S4 E75: How paying dads can create a win win for the family
with author and activist dad Michael Ray
Key Takeways
My life had become like a house that I'd built and furnished and it was on fire and there were flames leaping through the roof and smoke billing out the windows. And in that instant, I was suddenly forced to consider what I was prepared to rush back into save that life. And the only thing I could think of was the impact this was going to have on my daughter. Would she even remember me? And those that cared for me. So suddenly the facade I'd been living as a man just all came crashing down and I realized how much time I'd wasted.
So I don't like the term sacrifice. When we hear it a lot, the sacrifices I make for my children, I prefer to say the trade offs. What am I trading for time with my daughter, seeing her grow and develop. I trade that all day every day. To me sacrifice denotes giving something of greater value for something of lesser value, and I think it's a little bit of Victor Frankel's once that suffering has meaning, it ceases to become suffering. I'm doing this for a reason and it's the best reason I could ever envisage.
My daughter and I do a thing where we go, Who's super Charlie. If there was a Charlie that was super Charlie, who would she be? What powers would she have? Would she be super kind, super helpful, All of these things. And sometimes I'll have to say to her, I don't think super Charlie's here at the moment. Which Charlie do we have?
One of my biggest suggestions to dads is it's not about having the right advice for your kids, it's about asking the right questions because the quality of my daughter's life is gonna depend on the quality of the questions she asks. So she's gotta learn not to listen to the outside stuff, but to listen to the inside stuff. I love it, but what do you think of it? If you did it again, would you change anything? Are you happy with it? Because I want her to be the standard she holds herself to because we rightfully worry about peer pressure, especially with social media and our kids and all of these outside influences. And I wanna be able to listen to that voice inside of herself rather than seek that peer pressure, external validation.
As humans we have an inherent distrust of artificial intelligence. We don't trust these cars to drive themselves. But that voice in our head, we take it as gospel and we listen to it. And I think that voice is the artificial intelligence and we can step back and go, You know what, If somebody else just said that to me, I think I'd be either offended or think you're not somebody I want to be around. You are not in charge of this. It's like sitting in the passenger seat of the car and trusting the car to get you to the destination. Hang on. The car's going somewhere at the moment where I don't like, it's making me unhappy, stressed, anxious, doubt myself. I'm gonna stop the car. I'm gonna say, Stop. I'm gonna get out and I'm gonna try and find a car going back in the direction that I actually want to go.
What we value oftentimes is what society tells us to value. And that's why I say, until men realize that they can be admired and feel good about themselves. Not only for their power position, possessions and all of those things that typically male held up as, oh he's successful. And until fatherhood is spoken about in the same glowing terms as motherhood and dads are recognized for their raising and nurturing of the next generation, things really aren't gonna go anywhere. And seeing my daughter light up, that's what makes a successful day for me.
Try and think of a contemporary representation of a father in the popular media that is a good representation. There just isn't one. There're all bumbling manchild of Homer Simpsons and Al Bundy’s. Compare that to the Disney fetishized depictions of motherhood and all of these things that say mums are just naturally good at this. Both of those do a great disservice to both genders because it puts immense pressure on women who may be struggling with the normal frustrations and challenges of trying to raise a child. Everything from colic to sleek deprivation, to breastfeeding, abut it also says to dad the best thing I can do as a man is to do whatever mom tells me to do. So I wanna be the best supportive dad of all times. So I will do anything that mum says to do there's the beginning of the mental load. Straight on mum. Straight away Dad's assign himself to the role of a second pair of hands or an assistant.
So that's why I say to dads, don't listen to the voice in your head that says you don't know what you're doing, because no one knows what they're doing. Women don't know what they're doing, but women are expected to, and the pressure on them and how harshly they're judged. If I turn up with my daughter, hair done messy and all the rest of dads, mom turns up, she's not a good mother. Mom has a successful career. What about her children? Dad has a successful career. Oh, he is a good provider. It's not simply a matter of mother knows best as what it is. Practice makes progress.
That's why I say to dads, just get in, get involved. Because one thing I can say without fear of contradiction, 100% of the fathers that I speak to who have stepped back from their corporate or providing things and into a more hands on involved role are a hundred percent satisfied that they did it in the beginning. What's the smallest step in the right direction that you can take and take consistently? Is it Saturdays a routine? Is it 10 minutes when you get home, park the car around the corner, get all your emails done so that the first 30 minutes at home is just 100% on your kid.
Decide what sort of dad you wanna be. Then figure out what's in the way of it and then do it cuz it's never, ever too late to be exactly the father that not only your child needs, but you need to feel good about yourself. We have dads working 80 hours a week and killing themselves and I'll do anything for my kids except for that little bit of discomfort about changing your self perception. Except for going, I don't care what other people think. It's my child that matters cuz it can all go away pretty quickly.
You need to do this for the benefit of someone else, of women. If men do this, women will be better off. Never gonna work. Altruistic, noble, fantastic. Sounds good in theory, but it's just not gonna work. When it comes down to what's in it for me, we need to shift the narrative of telling men how much better off women will be. If you know they took more paternity leave and all, and start telling men what's in it for them. Men who are more egalitarian at home have better relationships. I hate to go there, but they even get more sex. Their children have better outcomes. We need to stop this. Equality needs to happen for women. Equality needs to happen for society because men are better off, women are better off, and most importantly, our children are better off.
That's a symptom of the problem that men aren't held equally responsible. Enable, encourage and then expect, move forward with the expectation that men will be equally responsible for raising the next generation. The male dominated industry's construction, transport, manufacturing are the least family friendly ones. But because the pay gap plays into it as well, dad earns more. It’s not a gendered decision. It's a financial decision taken for the benefit of the family. And to say that men are winning cuz they're earning more, men are being restricted from being fully involved and engaged in their children's lives.
We need to get rid of these outdated gender assumptions, stereotypes, and expectations. Because no one's winning, not women, not men, not children and not society for too long workplaces have dictated the roles and dynamics within the family. No wonder mental load and burnout for women is such a thing because dads haven't been enabled. We've got the freeway into the workplace for women and we've got a rickety old staircase behind a locked door as parental leave for men now.
When I say we need to enable, encourage, and expect that encouragement. Imagine if we incentivize dads, if we said, dad's, here's a slightly higher parental payment for you to do take leave so there's no financial penalty. Imagine the shift we could have in society when suddenly dad start taking the space that will create in the workplace. If you wanna see productivity drop off, show me a bloke going through divorce or having family problems or worrying about their kids or being pulled in two different directions of where they wanna be versus where they are.
Look at the world through your child's eyes. There is nothing better than seeing that excitement and wonder of the ordinary and tasting new things and seeing new things, and exploring nature and getting involved.
Bio
Michael is the author of ‘Who Knew?”, LinkedIn Top Ten in Gender Equity Voices 2022, Presenter, and Public Speaker but first and foremost a solo dad. Michael’s journey has encouraged him to break the mould of male stereotypes, overcome male stigmas, and allow men and fathers to focus on actively raising their children.
“When society talks about fatherhood in the same glowing terms as motherhood, inertia will be broken. When men are recognised and admired for their nurturing and raising of the next generation instead of their income, position, or power, a paradigm will finally shift.” ~ Michael Ray
Michael conveys his important message to organizations and individuals brimming with concrete actionable research and guidance with a passion that inspires. Michael addresses the gender and societal roles that are no longer applicable and the negative impact on organisational, business, and personal outcomes.
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