‘No cause can be won between dinner and tea, and most of us who were married had to work with one hand tied behind us, so to speak’. These were the words of Hannah Mitchell, a suffragette, written in the 1940s. They still ring true today. Women’s ability to win a cause, or even their rightful place in the labour market, continues to be hampered by the disproportionate responsibility they typically still take for the care of their children and associated housework. Many feminists therefore believe that if women are to achieve genuine equality in the public sphere of the labour market and politics, men have to play a greater role in the private sphere of the home.
The government are in favour of encouraging and enabling fathers to play a greater role in the care of their children. In a 2011 consultation on parental leave they proposed what is sometimes called a ‘daddy month’ i.e. a period of leave reserved for the father on a ‘use it or lose it’ basis. This approach has been pioneered in the Nordic countries and has since been adopted in some other countries such as Germany. It has had a significant impact on the numbers of fathers taking parental leave. And there is evidence that the more the father is involved when the child is very young, the more involved he is likely to be as the child grows older to the benefit of fathers, mothers and also children.
But despite their original support for the idea, the government have got cold feet. Instead of giving fathers an independent right to a period of parental leave, any entitlement will still be dependent on the mother qualifying and on her transferring some of the shared parental leave to him. All that is offered is the possibility of extending paternity leave at some future date, depending on how many fathers take up shared parental leave. This is unlikely to lead to the ‘culture change of shared parenting’ the government says it want to see. So I have tabled an amendment to the Children and Families Bill, with the support of a number of organisations including Working Families and the Fatherhood Institute. We should be debating it in Committee on 18th November. I’d be interested to know if you think it’s a good idea.
Baroness Lister:
Purely from an employer’s point of view, the level of statutory paid and unpaid leave is already onerous. Currently, entitlements (non-gender specific) include:
a) annual leave (paid) – 5.6 weeks or equivalent
b) parental leave (unpaid) – 18 weeks over the first five years for each new child, more if a child is disabled. Maximum of four weeks in one year
c) time off for emergencies (unpaid) – reasonable time off for any dependant, including family adults
d) jury service (unpaid) – indeterminate; for the length of the trial
e) trade union reps (paid) – reasonable, though this can be 100% of contracted hours
An employee can expect reasonable, unpaid, time off for other external activities if s/he is a magistrate, a member of a local authority, police authority or district policing partnership, local education authority, educational governing body, health authority or primary care trust. Although members of the Territorial Army currently conduct the majority of their training over weekends many businesses operate seven days per week. New plans for reservists mean an employee will be absent 25% of each year.
Absenteeism is estimated to be around the 2-3% mark.
Although employees may have their pay made up by the state, the first and often only reason to employ some one is for their time at work.
Finally, ‘daddy month’ is not very sisterly, given that paternity leave is available to women. Have you seen how many people can claim time off for paternity and maternity leave?
The longer timespan fact of father-involvement with ‘his’ children
[some parents, potential parents, and human-development psychologists today seriously distinguish between the ‘best biological father’ and the ‘best thereafter social-father’;
firstly in the 75% lifeplace’s real-life-interactive-education, and personal-cum-social integration (“after-hours real-life-living-and-‘natural’-learning “)
and secondly in the 25% timeframe of the child’s ‘training-for-a-future-workplace’ (schooling)
used to be seen as becoming vital at the child-age of five-years.
And it was experientially found to require very frequent unpressurised one-with-one, child-with-father, hours,
half-days,
whole 12 hour days,
and to a lesser extent an overnighting providing a 24 hour availability,
and better still, a regular weeks-on-end residence at-home with the family.
It certainly appears to be the frequent and regular availability of the father to the child, face to face, hug-for-hug, and from ball-game & leapfrog, and indoors to coolly-focused study-buddy ‘research’ amongst the household or individual’s library of non-fiction books and DVDs or TV documentaries.
Accessibility of, mentoring by, and companionship with, the father is surely as vitally necessary as access to the mother;
and safe access to outside life or work experienced Other adults, and peers.
especially for boys
was the best norm.
