I’m spending most of 2026 writing a book on the work we’ve been doing at The Company of Dads. Diversion is publishing it in the Spring of 2027 – title still TBD. I’m going to occasionally publish thoughts from the writing and research.
I’m many chapters now into writing the book of what we’ve been doing The Company of Dads and I came across this quote from Gary Barker, PhD from Equimundo: Center for Masculinities and Social Justice that perfectly describes what it’s like to be a Lead Dad during three days of school snow days.
“It was this amazing giving up of my own expectations and giving up that illusion that you sort of control your destiny, that you started a day off thinking I have these three articles to read, and I need to be working on this piece of a paper. And I also was going to get this one interview done for that study I was involved in. And then the day came with my daughter needing X or Y, and I went, oh, suddenly there was 15 minutes for me to do what I thought was going to be three hours of work when she was napping.”
Gary said this in relation to his dissertation research in Chicago when his daughter was first born and his wife was working as a therapist. But it holds true for all the myriad interruptions that all working parents face.
With these snow days in the north, what are our choices? Focus on caregiving? Focus on work? Or try to do both, badly? If ever there was a need for parts of America to call a “CareDay” it’s now.
