I remember when I was a kid. Mom stayed home and cared for my siblings and me, and dad went to work. We didn’t see him much. He had an office job and performed a straight 40 hours per week. When he got home, he was fixing things around the house, budgeting, paying bills, and attending night school. Today, fathers recognize their role in raising children more and want to be part of their kids’ lives. And kids today have many extracurricular activities.
In answer to this, there is now a paternal FMLA law allowing fathers to spend time at home with a newborn (or with a child with health or mental health issues). Many workplaces post-COVID have flexible hours and are allowing remote work. Additionally, the father may be someone other than the household’s primary breadwinner, a role reversal from just 30 years ago. Many families cannot survive on just one person’s income requiring both parents to work.
Balancing work and home life is a genuine concern for many people. Weighing out work and family responsibilities has caused many sleepless nights for some people. Our work hours are flexible, and some folks working remotely are working more than 40 hours per week to get their work done because they don’t have a team close by or feel guilty that they aren’t working hard enough. It’s because they haven’t yet learned how to shut off their work brain and turn on their family brain.
The word “synergy” was thrown around for decades. Synergy is the interaction between coworkers and teammates, allowing a group to become more significant than the sum of its parts. I believe we have lost this. Meeting by phone and Zoom has a different effect than sitting next to or meeting in person with your coworkers. I’m not condemning those who are enjoying their solitude by working remotely. Some folk’s personalities allow them to thrive in that environment. And some jobs are perfect for it. But not all.
We must be mindful of these things and discipline ourselves to focus on where and when it should be.