When Maxim Corbett’s wife gave birth to a baby during the pandemic, their lives became much busier.
The product manager in the Montreal area turns out to be in day care, and in rare cases where childcare is not available, he is currently caring for his 18-month-old daughter while working from home, as his wife works as a nurse. nurse in hospital.
“I would tell my colleagues that I may not be 100 percent available,” Corbett said.
“I tried my best, but (the baby) wouldn’t let me work. She would like to come to me and do things with me while I work on Excel. When she was asleep, I was working. Most of the time I worked late at night when she was in bed. “
Research has found that some fathers report taking more homework in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many spend more time at home and many say they are more involved in their children’s lives. But while once-closed jobs call employees back, many fathers ask a question that was previously asked mostly by working mothers: How can I do everything?
Casey Scheibling, a PhD student in sociology at the University of Toronto, is taking part in the study, which looked at 1,250 mothers and fathers in heterosexual relationships just over a month after the pandemic began.
He said the division of labor seems to have remained largely the same for most Canadian families when COVID-19 struck in 2020, with women in heterosexual partnerships appearing to take over most of the housework. But for about a third of the families surveyed, there was a change.
“A significant minority of fathers were more involved in countless different household chores and childcare tasks. Playing with children, which is something that fathers have done a lot in history, but also monitoring their physical care, enforcing the rules, “said Scheibling.
“And in terms of housework, things like cleaning up after eating, shopping, washing and cooking.
By taking on this job, Scheibling said, men are struggling with the “traditional notions of masculinity they grew up with” that value professional achievement over personal and view upbringing as more of a female role.
Among the respondents, the survey found that women’s workload has also increased and women still do most of the work, but the division is narrowing as men take on additional tasks.
Scheibling hoped that the fathers, who were more at home during the pandemic, had learned how much work was needed to maintain a household and take care of the family.
“Maybe some of these things will remain in the future and this will start to reduce the gender gap in terms of domestic work,” he said, adding that it would take time to do the necessary research to see whether this has an effect.
Ending this division will not be easy, said Drew Solaine, director of Dad Central Ontario, an organization that creates online resources for fathers, some of which are administered by family service organizations, while others can be accessed online by anyone.
“There will be more tension, there will be more stress,” Solaine said.
“You feel really torn, you’re like: Well, now that’s a real priority for me … So, how do I navigate that?” How to deal with this? And how do I communicate this with both home life and work? “
Solaine, who is the father of three children under the age of 10, suggests he is in his early days and people still understand him, but said clarifying priorities, both personal and professional, will be crucial for maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
“What are one or two key areas you can focus on to make sure you take care of yourself, but you are also able to meet the needs of your partner, your children and the whole family dynamic?” ? ” he said fathers should ask themselves.
From there, he said, they can talk to their partner, if they have one, and to their workplace to make sure everyone is on the same page.
“I think you will see a lot of interesting things, a lot of good things, but I think that can create a lot of challenges depending on the position of the employers, as well as the approach of the fathers to cope with the pressure they feel they are attracted to. “Several directions again,” Solaine said.
“I feel that there will be a lot more talk in the workplace about managing the demands that parents have between work and home.”
As for Corbett, he has another baby on the way and a hybrid work schedule that sees him in the office a few days a week, so his life has changed again.
His wife is not working at the moment because her work was too hard for her body during the pregnancy, so she is currently taking on some of the parenting responsibilities.
But he is still preparing for a new change when the baby appears after a few months, and some compromises to make everything work.
“I worked all day and worked late, finishing the day at 6:30 or 7:30. Now you have to be on the child’s daily life. “I have to go pick her up at the kindergarten at 5:30,” he said. “So I have to stop and then I’ll go back to work later.”
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on June 17, 2022.
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