Fathers have gained family time in the pandemic. Many don’t want to give it back.

Ryan McCarty, the head of the Cincinnati branch of the Robert Half employment agency, was away from home 13 hours a day prior to the pandemic, including evening events and his 45-minute commute. He now works from home, which has enabled him to be there for his two toddlers for meals, doctor visits and milestones. One took his first steps in the middle of a weekday morning. Mr. McCarty can be seen in a video of it, in a button-down shirt and sweatpants, as he rushed out of his home office to witness it.

“For a long time, the male is the provider,” he said. “I was that guy. But now I’m not ashamed to say that this is me in my life. That’s what Covid did. We had a lot of time to reflect and think about what is important.”

As a recruiter, he noticed that men now regularly ask for flexibility. A new client told him that meeting his child at the bus at 3:30pm was his priority and he would waive payment for it.

“You never heard that from anyone,” he said. “Never. And now it’s commonplace. It’s no longer a sign of weakness.”

Ben Campbell, the father of two daughters under five in Smithville, Texas, has adapted to spending daytime time with his children when his remote sales job fell early in the pandemic. So, in a later job, when a boss commented on how often he had parenting responsibilities, he replied, “Yes, and that’s not going to change.”

He said it makes a big difference that his current employer, AffiniPay, is run by a mother who talks to employees about work-life balance. He now works from home four days a week, and his wife is also remote. During breaks, they run errands for children or have their children show them the artwork they made with their nanny. They couldn’t imagine doing without it if they were to work full-time in offices.