Old Habits Die Slowly
Key Insights:
Many women shoulder an unequal, heavy juggling load
Men who want to juggle equally often face prejudice
My 8-year-old and I are visiting family and friends for ten days. Although primarily meant as a vacation, my dad had asked me to share some insights about my work with what I’ll call his gentlemen’s club, for lack of a better label. At this club, about 25 to 30 retired professionals get together once every two weeks to attend a presentation, preceded by coffee and followed by lunch. On Wednesday, I presented my research on workaholism, addressing how excessive work can impact health and answering whether there are healthy ways to work hard.
In the car to the event, I asked my dad about the audience. Was this club really only open to men? I reminded him that this was unacceptable in this day and age. He chuckled and said it had nothing to do with respect or esteem for women, but rather because the club did not want to deal with romantic relationship drama that would inevitably arise if they opened membership to women. I was stunned that they felt this was the best solution, and I decided not to bring up the possibility of same-sex relationships. Today I wasn’t going to be difficult. I was still struggling with jet lag, and with about 5.5 hours of sleep, there was no energy left to protest. I was just going to tell my story, have lunch, and get back to my 8-year-old, who was playing board games with my mom.
The event was fascinating. Not my presentation per se, but presenting to a very engaged group of people who asked many spot-on questions. It was liberating to speak in my first language, which I hadn’t done professionally in twelve years. And it was fun to answer questions from a smart audience with several experts from the medical field. Many of them had been workaholics during their careers, and many had worked long hours. It was a bit unsettling to them to hear that an obsessive work approach could lead to a higher risk of cardiovascular diseases.
At lunch, my table partners asked me what I would do next, professionally. I told them that I was writing a book and had to disappoint them that it was not about workaholism. It was about juggling multiple roles. Without hesitation, one of the men stated that this was indeed a tricky matter for women. It felt like a gut punch. But I quickly recovered. Meaning, I just let the comment pass. There seemed little point in trying to convince a table of seven retired men in their seventies that many men have substantial care tasks these days. Moreover, I wondered how much bias versus truth this comment held. There are, without doubt, many men who carry their fair share of care tasks. Especially in the Netherlands, it is common for one partner (usually a man) to work 4 days a week, and the other partner (usually a woman) to work 3 or 4 days a week [i]. Even though, in heterosexual couples, men usually work a bit more than women, they each are home with their kids at least one day per week. If you look at this juggling act more globally, however, women still shoulder more household and childcare tasks than men[ii]. More importantly, in a juggle situation, for instance, a child falling ill, it is again mostly the woman who takes the hit and goes home from work as they have the ‘smaller’ or ‘less important’ job[iii].
Maybe this retired surgeon was right. Maybe it is true that the real juggle – being there for your kids, making sure they are happy and healthy kids, and performing well at work – falls more often on women than on men. If so, my book would be most useful for women. I cringed a little because I dislike gender issues. The truth is that there are differences between men and women, so I can’t simply pretend there are no gender issues. I decided that this comment from a senior, highly educated citizen meant that there were many, many people who shared the same belief - namely, that only women juggle work and care tasks. I shared an example with my lunch partners about a working dad who wants to spend more time with his kids. Each time he’d leave the office at 3 pm (on his part-time 8-3 schedule), his peers asked laughingly if it was ‘daddy day’ again. In such a work climate, of course, a dad isn’t going to ask to work fewer hours. They had little to add to my example because it was, quite simply, too far removed from their own experience while they were still working.
It is time to put juggling men in the spotlight and ask them how they do it. What is the response from their colleagues, bosses, and family? Are they happy? We need a shift in norms and role expectations. Norms on gender roles are as sticky as black licorice. It takes heroes, pioneers, and lots of showcasing before we accept that there are different ways to organize our family and work life, and that one isn’t necessarily better or worse than the other. Even though statistics indicate that women juggle work and family more often than men, things are changing. My book includes several examples of juggling dads. They have a full-time job, and either take on half or even all of the childcare and household tasks at home. And guess what? They are doing an excellent job.
[i] CBS (2022). Emancipation monitor. https://longreads.cbs.nl/emancipatiemonitor-2022/ (in Dutch)
[ii] United Nations (2020). The World’s Women: Trends and statistics. https://www.un.org/en/desa/world%E2%80%99s-women-2020
[iii] Ranji, U., & Salganicoff, A (2014). Balancing on shaky ground: Women, work and family health. Women’s Health Policy data note. https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/issue-brief/data-note-balancing-on-shaky-ground-women-work-and-family-health/
