Matt Schneider, an outspoken "dadvocate", co-founder of City Dads Group, and host of the Modern Dads Podcast, talks to us about what it means to be a father to a teenager today, how to find work-life balance, and tips for a more fulfilling "parenting partnership".

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Full show notes

Being a working father today is not what it used to be. Women have been actively battling for equality in the workplace, at home, and in the public eye for decades, whereas men haven’t been as proactive to tear down their own gender role. While women are confronting gender prejudice in the office, men have not been doing the same at home.

Being a working father used to mean going to the office so you could provide for your family at home. Today, being a working father puts a greater emphasis on the domestic part of their responsibilities. This doesn’t mean just “babysitting” your kid when you are home from the office. It means having that healthy balance of competencies both in the workplace, and at home with your spouse and kids.

If you notice your role at home as a father is unbalanced from your spouse’s role, it can be hard to make the adjustments to create a better parent partnership. Research shows, though, that men do want to be better dads, and they’re stressed out about it! The good news is, the conversation around work-life balance is not as new as you might think. Women have been having this dialogue for decades! To take part in getting men more on board with discussing work-life balance, I spoke with the amazing Matt Schneider.

Matt has been an at-home dad of his two boys for 12 years. When he became a father, Matt realized that there were not a lot of resources specifically tailored to helping men become better fathers (at least, not in New York City). There were “Mommy-and-Me” yoga classes, “Mom” shopping programs, and “Mothering” news segments that seemed to be dominating the parenting media. So, in 2008, Matt cofounded City Dads Group, a national network of meet-up groups for dads.

Since then, Matt has become a popular voice on parenting and, specifically, fatherhood. His views have been quoted in such noteworthy places as The New York Times, USA Today, and Bloomberg Businessweek. He now hosts the popular podcast, the Modern Dads Podcast. I was eager to sit down and talk to him about the struggles of being a working father.

Matt is very clear that his goal is not to have a “Daddy-and-Me” yoga class for every one geared towards moms. The world doesn’t necessarily need more parenting resources. What he advocates for is that the resources that already exist be rebranded to reach dads as well as moms. There is a lot of parenting advice available for men, it’s just largely not being marketed to them.

For Matt, this means more than being present at home. You can be present, but still unengaged, like when you’re carrying on a conversation while your spouse changes two diapers. Matt’s idea of a working father is being highly engaged with the family when at home.

Although, creating a parent partnership is hard, especially if your partner would rather change all the diapers because you don’t do it right. This unwillingness to share responsibilities is exactly where Matt takes issue. He calls this issue, “Gatekeeping.”

Gatekeeping

Gatekeeping is when your partner doesn’t allow you to perform certain tasks because of your present or perceived incompetencies. This is a problem because it prevents you from learning. (Be aware you could be doing this to your partner, too!)

Matt believes dads should be getting involved in parenting from day one. If the nurse in the hospital would rather change the diaper, dads have a right to insist, “Hey, this is my baby, I’m going to learn how to change a diaper!” He wants dads to be competent and comfortable with their kids. However, being competent doesn’t mean the balance of parenting responsibilities will be even.

If you are working at the office and your spouse is an at-home parent, then your partner is naturally going to change more diapers than you. But if you come home and a diaper needs to be changed, Matt doesn’t want you to ask if you should change it. A working father just does it. The same goes for grocery shopping, buying clothes, and taking the kids to the doctors.

The clothes might not be as neatly folded when you do the laundry, but the laundry still needs to get done. It can be frustrating when laundering incompetencies (etc.) show up, but Matt says building a parent partnership is more important than mastering the art of the fold.

So what do you do about those incompetencies, though?

“Dads” Groups

Dads Groups can be an amazing resource for learning how to strike a work-life balance.

When Matt moved to New York, he had no family out there, and very few friends. Furthermore, when he would try to get time with another working father, he often found that other dads felt bad asking their partner if they could take the night off from cooking dinner to meet a friend for a beer. If these guys could reframe the meeting and say they are meeting up with other “dads,” their spouse would resonate with its significance.

Simply by changing the context of meeting from “the guys” to “dads” makes it easier for men to get together and have important conversations about fatherhood, masculinity, and family.

Matt doesn’t want these groups to be only for “dads,” though. It’s a working title, but not a requirement.

A working man might one day want to be a working father, but is scared because he doesn’t know what the work-life balance can look like. That’s where Dads Groups come in. Matt works with working fathers to make sure they can facilitate these groups so that a future working father can have some of his fears put to rest. This doesn’t just happen through conversation, though.

The most important factor of these Dads Groups is that the current dads bring their kids, too!

It can be so impactful for expecting dads to see another dad competently care for his kids for three hours in public. It’s amazing what humans can learn by observation! Giving an expecting dad a space to watch and learn can completely shift their perspective on what it looks like to be a working father.

That’s Called “PARENTING!”

Dads shouldn’t be congratulated or (con-dad-ulated!) for the simplest of tasks.

Matt sees this all the time in NYC! If a working father can get his kid crosstown on the subway alive, he’ll be smothered by looks of admiration from others in the cab. Matt says it doesn’t work for moms and dads to go along with stereotypes and gender roles. And Matt’s right! Plenty of research shows how the working father model is insanely entrenched in society today.

Being a working father is amazing! It might not be easy, but Matt can point to so many resources on such a wide variety of conversations on the topic. Other topics we discussed just in this one interview include:

• Matt’s “2 Tips!” for a successful parent partnership
• The “Stereotype Content Model” research from Harvard University
• Having a variety of projects that provide fulfillment
• A child’s need for change, and how to change with them
• “Specializing” in parenting skills
• The teenage years
• Identifying as a “good father” vs the “idea of fatherhood”
• What is the definition of a “Modern Dad”?

I had so much fun talking with Matt. He has so much experience from so many conversations with other working fathers, not to mention his own life. He’s got some sharp wit, an...