Working ‘dads’: The New WFH Breed And The Case For A New Economic Thought
Trigger alert: Gender benders incoming. So, get your metaphorical tub of popcorn, hell, get the real one, it’s WFH, after all — and take guard within your ideological crease.
It’s precisely a year since the world was forced into its biggest social experiment ever — locking one’s self away from the rest of us. Ironic that the biggest social experiment was all about being asocial. But that’s the absurdity we all have been thrown into — of having to accept a situation as reality, but one that we still can’t fully comprehend. Unsurprisingly, enough and more literature is being worded by experts and laymen alike, on the various aspects of life that are fast turning into a growing pile of soiled clothes on the proverbial floor of our daily lives. But amidst the pile, there is one sweaty tee, which I feel hasn’t yet been given its due in the pantheon of “new-normal” reporting — the WFH “dads”.
By mid last year, WFH was beginning to show its canines beneath the smiling facade of I-can-work-from-anywhere-in-my-underwear. As we went from working from home to just working, the true extent of this devil’s trade became apparent.
Work (from/at/of/for) Home
Now, there was simply — work to be done. At all hours. On all days. Neat compartmentalisation of I’m-off-to-work and honey-I’m-home collapsed like a Covid infected lung. Plumbers waited, socially distanced in masks at the door, while bosses rattled off the never ending to-do’s for the day on video calls. Vessels were washed on mute, while straining to hear the last pillar of the newly adopted marketing strategy. The time of bathing drifted ever so slightly but progressively towards what was once called the second half of the day (it can’t be just me!). And then the kids! Oh yes, the kids. They were there. Through all of it. Because of it. In spite of it. Now, granted, there are things, especially regarding kids, that are a blessing thanks to WFH. My wife and I for one, as new parents, got to literally see our boy grow up from a baby into a toddler. It’s an immeasurable joy and one that must be given its due. However, joys come and go, back pain lingers. I have seen it, tried to attend to it, and experienced it myself. But the pain did get its voice. From anecdotal humour blogs to expert advice on how to make working from home, work — with kids. However, herein lies the rub. Most of these musings, be it comic relief or pro-tips have largely centred around the woman of the house, a.k.a the working mom. Understandable? Of course. Justified? To a great extent, yes. No matter the generation, strata, or geography, women have continued to do the heavy lifting when it comes to house and family. The evolutionary roles of man as the provider and woman as the nurturer are a tad primordially entrenched to be altered by a mere 100 years of fiery (and more than justified) calls for change. The end result being, even a professionally successful woman, still does much more for the house as compared to her partner, even if he isn’t as successful. I do concede exceptions to the rule. However, exceptions to the rule are just that — exceptions. So, on any day prior to March 2020, I would have no hesitation in giving the affirmative Indian nod to such articles and go about my relatively privileged male living.
And then, in swam the blackest of all swans.Gender fender benders
And it all came a crashing down. Locked in the house without any hope or scope for help, the so-called forward thinking males came to an uneasy realisation. We now needed to walk our talk. All the virtual likes and upvotes to gender equality and equal parenting posts had turned real in the form of filled-to-the-brim kitchen sinks, dusty floors, and cranky babies. In our defence, we’re still here. We’re still married. More importantly, still in love with our families. While we got graded on a steeper learning curve on the home front, we have largely made it work. Sure, we are still not on even score with the mommies in the house, we are nonetheless, on the scorecard. We are making play. And this is where I feel it’s time for the WFH dads to call a few things out. For starters, it’s our turn to feel taken for granted. Not enough is being said or spoken about our undisputed increase in contribution at home. And said, by the ones we crave to hear it from the most, women. While admittedly lesser compared to the woman, the increased contribution is still a sea change for us. We don’t need trophies, but the occasional “attaboy dad” article will go a long way, too. A cursory search for tips regarding balancing work and home in the new WFH reality will have you come across advice that’s mostly written by women and for women. Even finding the right royalty free image for this article wasn’t easy. That’s because WFH images with kids tend to be around the woman. Not good enough Unsplash.com. Even on the trendiest online hangouts like Clubhouse, there is little choice for this new male breed to share their experiences and advice. Change needs to come, madame!
New Economics of the New Normal
Change, also of the real kind. The fact is, in spite of all that I have said, I understand that none of this loquacious point-making translates very well beyond the confines of LinkedIn like lounges, where the need for equal partnership relationships have at least long been accepted, if not entirely practiced. The world outside, however, continues to be as lopsided as it always was. However, even in those families, famously labelled as the ‘other India’, thanks to the pandemic, the needle has moved, at least by their own measure. The occasional sightings of men drying clothes in the terraces of semi-urban houses. Fathers, returned by the cities to their families, reluctantly walking to fetch stuff for the house. Husbands making their own evening tea while the wife tends to the tantrum throwing locked-down kids.
The pandemic has, at the very least, created a conducive environment to discuss the thankless burden women across the board have lifted since time immemorial.
I have long subscribed to the view that true economic value of a country and by extension the entire world, can’t be measured without quantifying the homemaker’s contribution. However, now with men getting a front row seat in the theatre of home making, it is possibly the most fertile time to germinate the seed of a new economic theory. But the start should possibly be made from the intellectual class creating and consuming such content in the first place. For instance, the term work-life balance should be implemented by the same yardstick for mothers as well as fathers, at least in our worlds to begin with. Organisations rewiring internal structures for the new normal, should internalise this shift in mindset as they implement new systems. Irrespective of the granular variations in the mechanics of these new systems, at a foundational level, they need to be built on empathy and faith. Empathy for the inner workings of every family, and faith in both the company and the employee to find a mutually agreeable equilibrium for achieving productivity. And hard-coded into this empathy should be the new-normal of equal partnership between sexes. Of course, none of this will happen overnight. That’s entirely fine, as long as the timeline applies in equal measure for all.
Perhaps, the smallest of first steps, is accepting the birth of the new species called — the ‘working dad’, much like the acceptance few generations ago, of the ‘working mom’.
