【中英双语】爸爸，在家和在职场都要关心家庭
Dads, Commit to Your Family at Home and at Work
The coronavirus pandemic reignites a trend that started decades ago: Fathers are increasingly recognizing the value of participating in everyday work caring for, educating, and raising their children. But changing long-standing social dynamics doesn’t happen overnight or without conscious effort. It is critical that men engage as fully as possible in sharing the work at home. This should start with an honest assessment of where progress is happening, and where it has stalled.
新冠危机重新激发了始自数十年前的一股潮流：父亲们逐渐意识到参与日常育儿和教育的价值。不过，长期以来的社会环境无法在一夜之间改变，必须要有意识地努力。男性要尽量分担家务，这一点至关重要。首先应该客观评估这方面的进步到了何种程度、在何处停滞。
Where Dads Are — and Aren’t — Contributing
爸爸在哪些地方帮了忙、哪些地方没帮忙
A pre-pandemic study from the Better Life Lab at New America found that fathers were already valuing their familial role like never before. The study, which included a nationally representative survey of men and women from across the United States and five online focus groups, set out to determine what aspects of fathering participants deem “very important” — and the answers are surprising. Though the notion of dads as financial providers has traditionally prevailed as their main contribution to their kids, this priority fell toward the bottom of the list.
新美国（New America）智库的美好生活实验室（Better Life Lab）项目在新冠疫情流行前的一项研究发现，父亲对家庭生活的重视已经达到了前所未有的程度。这项研究包括一项在美国全国范围内进行的取样调查，涉及美国各地的男性和女性，以及五个在线焦点小组，探讨在家庭里承担父亲责任的人认为“非常重要”的是什么——得到的答案令人吃惊。虽然传统上父亲作为家庭经济供应者的责任被视为他们对孩子的主要贡献，但在调查结果里这一项是垫底。
At the top were “showing love and affection” and “teaching the child about life.” And the vast majority of fathers reported engaging in a variety of parenting tasks on a daily basis, from cooking meals and handling certain household chores to providing transportation and soothing and nurturing them. Other research has shown that since the 1970s, fathers have tripled the amount of time they spend in the unpaid work of tending to their kids and home.
排名榜首的是“表达爱意”和“教导孩子了解人生”。大部分父亲表示自己每天承担多种育儿任务，从做饭、处理特定家务到接送和安抚、教育孩子。一项研究表明，自20世纪70年代以来，父亲花在无偿的家务育儿劳动上的时间翻了三倍。
While this is certainly progress, fathers, on average, still do only around half of the unpaid work that mothers do. While parents of both genders in the Better Life Lab study said they played with their kids on a daily basis at about the same rates, moms were more likely to take on all the other tasks every day. Without dads doing a more equitable share of this work，moms will continue to struggle with that “double shift” of paid and unpaid labor, which both maintains gender inequities and creates psychological distress and burnout.
这当然是进步，但就整体而言，父亲承担的无偿工作只有母亲的一半左右。参与美好生活实验室研究的父亲和母亲都说自己每天陪孩子玩的时间差不多，但妈妈承担其他所有任务的比例更高。如果爸爸不平分家务，妈妈就要继续“两班连轴转”，同时承担有偿和无偿的劳动，这样无法改善性别不平等的现状，还会造成心理压力和倦怠。
So where do fathers need to step up? The biggest gaps between what moms and dads say they do for their kids is in helping with education and managing schedules and other activities. This finding reflects something researchers have long noted: Some parenting tasks are less visible and come with a higher “mental load” than others — and mothers are more likely to be responsible for them.
那么，父亲需要在哪些方面主动承担责任？父母双方自述为孩子所做的事情，差距最大的是协助教育、管理日程和其他活动。这样的结果反映了研究者很久以前提出的一个结论：一些育儿任务可见度较低，而且带来的“精神负担”更为沉重——负责这类任务的多半是母亲。
One recent study found that women reported doing more “cognitive labor” for the family — such as anticipating needs (The kids are due for annual physicals), monitoring progress (Are they up to date on all of their boosters?), identifying options (What day are they free for appointments?), and making decisions (We’ll make the appointment for the Friday after next). This work is time-consuming and often exhausting. Worse, fathers report little awareness of it, which can have deleterious effects on marital relationships and mothers’ paid work.
