Episode 34 : Being a Millennial Working Father in 2022
Being a working father has changed a lot over the years and over the generations. Today, I want to explore what working dads in 2022 want. What are their priorities? How has their role in the family changed?
My family throughout the generations has represented pretty well how the culture of our country in the US has changed, and how the role the father has changed to bring us to the current millennial dad.
My grandfather on my dad’s side is a good example here. He worked 60+ hours per week, often gone the whole week traveling. My Dad saw him as the financial provider and the discipliner when he was home.
My dad wished he could have had more time with his dad, what kid doesn’t want that? So when my dad grew up he wanted to be there for his kids more.
Flash forward from the 70’s to the 90’s when I was growing up. My dad wanted to work-part-time and split the responsibilities of making an income with my mom.
It didn’t work out but he still made a big improvement from the previous generation because he was at home most evenings. He stuck to a standard 9-5 job and even when he did real estate some of the time, he was home way more often than his dad.
So I got to see him every weekend and evening. An improvement was made but I also witnessed my mom being beyond stressed at taking care of rambunctious kids all day. It was me and my brother until I was 8, and then my sister showed up and my second sister when I was 12.
But throughout all of my dad’s career he stuck to a pretty standard 9-5 job. He wanted to at least maintain that so he could be with his family in the evenings and weekends, something he didn’t have growing up. And I’m grateful for that.
Then fast forward to 2016 when my first son was born. I became a dad and I was determined to be home even more than my dad. I didn’t want to be gone 8-6 everyday when you include commuting. And I didn’t want to work 40-50 hours per week.
So I pursued freelancing and discovered that I could work less than 40 hours per week and still earn the same if not more than I would earn in a normal employee job.
Now, could my dad have pulled off in the 90’s what I’ve pulled off today? Not exactly.
The internet wasn’t even a thing until the late 90’s and even throughout the early 2000’s there wasn’t really much in the way of online freelancing. Being a contractor meant going away from the home and building a house or being a plumber or a real estate agent.
My dad was a real estate agent for a while actually but it didn’t bring him home any more. That’s the reality of contract jobs in that generation. My dad really did his best with what opportunities he was given.
Now, in the age of the internet, there are thousands of freelance jobs that you could do from home with nothing but your computer and internet. And with the explosion of online business, there are thousands more jobs that didn’t even exist in the 90’s. Many of these jobs can provide substantial income and allow you to work less than 40 hours per week.
Even if you started your own business in the 90’s, it wasn’t an online business. It was brick and mortar and required a much bigger up front investment.
So far fewer people started their own businesses. Often if they did, their personal income was less than it would be in a normal job for a while so they would give up on it.
So if we’re going to describe the main difference between a millennial dad and previous generations of dads, it’s that dad now actually wants to be home more, he wants to share in childcare duties with his wife, and he wants to take care of his house more.
My dad started to make that shift and I’ve continued to make it further. Older generations wanted to remain distant from childcare. That’s not to say they didn’t have admirable qualities as a generation, but childcare wasn’t a focus for them.
They had the work ethic of giants, just pushing and pushing. It was needed in the immigrant generation for them to lay the foundation for future generations to not have to work as hard or as much.
I am grateful for the hard work of my grandfathers and their parents, and the literal sweat they put into providing for their family so that I could have the life I have today. They laid the groundwork. My version of sweating is just wearing sweatpants while I work.
Our generation is more about working smarter than more hours and it’s not out of laziness, even though it often looks like that to older generations.
It’s out of shifting priorities. We want to spend more time with our families and on other pursuits that aren’t directly related to earning money. How can we make more money in less time so that we can focus on other life needs and desires?
We want to spend more time putting in work and effort into a variety of things, not just our job.
Of course there are people in every generation that are lazy but the type of millennial dad that I am and many others are, just want to spend more time “working” on other life things like taking care of kids or their house or other pursuits and passions.
For me, even if I only work 25 hours in a week on my money-earning job, I’m still working the majority of the rest of my time.
Some of it is play or leisure of course but when you’re raising young kids there just isn’t much leisure. It’s all work. I actually feel like I have a break when I’m sitting on my computer working in my business. I have a 5 year old boy and 2 year old boy with a girl showing up in a couple of months.
It’s loud, busy and a huge learning curve figuring out how to be a parent without any manual.
