Helping at home? Dad's the word

Dads are scrubbing toilets, collecting kids after school and cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner as never before, a fundamental shift that holds the promise of happier marriages.

"Men and women may not be fully equal yet, but the rules of the game have been profoundly and irreversibly changed," a new paper analyzing 40 years of family research concluded.

Over the past four decades, dads have taken on a lot more at home. The time they spend on child care and housework has doubled, according to the paper scheduled for release Thursday.

It is this progress, not absolute parity, which matters because it offers proof of a deep change within American families, the paper's co-author Scott Coltrane said.

"There is an accumulation of evidence over the last decade for people to have successful couple relationships they need to negotiate, whereas before they could let it ride ... and the mother would pick it up," Coltrane, a sociology professor at the University of California-Riverside, said.

Today, modern fatherhood is a mishmash of contradictions. Dads devote more time to child care, but you still see a lot more moms collecting kids at preschools. Dads do more housework, but they haven't closed the gap with moms.

But the paper's authors concluded dads' growth and contributions are often underestimated, after studying research on families from the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia.

Since the 1960s, men have doubled their contribution to housework, while women saw their share fall by more than two hours a week, according to the paper released by the Council on Contemporary Families.

Over the past 30 years, working dads increased the time they devoted to family and kids by six hours a week, while working moms saw their load rise by four hours.

Today, more two-career couples equally divide the tasks of raising a family than ever, and a growing number of parents are approaching equality, the paper said.

To be sure, working moms still carry heavier burdens at home -- they devote 30 hours to child rearing and family work every week compared with 16 hours for dads -- and expectations remain lower for dads, the paper said. Most parents also agree dads receive more credit for their parenting than moms.

But habits are changing, and this emerging parenting balance holds plenty of promise. When men do more housework, women are happier and couples fight less, the report said.

"If a man does more housework, they are less likely to get divorced," Coltrane added.

And the report's authors expect dads to take on more household duties in the future.

"We believe that increases in men's involvement in family work are part of a continuing rather than stalled revolution."

Wives who work longer hours have husbands who do more at home, Coltrane said.

The pioneers of this parenting balance are two-income couples like Chris and Kim Yeargin of Normandy Park.

That's because dual-income families have come closest to achieving an even split of child rearing and housework, research suggests.

Every week, the Yeargins juggle mom's evening shifts at Highline Medical Center as an emergency room doctor, dad's jobs as a parenting instructor at hospitals around the region and civil engineer and two kids, ages 3 years and 10 months.

That means Chris Yeargin usually cooks dinner and puts the kids to bed, and Kim Yeargin gets them ready in the morning, volunteers at preschool and does more laundry.

While parenting balance isn't always easy, Chris Yeargin says the dads he teaches in his "Conscious Fathering" class, who range from laborers to lawyers, are interested in the challenge.

"We have convinced the new dads they are relevant," Yeargin, 36, said. "Now they are saying: 'What do I do now?' "

Like most new working parents, Mia, 32, and Todd Ellis, 33, are still figuring it out 11 months after their daughter arrived.

Both have demanding jobs -- she runs a local nonprofit and he works for a biodiesel company -- and love being parents.

In their West Seattle home, Todd Ellis handles the garbage, recycling, bathroom cleaning and some of the laundry. Mia Ellis takes care of many other household chores and remains the child care coordinator.

"I am the scheduler, which I have to say is a pain in the butt, but we make it work," Mia Ellis said. "It feels like we are still working it out."

Many couples are still working on it because the American family is evolving, partly because both mom and dad increasingly are remaining in the work force to cope with the rising cost of living.

Having two income earners in a family means men may feel more pressure to clean the house and take care of the kids.

After all, working women are less dependent on them economically.

"We have a different marital bargain now, so many women can exist on their own," Coltrane said. "If they are going to have men in their lives they (men) are going to have step up a little bit."