DADS WANT TO BE WITH THEIR CHILDREN TOO !!!

[Daanyeer]

Yes, it's hard for working mums. But dads want to be with their children too

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... fe-balance

After Gaby Hinsliff explained that she was resigning as Observer political editor because her family life was suffering too much, Demos director Richard Reeves argues here that working fathers are finding it just as hard to maintain a healthy work-life balance

Richard Reeves The Observer, Sunday 8 November 2009

Successful, accomplished women have been seen as something of a mixed blessing by men. Rousseau reckoned that a "brilliant wife is a plague to her husband, her children, her friends, her valet, everyone". Of course, we are much more enlightened today. Women outnumber men in medical school, fill growing numbers of senior jobs, and are – slowly – narrowing the pay gap.

The expansion of opportunities for women is the most positive social change of the postwar era. But it has come at a price. Last week's article by Gaby Hinsliff on the agonies and exhaustion of combining professionalism and parenthood will have struck a chord with most working mothers. But there were millions of working fathers who felt her pain, too. The changes in family life are affecting fathers, but less visibly than mothers.

Dads are the ones reporting growing concerns with work-life balance. Most men with a child under the age of one wish they could spend more time with them. And only one in four men now thinks that mothers should be the main carers of children. Sigmund Freud famously asked what women want. Now a bigger question is: what do men want?

Fathers certainly want more flexibility in the workplace, often denied to them by the dinosaur dads of a previous generation. They are the ones who have only just got used to the idea that their female employees become mothers, let alone the possibility that men might be involved in child-rearing. Studies show that requests for flexible hours are more likely to be turned down if they come from men.

These dated attitudes towards fathers can't last. Most of the wives (or partners) of fathers with pre-school children are now in work. In the old days employers operated in a "buy one, get one free" labour market: you employed the man, safe in the knowledge that his wife would be the one doing the night-feeds, running to school to collect sickly children and disappearing from the world of work altogether for a few years.

Seventies-style feminism sought to counter gender injustice through economic means. Women needed financial independence, which meant they had to work and earn alongside men. The trouble was that, if they wanted the good jobs, they ended up having to work in the same way as men. This had positive consequences for economic equality, but not necessarily for the quality of women's lives. Mothers were still expected to be the main carer – hence the endurance of phrases such as "working mother" or "career woman", which make no apparent sense when applied to men. Small wonder that so many quit.


The real change needed now is in the lives of fathers. Men are more engaged in their children's lives than ever, despite the pressures of being the main breadwinner in most households. But their working patterns have not altered significantly. For women to have more equality at work, we need more equality at home; in this struggle for equality, fathers and feminists are on the same side.

I am one of the fortunate men with some real choices, with a partner who, like me, wants to combine a satisfying career with a deep, shared commitment to raising our children. I've been the main earner but I've also spent a few years as the main carer.

It has been said that while mums know their children's hopes and fears, the names of all their friends, dads are vaguely aware that there are some smaller people in the house. In my case I was the one swapping intelligence about teachers, bullies and parties with my fellow "mums". There are some cultural issues to be addressed: institutions tend to default to phoning mothers when children are unwell at school. My partner would sometimes have to take such calls during client meetings in New York, just to tell them I was at home half a mile away.

To be honest, these cultural issues are pretty insignificant. If dads occasionally get left out of the coffee mornings, they only need to consider the decades women had to wait for the vote. The bigger issues are the legal disadvantages faced by fathers. Paternity leave has remained risibly low, even as maternity leave has been extended. Tory proposals to make most of the leave offered to mums and dads transferable between the two are welcome but should be combined with at least some properly paid paternity leave.

There is a belated recognition among some Labour politicians that too much emphasis has been placed on working mothers and not enough on supporting fathers – which in the end will help women, too. It is not up to the government to decide which parent should care for children. In one in five couples the mother earns more than the father. But the current structure of maternity and paternity leave means that it still makes sense for the father to keep working. Pretty soon, as a result of the massive differential in the legal treatment of mothers and fathers, dad becomes the breadwinner – but not necessarily by choice.


As well as promoting equality, policies to help fathers will also relieve some of the pressure on family life. Politicians on all sides lament the increased incidence of relationship breakdown, which is most likely to occur in the years following starting a family, but appear powerless to tackle the entrenched assumptions about gender roles that trap so many men and women, and that are now harming parental relationships.

Much of the conflict in marriages relates to the ill-fated attempt to raise children, sustain a good relationship and hold down two full-time jobs. As far as families are concerned, we really can't have it all. Duncan Fisher, who runs the website dad.info, has gathered research showing that 80% of relationships deteriorate after having children. As far as the vital relationship between mum and dad is concerned, babies are not bundles of joy at all.

If life is difficult at home, it is striking how little conflict there is in other arenas. In previous generations women fought parliament for the vote and workers fought bosses for employment rights. Now men and women are more likely to be fighting each other. The place with long hours of manual labour, bitter disputes over the division of duties and simmering resentment over the distribution of the spoils is not the workplace, but the home of the dual-earner couple with young children. The battles over gender, money and time have been privatised. Industrial relations have mutated into parental relations, as we argue over the kitchen table, diaries in hand, about who should pick the kids up on Tuesday or miss a breakfast meeting to do the school run on Wednesday.

