Parents Need to Talk to Their Sons About Care

Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.

By Andrea Delbanco

Editor in Chief, TIME for Kids

In TIME’s article “Parents Need to Talk to Their Sons About Care,” authors and caregiving researchers Kate Washington and Kate Mangino make the case that we should be talking with boys about the culture of care and the need to balance future care responsibilities with career.

The authors explain their intentions: “We chose to focus only on sons because existing research and personal experience both tell us girls receive this message everywhere. For example, women adjust their careers for family life and, thanks to a gender gap in career advice, young women receive much more mentorship regarding work-life balance than young men do.”

My household consists of three females and one male, my husband. He takes on at least half of our domestic responsibilities. To me, that feels natural. To many of my friends, it feels notable: I'm often told how lucky I am. But despite my experience, a key finding of this TIME article doesn’t surprise me (spoiler alert!): “We value men’s time over women’s time, and we assume women will carry the domestic load, whereas domestic responsibility is optional for men.” The good news? The authors offer suggestions for changing this paradigm, including how to have better care conversations.

Maybe you’re raising sons, or are someone’s son. How have you seen this play out in your home? Write to me at andrea@time.com.

Best,
Andrea