Figuring out how to parent children well has been far more difficult than building my business and building my business was hard and way out of my comfort zone.
I think millennial dads all witnessed a similar situation: an overwhelmed, stressed out, stay at home Mom who would have loved more help from dad.
And again, dad did his best in that older generation. But now it’s time for moms to have a break, and I’m not referring to moms who want to work while raising kids.
I’m referring to women who still want to stay at home and would rather their husbands work but they also want help with the kids. They want to feel more balanced because childcare is stressful and it’s more work than my job.
Many moms don’t even realize it’s possible to live off one income let alone their husband only working part-time hours.
It is possible. That’s the whole reason I have this YouTube channel and Freelancing Dads blog to show families that dad can support them from home only working part-time.
Freelancing makes this possible. Many dads during the pandemic worked at home but they still had to work 40+ hours or stick to certain schedules so it just made it more stressful. It’s different when you’re freelancing part-time and supporting your family at home opposed to working as an employee at home.
Some companies are opening up to offering more flexible work schedules but you’ll never have the flexibility, control and income you can have with freelancing.
I’ve been able to raise my income by 30-40% per year since I started freelancing.
That literally doesn’t happen in the employee world. Freelancing comes with unique challenges since with more control also comes more responsibility.
You have to be the one to keep making sales for your business in order to have work to do. As an employee, unless you are the sales person, you just show up and do the work you’re expected to do.
But I’m never going back. Once you get deep enough in freelancing there is no going back. I’m not hireable. An employer would look at my resume or portfolio and think, “He’s not an employee, and he won’t work well as an employee. He has been the boss for the last decade.”
They know I would struggle to work as an employee when I’ve been the employer for so long. I would be overqualified.
To recap, being a working millennial dad in 2022 means more focus on family and the more fulfilling non-money earning activities of life while still supporting their family financially.
Many articles will tell you that most millennial parents have to live off 2 incomes, that in our generation you don’t get to have a house and a family and only one parent who works.
It’s a lie.
I’m supporting my family comfortably off one income and thousands of other dads are too. Some of them have high paying employee jobs that are harder to come by these days, and many are running their own online business from home.
You really need to be earning at least $125k/year to support a family off one income, even in areas that aren’t insanely inflated living expenses like NYC or California. I can’t get a house for less than $500k now where I live in Utah.
One thing that many of us millennial family oriented fathers have had to learn is that it’s okay to put a bit of a brake on our childhood career ambitions in order to focus on what matters most.
I spoke to another freelancing dads recently on my podcast about this very thing. About how we get very ambitious and driven to build our career and hit a certain status, but for what? Is it worth it if you’re never home? Is it worth earning 200k per year if your kids are always wondering where dad is? Of course not.
Your kids are only with you for a short time.
Two or so years into my freelancing career, I realized that my top passion is not my business, it’s being a dad.
That’s why I’ve capped my hours at 25 per week even if it has meant slower business growth and slower increase of income. I honestly believe that by having more life/work balance that I’ve actually been able to grow my business easier than if I overworked and burned out.
Once you’re burned out, you lose focus, you don’t get inspired as easily, and when you have a bunch of personal life problems that aren’t being addressed because you’re too busy with work, that affects your ability to earn income and build your business.
So it’s okay to restrain your passions a bit and realize what’s most important.
Certainly keep finding ways of increasing your income and supporting your family’s needs, but also decide with your wife what your actual needs are.
Do you really need a 100k car? A 7,000 square foot house? It’s all vanity pursuits and won’t bring you joy.
I am not against buying things that make life more comfortable. My wife and I are currently working on a goal to build a house on a bigger lot. We would rather have more land for our kids to run around in than a ridiculously large house.
The house itself is only 2300 square feet, 3300 if you finish the basement, but it perfectly matches our needs, no less and no more. Your needs might be different, maybe you have a larger family or extended family that lives with you.
But take the time to discuss with your wife what really matters, what you actually need and want to be comfortable.
For me, investing in experiences for my children is far more valuable than investing in a bunch of stuff that barely gets used. But that’s just me.
So audit your life and your wants and your career ambitions, check your ego at the door, and remember what's most important in life. Take advantage of the opportunity we have now to support our families of one income working at home through the internet.
The freelancing jobs are endless.
That’s all for now. I’ll talk with you in our next conversation. Go have some fun with your kids today.
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