When we talk about workers going back to their offices, the goal for most is to return to the normal routines of life.

🍼 But for parents who had their first child during the past 18 months, the return is uncharted territory trib.al/a3jKClJ
New parents are figuring out for the first time how to manage:

🚍 Commuting
⏰ Long hours away from home
🍼 Parenting small children

All their experience thus far has been in a work-from-home pandemic world trib.al/Rnd0dVG
Data serves mostly to confirm that American work culture isn't particularly family-friendly, generally leaving mothers as the caretakers-of-last-resort in times of need trib.al/Rnd0dVG
For new fathers, the Covid pandemic might have spawned a long-overdue cultural shift in how to balance workplace and family life.

In a June 2020 study, @hgse found that 68% of fathers felt closer or much closer to their children since the start of Covid trib.al/Rnd0dVG
If fathers, especially ones who worked remotely, were always around for mealtime, bathtime and bedtime, they are likely going to feel closer to their kids.

It’s understandable if that formative experience produced a different outlook on their working life trib.al/Rnd0dVG
Using a survey, @Upwork economist @ModeledBehavior reported that the group with the highest share of people saying they would consider becoming a freelancer or self-employed to continue working remotely were men between the ages of 35-44 trib.al/Rnd0dVG
There’s a contingent of younger couples who only know a world where dad is always around because he's been working from home.

It's understandable when companies begin calling workers back into the office, many new parents start to look for alternatives trib.al/Rnd0dVG
Perhaps some companies will adopt a different approach, where in-office meetings take place during family-friendly hours of 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

This would allow parents to be at home for morning and evening family logistics trib.al/Rnd0dVG
Having a workplace that's truly family-friendly requires fathers buying into the idea that the pandemic — and the additional time it gave them at home — might have been the catalyst for a long-overdue epiphany about their options trib.al/Rnd0dVG

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More from @bopinion

16 Sep
Never ones to miss a chance to cry “hardship,” upper-middle-class, well-educated young Americans are getting in on the Chinese “lie flat” social protest movement, claiming they, too, are burned out and quitting their jobs to do nothing trib.al/e5rjiys
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So some Chinese millennials formed a movement to opt out of work and the pressures of society trib.al/e5rjiys Image
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That’s a lot of people with no immediate way to support themselves and their families trib.al/pK04k9j
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The New Deal’s attack on the Great Depression had four main components:

💵Temporary direct relief for the impoverished
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trib.al/pK04k9j Image
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“It’s as good as it gets,” he says. “Tennis is an individual sport, so any individual who shines on that stage is instantly recognizable” trib.al/VKDcbjm Image
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🇨🇳Chinese mother
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Early in 2020, the world urgently needed to raise its sense of alarm around Covid-19.

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Israel is riding out a surge in new Covid cases without returning to lockdowns for the vaccinated trib.al/jAnL73X Image
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“We are deeply worried about Afghan women and girls, their rights to education, work and freedom of movement.”

That’s the statement on the situation for women and girls in Afghanistan, signed by 21 governing bodies. They are right to be worried trib.al/5lKzyVO
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The reality of their rule already looks troubling trib.al/keB25cW
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When Americans began emerging from their homes after the first wave of Covid in spring 2020, many apparently headed straight to their local boat dealers.

Spending on pleasure boats shot up to 20% above the pre-pandemic pace in May 2020 trib.al/xHmYB8x
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The remote-work arrangements also made it easier for affluent white-collar workers to locate themselves within convenient distance of a body of water trib.al/RiRZvDB
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Here’s spending on pleasure boats going back to 1959, adjusted for inflation: trib.al/RiRZvDB
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