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Alpha Dads: Men Get Serious About Work-Life Balance":
“ ‘Work-life balance’ is one of these terms that tends to get overused,” says Rob Lanoue, a partner with Deloitte’s consulting group in Toronto. “It’s ‘balanced/unbalanced,’ ” chips in colleague Andrew Hamer, a senior consultant.
Lanoue, 43, in an open-collar shirt and sporting a wall clock-size dive watch, exudes a relaxed jock vibe, while Hamer, 29, is more hunky corporate hipster, with a beard, jeans, and checked blazer. They, along with Jonathan Magder, 35, a slender, mellow-voiced manager in Deloitte’s corporate strategy group, are eating breakfast across the street from their office, spearing eggs and discussing how they juggle their careers and families. In its contours, the conversation happens countless times a day among groups of women. This male version also touches on the challenges of getting home for bath time, showing up at recitals, and how all that must be reconciled with driving ambition. The only thing missing is the guilt and self-flagellation, which, if they were women, would be accumulating on the floor in puddles around their feet. You might call them “Alpha Dads,” guys who are as serious about their parenting as they are about making partner. What they illustrate is that men might actually be better at handling women’s issues than women. They don’t believe in “balance.” They believe in getting what they want, even if it’s time to yell at their 5-year-olds from the sidelines of a soccer game on a Wednesday afternoon.
Together, Lanoue, Hamer, and Magder run a group called Deloitte Dads, which aims to help working fathers. “New dads can be their own worst enemies,” Magder says. “The biggest thing for sure is time management.” One of his friends at another company tried to take a longer-than-average paternity leave after his first child was born, only to be told by his bosses that they were surprised he wanted to do it—surely his wife would be home, no? His friend wimped out on taking extra time off. For that reason, these guys believe, it’s important for them to live what they preach as much as possible. Magder’s wife doesn’t work, which may afford him a little more breathing room, but both Lanoue and Hamer are married to full-time professionals. None of them have illusions of achieving perfect harmony.
Lanoue, who became partner in 2010, has two children in school full time, a 5-year-old and a 9-year-old, and he estimates that he works one day a week out of his basement office at home, partly to spend more time with them. He manages this, he says, by “being proactive with my calendar, weeks out,” planning his schedule meticulously, moving in-person meetings to conference calls when he needs to and being blunt and in-your-face about it. Even when he’s in the office, he sometimes has to leave at 3:30 p.m. to drive his son to his hockey games, a fact he broadcasts to help dispel the stink that can trail people when they sneak out early. “Everyone knows my routine when I’m not there,” he says. “Between 3:30 p.m. and 7 p.m., I’m available by e-mail. If there’s anything I have to review, it’s well into the evening.” In other words: It’ll get done, but on his time.
Hamer has a 2-year-old who goes to day care and a 12-week-old who’s currently not sleeping—he sports the dark eye-circles to prove it—and at the moment his assignment takes him out of town three nights most weeks to work at a client’s office. “For me,” he says, “flexibility is more about being able to take part in morning routines and not having to worry about the commute.” Magder has three children, ages 6, 4, and 2. He tries to be home at least two or three times a week for dinner and bedtime. Sometimes it’s tough, he says, recalling one period when he was working 80 or 90 hours every week and was desperately short on sleep. But, “most people understand that if I leave for the day, I’m just changing my [work] location.” Magder and his colleagues sound in many ways like typical MBA guys, only they’re applying the principles of efficient management to the task of parenting...
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It's an interesting piece. My wife and I have a pretty good balance, but our kids are getting older. Babies and toddlers would be a whole different story. When my first son was born, I was in graduate school and I was the primary caregiver. I was home most of the time, getting ready to write my dissertation. My wife was really focused on her retail career. I focused on parenting for the first year of my son's life. It was an awesome thing being a new dad and spending my days being a good daddy. It would be a bummer for a new father not to be able to have that kind of experience. Things are different these days. Both parents often have careers. Couples have to find the balance. Kids take an incredible amount of time.