近期一项研究发现，女性为家庭承担的“认知劳动”更多，如预测需求（孩子们该做每年一次的体检了）、监控进展（孩子们都打过最新的疫苗了吗？）、确定选项（哪几天有空可以预约体检？）和进行决策（我们预约下周五去做体检）。这类工作需要耗费大量时间，而且往往劳心费神。更糟糕的是，父亲在这方面的意识很低，这点可能会对婚姻关系和母亲的有偿工作造成负面影响。
Solutions for Families
家庭解决方案
What will it take to get more men involved in household work, both visible and invisible, after the pandemic ends? First, men need to recognize what they’re not doing and add it to their to-do lists. Here are some actions that fathers can take to help themselves and their families:
疫情结束后，如何让更多男性参与可见和不可见的家务劳动？首先，男性必须意识到自己有哪些事情没做，把这些事情列在待办清单上。以下建议供参考：
Acknowledge the aspiration-execution gap. While most fathers believe they’re sharing equitably in unpaid work at home, evidence clearly shows that they’re not. Initiate an honest conversation with your partner about who does what, and how much time things take. According to research in Fair Play, a book written by one of our coauthors, Eve Rodsky, the biggest hurdle to these types of conversations is being hesitant to initiate an invitation to sit down with your partner for fear of being “rejected,” “dismissed,” or “misunderstood.” Using a gamified invitation tool can bring levity and remove emotion from the conversation.
留意“想”与“做”之间的差距。大多数父亲觉得自己平分了无偿家务劳动，但证据明确显示并非如此。与伴侣坦诚地谈一谈双方各自负责哪些方面、要花多少时间。本文作者之一伊芙·罗德斯基的著作《公平办事》（Fair Play）写道，令人无法进行这类谈话的最大障碍是害怕“被拒绝”“被敷衍”或“被误解”，所以很难下决心邀请伴侣坐下来谈谈。利用游戏化的邀请方式，可以让你轻松一些，比较客观地进行交流。
Aim for equity, rather than a 50/50 split. Eve also argues that the focus should be on each partner “owning” a set of domestic responsibilities — from conception to planning through execution. Discuss and agree in advance on the value of each task. Then decide who should do what based on availability, capability, and an understanding that doing the time-intensive housework and childcare traditionally shouldered by women shouldn’t be a life sentence for one person or determined by a gender role. This will result in a fair rather than even split — and studies have shown that perceived fairness by both parties is a stronger predictor of a healthy marriage than the actual division of domestic labor.
沟通分担家务劳动的目标是公平，不要只追求平摊。伊芙还提出，重点应该放在各自主动承担一部分家务责任，让一个人负责某一项家务的概念、规划到实行这整个过程。提前讨论每项任务的价值，达成共识，然后根据可行性和个人能力决定由谁负责，而且要理解：传统上由女性承担的繁琐耗时的家务和育儿任务，不应该像无期徒刑一样一直让一个人承担，也不应当根据社会性别角色来决定。这样分担责任比平摊更加公平。有研究表明，双方一致认为家务责任分担公平的婚姻，与平摊家务劳动的婚姻相比健康程度更高。
What does this look like, in practical terms? Approaching these conversations with your partner using an ownership mindset is key to fairness. If it’s your job to handle your kids’ extracurricular sports, it’s not just showing up every Saturday to the Little League field. It’s also submitting medical forms, picking up uniforms, ordering cleats (and then returning them when they don’t fit), remembering to pack the kids’ sunscreen and water bottles, and arranging carpools for practice.
如何实践？以主动负责的心态与伴侣沟通，是实现公平的关键。如果你负责孩子的课外体育活动，那可不只是每周六去少年棒球联盟的球场上露个面就行，还要负责提交健康表格、收拾运动服、订做防滑运动鞋（如果不合适的话还要负责退货）、记住给孩子装防晒霜和水壶，还有安排拼车接送孩子去训练。
Collaborate with your partner in advance on short-term and long-term decision-making. Making intentional choices and customizing your defaults about who does what decreases daily decision fatigue and allows you to make intentional choices together. Specifically, contracts between couples can be used to set expectations in advance. There is life-changing magic in this kind of short- and long-term thinking. Life becomes a lot easier if you know who is setting the dinner table before anyone is hangry.
