Dads striving for balance

In a survey this year from the New Zealand website www.DIYfather.com, participants were asked if they would like to be the same sort of dad as theirs had been.

The response came back with 55.3 per cent saying no, 18.4 per cent saying yes and 26.3 per cent weren't sure.

Traits least liked about fathers included: "He didn't have much time to spend with us; too busy providing a living"; "worked too hard".

Although double-income households are more the norm these days, there is still a reasonable percentage of male breadwinners out there, particularly in the professional classes where one salary can still support a family.

Some breadwinner dads are perfectly comfortable with the situation, but others have just fallen into the role and they feel trapped.

The recession has thrown a spanner in the works for some. Just as their partners were planning to return to work after children, the floor has fallen out of the job market.

It's hard not to feel resentful.

Tim Wilkins has been a senior creative in the advertising industry for three years - he has done very well, winning some industry accolades, but he is ready for something else, preferably not at the pace he has been working at.

"It's time for a change - I've been there for three years, it feels like I've reached the end. I've got a lot out of it."

But his wife, Kate, a therapist, is not working at the moment so he is having to keep up the pace and sees little of his daughters, who are 3 and 7.

"I think it's a bit of a luxury to live on a single income, but there are real opportunity costs for doing that. For me, I'm missing out on most of the kids' development."

It's a far cry from where Wilkins thought he would be. "We have always prided ourselves on being unconventional; our dream is to live on a lifestyle block, possibly in a commune where money would not be an issue."

Instead he is working from 7am until 7pm every day for a corporate.

It doesn't help that he knows what life can be like. He was the primary caregiver of their 7-year-old from when she was a newborn until she was 3, although he kept working part-time. Kate was the breadwinner then, carving out her career.

But the pendulum has swung back.

"If I had the choice, ideally I would like to work part-time - to be able to dip in and out, to have enough on to be mentally stimulating, and not have to face the reality of the daily grind."

AT the moment "it's a horrible feeling, I just keep thrashing away".

He can see that in 10 or 15 years the kids will be leaving home and he'll be asking: "Where's the time gone? How have I benefited?"

It helps if you respect the organisation you are working so hard for. Mike Hadley, another breadwinner dad until recently, works for one of New Zealand's largest corporates and is biding his time before leaving and setting up or buying his own company.

He is not impressed with the way his organisation operates and so is not prepared to work himself into the ground on its behalf.

"There's too much politics, time-wasting and incompetence, and it's not very PC. It's one of the biggest corporates in the country. It should be sharper," he says.

"I've made a decision not to climb up the ladder too much, making sure I have quality time outside of work. It's mainly so that I am seeing the kids and having some involvement. And I'm not getting worn out."

Now that his wife, Vicky, has gone back to work, albeit working school hours, he feels more able to take some risks with a new venture and get out of the corporate scene. "It gives you a little bit of a buffer, if you want to do something different," he says.

Male breadwinners doing what they enjoy hold little resentment about their situation. Kelly Rogers, a film buyer, distributor and exhibitor, has set up several businesses over the years.

"I try and remind myself daily what a great situation it is that I have created," he says. "I earn sufficient for us to survive and prosper. We do what we do as a family."

Rogers, just returned from the Toronto film festival, says he now works smarter. "I enjoy what I'm doing, I know my limitations, I know where my strengths lie," he says.

He has been able to "take his foot off the pedal a little in the last five years or so" as his business has become more solid.

This means he has time to coach his boys' sports teams and will be home at dinnertime every night. He does spend a few weeks a year travelling to the film festivals. He did take the family to one festival but it was a lot of effort and expense.

"As I've got older, I've learned to compartmentalise. We communicate by phone."

Although he would be supportive if his wife, Belinda, wanted to study or return to work, he is very happy for her to be at home taking care of their boys, not to mention project managing a major house renovation.

If she found something she wanted to do workwise or studywise he would support her. "It's about getting the balance right," he says.

"It is critical for me that at least one of us is there all of the time. Otherwise why have a family?"

Executive search consultant Peter Kerridge deals with a lot of high-flyer executives who are the breadwinners for their families. A lot of these jet-setters "need a wife who is a saint".

In his own case the father of three is the breadwinner, while his academic wife is at home with their toddler and working on a PhD.

"I absolutely love what I do; equally I love going home and being dad," he says.

There is so much more that dads have to do, says Kerridge. They not only have to earn the family money, they have to be "superdads" and spend quality time with the kids, he says. "The pressures are greater."

One thing he suggests to fathers as they move jobs is to negotiate hard on holiday allowance. He recently worked on an appointment where the chief executive, a mother, negotiated eight weeks' holiday a year so she could have a week off every school holidays during the year and then a good three weeks around Christmas.

"It's an underused bargaining ploy," he says.

Some working dads are their own worst enemies and don't question their lives enough, says publisher Travis Field. The former Army captain believes in stepping back regularly and looking at all parts of his life. "Being a provider is just one of them.

"Being a good husband, going to the parent teacher interviews, going to important school occasions, having set family dinners, that's all important to me as well.

"Being self-employed I could work until 9 or 10 every night of the week - I've got enough work to do that - but how much shallower would my life be?

"Business success and being a well-rounded individual are not mutually exclusive if your personal values are aligned with business values."

Field is involved in a men's group, the Mankind Project, where men from all walks of life and ages talk about their fathering roles, work relationships, their concerns. "It's about community, rather than being men alone.

"A lot of Western society men are out there doing it alone." It doesn't have to be like that, he says.

The People Publishing director told his wife, Sue, recently that he would eventually like to work three days a week and have two days for himself. He warned her he would be earning a lot less. She asked why he didn't just do it tomorrow, which gave him a great feeling of freedom.

"I suspect a lot of men have these expectations that they have made up themselves, they overvalue themselves in the provider role.

"The things I remember as a child were not the expensive things, they were going to my dad's drilling rig and having a cup of tea."