Eight things I think should change….
….to create a stronger expectation of and support for fatherhood.
Government is making good progress in some areas of policies and services – early years, work with the most vulnerable families in the community, and promotion of involvement by schools of fathers in their children’s learning.
But these areas need some more action.
1. How men work
We need a new approach to workplace culture that focuses on the working patterns of men. The single biggest external influence on how parents organise caring and working between themselves is expectations on them at work. By and large, workplaces still penalize those who compromise work for caring responsibilities and they assume that women will do this rather than men.
Discrimination follows, pushing mothers and fathers into separate roles. Workplaces lose out on women’s contribution and children lose out on their father at home. Government policy reinforces this: mothers get 39 weeks paid leave after a baby is born, fathers get 2 weeks, the biggest difference between parents in the world. Gender equality policy focuses only on regulating employers and supporting mothers with professional childcare; the working patterns of men are not tackled and the economic incentives to discriminate against women remain in place.
2. Maternity care
We need to develop a new family focused approach to maternity care, where the birth of a baby is the birth of a new family. Even if we remain within a purely medical model, fathers are the biggest influence on the health of mother and baby and must be engaged systematically on those grounds alone. Whilst individual midwives, who see more fathers than any other health professional, find their own ways to provide good support to both parents, they are not backed by Government policy.
Policy requires only two questions to be asked about a father – whether he has genetic abnormalities on his side of the family and whether he is violent. Whilst important, on their own these questions convey a negative message. Every mother is given a magazine as she leaves the maternity unit, Mum Plus One and the NHS guides for parents are addressed to the mother alone.
3. Youth services
We need to take seriously the fatherhood of young men, particularly those who are emotionally undernourished and culturally alienated. Fatherhood offers an opportunity for entry of these young men into a new domain of positive relationships and provides an increased opportunity for their children to escape the cycle of disadvantage. 25% of young men in the youth justice system are fathers – 6 times the national average for the age group.
4. Employment services
We need to create targeted support for unemployed fathers, to enable them to continue a financial contribution to their children and to find work compatible with a caring contribution also. Employment services ask only women if they have caring responsibilities.
5. Careers services
We need to promote the care of children as a valuable occupation, and one that men can do as well as women. 25% of boys are interested in considering caring professions; only 2% are offered experience in this area by careers advice services.
6. The system for separated families
When parents separate, we need a system that sees two parents operating apart, both having to adapt to new earning and caring roles that cannot be allocated as previously. The systems for child support, benefits, tax and housing all assume that one of the parents no longer has any caring role, just a financial one. The terms “lone parent” and “absent parent” reveal social constructions about separate parenting that usually accord little with reality.
7. Domestic violence services
Domestic violence strategies need to listen more carefully to what victims want and need – often the cessation of the violence of a partner, not just temporary physical removal and punishment. Perpetrator programmes, particularly those working with parents, have been shown to be effective.
8. Child protection
A common theme in child protection and child death cases is weak or no engagement with either natural fathers or men living in the same household as the victim. These men may be perpetrators of abuse or potential protectors of the child and the safety of children requires their systematic engagement.
