Your views on getting dads more engaged and other questions....

[KatieMumsnet]

Hi there

MNHQ have been asked to join the Royal College of Midwives, on a panel at the party conferences to discuss what can be done to get dads more involved in their children's lives (always excepting those dads who do their fair share or more already, of course)

In preparation we’d love to hear your views

Do you feel that current policies around maternity leave, paternity leave, work, childcare etc assume, and therefore usually lead to women adopting the primary caregiver roles for children? If so, what do you think about this?

How involved would you say your DCs' dad is in their daily lives, and how much support did he give you during pregnancy and birth? Were you happy with this level? Is more support always a good thing?

If you think your DC's dad could do more to get involved with your DC's lives, what would make the difference and encourage him? Is this different depending on the age of your child?

If you're separated are you happy with how engaged your child's dad is?

Shared Parental Leave is introduced in April 2015? Are you likely to use this policy? What do you think of it generally?

*From 2015 parents will be eligible for Shared Parental Leave during their child’s first year. So, if parents want to, after a period of at least two weeks that has to be taken by the mother, the remaining entitlement can now be shared between parents.

The panel is primarily looking at the role of dads, but we'd welcome the perspective of any lesbian couples, either about your own relationships or how you involve the biological father, if he is around in the family's life.

Thanks in advance for your input.

MNHQ

I live in a country where parental leave can be shared, and it was. DH is very involved and we support each other. Whether this is because of him using some parental leave or whether he used it because he is involved... I don't know.

I don't think leave should be 'shared'. Dads should get more than 2 weeks paid leave (that's what my husband got anyway). It should be a month to really be able to help out on those precious weeks. Otherwise I think it instills the thought that men go back to work & its the woman that changes the nappies, gets up at night, etc. I'm very lucky that my husband is very hands on despite working 13 hour shifts.

It's not up to women to get more men involved in their children's lives. Why is this our responsibility to "encourage"? It is up to men to make sure they insist upon paternity leave, flexible working etc.
It's an economic question; womens whole lives ending up derailed onto the Mummy Track. This happens because it's them who take all the leave, then comes the idea that the mother is some how solely responsible for childcare costs, and if her individual salary doesnt cover these costs, so we end up with an unbalanced model of family, with men taking disproportionate responsibility for bringing home the bacon, and not enough for the domestic sphere.
If we want things to be more equal, we men to make this happen, by demanding it from their employers. Then it's our job to support them.

We need men to make this happen, I mean.

Why is it up to women to fix it? Are dads fighting for shared leave, flexible working etc?
The whole question of what can we ie women do to fix this really annoys me. Why does it fall to women to fix things for men and the family as the norm?

My husband would have loved to have shared the parental leave and we would have done so if the rule that are coming into place in 2015 were available to us in 2011 and then 2013. I think this concept of being able to share the parental leave is a great one and I would have been very supportive of my husband taking part in it.

Having said that, due to changed working circumstances my husband is at home half the week with our boys and he loves it; he will never regret this time he has had with them.

I do think the policies are discouraging for couples who want to share parenting equally. I ended up going back to work before the end of my paid maternity leave, and DP taking unpaid time off, because we wanted to share the childcare, but you have to be pretty stubborn (and financially stable) to do that.

My dp has always done half the childcare though and still does. That hasn't really been difficult as we have always been agreed on that as important. He's had less support from work - he had to resign twice, from different jobs, to get part time work agreed. The only downside I'd say is that

a) we have two semi-trashed careers rather than one flying and one stalled one. It's nice to share the workplace discrimination but not totally ideal.
b) people tend to think DP is a Living Saint for doing half the childcare, while I'm a Neglectful Absent mother for only doing half. Grr.

We also need to look at the automatic right mothers have to custody on divorce and separation too.

If fathers are to have equal parenting roles, they should have equal rights to main residence and the family home.

My DH is very involved and does everything he can for his kids. In his last relationship, he was the one who took them to clubs and activities, taught them to swim, ride a bike. They both worked so no parent was the "main" carer. Then when she wanted to separate all of a sudden he had no rights. He wanted to be the resident parent and remain in the family home, but was told by his legal team that unless he could prove her "unfit" (drugs, abuse), she would automatically get main custody if she wanted. Purely because she was female she got the house, car and kids, while he was left with nothing but the once a week access she allowed.

My DH is a very equal parent - possibly that I took a relatively short maternity leave, then went back to work ft and travel for work (and he does too, no family help or nanny though), so we really have to pull together to make it work.

I think its not about leave, or policies, its about going into parenthood wanting to be equal parents and working to do so

not working for money, working btw, putting the effort in to it rather than taking the easy path/ what your parents did/what your friends do etc

Depressing that once again, women are being asked to "fix" things for men. If men want more paternity leave, equal custody arrangements, more say in the raising of their children, then they should stop whinging about it and blaming women and actually do it. If a man has taken equal responsibility for the raising of his child from birth, for example, he is in a much better position to petition for joint custody. If enough men said to employers that paternity provision wasn't adequate, something would be done about it. But stop making it women's job to organise it for them!

