Based on research on thirty heterosexual couples, this article examines the social conditions of fathers’ investment in domestic and parental work, between gender and class. It emphasizes the role of staggered working hours, which lead fathers to be alone at home, as well as situations of hypogamy. While fathers carry out specific work to secure the present and the future, they also take on a daily role of auxiliaries to their spouses. Their participation is the result of the socialization and enrollment work carried out by mothers, which adds to the latter’s domestic and parental load. Finally, the article studies the dynamics of the power relations and sometimes conflictual arrangements within couples: while the economy of conjugal feelings may generate an increased enrollment of fathers thanks to crises, it most often contributes to perpetuating gender inequalities in the private sphere.