In Scott Behson’s book, The Working Dad’s Survival Guide: How to Succeed at Work and at Home, he says this, “I believe that we can achieve success in our careers while also being the involved, loving dads we always wanted to be.” And from there he discusses how dads can find the balance between their professional and family lives.
Before I read The Working Dad’s Survival Guide:, I mainly was interested in reading Behson’s book because I have hung out with him a couple of times and he is a really nice guy. And you can see his level of intelligence when chatting with him. At first I didn’t think the book would apply to me (a stay-at-home dad) since I didn’t think that my life was in need of a balance, but as I read it and studied each chapter, the book hit some chords with me.
Behson is a management professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University and founder of the blog, fathersworkandfamily.com. His management skills are shown throughout the book, as he offers ways to overcome various hindrances to the work-family balance — things like managing time, working from home, and budgeting finances, among many others. He hits on themes such as prioritizing, freeing up resources and being effective with what you have, finding peer groups of fathers, and realizing that other dads are going through the same things. The prioritizing exercises in the book were a huge benefit for me because I am a category type of learner and at times need extra encouragement in order to figure out what my work and family priorities are.
When I first became a stay-at-home dad, I said goodbye to my career dreams and replaced them with dreams for my kids. As I read Scott’s book, I envisioned a world where I could have done both. The life duties would have been met with some difficulty and with some sacrifices, but they were both attainable. Now as a blogger and a work-at-home dad, a new balance is needed. Being able to find fulfillment in both of my home choices can cause a lot of anxiety for my family. After reading this book, I feel like I’ve been give some tools to help me create a new professional life that can go along with my family one.
The Working Dad’s Survival Guide should be sitting on tables in every labor and delivery ward across the country to help spur the work-family balance conversation between couples. (Of course, that conversation should start before kids, but better late than never.)
To order a copy of The Working Dad’s Survival Guide, click here.