When we first launched Working Mother magazine, we met with a lot of
hostility. People thought we were revolutionaries who wanted to break down the family structure. “No,” we said, “we want to help women who have decided to have both family and career. We’re not proselytizing, we’re serving.”

There was, however, one group of powerful respondents who stood out—
willing to listen to us, eager to support the concept and step up to be our champion, often committing company ad campaigns to our fledgling magazine. These were professional men with daughters in their teens and twenties. Men like Lew Platt, CEO of Hewlett-Packard, who told me his four daughters would grow up to be working mothers and he wanted our magazine to be around to help them when they got there. Dads working on Crest, Huggies, Pledge, Avon, Clairol and Kraft Macaroni & Cheese all helped us. It was a good thing, too, because back then the men had all the power. If dads hadn’t stepped up, I don’t think we’d be here still growing and thriving today.

Now is an important time for them to step up again. Dads, your young adult daughters are going to enter a workplace that hasn’t changed as much as I had hoped 34 years ago. Sure, we’re past those Mad Men days when women just served coffee and answered phones. But we’re still struggling to make sure we don’t get passed over for promotion because we have kids, still waiting for paid maternity leave to be a given, still explaining why office face time should not be the measure of worth. And as women, we find ourselves in a huge middle class at work: relied upon to do the work but not given the keys to drive the company to the top.

Dads, let’s make significant progress for all of our daughters. Make your
strong and resonant voices heard in support of working moms at your workplace. Here’s what you can do:

1. Support and use flextime.
2. Find a working mother to sponsor and push her career forward behind the scenes.
3. Mentor a group of young women.
4. Push to have two women—at least—on your board of directors.
5. Advocate for paid maternity leave, paid adoption leave and paid paternity leave in your company.

Think of your daughters and mine!

Carol Evans, President
Working Mother Media
Email me: carolevans@workingmother.com
or tweet me: @CarolEvansWM]