What’s right for a family with two working parents and three kids can be obvious, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to implement.
Just ask Travis Wilson, our Lead Dad of the Week from Rochester, Minn., home of the Mayo Clinic where his wife is a medical oncologist.
Travis worked in learning and development at universities and later at companies like Boeing and Western Digital. He enjoyed it and it offered him flexibility to move with his wife’s medical training.
With three boys who arrived in 2013, 2016 and 2019 – kudos on the even spacing – there were challenges for a pair of working parents. “We’d say, ‘The kid is sick’. What do you have to do today?” Travis recalled. “My wife would say, ‘Well, I’m going to spend most of my day telling people they’re dying of cancer and should go on hospice. And you? ‘Well, I’m going to go to some leadership and development seminar…”
Almost by definition a Lead Dad needs to have the more flexible schedule. It doesn’t work any other way. Travis was able to move his job responsibilities around to make it work, but there was still pressure to stay up late to get everything done, as if he wasn’t a parent with responsibilities.
So last year, Travis decided to strike out on his own, to have more focus on both his work as a corporate trainer and his family as almost a domestic COO.
“My wife was tentatively supportive,” he said. “How is this going to affect our finances? What we found was I was so much happier. We had someone who had more of a bead on what’s going on in our lives.”
(It’s not all inspiring: “She came home and said what did you do today? I said Kate, you won’t believe this, but I filled out forms all day.”)
And as any parent knows, without that, the family can go off the rails. Now he’s a Lead Dad. His consultancy is doing well for clients, and he’s fully immersed in community activities around his kids. It’s fulfilling, but like any aware Lead Dad he has moments of questioning himself.
“I was feeling kind of ill at ease, and I said to Kate, am I doing my job?” he said. “She looked at me and said, ‘yes, are you kidding me?’”
Lead Dads might second-guess their value. But what we’ve found at The Company of Dads is those men who step fully into their role have an enormously positive impact on their families and relieve considerable stress on their Working Mom wives.
Never question what you’ve done, Travis. We’re proud to welcome you to The Company of Dads.
