How to reconcile work and children is a question that for a long time almost only the mothers have asked; Now the fathers also begin to ask for it. Valerio Mammone, journalist and dad of two children, reflects on today’s dads, starting from the theme of work
“Millennial dads are drawing a New model of paternity», He wrote a few months ago The sun 24 hours citing the use of the use of paternity leave, increased by almost 40% in ten years. On average, in fact, we spend more time with our children, we participate more in family life and, although gender equality is still a distant goal, it is clear that something is changing for the better.
The time has come to meet us, to find opportunities for sharing to discuss and redefine our role in the family and therefore in society. From dad in the broadest sense of the term.
I would also like to try to offer my contribution, taking care of those issues compared to which paternity has changed me deeply. I start from Workcumbersome and fundamental pillar of our lives, with which I struggled and sometimes still struggling to find a balance.
Four and a half years ago, when my first child was born, I never imagined that work and paternity would enter so much in conflict. The work for me was everything: a passion, a redemption valve and social recognition, a duty towards my family.
There was even a phase of my life, around 30 years of age, in which to work twelve hours a day and not having time to make anything else had become almost a pride. Having never been a carderist or a person particularly attached to money, I wondered for a long time, especially in recent years, at what time of my growth I had transformed into a Workaholic. I gave myself several answers.
Reflect on one’s own history
First of all there is one generational component: Like many millennials, I entered the pre-adult life at the exact moment in which the boomer optimism of “you can become what you want” collided with a reality made of unemployment, precarious, free internships, of “you are lucky to have a job ». As a teenager and young adult I had a concrete and constant fear of not finding work, and when I found the job I gave everything I had to not lose it.
Then there is one personal member: I was a journalist and journalism, for me, before being a job it had been a dream, an opportunity for social redemption. I am the first graduate of my family, and journalism is a closed, selective world, which you access in many cases for inheritance: to become part of that world, show my face on TV, be read on one of the More clicked news sites in Italy, taking on a prominent position in a editorial staff was a source of pride, but also a goal that for a long time obscured other horizons.
And then there is the family model: The roles and homework of my parents had always been divided in a very clear way and it was not difficult, therefore, to identify myself in the figure of my father, the only guarantor of the economic well -being of my family of origin.
A new perspective
When I became a dad, or rather, when I fully aware of the way I wanted to play that role, mine approach to work It has changed radically. With the passage of months and years – and in particular during the pandemic – I had a series of epiphanies (even rather obvious, from a certain point of view) that made the change a natural, but not easy process.
I realized, for example, that My son was really growing up At the speed of light and that certain moments would no longer be back. Each of us, in our own life, has been heard very often that “time flies” or that “every left is lost”, but perhaps it was precisely paternity that made me feel for the first time, with force, the urgency of use the time at my disposal well and consciously. I understood that to really affect the education and growth of my children I should have (and wanted) dedicate time and energy that until then I had only put in work.
Even the vanity that had guided and accompanied part of my choices gradually failed, and it became evident when in the face of the possibility of leaving journalism, with his own Sometimes unhealthy rhythmsto go to work in a company like Scuolazoo, attentive to the well -being of people and the balance between work and private life, I had no doubts, despite many colleagues have tried to make me change my mind fearing that I was reviewing my ambitions downwards .
Deal with guilt
Summary in a few lines, this change of perspective It may seem almost trivial, but it wasn’t for me at all. For a long time the only thought of not dedicating all myself to work, not to spend a good part of my time looking for new opportunities and higher salaries made me feel guilty.
Living in Milan did not help me: in the world of communication, and not only, people change work with impressive rapidity. The phenomenon of “Job Hopping“as it is defined in English, it is so widespread that sometimes it is enough to write to a person “hello, when can I call you?” To feel answered “Don’t tell me that you change work too!” (actually happened).
See everyone move at the speed of light To earn more while you would like to take time to be with your children, it can be an unsettling and difficult experience to manage. In my case it was until I understand that you can be a good dad even without bringing home and higher salaries to home, responding to needs not only materials, but also relational and emotional.
An invitation to all dads
I realize that what I told can be perceived, both by readers and readers, like the story of a privileged person. Being a man allowed me to manage the conflict between family and work Starting exclusively from myself, without having to deal or with a world of work hostile to women with children or with the profound changes brought by pregnancy, childbirth and the unique relationship that in the first months binds mothers and children. At the same time, not all men are lucky enough to be able to choose where to workbenefiting from a culture of work that people consider them and not only workers.
So I would like this story to be read and considered as the story of a dad among many, neither right nor wrong. A shared story to entice other dads to do the same, to take a word, wherever they are.