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It is not at all clear whether this “father’s month” is expected to replace all of that, and suffice.
JSDM.
men have to play a greater role in the private sphere of the home Which men who ‘consider’ themselves to be men, still won’t do!
more involved he is likely to be as the child grows older
It may be a fairly conventional view of the family you are offering here, but if one third of fathers don’t cohabit with the mothers any way after the children are say 8years old onwards, it must be jolly difficult to decide what the “much more involved” amounts to.
In the past fathers have got more involved witht their sons when they have gotten interesting at the 13-14 year old learning stage, but if they are not in a family home, how does it happen then?
The Daddy month is a good idea, especially since most daddies and mummies are still together(!) as a family at that point. Families seem to crack apart going onwards from there!
Following the nordic lead is an excellent thing to do.
Women in parliament must focus on ‘mothers’ having the luxury of spending a month at home with their children and family life. Whilst men should spend their time keeping their eye on the ball of finance to keep that family and mother able to dedicate her time owed to those same children and family.
If women don’t enjoy domestic life and being with children, the answer is, to remain career oriented and let those maternal types get on with the fun they have being with their own kids and being the ones who raise their children to speak with a fluent vocabulary, eat in a civilised manner, learn to enjoy education and grow healthily.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWY9x8hZvlY
Sweden is for the Swedes, the UK has far better things to do than follow a third rate, man hating society to its doom.
Time for our country to take steps to return to the days when one income, whether that be male or female, is enough to pay a mortgage, support the family and have the simple extras a one worker household used to enjoy.
This country isn’t close to the lifestyle of Europe and cannot follow their patterns. We have a low life almost third world existence, therefore, our children desperately need committed nurturing women who love their roles as being mother.
And here is one of the reasons overtly feminist societies are unhealthy both mentally and physically.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoXQf2f2Yxo
And Europe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRRa9MX7_ZE
“We have a low life almost third world existence”
That really is junk but Emotional neglect paid for with materialism
is certainly not good.
There is a certain kind of family which is still represented by Maude’s spiel, and she has every right to put it forward, rather like the ill-fated John Major family values campaign.
The fact is that government has spent hundreds of years campaigning for family values but only a very few for a newly directed two thirds of the population who have become nuclear families.
“one of the reasons overtly feminist societies are unhealthy both mentally and physically.”
That may not have much to do with Daddy leave but it may not be true either. The undeviating die hard men’s-rights approach is probably not one that any government would adopt in the modern day.
Ah, I thought there would be a clever man able to tell us we are clouded in our observations. So, here we go.
We start with the UK homeless.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U4jFrKvI1M
This next group work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0K7W3q83rE
This is the wonderful life of benefit receivers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avJHYeFbo8c
And the rubbish told by spin doctors in government to cover up what those out of touch people in our society like to swallow. Alleviates the need for action you see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEYP57ectqc
And now for the third world whom we do not resemble.
Africa.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g00XGJ2F1I0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ0712GKly0
India
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN-wm6LXmXY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8j_B21De0Y
Manila
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFW-08R_k0A
Sri Lanka
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1KEHbSFI1A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1e6Y_X-pLo
Borneo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRwaFBl4vmM
Thailand
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g7oFW3s8DI
I could go on but this is enough. Enjoy.
Time to stop the abandonment of children and family and begin taking into account what is ‘best for children’ and their families rather than the emphasis on what is ‘best for business.’
Listen to this in full. It is very important.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AngbSHMrnaU
Abandoned children are acutely insecure and grief stricken. And only those with little knowledge of social connection could believe anything different.
It is impossible for day care facilities to manufacture love and affection in a secure environment even if they want to do so. Which most do not.
http://www.familyfacts.org/briefs/37/daycare-and-childrens-well-being
Giving Dads a month at home will not alleviate the grief of children being left, on a constant daily basis to the care of what is a virtual stranger. And pretending otherwise is absurd.
The surprise figure comes as rising numbers of fathers resort to furtive DNA tests, without the child’s mother’s consent, to check their doubts.