“My small contribution to feminism is leaving the office at 5:15 PM three times a week to pick up my daughter…and not hiding it.” You might expect that these are the words of a working mother who, after too little sleep and too many people wondering “how she does it,” decided to draw a line in the sand for all to see, with work firmly on one side and family on the other.

But you’d be wrong–we heard this from a young professional father. And who could blame you for your guess? With all of this recent hullabaloo about female breadwinners (elegantly complicated here and here ), it’s easy to overlook the small ways in which working fathers’ lives are changing, too–or to even consider their evolving role in the work-life frontier at all.

To put this young attorney’s “contribution” in context, 5:15 PM is considered early in the day at most firms, his included. Half of young lawyers report working 50 hours a week or more. In the professional world in general, 40% of men report the same. That’s a 10 hour work day, at minimum.

But despite the expectation that men work grueling hours, fathers are spending more time during the week with their children than they did in the past, and millennial fathers are doing this today more than older fathers, suggesting a lasting change. With extreme expectations at work and a growing desire to be home, no wonder fathers report higher levels of work-life conflict than others.

Let’s dig further. Although one experimental study found that simply being a father actually helps men’s careers, another study found that when fathers let family interfere with work, they suffer even greater work penalties than their female counterparts. And nothing reveals a father’s family responsibilities more than leaving the office early, taking advantage of flexible work arrangements, or using family leave.

In a new special issue of the Journal of Social Issues, co-edited by Joan, the co-author of this post, and colleagues Jennifer Glass, Shelley Correll, and Jennifer L. Berdahl, several studies explore exactly why men experience such stigma when using family-friendly policies.

One study found that men and women are equally likely to want a flexible schedule but men were much less likely to plan to request one. Many men feared that asking for a flexible schedule would make them seem more feminine. And those who actually did ask for it were likely to ask for less than they really wanted.

A second study sheds light on what’s at stake for these men. Participants in the study were asked to rate men and women who took family leaves and those who did not. If the employee was a man who took time off, he was less likely than other men to be recommended for promotions, raises or high-profile assignments. Why? These men were seen to have traditionally feminine traits, which in turn, made them seem like bad workers. The flexibility stigma, in other words, is a femininity stigma.

It makes perfect sense, then, that a separate study found that men in male-dominated workplaces who did more child-care received more “masculinity harassment” (disparaging remarks about one’s masculinity) than other employees.

So where does this leave fathers? Let’s go back to our young attorney. He explained to us that by intentionally talking to colleagues about leaving early, he hoped break down the stigma surrounding family responsibilities; this, he hoped, would benefit both men and women at his firm and, by extension, their partners. Still, as the current breadwinner of his family, he’s only willing to take this so far: “I am fine with leaving at 5:15 three days a week, but am I willing to risk my job by trying to be the first male at my firm to work part-time in order to be at home with my kids? Maybe not.”

This young man is an exceptional guy, we’ll grant you, but if even he is scared to use a part-time policy, there’s little hope of many other fathers making the changes they want for themselves and their family.

In continued celebration of Father’s Day, let’s remember that women can’t “lean in” until men share the care, and men won’t do this until workplaces adopt family-friendly policies and tackle the flexibility stigma that renders them impotent.

Thirty-five years ago the Pregnancy Discrimination Act outlawed discrimination against pregnant workers. But still today, pregnant women across the country are being fired from their jobs, forced onto unpaid leave, or made to quit when they need temporary accommodations like staying off high ladders or refraining from heavy lifting. Many women can work throughout their pregnancies without any changes to their jobs. But for some pregnant workers – particularly those in low-wage and physically demanding jobs – slight job modifications can be crucial to their ability to continue safely working during pregnancy. Despite the fact that comparable accommodations are routinely offered when employees need them because of disabilities, employers often refuse to make even simple accommodations for pregnant women. As a result, many pregnant women are prevented from continuing to work even when they are willing and able to do so. Other women stay on the job despite a lack of accommodation because they can’t afford not to, potentially jeopardizing their health and the health of their pregnancies.

Today, the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), in tandem with A Better Balance (ABB), is releasing It Shouldn’t Be A Heavy Lift: Fair Treatment for Pregnant Workers, which tells the stories of eight women who were refused the same sorts of accommodations during their pregnancy that their employers provided to other workers. As the report describes, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) requires employers to treat pregnant workers the same as those “similar in their ability or inability to work.” So if employers make reasonable accommodations for workers with disabilities, as they must under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the PDA requires employers to provide accommodations to pregnant workers with similar limitations, too. But all too often, employers and the courts misunderstand and misinterpret these requirements.

