From unsympathetic bosses to lifelong conditioning about masculine mores, society provides excuses to shirk our duties as fathers
I don't recall doing much fathering in the first couple of weeks after my children were born. Sure, I was thrilled to engage with nappies filled with a substance resembling rancid guacamole. I may have done the tentative dunk of the head in a lukewarm bath, even cradled the new arrivals in my arms and gently jiggled them while they screamed in my face like angry jackals, but such moments were mere interludes.
My principle job in the first two weeks after each birth was to fetch endless cups of tea, bring pasta by the bucketload, entertain an endless stream of neighbours, friends and relatives and then politely persuade them to leave, at the point of a pitchfork if necessary. Those two weeks should not be called paternity leave – they should be called pitchfork duty.
The real fathering starts later, much later. Sitting up through the night with the first bout of colic. The first time you look around and discover junior has learned to climb and is about to tumble four feet off the edge of the kitchen table. The slow realisation that if you hear the Iggle Piggle song just one more time you will certainly transmute into Pacino at the end of Scarface. That moment which surely every father recalls, when your little darling takes a tumble, scrapes a knee, looks into your eyes and sobs the famous words: "I W-W-WANT M-M-MUMMY." That's what being a father is all about.
In all seriousness, those are the kinds of moments that instil a lifetime's bond and set in place a lifetime's habits between parent and child. They help the child to develop secure psychological attachments and have been proved to have immense long-term benefits for the child, the father and the mother alike.
Finally, the government has assented to overhaul parental leave rights, to allow the 12 months leave that was previously restricted to mothers to be split between mothers and fathers according to the choices of the family. The Institute of Directors is incensed, of course, claiming it will be a "nightmare" for employers. The same kinds of people said much the same about the minimum wage, the Disability Discrimination Act, the Equal Opportunities Act, the Equal Pay Act, the People's Pay Act of 1909 and the abolition of slavery, so I think they'll cope. It should be noted that the last government introduced an entitlement for up to six months paternity leave in 2010, claiming the mother's statutory maternity pay entitlement in her place if she returns to work. That change has had such dramatic impacts on employers that it appears most of them haven't even noticed it happened. The new announcement, for all the fanfare and bluster, is a modest extension.
The more profound change required is not in the legislation, but in the culture. Equalities minister Jo Swinson is right to point out that fathers who take paternity leave, or simply take their turn calling in absent because a child is sick, are often mocked or considered oddities, if not nuisances, in the workplace. There is, however, a related problem captured well in a classic story from the spoof news site the Daily Mash: "New fathers reluctant to spend time with constantly screeching bag of shit."
The satire is well aimed. Most of us who have experienced it would probably agree that being a father, while often a source of great joy, can be a tiresome, tedious experience. The temptation is strong to seize on any excuse to skip out of our share, and society provides no shortage of excuses – from the boss who is difficult about time off, to the colleagues who tease or tut, even the lifelong conditioning about masculine mores, those corrosive, irrational but nonetheless very real mental pressures that say active parenting is demasculating.
The flipside is the quiet approval and social plaudits afforded to women who perform a nurturing, maternal role. All of this combines to create the psychological environment where it is less stressful for everyone if we play along to our prescribed gender scripts.
All politicians now pay lip service to active, involved fathering. Creating a society where it is a practical norm rather than a theoretical ideal will take more than legislation, but legislation is a good place to start.
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