The Care Agenda Isn't Just for Women

TIME TO #VOTELIKEADAD

Thanks for reading and subscribing to “Made With Care,” a deep dive into the cultural roots of the care crisis. I really care about care and so glad you do too. For more on the subject, check out my new book “When You Care: The Unexpected Magic of Caring for Others.”

It’s really this simple. In order to build a culture that really cares about care and supports parents and caregivers; in order to get us to a place where women don’t feel weighed down by the invisible labor of managing a home and family; in order to achieve the kind of policies parents and caregivers need, including paid leave and affordable and reliable childcare and eldercare; in order to summon a culture in which people are curious about other people’s care stories and treat them like the hero’s journeys they are; in order to create workplaces that don’t just accept the reality of care but actually support parents and caregivers; in order to do all this, we need men to see the value in care and to fully invest in care as political priority.

Some good news? Men increasingly care about care and, as I write about in Chapter 3 of my book, “When You Care,” care is changing men for the better. While we are far from living in a world in which the burdens of care are being equitably distributed between men and women, we are getting closer and closer with each generation. And men are seeing the benefits of this.

In my research, I found a number of benefits for men who care, including a lower suicide risk even when controlling for all sorts of things. Care allows men to explore parts of themselves our mainstream culture often denies them. 

“Caring for others demands the ability to respond to another’s tenderness with tenderness, a way of being rarely tolerated from men outside of care. The men I know have embraced care for many of the obvious reasons, like loving the people they care for and wanting to see them thrive. But less expected, less discussed, is the way that being a caregiver gives them a free pass to explore and embrace these non-macho selves and find a way to connect more deeply within and without,” I write.

So how do we get more men to really get this? To prioritize care in their personal lives and, with the U.S. election coming up, in the voting booth.

To better understand, I spoke with Wessel van den Berg and José Campi Portaluppi from Equimundo: Center for Masculinities and Social Justice, a global organization working to promote care by and for men and boys, reduce violence and inequity, and in doing so achieve well-being for all. Equimundo is currently running a #VoteLikeaDad campaign that “aims to get men to exercise their democratic right to vote while centering care as a major policy priority.” 

We talked about men’s shifting attitudes towards care, how to get dads to do more invisible labor, and the psychological and social obstacles holding men back from being more engaged fathers.

José

ELISSA: Let’s start with the campaign, with the election just a few weeks away. What does it mean to #VoteLikeADad?

JOSE: To #VoteLikeADad means stepping into the ballot box with the intention of supporting family-friendly policies. Equimundo’s research shows that these are issues that both sides of the aisle see as vital: paid leave for all, accessible childcare, and a living wage.

Historically, men haven’t been acknowledged as centering care in these kinds of decisions, especially in the United States. We just don’t see care issues as something that moves men, who, the assumption goes, vote with their pockets and not their heart. And care is something that is seen as connected to the heart. Of course, care affects people’s pockets as well, and we hope to help them see that. I think overall we see that men are just as interested in better care policies, but it hasn’t always translated to the way they vote. We are trying to get them to see that. 

WESSEL: We are seeing a societal shift happening around society’s appreciation for care. We want dads to be an active part of this, and understand that none of us would be here if we didn’t receive care. And yet, at the moment care is so under-valued and under-resourced. So we are asking men to think of “dad” as an identity they bring to voting. People show up at the voting booth as “old,” “young,” and “immigrant,” or many other identities. We want “dad” to be one of them, to raise the value of their main care-related identity.

ELISSA: What does it take to convince a man to vote like a dad?

JOSE: The focus of all of our social media campaigns and advocacy work, including partnerships with the Congressional Dad’s Caucus, is to showcase stories about involved dads. Data is good, but stories are the most effective in helping people understand how policy translates in our personal lives.

We highlight positive stories of good dads because we want to show something aspirational. There are many mainstream stories about men not doing enough — and we definitely believe it is important to call out men who are doing harm — but we also think men need to see healthy models of what it looks like to be an engaged dad.

ELISSA: What is the data?

