Welcome to the Ambitious Dads Project
Insights from interviewing 50+ Dads about our changing definitions of success at work and at home.
How it all began…
Six months after an unsuccessful fertility surgery, I was crying my eyes out on a beach. I knew I would find a new way to become a dad (see photo above) but I couldn’t get past the damage I would instill on my future children. I was imagining my kids in their teenage years completely overwhelmed about their identity. I would be their dad, but they’d also have a donor. How could I screw them up before they even existed? What I didn’t realize at the time was that I was merely getting introduced early to the feeling all of us as dads come to acknowledge: our failures in our most important role. I was going to screw up my kids, and I couldn’t do anything about it.
But I was also an entrepreneur and a leadership expert. I knew building a business was messy. I would have to come around to the fact that daddying would be, too. My boys would have to wrestle with something deeply existential because of me, just as us dads today wrestle with the deeply conflicting pull of priorities: being a great dad and career superstars.
Since having two boys, and chatting with so many fathers, (50 and counting!) I have come to realize it’s probably a blessing to have acknowledged my imperfection so early on. We hold on tight, very tight. We want to be this unstoppable leader at work and at home. I mean I haven’t dropped my children (yet), but I did stupidly assume a lot of the challenges I ran into regularly with my wife, children and family were uniquely mine. I’ve wanted to play a much bigger role than I was relegated to after the birth of my two boys. Yet family culture wasn’t supportive of my co-parenting vision. The truth is, I like to talk with my friends, but I wasn’t attuned to recognizing some of the parenting challenges I was facing as common. I didn’t know how to bring it up.
Today, as a dad to 2 boys, I understand what it means to be a father of intention and the challenges and tension that brings to my career goals. My boys are 4 and 7 and they’re the lights of my life. They have more energy than I know what to do with. I don’t go to the gym to look fit, I go so I can wrestle with them on the bed! I want to be a great leader because of them. I want them to be proud of me and I want to help other dads navigate this dual, often conflicting drive of parenthood and career.
For me the journey to becoming the dad I want to be has been full of potholes. Even a little more insight, support and guidance would go a long way. So now, 50+ interviews and a lot of research later, I’m taking my own advice and reaching out regularly.
And I’ve learned soooo much already. So here’s what I’m discovering in my journey to interview Ambitious Dads…
Being a dad is so important to us
We want to be so much more present than our fathers, but there are few examples to go around. As dads we have had to rapidly adjust to new roles and expectations. We have so much work to do just keeping our children physically and emotionally safe. The opportunity now is for us to lead by example. We can show other dads the way forward.
The truth is we see parenting as core to our identities, just like women do. A 2015 Pew Research Study of American parents highlighted that 57% of dads said being a parent is extremely important to their identities (moms were at 58%). A separate study found that 70% of dads say being a father is core to how they think of themselves. It’s more central to our identities than it has ever been and yet we’re quite insecure about it. Only a little over a third of dads believe they are “very good” at raising their children.
We perform much better at work when we are able to lean out successfully at home. And successfully is the key word. So many of us are conflicted at home. Nearly three quarters of fathers want to equally share the parenting responsibilities but half of us feel ‘conflicted,’ which is defined by the Boston College Center for Work and Family as believing caregiving should be divided 50/50 but admitting to doing less. Conflicted dads consistently score lower in job satisfaction and commitment, on feeling a sense of belonging at work, and are less likely to believe their organization culture is supportive of family issues.
More than two-thirds of us would change jobs to spend more time with our kids. So WTF is business - big and small - doing about this? Most are trying to push us back into the office. According to a new report by Resume Builder, literally 90% plan to implement return-to-office policies by the end of 2024. Others are content with 1-2 weeks of paternity leave. We want to design a new way of participating in our children’s lives, so isn’t it time for businesses to design a new way of engaging with us. Will we merely teach by showing ourselves the door?
For women to advance in the world of work, men must advance in the world of home. Two-third of moms with children under 6 work outside of the home. That number grows to 77% with children 6 years of age or older. Moms’ career success is intricately tied to our parenting improvements. But we need help getting past all the obstacles that keep us from being more fully engaged in caring for our children and our homes. I mean think about it, how many of us really sat down before our kids were born and built a strategy with our spouses to not just share equally in parenting and housework, but acknowledge the cultural stereotypes we were approaching our parenthood with? Co-parenting rarely comes naturally!
So what are we going to talk about? (aka some of the biggest challenges I’ve heard about from my interviews so far)
Co-parenting: WTF is this. You mean your partner doesn’t know how to share parenting responsibilities with you? Why should they?. It’s not like you talked about it before the baby was born and designed a plan around it. Oh and did you know this concept doesn’t even formally exist in which both spouses are still living together? The concept comes from divorce!
Men’s biology and parental leave: News flash, our biology changes too when we have children. But when you have to go back to work a week after the baby arrives, all that change will be lost.
Teaching my children about what I do: A third of the Ambitious Dads I’ve spoken with already independently highlighted this strong urge to talk shop with their kids but weren’t sure how to make it, well, interesting.
Leading family-focused teams at work: Lots of research says we are better leaders because of our kids, but how do we integrate this into our teams in ways that really show us leading by example?
Get to the gym! We go 110% at work and our children want the same. One CEO I interviewed said “I train for triathlons so that I can keep up with my girls. I’m never going to be 100% when I come home, but 70% of a triathlete is a lot better than 100% of a couch potato.”
The dual impact of self improvement - my son woke up in the car to me listening to a podcast about love and family and I asked him if he understood any of it. His reply was, “yes, it’s about how to be a better daddy.” I thought, “what better lesson could there be then our children knowing we are imperfect and constantly trying to improve?”
How do we want to raise our children? How many of us have explicitly defined the roles we want to play - and how it will change as our children grow? What is our definition of a successful dad? I’ve asked this question to every father I’ve interviewed and the variety - and vagueness - of responses is both beautiful and disconcerting. When we don’t know what we’re shooting for, insecurity, distraction and conflict can easily creep in.
Building rituals. A lot of the dads I’ve interviewed so far highlight a focus on building rituals with their children. These rituals seem to have a profound effect on how they think their children view them and their experiences together. And there are so many to highlight. So many we can borrow and share.
This is just a start. There are soooo many more ideas and challenges to share! Every interview has introduced me to new ideas, challenges, and possibilities for myself as a dad, and I want to share it through this newsletter with you.