S4 E68: Dads learning the skills to share the mental load to prevent mom burnout
with Dad coach Ian Dinwiddy
Key Takeways
I enjoy doing working with dads to help them to balance their lives - the balance between that dad they want to be, the professional person they want to be, and ultimately to make that work for them as an individual and as a family. And something that I've learned a lot about supporting my own wife's career.
I took on the kind of core responsibility for looking after the children, making sure they were okay. Within a week or so, it was all about homeschooling and support for that. And then also I've gotta do my work. I was just sitting down, on my own about half past six in the morning in the living room, just crying and just unable to process what was going on. And I sat and I got out a little notebook and I just wrote down how I was feeling. What it meant for the business, what I could do about it, and what I couldn't do about it. And that process of getting it on paper and saying actually accepting where we were in many ways.
We couldn't control the fact we were all in together and couldn't control the fact that the kids had to do all this homework. What we could control is how we spent our time when it was possible. We could plan and schedule and make sure that, we made the most of the opportunity of being together. And I think that was one of the things that kind
We were quite unusual certainly from my experience of coaching dads in that we were actually thinking quite a long way ahead whether that wasn't necessarily by design, but we were thinking about, okay, what, if we have children, how do we make this work? How do we make this work for both of us? We don't have grandparents nearby. And we want to be present. We don't want outsource or kind of all of the childcare.
I'm the lead parent, and so I get to experience many of the, and certainly when they were little, many of the challenges that men often don't get. And also to build up those skills around solo parenting your children, that I think is really important for building equality and equity within relationships and within parenting. And I think that's, from my experience, certainly when I work with men whose children are a little bit older is there's a lot of frustration from men who don't feel like they're equal parenting partners because they haven't learned those skills. I've got a client who, when we first started working together, he very much talked about feeling like he was the third child and how he didn't want that to be the case and how could he unpick this?
I have a really strong relationship with my children and very relaxed relationship with it, perhaps not every dad gets to have. And so it is a privilege. But it came from important and intentional conversations before we even became parents. it's often underpinned by our expectations and societal assumptions about the role of men and women in work, but also at home. And I think it starts with, intentional conversations. It starts with actually being really clear in your own mind about what sort of parent you want to be and as a couple to talk about these things. Say how are we gonna make this work? What are our ambitions? What does this look like? What could it look like? How creative can we be so that we all, everyone gets what they want.
I think some of the challenges with kind of new parents is that we kind of drift into perhaps the practical kind of nature of parenting that maybe we saw role model by our own parents, or that people are close to us and we don't necessarily stop, and I think men are particularly guilty about this. Not necessarily stopping and reflecting and saying, Actually, this is really what I want to do. Is this how I want to live my life? And if I make these decisions now what, what are the consequences? How will this whether I can look after my children on my own or whether I feel confident doing that.
I know what kind of Dad I want to be. I'm gonna take the leave I'm entitled to, the business wants me to, because they know that if we see men and women is equally likely to take parental leave, then it removes some of those assumptions and barriers. That kind of affect women's progression, which is often, example for my wife's circumstances where someone who used to work with Lisa, female colleague said to me, I didn't think Lisa had children when we first met, because I didn't think a mom could do this job. And we need to break that cycle.
But on a corporate level, men need to see senior men role modeling those behaviors. They need to see senior directors taking the lead that they're entitled to because it's important to see that. Cause when men look up the food chains, as it were within the business whose job do I want actually? They're modeling the behaviors of what they see above 'em.
I think there's something to be said for understanding the frameworks that men and women are judged on parenting. And I think men are judged much more kindly in terms of the mistakes that they make. And it's almost expected. And the downside is, it's almost expected that men make mistakes. And learn, whereas there's this sense of motherhood being something that's natural and I don't think in many ways it is. It's a learned skill through trial and error. But I think being, for women generally and for individual moms, it's being kind to themselves about actually, you're not supposed to know how to do all of this.
