Boardrooms and Playgrounds

There has been quite a lot written about the relative lack of women on boards of directors (and their impact on boards of directors). See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Women hold slightly less than 20% of the board of director seats at major U.S. companies, depending on what group of companies you consider. See here, here, and here.

In this post, I am not going to discuss the vast literature on the topic of women in the boardroom or the quotas that some countries have established, but I do want to point out the curious lack of fathers at playgrounds in Nashville this summer. I am including this post in the Law & Wellness series because I think men and women would both benefit if we saw more fathers at playgrounds during the week.

During ten trips to our popular neighborhood playground, during weekday working hours, I saw 6 men and 72 women. Now, it is probable that some of the people I saw were nannies or grandparents, but I excluded the obvious ones and quite a large percentage seemed like parents anyway.

This is an extremely small sample, but the percentage of fathers at playgrounds with their children looks lower than the percentage of women on boards. While I haven’t counted, I have noted fairly similar ratios at the public library story-time, the trampoline park, the zoo, and the YMCA pool during weekday working hours.   

Perhaps this is not surprising, and perhaps the ratios are different in non-Southern cities (though Nashville is pretty progressive, at least for this area of the country). But I will say that I sometimes feel out of place and sometimes feel the need to explain myself when I am out solo with my children during "working hours."

When asked, I do have a “good” explanation – a fabulously flexible job – but I sometimes imagine those conversations if I had chosen to stay home while my wife worked or if I were taking time off a "normal" 8 to 5 job. Unfortunately, I don't think we are at a place, at least in my community, where we give fathers much respect for taking care of their children.  I consider raising my children an incredibly important and valuable role. Raising children is demanding and draining, but my life is undoubtedly richer for it. Over the last few years, I have also gained quite a lot of appreciation for people who raise children on their own; the job is difficult enough for my wife and me together. I am not sure what actions from government and business would be best for children, but I do know that both should be seriously considering their options.