Josh Earnest may have one of the hardest jobs in Washington. No, it’s not his role as White House press secretary, but being a father.
Earnest became a father in August 2014, just weeks after assuming the pressure-cooker job as White House press secretary.
His son Walker, now 6 months old, was born while President Barack Obama was on a two-week vacation, and Earnest could take time off easily.
“(My wife and I) got a few days together waiting around for him to show up before he was actually born,” Earnest said Wednesday. “It reduced the kind of pressure that I think a lot of other people feel, and I would have felt, had he arrived in a different time frame.”
Earnest and a panel of family experts spoke Wednesday at an event hosted by the Center for American Progress, a think tank closely allied with the Obama White House. The conference was designed to showcase arguments for Obama’s push for paid sick and parental leave on a broader national scale.
Daniella Gibbs Léger, the senior vice president of communications and strategy at the center, said that while equal pay, sick leave, parental leave and flexibility in work scheduling are often painted as women’s issues, these challenges also affect men.
Earnest believes that unlike many working fathers, he is lucky enough to work in an environment where fatherhood and familial responsibility is not only understood, but encouraged.
“I’m so fortunate to work with people that are so keenly aware of the pressures I feel,” Earnest said. “I have found in general that people in positions above me, even the most senior position in the White House, are strongly encouraging of me.”
Fathers more than ever wish to be a part of the domestic world that history – and social policy – makes difficult, according to a report produced by the center. Though parental leave is by no means a novel idea, the report said workplaces are still formatted for “the ideal worker – an individual who is unencumbered by family responsibilities.”
A recent survey by Joseph Vandello, an associate professor in psychology at the University of South Florida, in the Journal of Social Issues reveals that men experience work-family conflict at similar rates as women.
“Men are now experiencing some of the stigma and bias that women have historically felt when they do take leave or advantage of flexible work arrangements,” said Erin Rehel, a health care consultant who spoke at the Center for American Progress event. “They are passed over for promotions, they tend to make less and their performance evaluations tend to be lower.”
Fortunately, Rehel said, the ideal of “what it means to be a father” is shifting. Earnest and his family are an example of this shift. Regardless of his high-profile career and its high-profile challenges, including managing an erratic schedule and up to 16-hour days, family is still a high priority.
“My hardest days are not nearly as difficult as her tough days,” Earnest noted, referring to his wife, Natalie Wyeth Earnest. “One of the things I’ve installed in my schedule this year is to find one weekday . . . to leave the office in time to be a part of Walker’s bedtime ritual.”
The country’s social landscape is changing rapidly, according to Kathryn Edin, a sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University and a panelist at the event. Public policy, however, lags behind the times and hinders social changes that, according to Edin, men are waiting for.
“Men have already been trying to flip the switch,” she said. “They are waiting for society to catch up.”
Currently, the United States is one of the only nations in the world that does not have a paid-vacation policy on the federal level. Eighteen states have considered the policy in the past and one state, Connecticut, currently requires paid sick leave, according to the World Policy Forum and government data.