Can?t I be a parent?and a politician"
Joe Cressy is a Toronto city councillor for Spadina-Fort York and the chair of Toronto?s Board of Health.
I always knew I wanted to be a parent. But when my friends started to have kids, I got to tag along to park play dates, skating lessons and the colourful explosions of toddler birthday parties. Then, my desire to become a dad was clear.
As a city councillor in downtown Toronto where I represent over 110,000 constituents, I regularly work more than 80 hours per week. Early mornings, evening meetings, and weekend community events are standard. I had no intention of being the kind of parent who saw his kids for only an hour a day; who doesn?t know their shoe sizes or their friends? names. To me, being a parent meant being an engaged and active one. I also wanted to be an equitable partner to my wife, Grace, which meant working together on the domestic labour of raising a new human being. With my job, it was always going to be a tricky balance, but we talked it through and decided we were up for the challenge. The first thing to figure out was that wild, magical and exhausting first year?the year where we would learn to be parents and our kid would learn a million exciting things. In many ways, these first 12 months would set our family dynamics in the years to come. We decided Grace would take the first nine months, applying for employment insurance (EI) benefits during that time, and I would take the last four months, after which our son would go into childcare (if we?re...
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COMPETITION: Win a 5-star Family Holiday in Limassol, Cyprus
27-04-2024 08:05 - (
moms )