Swelling in the ranks of stay-at-home dads may be the silver lining of the pandemic | Parents and parenting

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There he stumbles across our screen, failing to plait his little girl’s hair, figure out how a washing machine works, or calm his baby. The underlying message of the prevailing unhappy father stereotype is as accurate as a sledgehammer: Dads are second-rate caregivers, and their value lies elsewhere.

However, the analysis suggests that for a growing number of men, this stereotype is not only outdated, but widespread. The number of stay-at-home dads—who, one imagines, can get a good stab at a French braid and figure out which part fabric softener goes into—has increased by a third since 2019.

One in nine stay-at-home parents are parents, up from one in 14 in 2019, according to an analysis of data from the Office for National Statistics. These numbers, of course, are only a snapshot, and the fact is that women still vastly outnumber men in the ranks of stay-at-home dads. But the number of stay-at-home moms is currently down 11% in the past three years.

what’s going? In the midst of this pandemic, some have suggested there could be a small piece of silver lining in the dark cloud: nothing less than a fundamental shift in parenting roles, which includes, perhaps, parents seeing full-time caregiving as a possibility. Research has indicated that while women bear the brunt of childcare during lockdown, are less likely to be able to work without interruption and experience greater economic harm, the amount of time men spend with their children has gone up. For many men, it may have changed not only the way they functioned, but how they saw their role within the family.

At least some of this shift appears to have continued. Research by the Institute for Charitable Fatherhood shows that men spend 18% more time on unpaid childcare than in 2015 and 14% more time on housework. The shift in homework performance has also been notable: Working fathers spend 37% of their working time at home (up from 6% in 2014-15), compared to 27% of working moms’ time (up from 6%).

Enforced time at home and many more hours with their children can sharpen many parents’ skills, perhaps giving some the confidence to take time out of work and become their primary caregiver.

Some of this may be economic: the long view shows the number of men (data on fathers specifically starting in 2018 only) who are inactive for family and domestic reasons after economic crises, which rose in the 1990s and later 2000s. We already know that over 600,000 ‘missing workers’ have been lost from the UK economy since the pandemic.

Experts speculated that the pandemic caused significant resignation due to burnout and a reassessment of priorities. It seems likely that many working parents have found that they like to spend less time commuting and more time with their children. As one parent put it: “If I had been in the office, I don’t think it would have occurred to me to become a stay-at-home dad.”

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Perhaps this is a quick data nod, but a growing body of research suggests that parenting styles are changing — moms working more and dads caring more. why does it matter? As recent research on gender role attitudes suggests, these “new fathers” can spur “exponential growth in gender equality across generations.” Fingers crossed.

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