Take the case of Peggy Young, whom the Center has written about before. Young worked as an air driver for UPS. When she became pregnant, UPS told her she had to bring a doctor’s note with her restrictions. Her doctor recommended she lift no more than 20 pounds. UPS told Young that UPS has a policy of no light duty for pregnancy – even though the company provided it to employees injured on the job, those protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and to others with conditions ranging from high blood pressure to sleep apnea that prevented coworkers from maintaining a commercial driver’s license. As a result, UPS forced Young to go without pay and benefits, including health insurance. She sued and lost in both the district court and Court of Appeals. Both courts held she was not “similarly situated” to the other workers who were accommodated, despite the fact that her lifting restriction was similar to the limitations of some accommodated workers.

Or take the story of Svetlana Arizanovska. She worked two jobs to support her family: one as a packer at a medical supply company and another as a stocker on the overnight shift at Wal-Mart. She had had a previous miscarriage (after being forced to lift heavy merchandize at Wal-Mart) so her doctor characterized her pregnancy as “high risk” and gave her a lifting restriction. The medical supply company had no problem honoring her doctor’s note and this time Wal-Mart even put her in the toothbrush aisle for a couple of days. But soon after, her employer announced that there was no light duty available to pregnant workers. Wal-Mart then asked Arizanovska to “fill out some forms,” which turned out to be papers stating that Arianovska had a serious health condition and needed unpaid leave. Her doctor refused, saying she was healthy and could work, as long as she wasn’t required to do heavy lifting. Since she couldn’t fill out the FMLA forms, Arizanovska was terminated. Shortly thereafter, she miscarried again, which her doctor said could have been the result of work-related stress and depression. Arizanovska filed suit, and also lost because she couldn’t identify a nonpregnant co-worker who received light duty, despite Wal-Mart’s stated policy of accommodating workers with disabilities, including through job reassignment. The ordeal tore her family apart and contributed to her divorce and severe financial difficulties.

Young and Arizanovska are not alone. Too many pregnant women are being forced to make an impossible choice between their jobs and their health.  The report tells the stories of cleaners, fast food workers, postal workers, and others who were fired or forced to take unpaid leave when their employers refused to make any adjustments to their job duties.

Luckily, it doesn’t have to be this way, as the report explains by setting out a straightforward agenda for change. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission should issue guidance to employers, employees, practitioners, and the courts that employers must make accommodations to pregnant workers just as they provide accommodations to workers with disabilities. Congress should pass the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which would unambiguously require employers to provide reasonable accommodations to pregnant workers who need them unless doing so would present an undue hardship. All states should take action to ensure accommodations for pregnant workers. For example, advocates in New York are pushing for passage of the Women’s Equality Agenda, a 10-point plan to promote fairness and equality for women, which includes a provision that would guarantee reasonable accommodations for medical conditions related to pregnancy or childbirth. Finally, employers need to adopt policies for accommodating pregnant workers just as they have policies for accommodating workers with on-the-job injuries. It’s long past time to make room for pregnancy on the job and give pregnant women the equal opportunity they deserve.

Eight years ago, our first son was born. Like many, I found becoming a parent to be an amazing, life-changing experience. I was humbled by the realities of this new responsibility and overwhelmed by the love that I had to give.

Nine months of anticipation only partially prepare you for parenthood. Before the birth of your child, you simply do not understand that unconditional connection that you will feel to this new person. With every passing day, you realize how delicate and critical a time it is for your baby’s life —how little milestones are shaping everything to come.

For me and my wife, access to family leave was critical during this time. Unlike the majority of new mothers and fathers in the United States, my wife was able to take paid time off of work to recover from pregnancy and care for our son. And when she returned to her job, I was able to take leave to care for and bond with him for several months. This meant that our son spent the critical early months of his life fully in our care.

Even today, many see fathers taking parental leave as unconventional or unnecessary, but I sincerely hope that one day that changes. I look back at that time as one of the best decisions I ever made – and I feel fortunate to have been able to make it. It was a rare and precious time that brought me closer to my son and set the stage for a lifetime of involvement in his life.

It is important for new dads to know that, just like new moms, they are guaranteed up to 12 weeks of job-protected, unpaid parental leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to care for a newborn – or after placement of a child for adoption or foster care – if they work for an employer with 50 or more employees, and if they work at least 1,250 hours in the year. Some states offer even broader protections.