事先与伴侣商议短期和长期的决策。主动做出选择，调整自己对于谁应该做什么的默认观念，可以减少日常决策疲劳，让双方一起自主选择。一起制定协议，尤其有助于实现设定期望。这种短期和长期思考可以改变你的生活。如果你心里知道由哪一方负责准备晚餐，不至于等到某一方饿得生气的时候才开始准备，那生活就会轻松得多。
Support your partner’s career unconditionally. Research shows that in the long term, successful dual-career couples trade off in prioritizing one partner’s career over the other’s throughout their working lives together. In particular, male partners in hetero cisgender relationships, who may be used to more traditional gender roles and scripts, can initiate conversations about how to plan for these moments to show support for their partners’ career demands and responsibilities. If you find career demands are higher for your spouse, adjust your own career and support them unconditionally.
无条件支持伴侣的事业。研究表明，长期而言比较成功的双薪家庭，会共同商议决定在职业生涯中将一方的事业重要性置于另一方之上。可能比较习惯传统社会性别角色的异性恋关系中的男性一方，可以提议双方共同商讨应对方式，以此表示对伴侣事业需求和责任的支持。如果你发现伴侣的事业需求更高，就调整自己的工作，无条件予以支持。
Speak up at work. Sticking to your long-term vision for equity in your partnership may require difficult conversations at work. Despite the stigma associated with men taking advantage of parental leave, family sick leave, and flexible work arrangements, now is the time for men to initiate conversations with managers and bosses about access to these benefits.
在工作中坚持立场。在伴侣关系中坚持对长期公平的追求，可能需要你在职场上开展困难的谈话。尽管男性可能羞于申请育儿假、家人病假和灵活工作，但现在男性应当向上司申请这些福利。
If you don’t know if you’re ready to advocate for yourself, build a coalition of fathers within your organization to create consensus and speak with a collective voice. Talk to your work colleagues. Josh Levs, author of All In, suggests that it’s very helpful when men just strike up a conversation with women or other men in the workplace and say something like, “Hey, I’m having trouble figuring out how to get my kid to school before work. How do you do it?” And when you decide to approach your boss, know your company’s policies, have a plan, and be realistic in setting boundaries and expectations.
如果你不确定自己是否准备好了发声，那就跟所在组织内其他当爸爸的同事结成同盟，建立共识，集体发出呼吁。去跟同事聊聊。《全力投入》（All In）作者乔希·莱弗斯（Josh Levs）提出，跟职场上的妈妈或其他爸爸聊聊，“嗨，我感觉很难安排在上班之前送孩子去学校的时间，你是怎么做的？”这样就非常有帮助。如果你决定要去跟上司沟通，先了解一下公司的政策，做好计划，而且要注意结合现实情况设定界限和期望。
Solutions for Organizations
组织解决方案
Individual actions can help a great deal, but they’re not enough. Just as important is support from organizational leaders. Companies must recognize that, for individual well-being and the health of our society, an hour holding a child’s hand at the pediatrician’s office should be valued as highly as an hour in the boardroom. Here are some ways that bosses can help working dads be all-in allies at home:
个人行动会有很大的帮助，可是并不够。领导者的支持同样重要。企业必须认识到，为了员工的个人幸福感和社会的健康发展，在儿科诊所拉着孩子的手度过的一小时，价值与在董事会议室的一小时相当。上司要帮助带孩子的下属全力支持家庭，可以参考以下建议：
Don’t assume that fathers have a stay-at-home partner. Many men have full-time working partners or are single parents. Managers often apply an outdated ideal-worker norm that assumes modern fathers don’t have family responsibilities. This pressures dads into prioritizing paid work and neglecting their home life. Managers who understand this will be more likely to set clear boundaries around professional responsibilities so employees aren’t forced to choose.