YY^ to Hakluyt's post above.

Do you feel that current policies around maternity leave, paternity leave, work, childcare etc assume, and therefore usually lead to women adopting the primary caregiver roles for children?

Undoubtedly yes.

If so, what do you think about this?

I'm in favour of it.

How involved would you say your DCs' dad is in their daily lives

Reasonably so, and I would be happy for him to be less so as I see the children's daily lives as my domain.

and how much support did he give you during pregnancy and birth?

Lots, which I appreciated.

Were you happy with this level?

Yes.

Is more support always a good thing?

No - it can also be perceived as interference.

If you think your DC's dad could do more to get involved with your DC's lives, what would make the difference and encourage him? Is this different depending on the age of your child?

I am generally happy with the level of involvement.

Shared Parental Leave is introduced in April 2015? Are you likely to use this policy? What do you think of it generally?

I would not have used it, had it applied when my children were born. It suited our family for me to be the main carer. In principle, too, I think babies and small children fare better with one reliable carer (their mother, all other things being equal), rather than having their care shared between adults - though appreciate that this is an unpopular view on MN.

I also think that paid paternity leave should be longer (4-6 weeks).

We are fortunate in that we've both been able to work 4 day weeks, so each spend a day at home with our child. But the majority I know have been refused flexible working - the "right to request" is a joke as companies can easily turn it down for fabricated reasons.

Men are pretty good at making things they want to happen, happen. Men not getting involved in childcare is largely down to men not wanting to do it.

You shouldn't be asking women how to fix this. You should be asking men why they don't want to do it. And looking for the real reasons they don't want to do it, not just the socially acceptable excuses usually given in surveys about this kind of thing.

Agree with PPs. Why are women being asked about this.
Ask men what would encourage them to get involved.
It isn't our job to cajole, manage and mother grown up men.

And also imagine how offensive it would be if you went on to a predominantly male forum to ask them how to change the behaviour of the wee women!?!
Patronising, sexist and offensive...to both genders.

Mind you,there are plenty of men's forums saying that it's all the fault of women that men don't have their rights, and it's up to women to sort it out...............

I think that shared parental leave is a great improvement, because if men take shared responsibility from the start they will likely be more engaged going forward. None of this 'but I don't know how to' give a bath/change a nappy/feed the baby etc.

But I completely agree that nothing will change significantly until men want it to happen so you need to have real incentives.

In Germany I think you get an extra month of paid parental leave if both parents share the leave equally. Also childcare is virtually free so you don't have this scenario where women can't go back to work unless they can cover childcare costs.

I would also like to know why we are being asked about this.

How to get men involved? Well, it's sort of up to them, isn't it? To choose whether or not they're involved?

Children's centres seem to like the idea of enticing them with bacon sandwiches. I don't know how much it works in reality. I tend to think that if a man doesn't want to be involved, you can't force him to be, and if he does want to be involved then he kind of already can be. I'm not really seeing barriers, TBH - perhaps we could ask men what they perceive the barriers to be? I think that would be much better than us guessing at them.

That said, I love the idea of shared parental leave and we will probably use it (I live in Germany and it's already law here). Taking it in turns so that DH gets some time to be a SAHD. Musicalia as I understand it the shared leave means that if the family wish, the man can take all of the leave (aside from 2 weeks which is about recovery from birth, so he could take the leave at the same time) so it doesn't have to be about shared care, it could be about single care too but just with the man doing it rather than the mother.

Custody (residency, no such thing as custody in this context in the UK) is already equal - it goes on whoever was the main carer. It comes out as unequal because women are overwhelmingly in that position. Having two parents working doesn't mean one parent isn't still the main carer. Things like learning to swim and ride a bike is inconsequential - the main carer is the one doing bedtimes, mealtimes, homework, remembering birthday parties, non uniform days, taking days off for doctors' appointments, etc.

I think it's a bit weird to ask women how to fix men's behavior.

DH has always saved his holiday to have an extra week of paternity which is good, but he does that because he wants to.

I think 6 weeks paternity would be better to give women more time to get breastfeeding properly established, but I don't think it should be knocked off women's entitlement. It's a year so women can exclusively breastfeed and we either recognize that nd is an important thing that only mothers can do or we don't. Men need to work out how they can be involved themselves without chipping away at things women have fought for their own health and that of their babies.

There are quite a few dads on mumsnet - would their views not be useful here?

A big barrier for men I think is the fact that paternity leave (and Shared Parental Leave? I'm not sure) is only paid at the statutory minimum for most of them. This means that many families don't take it because of the financial hit. We need men to take this leave though, to start changing the culture around who is responsible for childcare. Unfortunately, unless employers start giving similar benefits to men that they give to women (e.g. 8 weeks full pay maternity leave in the NHS), this won't change.

So the panel contains MN and the Royal College of Midwives? Are any dad's groups or predominantly male organisations being asked? What about Fathers4Justice?

If not then this panel will just reinforce that childcare is Women's Work and we should be encouraging men to help out. Rather than men taking some responsibility.