Unfortunately, many new moms and dads do not qualify for FMLA leave. And many workers who are entitled to leave under the FMLA cannot afford to take the unpaid leave it provides. It is shocking that there is no federal law that guarantees new moms and dads the paid time they need. No new parent should have to choose between giving their child a healthy and loving start and the job they need to make ends meet.

I was lucky to be able to spend these months with my new son. Life moves so quickly today. Children grow up fast. I will treasure that time, and I will better appreciate the moments ahead because of the strong start that we had.

This post is part of the Fathers on Family Leave Blog and is cross-posted from National Partnership for Women & Families.

As a community activist and executive director of a nonprofit organization, I am often called to meetings, lunches and sometimes speaking engagements. Towards the end of May, I was asked to give a speech at a middle school. As usual, I put my suit on and my entire family came out for support. Then just before I was slated to take the stage, my wife, handed me my four month old son, as she escorted our six year old to the restroom. I took a few minutes and walked around the football field. The stares and awes that I garnered from children, teachers, administrators and local city officials, made me cringe. I felt like a unicorn. It was as if people had never seen a man, in a suit peacefully holding a baby. Maybe they were used to men looking uncomfortable, staring impatiently in the direction that the mother walked off to or the child crying hysterically. But, it wasn’t uncomfortable for either of us. We were peaceful, present and bonded. For us, this was our normal. This is fatherhood.

Fatherhood is a lifestyle. I learned throughout the years about the true definition of fatherhood.  I like many was under the foolish impression that children require presents the most, they do not. Children don’t require presents from a father; they require the presence of a father. This is not just about physically being there but mentally as well. Some men are there in the home but mentally they are at work, in the sports games, in the television show, in the drama, in their past or so deep into their dreams of the future that their children have to fight for their attention. These types of households should be included when we use the term ‘fatherless home’. Children who grow up in these types of households often do not fare much better than those who grow in single parent households. Fatherhood requires being present. Therefore, after years of practice being a father, not a daddy, giving the additional attention to a newborn and allowing my life to be interrupted by his brother, the next decision to sacrifice and let their mother take the lead was effortless because it too is part of fatherhood.

Fatherhood is family centered, not children centered. Mothers are as much as a part of the family structure as the children. There are times when supporting the mother is imperative for the betterment of the family as a whole. Sometimes that support requires deep sacrifices. For my family that time is now.  My wife is in the final year of her doctoral studies in entrepreneurship. This beautiful, brilliant and amazing woman passed her comprehensive exams while seven months pregnant. I am proud to say that we are a team. Our game is building a life of peace and purpose for our entire family. Our scorecard is the happiness of our children. As a Mother and a father, we understand this. It breaks my heart to see others struggle with this concept.

The agreement that allows her to work more, while I have adapted my schedule to see to the children has led to some very interesting comments from family, friends and strangers who give me strange looks. Though, the image of a man dressed in business casual attire, wearing a baby carrier, using one hand to hold a bottle full of breast milk, the other to send an email, while his phone is propped between his ear and shoulder produces some interesting looks.  Those looks range from admiration to sorrow as if I am either a dedicated dad out of his comfort zone doing the mother a favor for the day or lonely widower. I see it.  I feel it and I am I am not amused. I am a father just being a father but often society looks at me as if I am a unicorn.

Am I a unicorn because of a society ignorant of its own patriarchy? Patriarchy views at the father as a boss who issues commands, rules, assigns roles and makes the ultimate decisions for the family. However, the true role of a father is that of a leader, not the boss. Leadership inspires the best of all members of the team without restricting their roles and duties.  When a father assumes the role of leader he understands that the greater good may not at all times be him or his work. A father as true leader goes right in the face of patriarchy. To see a mother sacrifice her needs, work, or ambitions for the sake of a father agrees with patriarchy. If it had been a mother multi-tasking, society would not bat an eyelash. However because of patriarchy, when father’s do it, it is cute, awe inspiring or even tragic. They are unicorns.