不要理所当然地觉得员工有全职照顾家庭的伴侣。很多男性的伴侣有全职工作，或者是单身父亲。管理者往往怀有一种过时的对理想员工的设想，认为父亲不必承担家庭责任。这种现象迫使父亲将有偿工作放在首位，忽视家庭生活。管理者要理解父亲的家庭责任，为员工的工作职责设定清晰的界限，不要逼迫员工面对工作和家庭二选一的选择。
One example is setting blocks of time when meetings can be scheduled, so working dads have the flexibility to be involved in childcare and homeschooling. It’s also important to understand and explain when and why a task is truly urgent — if it has dire business consequences, for example — and when a more flexible deadline may be acceptable.
一种方法是在会议可以规划的情况下划定时间段，让带孩子的员工有余裕陪伴孩子和照顾孩子上网课。还有一点很重要的是，要了解和明确各项任务的紧急程度——什么任务必须尽快完成、为什么（比如会对业务产生极其严重的恶劣影响），什么任务的期限可以放宽。
Role-model what parenting looks like. Recognize that what you say and do as a leader impacts others. When you celebrate people who work late nights, long hours, and weekends, you’re sending a clear message about what you expect.
注意表率作用。留意自己作为领导者的言行产生的影响。如果你表扬了深夜和周末加班的员工，相当于向其他员工表示你其实希望大家都这样加班。
In the book Good Guys (written by two of our coauthors, David G. Smith and W. Brad Johnson), senior male leaders who were considered good role models at their offices consciously talked about their families and had pictures of them on display in their workspace. Alexis Ohanian, the founder of Redditt and CEO of Initialized Capital, talks openly and proudly about his role as the husband of tennis star Serena Williams and the father of their daughter, Olympia. When Olympia was born, he took 16 weeks of paid parental leave. Overhauling family-supportive policies at his companies has gone hand in hand with normalizing working fatherhood in those same companies and beyond.
本文作者戴维·史密斯和布拉德·约翰逊合著的《当个好人》（暂译）一书里，在办公室有意识地谈起自己的家人、办公室里摆着家人照片的男性高管被视为好的表率。Redditt创始人、Initialized Capital公司CEO亚历克西斯·瓦尼安（Alexis Ohanian）自豪地公开谈论自己身为网球明星塞雷娜·威廉斯（Serena Williams）的丈夫、女儿奥林匹娅的父亲的责任。奥林匹娅出生时，他申请了16周带薪育儿假。他的公司大幅度改进家庭支持政策，其他一些公司也致力于让职场爸爸的概念常规化。
These men didn’t hide their parenting priorities, responsibilities, and commitments. Rather, when taking time off for them, they made a point to announce it as a way of regularizing the behavior.
这些男性并未隐藏自己对育儿责任的重视和投入。他们为育儿腾出时间，是一种令职场父亲育儿常规化的方法。
Champion flexible work arrangements, paid sick leave, and generous, paid parental and family leave. If your company already offers these benefits and programs, find out how they’re working for fathers, mothers, and other caregivers. Encourage male leaders to take advantage of them, as they tend to be perceived as being only for women (often penalizing them in the process) and therefore stigmatizing for men.
支持灵活工作制、带薪病假和优厚的带薪育儿假。如果你所在的公司已经有了这些福利和项目，请了解一下对于职场父母以及其他育儿者的实际效果如何。要鼓励男性领导者利用这些福利，因为员工容易觉得此类项目是专为女性提供的（而且申请这类项目往往会对工作造成不利影响），男性可能会觉得羞耻。
Then, take it a step further: Track and review how often these benefits are used. You may discover that some managers don’t allow their employees to use them, despite company policy. Once you can see where the policy is being ignored or underutilized, it’s easier to see where changes need to be made. “If the company policy is to allow flexible work arrangements, but your manager says no, one approach is to suggest that you pilot the new arrangement for a few months, with a few check-ins to see how things are going and fine-tuning along the way,” says Joan Williams, coauthor of What Works for Women at Work. “Often, that’s enough to show a recalcitrant manager that what you are suggesting in fact will work well.”