It's a challenge around letting go as well. And it's partly to do with judgment because actually if a child goes to school and they're in the wrong uniform or they've forgotten something and it dad has done it, then it's a useless dads. Butthe narrative is often about, how did the mum let that happen? And we need to break this sort of narrative,
Women letting go and letting men make mistakes and to build up those skills because this concept of mum knows best is almost certainly because mum has had experience and has learned the mistakes. And dads need to have the chance to make those mistakes, but also not to be corrected in many ways. And I think that is difficult when you have big differences in parental leave it's bound to create an imbalance. Not so much about the, kind of the practicalities of looking after little children, but more about the sort of the emotional side the idea around mental load that a lot of men don't necessarily understand.
I think it's about understanding the concept of maternal gate keeping in many ways is that there's a protective instinct . But sometimes it can be a challenge because it doesn't necessarily allow a dad to be involved. I talk to men who feel like they're on the outside. So you've just gotta keep pushing. Try and get in there and make sure and own something. I think this is really important. Sometimes men get confused between the idea of equality at home, being I do everything I'm told to do, when actually it's that process of being told what to do and when to do it involves an enormous amount of mental and emotional effort on the part of your partner.
I think collectively men are very good at opting out of things that don't necessarily suit and because society expects that to happen. It's this idea that if there's a woman around, the woman will pick up the slack. Dr. Annika Schaefer, her research looked at men who were solo parenting their children, and they had gained certain allowances in terms of flexible working and work patterns because they were looking after their children. They were primary carers. But what Annika found was that they were concealing the presence of a new heterosexual relationship from their workplace because they didn't want to lose those benefits that they built up because they knew instinctively that if there was a female partner on the scene, then the female partner would take those responsibilities.
There are lots and lots of dads out there who do a very good job. But the assumption, the bigger societal piece and it's reinforced by cartoons and adverts and all these things that have men, as in some way incapable and need to be rescued by a female, then it damages the prospects, I think for everyone to build something that works because You're fighting against the norm. And I think, men are as tribal as anyone else. They don't want to be seen as different. And certainly some of the workplace research that I've seen suggests that if men think that every man's gonna take work flexibly or take leave, they're like they're much more likely to do that in themselves because everyone's doing it.
There will always be a subset of men for whom sharing the second shift or the mental load at home just isn't something they want to do. Even though that would be really useful because he believes that his role finishes with earning the money for the family and that narrative, I think is deep rooted and it will take, it'll take a couple of generations to change that.
I think finding the time just to spend time one on one with the children, with each of the children, and to hold the space, and from a coaching perspective, it's to be there, but not to expect anything from the conversation and just leave it open and have the conversation. And we just have this kind of gentle conversation, I guess at the end of the day.
I think arming her with understanding about broader societal norms, and therefore, once you know what they are, you know what you potentially need to be up against. We role model something that is slightly different. Lisa is always high performing at work. But we share and we mix and match at home in terms of, what we do and how we do it. That's something I learned growing up. My mom had multiple sclerosis diagnosed when I was 11, so my brother and I took on a lot more of the domestic load, than we would've done otherwise.
It's about sharing, it's about making it work for the whole family, for the individuals within the relationship because, otherwise it builds up resentment. Jill Witty Collins, wrote a book called Why Men Win at Work and How We Can Make Inequality History and she said, “Teach your daughter economic independence in the future so she can have a partner, not a master, and teach your son to do housework. So in the future he can have a partner, not a servant.”
Bio
Ian Dinwiddy is a Coach, Mentor and the Founder of Inspiring Dads. He delivers coaching, presentations and workshops to innovative businesses who put supporting new dads at the heart of their gender equality strategy, recognising the positive impact on equality and well-being of helping dads solve the challenge of “how to be a great dad WITHOUT sacrificing a great career.” An ex-Management consultant, twice a stay-at-home dad and an English National League hockey umpire, he is the co-host of 46 episodes of the Lockdown Dads podcast, and has interviewed politicians, PhDs and an international rock star. He delivers webinars such as “Why Supporting New Dads at Work Is THE Route To Gender Equality” and workshops covering topics such as “The Emotional and Practical Impacts of Becoming a Dad” and “The Dad You Want To Be - Tips For Fathering Success.” A big focus of his current work is implementing “The New Dads Accelerator” – a blend of remote learning and group coaching for dads with children under 1 year old.
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