The school calls in the middle of the workday. Your child is sick. That means you have to leave the meeting, cancel the rest of your afternoon, and rearrange appointments for tomorrow. Research shows that when this happens to a father, he has a childcare problem. But when it happens to a mother, she can become the childcare problem.

That distinction explains something we don’t talk about enough when we discuss working parents. The inequality isn’t just about who spends more hours doing laundry, cooking dinner, or making appointments for the family. It’s also about which parent gets uninterrupted time to work and what happens when family life (inevitably) disrupts it.

We usually assess the unfairness that occurs with working parents by looking at hours. How many hours is one parent spending over the other. Who makes dinner most nights? Who helps with homework? Who drives the kids to their orthodontist appointments? But another important aspect that gets overlooked is how much time you can devote to work without being interrupted.

Three hours of work is different than three hours of focus. Most default parents tell me there is often some family matter that requires attention during the day. Schedule the parent-teacher conference. Order larger cleats. Get a birthday gift. Fill out that permission slip. Wonder if your child’s rash is no big deal or will you be at the pediatrician’s office half the day tomorrow. Ok, now back to that quarterly report you are working on.

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