out how to achieve the work life balance you need?

Grab out our Top tips guide, sign up to this blog or join us in Facebook