Tim Ryan, a father of three, posted a brilliant thread at the Huffington Post the other day documenting what kind of advice you get from work colleagues on how to parent your kids. It’s really, really interesting and best of all, it’s actually worth sharing. So here’s a short list of what you get said:
1. “You’ll do it.”
2. “Just do it.”
3. “We just need to get to the point.”
4. “If you feel good about it, then it’s all right with me.”
5. “If it makes you happy, you shouldn’t have to work so hard.”
6. “You’ll just stop whining and start looking after yourself.”
7. “You know what, women don’t like very masculine things.”
I have a checklist. Just check the first three above. — Tim Ryan (@timpssphere) November 29, 2018
When all is said and done, it’s clear that most of the advice being given to new parents from their colleagues, and the ones out there making a career of work advice is really laughable (even the advice about the correct time to nap was particularly ridiculous, especially when the response was “Eight twenty-five”).
Despite the fact that men are working parents too and often juggling their careers with a significant amount of childcare work, if they don’t feel like they’re “trying” when it comes to parents’ hours or spending time at home, how dare they “worry” about others’ timings?
One commenter at the article has the perfect response for this at the bottom of the thread:
“Write a letter to each of your parents. Tell them that you want to remain independent. Then smile at them as you do. They’re probably asleep by now. But send the letter out to your peers and say ‘This is a real-life example of the conversation I’ve had.’”
Don’t make this task harder than it already is by bringing in your personal opinion.
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