Luigi Marshall of Toronto has found that working from home gives him more time to, among other things, play basketball with his two children and coach games. Other fathers spoke with The Globe about ways that they've adapted their lifestyles to better balance work and family life.Laura Proctor/The Globe and Mail
Fatherhood in 2024 looks a lot different than it did a generation ago, even a decade ago. Some of those changes were gradual: The average age of first-time dads in Canada is now 33.6, nearly three years older than in 1991, and a growing number of fathers only have one child. The pandemic turbocharged other changes: More dads are working from home at least some of the time these days.
What these shifts have in common is that they tend to result in dads spending more time with their kids. Fathers want more choice in how they parent and better work-life balance. While some are waiting longer to have kids, time with their families is becoming more important – and more possible – than ever before.
We talked to three dads who exemplify how fatherhood is changing in Canada.
Ophelia Thompson-Vere's father, Dallas Thompson, decided long ago that he would have no more than one child.Megan Albu/The Globe and Mail
One and done
Dallas Thompson always knew that if he was going to have children, he only wanted one. A school teacher in Edmonton and former touring musician, Mr. Thompson says that one would be “the magic number” for balancing the demands of his career and the pursuit of his hobbies on one hand while being able to be more present for his child on the other.
“Playing a lot of music and teaching just takes a lot of time and energy, and to really do the full-time dad thing to multiple kids, I don’t think my career and hobbies would have accommodated that. And I like to be as present as possible,” says the 43-year-old, whose daughter is 9.
Considerations such as work-life balance, the cost of raising children and the lack of extended family to go to for support are some of the reasons why families like Mr. Thompson’s are now the most common type in Canada. Forty-five per cent of families have just one child, compared with 38 per cent with two children and 16.6 per cent with three or more, according to Statistics Canada.
The cost of raising children also factored heavily in the decision for Mr. Thompson and his former spouse. It now costs just more than $356,000 – or roughly $1,745 a month – to raise a child from birth to the age of 17 in Canada, according to Statistics Canada.
Perhaps if he or his former spouse had extended family living nearby to lean on for help, they might have considered having a second child. But the closest set of grandparents is nearly 400 kilometres away. “We’d have to move away from Edmonton to be able to make a go of it, and that just wasn’t really on the table at the time.”
But as much as money and lack of caregiving support were factors, time was the most important consideration.
He and his daughter play music together – she’s currently a huge fan of Iron Maiden – and also play cribbage, ride skateboards and bikes, and do art together. “I’m certainly able to focus on her a lot better than if I had two or three kids,” he says.
'I feel very aware of the fact that this time is finite,' says stay-at-home father Matt Beauchamp of Calgary. 'And I just want to soak in as much of it as I can.'Jude Brocke/The Globe and Mail
The stay-at-home dad
Stay-at-home dads were practically unheard of when Matt Beauchamp was growing up. They are more common now, although “we’re still very niche,” Mr. Beauchamp says. “When I hang out with other men they don’t relate to what I do.”
Today, dads are the stay-at-home parent in one in 10 families with this arrangement, compared with only one in 70 in 1976, according to Statistics Canada.
Women entering the labour force in larger number have helped contribute to the rise in stay-at-home fathers. The employment rate for moms aged 25 to 54 with children younger than six grew from 32 per cent in 1976 to 72 per cent in 2021.
Mr. Beauchamp first became a stay-at-home dad about seven years ago when he was laid off from an event company. He worked freelance until 2019, and then took a job as a content manager for a public relations company in early 2022.
When the pandemic hit, he and his wife had to let go of the nanny who was helping care for their two kids. “We sort of ran the numbers, and even with the child benefits it made more sense for me to stay home,” says the Calgary father of two kids who are now seven and four years old.
“We’re fortunate that my wife also makes an income that I can stay home.”
During the pandemic, Mr. Beauchamp and his partner realized it was more economical for him to stay at home with the children, now aged 7 and 4.Jude Brocke/The Globe and Mail
Mr. Beauchamp has had to make a real effort when it comes to socializing. “We have to find ways to integrate ourselves into mommy groups or make a lot of mom friends,” he says. “I’ve only met a handful of stay-at-home dads, but the ones I know, we tend to just do our own thing, which can be kind of lonely.”
And he’s encountered a fair share of cultural stereotypes. “There are still people that are like, ‘When are you going back to work?’ or ‘Oh, I could never do that because the man needs to wear the pants in the house.’”
But the main benefit is getting to spend precious time with his children. “I feel very aware of the fact that this time is finite. And I just want to soak in as much of it as I can,” Mr. Beauchamp says.
“I always want to get them out doing things and experiencing new things. But, you know, there’s also just the day-to-day life things like grocery shopping and looking after the house.”
Whatever the burdens of the role, Mr. Beauchamp says he loves being the primary parent. He also knows that his role is one many fathers of earlier generations never had the opportunity to enjoy. He and his family moved in to a new house about three years ago on a cul-de-sac where about half the other families are retirees.
“When the retired men found out that I was at home, they were like, ‘I wish I could have done that. I wanted to but that’s just not the way things were done back then.’”
Working for a fully remote company gives Luigi Marshall about an hour and a half more per day for his children, aged 9 and 6.Laura Proctor/The Globe and Mail
Working from home
Before the pandemic, Luigi Marshall dreamed of being able to pick up his kids when they got off the school bus in the afternoon. But working in an office meant that was never a reality.
“Prepandemic, there were times that I would have to work late. And it’s like, well, you have to do what you have to do,” says Mr. Marshall, a 44-year-old head of marketing for an online job board who lives in Toronto.
But during the pandemic, often while taking long walks with his wife and kids, who are now 9 and 6, Mr. Marshall asked himself, is this really what I have to do?
