Negotiations and Love Songs (Mostly Negotiations)
Posted on 08. Mar, 2010 by Brian Reid.
Last week, I published a post about the importance of negotiations in winning the “daddy wars” between fathers and their employers. But the link I provided, as inspiring as it was, didn’t actually give much solid insight into how, exactly, dads are supposed to Fight! For Your Right! To Faaaaaaather! (Apologies to Mike D, MCA and Ad-Rock)
So it was fortuitious that I saw this tweet by Kristin Maschka on WorkOptions.com’s Max Maternity Leave guidelines. This is a really smart and straightforward how-to for moms-to-be who are interested in having a baby and taking leave without blowing up a career. And while following this advice certainly doesn’t ensure that the maternal wall will be torn down, it’s certainly a start.
Now, the issue of guys taking paternity leave is fraught with issues that are different but just as tricky to navigate (if not more so). In a world of infinite time, I’d love to screw together this kind of resource for the guys, so that men who wanted to take full advantage of paternity leave could do so. My experience with leave was ultimately positive (and life-changing), but getting my employer to understand what the hell I was doing was far more complicated and dispiriting than I had expected.
If you have any tips on this, let me know in the comments …
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Martha Stewart Wants Crafty Dads
Posted on 05. Mar, 2010 by Brian Reid.
Earlier this week, I received a little surprise in my inbox: someone from the Martha Stewart show contacted me and asked me about the kinds of crafts and fun projects I did with my kids. This exposed the ugly underbelly of my real life: I don’t consider myself a particularly craft-oriented guy, and though I’d like to have a huge pile of fun projects in my arsenal, the fact is that I’m not a very creative parent. So I politely declined the opportunity to rub shoulders with Martha, but they are interested in hearing from guys who might be a little more, well, Martha Stewart-ish.
BUT … if you fit that bill, please let me know (rebeldad@gmail.com), and I’ll pass your contact information along to the folks at the show.
For what it’s worth, I did suggest a couple of dad blogs that might have good nuggets of how dads are getting creative with their kids: dadlabs.com and geekdad.com. Any others worth thinking about as the weekend approaches?
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Negotiations and the Daddy Wars
Posted on 03. Mar, 2010 by Brian Reid.
One of my most fundamental beliefs is that we’re coming ever-closer to widespread “daddy wars.” Unlike the mommy wars, which is a media-created fiction in which go-to-work moms and at-home moms are engaged in some sort of rivalry, the daddy wars reflects the growing conflict between fathers and their employers on the exact contours of work-family balance. The old model in which dad trucks off to work for 8 or 10 or 12 hours, then comes home and sits in the recliner is long gone. Today’s dads want to have it all, and — increasingly — they’re going to be asking their bosses to give it to them. That’s instant conflict. Maybe even a cold war.
But it doesn’t have to been a shooting war. The Australian site, dadsclub.au, ran a nice piece on why negotiation is so important in making sure that employers understand how important family time is. Of course, proactively talking about work-life balance isn’t instantly going to change a century-plus of misplaced expectations, but it’s a good start. (Thanks to Marc at Equally Shared Parenting for the link.)
Interestingly, the whole daddy wars topic has quieted down. It was really hip three or four years ago, when people started wondering if the growing number of at-home dads would somehow get dads to snipe at one another, but I haven’t heard that much lately. Right now, the biggest dad-inspired parenting battle is over whether it’s a good idea to take your kid out to the bars …