Am I a unicorn because of a society ignorant of its own sexism? The thought of what women aren’t supposed to do, is still very pervasive in our society. The very idea of gender roles should sicken our society but it does not. Nothing was more heartbreaking that listening to the sexism in the remarks from those upset when a study revealed a growth in the percentage of women whom are the primary breadwinners in their household. Some of the remarks bordered on outright statements those women should all be stay at home mothers and imply that women lose much of their femininity simply by working. In that same sense, the men in these households lose and equal amount of their masculinity. Sexism assigns roles as a matter of identity. True fatherhood flies in the face of sexism because in fatherhood, there are no roles just things that need to be done for the betterment of the family. When a father shuns gender roles, he frees his family from the shackles of sexism. The family is better for it. It grows and when others see them they wonder why they seem so happy and perfect. To them, such families seem like a group of unicorns prancing in a meadow.

In case it was not apparent in the picture, I am black. I would be doing a disservice not to question if the image of me being a father flies in the face of racism. Are we living in a society so steeped in racism that a black man being a father and not a daddy, has become so uncommon that it has become strange? If so, it is sad. Are all black men supposed to be self-centered, athletic coaches, payers of child support and frequent buyers of expensive clothes on the weekends and special occasions? Do we all need Maury to tell us whether or not we are responsible for raising our children? The stereotypes regarding black men and true fatherhood, stem from racism.

When you see Will Smith or President Obama questioned, ridiculed or attacked for how they choose to raise their children or adjust their schedules to accommodate their wives, it is steeped in racism. Bruce Jenner and former President Bill Clinton are rarely the subjects of such scrutiny. The same racism that commonly asks where the father is when black teens and adolescents go astray, goes silent when the same or worse acts are committed by white children. Does anyone ask about the whereabouts of the fathers of Adam Lanza or James Holmes in the same way in which absentee fathers and single mothers are blamed for the violence in inner cities? Thank you.

Racism says that black men are not fathers. Racism is used to black men being daddies, but not fathers. Racism says that black men do not want to be fathers. To see a black man lead his family by supporting them through self-sacrifice, flies in face of every racist stereotype imaginable. I am not supposed to be smart enough to understand the postpartum depression that occurs among women who are not allowed to continue on the career paths. I am not supposed to be so selfless, that I put the needs of my family before my own. I am not supposed to give my children a sense of self-worth by my continued presence but by the presents that I can purchase for them. I am not even supposed to love their mother but treat her disrespectfully at all times. In a sense, I, as a black man, am not supposed be a father.

I choose to be a father. I love this lifestyle called fatherhood that I have chosen. Fatherhood chooses to shun racism, sexism and patriarchy by supporting a family in all ways that it needs to be supported right now. When you see fathers out in the wild being fathers, do not look as us as if we are unicorns. We are not special because we look across the meadows and we see each other every single day. Hopefully, you will now see more of us, and less horses with party hats.

This post is part of the Fathers on Family Leave Blog Carnival.

Like me, there are other fathers for whom the arrival of their children was revelation to the important demands of child care. However, I had the privilege of paid family leave – a privilege that seems to bestowed by chance in this country. Based on data the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 11 % of private firm workers and 16% of state and local government employees have access to any paid family leave at all. Only 40 % of workers have access to unpaid, job-protected leave, but many can’t afford to take time away from work without pay, and far far too many parents struggle with absolutely no job-protected leave, paid or unpaid. To put this in an even more apparent context, the U.S. remains the only industrialized country without a paid family leave policy.

As you read our stories, you will understand why researchers state that paid family leave can improve breastfeeding rates, increase earnings for women and reduce costs for recruitment and retraining.  Keep the conversation going by leaving comments and sharing the posts.

Brandale Randolph, Project: Poverty
Fathers have become unicorns

Peter Walz
Investing in families pays off

Scott Kurashige, University of Michigan
Real Nurturing Leave

Adam Sotak, Democracy North Carolina
An Organizing Dad

Mark Anthony Neal, Duke University
Marvin, Tammi, Misha and Daddy

Jared Make, A Better Balance
Supporting LGBT Workers and Their Families in Times of Need

Stan Kimer, Total Engagement Consulting
The Evolving Role of Men Regarding Work and Family Leave

Kevin Rogers, Action North Carolina
Unanticipated rewards

Charlie Dotson
FatheResponsibility

David Leonard, Washington State University, Pullman
Priorities? America’s Family Values

AUTHOR, Center for American Progress
Odd Man Out. Why isn’t anyone else taking paternity leave?

