It's Our Child: Is Your Husband A Penguin Dad?

Financial advisor Darsh Nehwal wakes up at 6am on most days. He tiptoes to his daughter Trisha’s room so as to not wake his wife, wakes her up and gets her ready for school. He feeds her breakfast while telling her a story, checks if her bag has everything she needs, puts in her craft project and takes her to the bus stop.

Since he works from home on most days, he takes her out to the park and even for ballet lessons in the evenings. His wife Siya runs a flourishing travel and tourism business and often travels or works late at night.

Indian urban parenting is undergoing a change and a pleasant one at that. There is a new tribe on the rise - the tribe of the penguin dads. These dads are like male emperor penguins, those who put in an equal amount of effort in raising their kids as the mummy penguins.

This trend (we hope it stays) was noted by a survey conducted by e-retail giant Flipkart. About 1700 fathers across 17 cities participated in the survey. Bengaluru fathers turned out to be most involved, with over 91% dads helping their children. Hyderabad sat at the bottom, with only 20% penguin dads.

What’s surprising was it was observed that 80% dads attend school functions and activities on a regular basis and 50% dads expressed their desire to be stay-at-home dads!

The penguin dads have experienced other great things too! The Flipkart survey says that 58% dads had become more patient as involved fathers, 27% gave up smoking and 22% gave up drinking. Mums who earlier have tried everything to make their partners give up smoking are surprised that just by being involved with the child made dads kick the butt easily.

Hopefully, the tribe of the penguin dads keeps growing as we need two pairs of hands to rock the cradle and save the world!

Disclaimer: Information has been sourced from Times Of India