But the way we structure work, the way we raise our children and the shaping of the lives of both women and men are not private matters, but issues of great public concern. Not only to ensure real equality, and move towards the ideal "symmetrical family" described by the writer and social activist Michael Young, but to improve the conditions under which we raise our children.

A century and a half ago, John Stuart Mill described the family as the principal "school of character", the site at which the kind of person we will end up is shaped. New research by Demos shows that character traits, such as the ability to stick at a task or to empathise with others, have become hugely important to life chances and the likelihood of upwards social mobility.

Our analysis, based on data from 9,000 households, also demonstrates that the vital contributing factor to the development of strong character is parenting style. The children of parents who adopt a "tough love" approach – combining consistent love and affection with clear boundaries and discipline – are twice as likely to develop good character capabilities by five as children with "disengaged" parents. Children brought up in the highest income quintile are also twice as likely to develop these important character traits as those from the bottom of the wealth scale, deepening their disadvantaged status.

Character traits have been seen as important to a good life since at least Aristotle's day. But they have become more important in a world of work that requires much greater personal interaction, and because an ability to acquire knowledge has become economically more valuable. Employers value many of these skills more highly than technical ones.

The uncomfortable truth is that a fairer distribution of life chances requires a more even distribution of parenting skill; parents are the primary architects of a fairer society, not least through their capacity to strengthen the character of their children. Contra Philip Larkin, they build you up, your mum and dad.

Politicians love to talk about responsibility but are often silent on the responsibility of parents towards their children. In part this is because of a justified fear of seeming judgmental. But responsibility has to be shared – between parents and the community, between families and schools. Above all, it is high time it was shared between mothers and fathers.


Richard Reeves is director of Demos and co-author of its report Building Character

[Warsan_Star_Muslimah]

True

I was just speaking recently to 'Qarabo adeer' who is taking his Wife to court, since she denied him the right to see his kids.

Kids need both parents there.

[Daanyeer]

True

I was just speaking recently to 'Qarabo adeer' who is taking his Wife to court, since she denied him the right to see his kids.

Kids need both parents there.

Ukhtii SADDAQTI !!!!!!

[Warsan_Star_Muslimah]

I always wondered why you chose certain topics? In any case, you pick interesting ones.

[Daanyeer]

I always wondered why you chose certain topics? In any case, you pick interesting ones.

Ukhtii,


...LOW SAMAXTI...what do u MEAN by CERTAIN TOPICS !!!!


BTW ur AVATAR

[Warsan_Star_Muslimah]

I meant that you choose the topics for us to read, why do you choose these certain topics?

Daanyeer,

Iska fiirso - Laakin it ain't me aboowe. And that is the honest truth.

[Advo]

^that girl in ur avi looks mad familair, does she do somali poetry?

[Daanyeer]

Warsan,

Ukhtii ABBAAYO, I CHOSE these ARTICLES on PURE COINCIDENCE !!!!

[Cinque Mtume]

advo,

walahi she looks very familiar to me to. but I dunno her, wtf?

[Advo]

advo,

walahi she looks very familiar to me to. but I dunno her, wtf?

exactly man, shid is baffling.....U know u know someone from some place but cant put ur fingers around it.

unnecessary ciil

[Warsan_Star_Muslimah]

DY,

In any case, I like them!

Advo,

Food is the only thing that your brain stores. Stop eating, butac baruur badaan

Cinqe,

How is Shitland?

I can only assume the fumes have got to your brain?



































Imagine Warsan this horrible always, how fun, I need to bully people more often. I'm kidding guys. She is the girl that met Hadraawi!! Lucky her She is on youtube.

[Advo]

lool, nevermind now I remember...she's very smart gal


Warsan, I heard u baked the world first suugo cake...I dont know how since ur brain (probably just xtra fat aiding the white blood cells) cannot be questioned when it comes to food.

[SultanOrder]

Warsan do you also happen to be that Somali poet Warsan



I think Danyeer is a Robot, but he has been malfunctioning on his economical threads

lool, nevermind now I remember...she's very smart gal


Warsan, I heard u baked the world first suugo cake...I dont know how since ur brain (probably just xtra fat aiding the white blood cells) cannot be questioned when it comes to food.

[Warsan_Star_Muslimah]

Perfect Order, Warsan Shire is lovely too But, I'm not her, but the name Warsan rocks.


Danyeer is lovely. I heard Black Velvet and 1Londoner had a nasty fight over him. Out of the two of them I won.

[SultanOrder]

Perfect Order, Warsan Shire is lovely too But, I'm not her, but the name Warsan rocks.


Danyeer is lovely. I heard Black Velvet and 1Londoner had a nasty fight over him. Out of the two of them I won.

Its ok your secret is safe with me