The work-from-home revolution the pandemic brought on suddenly seemed to make possible what once was only a dream. “You kind of take stock of what’s important to you. I want to be able to spend more time with my family,” Mr. Marshall says. “It was the driving force factor in terms of the type of place I wanted to work.”
He landed a job at a company that is fully remote. Now, instead of racing to get ready in the morning and being stuck in traffic, he’s making breakfast for his son and daughter. And during the day he’s getting more done around the house. “It’s doing more dishes, more laundry, more cooking and more taking care of the kids.”
Simply not having to commute to an office gives Mr. Marshall upwards of an hour and a half more each day with his kids.
It’s an option many dads want. A survey conducted last year by recruitment agency Robert Half found nearly three in 10 working dads would take a pay cut to work from home.
Those who do work from home are able to spend more time caring for their kids. In 2022 and 2023, fathers spent 4.5 hours a day caring for children when they teleworked from home. Meanwhile, non-teleworking fathers spent 3.4 daily hours a day caring for children, according to Statistics Canada. It’s still less than teleworking moms, who put in 5.4 hours a day caring for children. Non-teleworking moms spend 4.2 hours a day.
And while work-from-home policies do help fathers be more involved, they may also may help women advance in their careers, says Kim de Laat, a sociologist at the University of Waterloo. “They might be more likely to put themselves up for promotion because they have that partner who can pick up the load at home,” she says.
Mr. Marshall’s wife works from home three days a week, and his ability to work remotely full time helps ease the mental burden of everything they have do as parents. “I can definitely be somewhat of a support, if not necessarily with her work but at home with cooking and laundry.”
There are downsides to never being in an office, particularly the lack of social interaction with people not on a screen, he says. But the extra time he gets with his kid more than outweighs the negatives. “I want to pack in as much as possible now with both of them,” he says. “Now we pick them up when they come off the school bus. That’s really nice.”
When the pandemic shuttered daycares, upended the labour market and forced children into virtual school, it accelerated trends that lead Canadian men to wait longer before becoming fathers.Melissa Tait/The Globe and Mail
Why Canada’s fathers-to-be wait longer and worry more
Dads in Canada are getting older.
The average age of fathers at the birth of their first child was 33.6 years in 2021. That’s up from 30.1 years in 1974, according to Statistics Canada.
Meanwhile, 39.5 per cent of dads were 35 and older at the birth of their first child in 2021, up from 20.2 per cent in 1991. The share of dads aged 40 and older more than doubled during that time, from 6.1 per cent to 14.1 per cent.
Economic trends, including job precarity, real estate prices, stagnant wages and the fear of layoffs during a pandemic or recession, likely explain at least part of why men are waiting longer to have children, says Casey Scheibling, a Canadian-born assistant professor of sociology at the University of Nevada, Reno.
“These concerns are likely coupled with an awareness of how expensive it is to raise children today, since there seems to be much public discourse about the rising costs of daycare, schooling and extracurricular activities,” he says.
“Anecdotally, as a millennial Canadian, several of my peers are still supported by their baby boomer parents in not insignificant ways,” he says. “Still being tightly tethered to one’s own parents – financially or otherwise – might be a psychological barrier to feeling ‘ready’ to be a father.”
Dads by the numbers
Fewer stay-at-home mothers
Single-earner families declining
The decline in the number of stay-
at-home mothers in Canada between
1976 and 2015
The number of single-earner families
in Canada with a stay-at-home parent
1976-1991
1991-2015
1,487,000
-174,000
493,000
1976
2015
-851,000
Dads who are stay-at-home parents – U.S. vs. Britain
United States
18%
2021
11%
1989
Britain
11%
2022
7%
2019
Older dads globally
Average age of fathers at birth of first child
England/Wales 2021
33.7
Canada 2021
33.6
Germany 2020
33.2
Netherlands 2022
32.8
U.S. 2015
30.9
U.S. 1972
27.4
27.4
dave mcginn and john sopinski/the globe and mail, Source: pew
reaearch; the guardian; stanford.edu;ons.gov.uk;dw;statista;
statistics canada
Dads by the numbers
Fewer stay-at-home mothers
Single-earner families declining
The decline in the number of stay-
at-home mothers in Canada between
1976 and 2015
The number of single-earner families
in Canada with a stay-at-home parent
1976-1991
1991-2015
1,487,000
-174,000
493,000
1976
2015
-851,000
Dads who are stay-at-home parents – U.S. vs. Britain
United States
18%
2021
11%
1989
Britain
11%
2022
7%
2019
Older dads globally
Average age of fathers at birth of first child
England/Wales 2021
33.7
Canada 2021
33.6
Germany 2020
33.2
Netherlands 2022
32.8
U.S. 2015
30.9
U.S. 1972
27.4
27.4
dave mcginn and john sopinski/the globe and mail, Source: pew
reaearch; the guardian; stanford.edu;ons.gov.uk;dw;statista;
statistics canada
Dads by the numbers
Fewer stay-at-home mothers
Single-earner families declining
The decline in the number of stay-at-home
mothers in Canada between 1976 and 2015
The number of single-earner families in Canada
with a stay-at-home parent
1976-1991
1991-2015
1,487,000
-174,000
493,000
-851,000
1976
2015
Dads who are stay-at-home parents – U.S. vs. Britain
United States
2021
18%
1989
11%
Britain
2022
11%
2019
7%
Older dads globally
Average age of fathers at birth of first child
England/Wales 2021
33.7
Canada 2021
33.6
Germany 2020
33.2
Netherlands 2022
32.8
U.S. 2015
30.9
U.S. 1972
27.4
27.4
dave mcginn and john sopinski/the globe and mail, Source: pew reaearch; the guardian;
stanford.edu;ons.gov.uk;dw;statista; statistics canada
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