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Now it’s different. Families have
changed in the past 25 years, and male and female roles are not as
clear as they once were. While research shows that mothers still
spend more time with children and working on domestic tasks than
fathers do, the gap has narrowed.
The idea that the average father spends
only 20 minutes a day with his children has been exposed as a
myth. Fathers are now involved in most aspects of child care.
On any given day, you can see fathers
doing lots of things that were once considered the work of a
mother: changing diapers, taking children to school and day care
and even looking after children while their partner is at work. At
the same time, more mothers are spending more time in the
traditionally male domain of working outside the home
While the roles of both fathers and
mothers have changed, the two genders have experienced those changes
in different ways.
For mothers, the changes came about as
a result of women wanting or needing to be more involved in the
outside world of work and careers.
For fathers, the changes came about
partly as a result of what women were doing. With mothers spending
more time away from home, they had less time for at-home work
including child care.
One growing phenomenon in Canadian
families is off-shifting, where mothers and fathers stagger their
work time so as to be able to keep at least one parent at home
caring for children while having the benefits of a second income. A
small, but gradually increasing, number of men have taken on the
role of stay-at-home parent while their spouse works
full-time.
In some ways the transition to these
new roles has been a little slower for men since, at first, they
were adapting to changes initiated by women. However, many fathers
have welcomed the opportunity to become more involved in their
children’s lives. Many simply see involved fathering as a
normal part of modern day
parenting.
John Hoffman works for the Father
Involvement Initiative - Ontario Network. Visit http://www.cfii.ca/ for more
information.
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