The everyWoman Blog: Modern Fathers Prefer Being A Good Dad Over Their Career

Modern Fathers Prefer Being A Good Dad Over Their Career

Today’s fathers not only experience Daddy Guilt and modify their work schedule to care for their little ones, a new survey also concluded that being a “good father” is outweighing career goals for a new generation of daddies. A nationwide study of men who are partnered with women determined that dads ranked fatherhood pretty high in terms of importance.

Both fathers and non-fathers alike were asked to rate the importance of fatherhood alongside other interests such as career and leisure. Julia McQuillan, professor of sociology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and co-author of the research, observed that the male participants agreed with concepts of the study that were initially developed to gauge the importance of motherhood to women.

About 77 % of American men rated being a good father as very important, while just 49% of participants responded the same about having a successful career.

The majority of men agreed with statements that read “Having children is important to my feeling complete as a man;” “I always thought I would be a parent;” “I think my life will be or is more fulfilling with children;” and “It is important for me to have children.” Participating daddies also didn’t perceive their primary role to be breadwinners.

Yet, snags revealed themselves in that those men who upheld traditional gender roles were those who valued fatherhood most. So some fathers and hopeful papas were incredibly down with fatherhood if that meant someone else handling things like cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. Parenthood does seem that much more appealing if you have a built in maid, nanny, and cook all there to handle the load with you.

But never fear, mommies. A majority of men surveyed (65%) embraced egalitarian attitudes towards gender.

(photo: Shutterstock)

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