Better than an Assumption
If you saw my Instagram after the Nyon triathlon, you saw the good version: A nice montage of swimming, running, my children cheering me on.
The photo I didn't share was this one: me at the finish line. Yea, that’s me on the right there - feet barely leaving the ground, mouth wide open gasping for air.
I was exhausted. I was sad. And I was mad.
Because technically, I hadn't finished the race.
My relay partner and I missed the timing cutoff by a couple of minutes. My tracker was removed before the final 5km of my run, and although I kept going and crossed the finish line, my result says DNF (aka did not finish, aka pretty much the worst result you could ever have in a race).
And when my tracker was taken off, my motivation, energy and life force left with it. Those final 25 minutes were brutal. I wanted to walk, to cheat, to stop. I just wanted to go home.
The more I think back on the experience, the more I realize that a big part of what happened came down to two assumptions I made.
My cycling partner had volunteered through a local mums' group. I was so happy to find someone that I never asked about her cycling experience, her expected time, or what she wanted from the race.
I simply assumed that someone volunteering for the cycling leg of a triathlon would be a regular cyclist who was comfortable with the distance.
Then I made a second assumption: that she'd read all the race instructions and knew there was a cutoff time for her to finish biking.
She hadn't.
Neither of these things was her fault. I hadn't asked, and I hadn't told her.
Would asking have changed the result? Maybe. Maybe not.
But one thing is for sure: communication certainly wouldn't have hurt.
You know the saying, “Assumptions make an ass out of u and me.” (Assume = ass + u + me.) That one has been running through my head every time someone asks me how the race went.
A reasonable hypothesis. Still an assumption.
This week, running for the first time since the disappointing race, I set out on the same course. I passed the places where I'd checked my watch, where I'd realized how little time I had left, and where I'd tried and failed to make it up.
Somewhere along that run, reliving those moments, I started thinking about the assumptions I'd made before the race. And about being wrong. And then about some assumptions I'd made in my work.
This spring, I interviewed fathers and managers for our 2026 research into parenthood and work.
Going into the fathers' research, I was particularly interested in the things we weren't talking about: conflicting expectations, invisible pressures and the uncertainty of trying to be a different kind of father while remaining unchanged professionally.
So I asked:
What surprised you most about becoming a parent?
What expectations — spoken or unspoken — existed around your role?
What pressure do you quietly carry that isn't discussed?
And I had a strong idea of what I would hear.
I'd already been thinking and writing about what happens when the old rules no longer quite apply — what I called theDisappearance of Defaults.
If men today were trying to father differently from their own fathers, while workplaces and social structures hadn't necessarily evolved at the same pace, I expected that gap to create quite a lot of uncertainty.
It was a reasonable hypothesis.
It was also an assumption.
Both a hypothesis and an assumption are unproven explanations of how the world works. But a hypothesis is something we test. And I am so glad we did.
Because only 8% of fathers reported unclear expectations around their role.
Instead, we found men overwhelmingly creating a different model of fatherhood from the one they'd grown up with — and largely happy with it.
84% said they were parenting differently from the previous generation, and 71% of all fathers were satisfied with the role.
And when fathers did want their role to change, one finding particularly stood out:
24% wanted to do more childcare.
0% wanted to do less.
That surprised me.
Not because I was particularly surprised that fathers wanted to be involved. (Also, if you agree to take a survey or talk to a stranger about fatherhood, you are obviously already a pretty engaged father… so our research had a selection bias.)
What I hadn't expected was how comfortable many of them seemed to be creating something new.
I had assumed that the disappearance of an old default would leave uncertainty. Instead, it seemed almost the opposite: that the disappearance of a defined role as the breadwinner or overworked father left behind potential and possibility — to change, to decide, to build a life that reflects personal, professional and family ambitions.
Solutions need a problem first.
And I'd already started doing what we all tend to do when we think we've identified a problem: imagining solutions.
Should And You create a fathers' support group? Should we add a male coach or provider to our wellness team?
There is nothing wrong with any of those ideas. But they were solutions to a problem I hadn't actually established existed.
Research doesn't require you to arrive without an opinion. You ask a question. You form a hypothesis. Then you collect the evidence and find out whether the evidence agrees with you.
But research does require that you are ready for the evidence to disagree with you.
And there are an awful lot of assumptions floating around parenthood and work:
- That mothers want to step back.
- That fathers are primarily concerned with providing financially.
- That a supportive manager will instinctively know what to do.
- That flexibility is what every parent needs.
- That if nobody says there's a problem, everything is okay.
Any one of those things might be true for an individual.
The problem is treating them as true for everyone without asking.
What changes when we ask
I've seen what happens when we do ask.
Our 2025 research didn't simply become a report that sat on a website. What women and HR teams told us changed what we built: a course on pumping, return-to-work coaching, manager training and a parental leave platform to guide the experience from pregnancy through return and adaptation for parents, managers and HR.
As much as I enjoy conducting the interviews, analyzing the data, and writing and designing the report, the point of the whole process is actually to gather evidence.
Not to build a case for something I've already decided to create, but to find out what is actually worth creating.
And this year's research has done that again.
The fathers I spoke to weren't asking to be rescued from a role they disliked. They were largely satisfied with the role they were creating, while also telling us where they wanted to do more.
The managers told us they felt confident leading parents through leave and return, but would like more structure, information and tools to navigate these transitions well.
And that, magically — but perhaps not surprisingly — aligns with where we put our energy last year. It makes me even more excited to get our parental leave platform, PLAY, into companies this fall.
Because now the voices of mothers, fathers, managers and HR agree on a few things — and we're in a unique position to respond to what they're telling us.
Probably isn't definitely.
Assumptions are useful. Our brains make them constantly. We'd get very little done if we had to verify every piece of information before acting on it.
The trouble starts when we forget which things we know and which things we've simply decided are probably true.
When probably becomes definitely.
When I imagine they want quietly becomes they need.
When one question, one conversation could have told us the difference — and often so much more.
Sometimes the assumption turns out to be right.
Sometimes asking reveals something much more interesting.
And sometimes, apparently, it tells you that you really should have asked your cycling partner how fast she rides a bike.
Our 2026 whitepaper is ready. It brings together what mothers, fathers, and managers told us about parenthood and work — including a few things I didn't expect.
I'm very excited to finally share it with you.
No assumptions required.
Read the 2026 Whitepaper
(And then share it with your manager!)
Stay Curious,
Erica