JOSE: According to Pew Research center, 85% of fathers with children under 18 say being a parent is the most or one of the most important aspects of who they are as a person.

Our 2024 “State of the World’s Fathers” confirms this. Fathers affirm they are willing to work less to spend time with their children, say that they will take action to do so, and almost three-fourths of fathers in the US affirm their support for key care policies. We found that 67 percent of women and 62 percent of men said that they would consider working less if they had a/another child.

ELISSA: We have this data, we hear men saying they want to be more involved, but many aren’t crossing the finish line. What’s your pitch for men as to why they should be invested in care, beyond relieving their female partners of the burdens related to care?

WESSEL: My son is eight and my daughter is ten, and those early years were like living in a washing machine with laundry in it — you don’t know if you are up or down on most days. I had already done advocacy work on fathers and thought I was an expert on it, until I became a dad. Turns out my kids didn’t get the memo to be exactly the kind of children I was expecting.

I just jumped into the thick of parenting. And through the sheer proximity of being together, I managed to create a lot of trust with my kids, and trust in myself. I did the work of care, and that work fosters attachment and bonding, and now I have very affectionate relationships with my kids.

I think about how men are increasingly reporting disconnection and feeling alone, and I think that in care there is an opportunity to foster relationships that can make them feel less lonely and improve their mental health.

In the last five years or so, I have realized that men’s caregiving is not only instrumental in achieving gender equality, but that there is really an inherent value for men in gender equality. Feminism and engagement in care is good for men, since it fosters meaningful relationships in our lives, and relieves us from harmful ideas about being a man.

ELISSA: There is a lot of conversation about invisible labor, and how moms do more of it --which they do. How does this conversation land with dads, in your experience? When they hear women point this out, how does it make them feel/ what does it make them think?

JOSE: In my reading of our data the major shift we’ve seen in the past decade or so is an increasing recognition, or awareness, among men about the unequal care burden. At an individual level men are very invested in caring about, and taking care of others, but they live in a context where norms and institutions still maintain the imbalance. 

For example low-income men have often responded to us that they would be eager to do more care work or spend time with their children, but they are holding down two low-paying jobs and need to maintain the income their family depends on. So that’s an example where employment policies need to shift to allow for men’s increased involvement in care. At the same time, when men do have the right conditions to be involved fathers and caregivers, we need to see them step into caregiving as much as they can.

I come from Ecuador, where there is a giant gap between taking maternity leave and paternity leave and it is all because of these cultural norms. Men don’t take it because of the mockery — the most common joke is men being asked if they are going to breastfeed. We still have a lot of work to do changing ideas about what fatherhood is supposed to be.

ELISSA: As experts focused on fatherhood, what advice would you give to women who hope for their male partners to take on more invisible labor?

WESSEL: In terms of seeing the invisible work, I only truly recognized what it takes when it became my full responsibility. A simple exercise is to leave a father to care for children as the only caregiver, for at least three or four days, and for him to take full responsibility for all of the care needs of the household and children. It sounds crazy to have to suggest this, but in contexts where men’s caregiving is an anomaly, it is useful to deliberately leave the dad in charge of food, clothing, emotional needs, household tasks — everything — for an extended period. 

ELISSA: And what advice would you give to men who want to take on more, but don't know where to start?

WESSEL: Same answer. Take full responsibility for more than 48 hours and you will very quickly see what to do.

ELISSA: What gets in the way of dads’ desires to better connect with their kids?

WESSEL: Many of the deeper struggles dads experience in fatherhood are connected to their own childhoods. They often come to fatherhood interventions with the intent to rework the experiences they had in their own childhoods.

I have sat in fathers’ groups and I hear stories from men who grew up with dads who are violent, never there, or neglectful. They often say they never want to become like their own fathers, but rather do better for their own children.

We also see that when men engage in more emotional self care, when they are more aware of their feelings and needs, they are more likely to be caring to others. And then, when they care, they get a mental health boost from that. They feel connected and feeling connected is good for us. It is not rocket science. But to build this connection with kids is pretty hard work. You only get the benefits of care if you actually do the care work.