Fathers Are No Longer Glued to Their Recliners

Even so, Melnick said, the workload is heavier on his wife. "I feel I do a lot," he said, "but it's nothing compared to what my wife does."

At Cabin John Park one recent Saturday, Chris Calhoun, 47, looked at the parents around him, following young children from swings to slides, laughing with them. Most were fathers -- perhaps two-thirds.

"This is the best thing that's ever happened to me," Calhoun said, gazing toward his 4-year-old son, Evan. His daughter, who is 2, was at home in Bethesda with her mom.

To make more time for his children, Calhoun structures his workdays around them as much as possible -- heading to his corporate real estate job in Fair Lakes for business hours, then coming home for a family dinner and time with the children from 5 to 8 p.m.

Once his children are in bed, he works again -- from 8 to 11 p.m.

"If we didn't have kids or if I was still single, I would be at the office until 8 at night," he said. But technology allows him to split his day -- and get in more kid time.

His wife, who has a part-time job outside the home, still does more child care and housework, which he wishes were not so, he said, but with a paid job that fills 60 hours a week, "I can't do more."

Thinking of generational differences, he recalls that he once mentioned to his father the joy of having a baby sleep on his chest.

"Did you do that with us?" he asked his father.

"No, I never did," he recalled his father saying.

As with mothers, roughly half of today's married fathers said they get too little time with their children. Their sense of well-being is not as affected by what they are missing, however, said Melissa A. Milkie, a social psychologist and co-author of the Maryland study who has written on the subject.

Several fathers interviewed volunteered that they do feel guilty about how much their wives do at home and how much time they miss with their children.

Clark said his workdays are often so long that he barely sees his children during the week. When he misses their events, "I feel guilty," he said. "I have dad guilt."

Recently, he said, he decided to correct course: taking one day a week to work from home. He takes his children to school that day and picks them up, then hangs out with them.

"You pick up so many little things about them," he said, "that you wouldn't know if you weren't there."