接下来更进一步：追踪和评估这些福利的使用频率。你可能会发现，虽然公司有政策，但部分管理者不允许员工使用福利。一旦找到政策被忽视或未被充分利用的地方，就更容易看到哪里需要改变。“如果公司政策允许灵活工作制，但管理者说不行，你可以提出，自己已经试行了几个月，数度评估状况，并且进行了微调，”《职场女性适合什么》作者之一琼·威廉斯（Joan Williams）说，“这样一般就能让不服从政策的管理者明白，你的提议其实很有用。”
Doing this can even pay off for parents outside your workplace. According to PL+US, an organization that advocates for national paid family and medical leave, one of the most effective things leaders can do is share their business’s learning about effective approaches for supporting families in the workplace. By doing so, policy makers can benefit from your expertise to inform the laws and programs they put in place to help everyone.
这样做甚至可以惠及不在你这里工作的其他父母。呼吁全国推广带薪家庭假和病假的PL+US称，领导者能够采取的一个最有效的措施，就是分享自己所知的支持职场父母的好方法。政策制定者可以参考你的专业见解，改进相关法律和项目，帮助每一个人。
Support options for affordable access to childcare. Accessible and affordable childcare options are critical to businesses. Be a vocal advocate in your company’s efforts to find feasible solutions that work for dads and moms. This will become more important over time, as access to childcare will be necessary for recruiting the youngest generation of workers. Survey results from Next100 and GenForward show that affordable high-quality childcare is a top priority for Millennials and Gen Zers.
提供员工负担得起的保育选项。门槛低且实惠的儿童保育服务，对于企业至关重要。在公司设法为职场父母提供可行的解决方案的时候，要积极呼吁提供这样的保育服务。这项服务的重要意义会随着时间推移逐渐凸显，因为提供内部保育服务会成为公司招募新一代员工不可或缺的条件。Next100和GenForward的调查问卷结果显示，高质量且可负担的保育服务是千禧一代和Z世代员工求职时最看重的条件。
What might potential solutions look like? Since May, for example, the parenting benefits company Cleo has collaborated with Urban Sitter to work directly with employers to provide employees support in finding a qualified caregiver or co-op for their children. Additionally, companies like Apple and Microsoft are subsidizing backup childcare for some employees or even reimbursing employees for their own caregivers.
可能的解决方案有哪些？比方说，育儿福利公司Cleo2020年5月与Urban Sitter联动，一起与企业合作，协助企业员工寻找正规的保育中心，或者直接提供内部保育服务。苹果和微软等公司为一些员工提供保育服务，或者开出补贴让员工自行寻找当地的保育中心。
Further, if your company has influence with state or federal government policy makers, ask senior leaders to lobby for childcare programs that help more parents return to work. In June, for example, 41 local and state Chambers of Commerce wrote to Congress asking for financial relief for the nation’s childcare providers, around half of whom say they may be forced to close permanently.
如果你所在的公司能够对州政府或联邦政府的政策制定者施加影响，还可以请高层领导者提议开展保育项目，帮助更多的父母回归职场。例如2020年6月，41个地方或州商会联名致信国会，要求政府出资救助保育服务提供商——约半数保育提供商表示可能会被迫永久关闭。
These issues mark only a few of the incredible challenges families confront. In the absence of a robust public infrastructure to help them weather this storm, or to nudge men into more active roles at home, working fathers and employers in the U.S. have a unique opportunity to create change themselves. Fathers say they’re ready to engage more at home, the time for action is now.
以上问题只是一部分，广大家庭面对的重大挑战还有很多。既然没有稳健的公共基础设施协助女性渡过难关，或推动男性主动参与家务，美国的职场父亲和企业就有了一个独特的机会来自行推动改变。父亲们表示自己已经准备好了承担家庭劳动，现在就是行动的时候。
黑利·斯文松（Haley Swenson）
伊芙·罗德斯基（Eve Rodsky） 戴维·史密斯（David G. Smith）
布拉德·约翰逊（W. Brad Johnson） | 文
黑利·斯文松是工作、性别及不平等问题专家，无党派智囊团“新美国”工作生活司法政策项目“美好生活实验室”副总监。