Grant Dotson
Family leave and self-employment

Brady Bogenreif
It takes time

Ellen Bravo & Stewart D. Friedman
A Father’s Day gift that keeps giving

David Uy
Family Leave Meant A Strong Start for My Son, My Family and Me

I was able to spend the first three weeks of my daughter’s life at home with her and the next two weeks working part-time. Spending most of this first month of my daughter’s life with her and my wife was one of the most special and cherished times in my life. It brought our entire family closer together and allowed me to support my wife through the ups and downs of motherhood. Having done this, I can’t imagine not having been there through this amazing time and it saddens me that other fathers aren’t given this opportunity.

A strong parental policy is extremely important for healthy families, healthy children, and healthy workplaces. Because of this strong policy in place, I feel valued and appreciated by my organization and feel more connected to it as a result. It always saddens me when I hear of folks working for companies and other workplaces that don’t have upstanding and family friendly family leave policy. And so for this Father’s Day, I wish that employers big and small, for-profit and not-for-profit, will take responsibility for the communities in which they reside and promote healthy families through strong paid family leave policies. These policies lead to happy, productive workers, but more importantly, happy healthy children.

This post is part of the Fathers on Family Leave Blog Carnival.

There were several moms who couldn’t make it, too. Most parents have to do what their jobs demand. But seven years ago my wife and I began to arrange our careers in a way that would let us both be present for the important moments in our (future) kids lives. When we decided to start our photography business, a lot of people asked why we didn’t want to wait a few years for us to be more established financially. In part, the answer was that I wouldn’t let myself take such a big risk while having kids to feed. I wanted the business itself to be more established by the time we did have kids, because one of the main reasons we started the business in the first place was to be able to parent on our own terms.

Several times a day one or both of the kids will come walking — or stumbling, or jumping — into my home office. They dig through my desk drawers and “help” me work from their own little desk and keyboard. These are the best moments of the day, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. The advantages of being a self-employed father are too numerous to count. I can take the morning off and go to the playground with them. When my wife was pregnant, I was able to go to nearly every prenatal appointment with her, and several of the kids’ first monthly check ups. Maybe best of all I can simply hug them anytime I want.

But it’s not always easy. Some of the obstacles are common to any business — cash flow keeps me awake at night during the slower seasons. But others are more specific to our situation as a small family supported by a small business.

When my wife was pregnant with our second child, we were both able to be there and focus only on the kids when he came home. But it wasn’t because of paid family leave. Instead, having that time together was a result of planning the pregnancy a year in advance to coincide with our slow season as much as possible. It also meant turning away quite a bit of client work which would have interfered with that time…but which also would have helped pay for it.

We’ve also gone through several health insurance policies trying to find one that would be a good fit for our family. At one point, our monthly premium cost nearly as much as our mortgage payment, even without including co-pays and other out-of-pocket medical expenses.

With unemployment rates for twenty-somethings in the double digits for years on end, more and more young adults are turning to self-employment and entrepreneurship. They’ll encounter plenty of difficulties as they try to build a business and a family, and learning to overcome those difficulties is as much a part of the American Dream as their eventual success will be. But if we do want them to become successful, contributing members of our society (and economy), we need to support policies that will clear away some of the unnecessary road blocks our economy has put in place.

As for my wife and me, we’re grateful for the opportunities we’ve had to raise our children together day in and day out. And with luck, maybe more dads (and moms) can be in the room for preschool graduation in the future.

This post is part of the Fathers on Family Leave Blog Carnival.

I like to believe that I have a clear sense of my priorities. No scholarly or professional accomplishment could ever compare to the joy or responsibility that comes with bringing a child into the world and raising him or her. Fortunately, however, I did not have to choose between family and career. While I still had critical work to do on a book that I had toiled on in various guises for a decade, I took advantage of my university’s parental leave option. As such, I was allowed a one-semester leave from teaching, a break that spanned the last trimester of my partner’s maternity and the first two months following my daughter’s birth.

Such forms of leave are a relatively new phenomenon, especially for men and parents of adopted children, and they are far from universal among employers. They provide an important measure to stabilize careers and aid families. And sadly, many academic women find there is still a stigma attached to “maternity leave.” Women professors who take parental leave may be viewed—even by ostensibly feminist peers—as lacking dedication to their scholarship, professionalism, or their academic colleagues. I wish it didn’t have to be so, but men exercising their rights to parental leave may help to normalize and standardize the concept of parental leave across gendered boundaries.

Parental leave undoubtedly helped me to keep my career on track. I managed to finish my book and get tenure. I certainly want to recognize the significance of economic and career stability to protecting families and children.

