It's hard to divide anything 50/50. In many families, even if both parents have paid jobs, one parent will lean into parenting more, and the other will lean harder into paid work.
In male/female couples it's usually the woman who owns more of the parenting work, and that can feel unfair if the arrangement comes from assumptions rather than a willing choice.
I want to highlight some counter-examples from the effective altruism space, to show it's really possible to make an intentional choice about who does what.
- @Jeff Kaufman and I both travel for work, but he's more fearless than I am about having the kids solo. Once while I was at an EA conference during the annual vacation with his side of the family, he took our four-year-old and two-year-old to the beach, and also took his sister's two-year-old because she was working. Then, during this trip where he was responsible for three preschoolers, he potty-trained our toddler.
- My friend has pursued jobs focused on impact, while her husband has a normal job he's not pursuing for altruistic impact. He does more of the childcare while she commutes part of the week to another city [...]
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First published:
November 13th, 2025
Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/m8B5kYHdiz5BiW9qH/some-hardworking-dads-in-ea
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
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