The new daddy workload

I noted back in October a major study that indicated fathers are much more active now in the roles they play in family life than they were a few decades ago. Today, the Washington Post picked up on the issue in a story with a headline that reads "Fathers Are No Longer Glued to Their Recliners" (It's actually a companion piece to a story about "Mommy Guilt," which has been their main story for a while today on their web site.)

To quote: [t]he total workloads of married mothers and fathers -- when paid work is added to child care and housework -- is roughly equal, at 65 hours a week for mothers and 64 hours for fathers.
"It's not the case that men are slugs," said William Doherty, a family studies professor at the University of Minnesota who has done several studies on fatherhood. "It's a new generation of fathers, and they are internalizing some of the very high expectations that mothers have."

One of the interviews they did was with an older dad, Chris Calhoun, 47:

"This is the best thing that's ever happened to me," Calhoun said, gazing toward his 4-year-old son, Evan. His daughter, who is 2, was at home in Bethesda with her mom.
To make more time for his children, Calhoun structures his workdays around them as much as possible -- heading to his corporate real estate job in Fair Lakes for business hours, then coming home for a family dinner and time with the children from 5 to 8 p.m.
Once his children are in bed, he works again -- from 8 to 11 p.m.