However, what truly stands out for me are the added benefits my parental leave afforded. While I conduct research as part of my job, parental leave gave me the time and space to research the maternity process while becoming an active participant in it. My partner and I started largely from a position of ignorance and fear. We wanted expert doctors in a “highly-ranked” university-run hospital to get the labor and birth over and done with as quickly as possible, using whatever advanced technology they had at their disposal.

We learned, however, that in most cases, the safest, easiest, and healthiest option for mother and baby is natural childbirth. During my partner’s sixth month, we enrolled in a wonderful natural childbirth class and found a certified nurse midwife with access to a great alternative birthing center. As a result, my partner had a smooth and drug-free labor with less than an hour of pushing in a room furnished more like a hotel than a hospital. I had the great fortune to be right there—literally acting like a firm pillow propping up my partner’s back—and involved at every step. After birth, my education shifted to subjects such as lactation, cloth diapering, and attachment-parenting vs. Ferberizing.

As the father of a healthy, creative, and spunky seven year-old, reflecting on those precious times reminds of how intense and irreplaceable those fleeting moments are. They help us to discover and experience the full range of our humanity.

This post is part of the Fathers on Family Leave Blog Carnival.

I’m also a Community Organizer.  I have been for 13 years… and believe me that’s often very surreal as well.

You see, the life of an Organizer isn’t like most. You are seen as a community resource, on call 24-7, traveling to and fro, reacting to the latest news, rallying the tired masses, dealing with setbacks, navigating the highs and lows, so on and so forth. Hmm, wait that’s sort of like being a … Dad!

As I think about this Father’s Day, the fact is that my life as a working, organizing, advocating Dad meshes together in some strange and fascinating ways. It’s a balancing act and I often fall down, but with love and support from my family and flexibility and understanding from my employer I’m making it work.

I work for a medium-sized nonprofit called Democracy North Carolina. We’re based in Durham, NC and we organize for social justice and voting rights throughout the state. Our organization has progressive personnel policies that encourage people to have a work-life balance and allow for flexible scheduling. It’s really a policy of respect and trust. As an organization, we’re committed to taking care of our employees understanding that it pays off in the end with productivity, longevity, and commitment to our organization’s overall mission.

This is especially important in the nonprofit sector where the work is challenging, the hours are long, and the pay is fair but not on a for-profit scale. Democracy NC’s 30-day paid paternity leave (separate from my sick and holiday/vacation time), work-at-home flexibility and my wife’s shift work schedule make it possible for us to be with our kids a significant amount while both holding full-time jobs.  Our schedule allows us to only pay for part-time childcare, which is less of a financial stressor than full-time care, but still a significant monthly expense. [As a side note our organization’s personnel policies are LGBTQ friendly and respect the diversity that is the modern day “family”.]

I’m grateful that I work for a good employer that gives me the flexibility and benefits that I and my family enjoy. I understand that most people do not have the same level of support from their job, but they should. We all need to organize and work together to create stronger work-family laws and pressure employers to do more for their employees. I’m blessed and I’ll keep organizing for social justice and try to do my part, sometimes with the kids in tow.

This post is part of the Fathers on Family Leave Blog Carnival.

As a long time diversity professional and consultant, I would like to make some observations and assertions:

1. Over the past few decades, men have taken an increasing level of participation in family responsibilities. This can include attending children’s events, handling children’s emergencies and even staying home with small children. In addition men are taking on a more active role of caring for aging parents.

2. However, men often feel the pressure at work that it is not as acceptable for them to take time off to care for family matters. There are still some business leaders who may excuse a woman who needs to leave the office for a family emergency since that is “the role of a mother,” but who look down on a man who needs similar time off. Often the perception is that the man’s role is to be in the office from early morning until the end of the day, and they a man who takes time off to be with family must not care about his career.

3. So we should really promote this growing equalization of men and women taking on family responsibility. For those families that are fortunate to have both a mother and a father, a healthy family relationship can be built between children and both parents when both parents take equal time and responsibility with the children.

4. Finally, the definition of family is become more broad and diverse, which also needs to be recognized in the workplace. There are an increasing number of single fathers raising children as well as same-gender male couples with kids. In fact, from the 2000 to the 2010 census, there was a 47% increase in same-gender couples raising children.

I applaud the efforts of MomsRising.org and other similar organizations that work with companies to promote more family-friendly workplace practices to support working women in their families. And certainly these efforts will also benefit those working men who are increasingly involved in family care.

This post is part of the Fathers on Family Leave Blog Carnival.