Does Fatherhood Deserve To Be Put On A Pedestal?

Does Fatherhood Deserve To Be Put On A Pedestal?

It’s an intriguing question raised by this Tweet from The Feminist Barrister

“Men who do half of the household chores, take care of the baby, pay their way, do emotional labour, are not special, they don't deserve a pat on the back, it should be normal.”

She has a point, in a world of gender inequalities at home and at work, the idea of eulogising dads for doing the very same things that, at best, pass as unnoticed when mums do them, can feel perverse, if not downright disrespectful.

But the word that caught my eye was ‘SHOULD’.

I totally agreed. It SHOULD be normal, but I think there’s a lot of merit in exploring why it might not be ‘normal’ and what we can do to normalise the type of active and involved fatherhood that everyone benefits from.

I’ll come right out with it; I think we do need to put fatherhood on a ‘pedestal’ - at least under some circumstances.

In my line of work, I’m always thinking of ways to help my dads’ work out how to balance work and fatherhood, to solve the challenge of “How to be a great dad, without sacrificing a great career,” and, crucially to recognise and address the barriers that stop dads being “the father they don’t remember growing up.”

I created a poll on LinkedIn and asked

How should society treat involved, equal fathers?

You can join the conversation here.

My options were

1.    Celebrate Them

2.    Ignore Them

3.    It’s Complicated

There were a couple of great builds from Katie “Normalise It” and Elliot “Support Them.”

Frustration

Alison expressed her frustration at the unequal nature of expectations:

“Do we celebrate women today who do all this and more? It should just be normal to share chores, take part in family life and more. We can show our appreciation individually. It just reminds me when my husband does something we all have to be in awe when I seem to do that stuff day in day out 😂 no celebration. No badges of honor.”

While Emma echoed the sense of disrespecting women by celebrating men.

“ 'celebrate' them seems a little insulting to the women who do this day in day out and don't get it recognised let alone celebrated. But yes, definitely support them is the right way to approach this, so it becomes normal for all.”

Normalising

Normalising was also important to Lizzie who talked about positively reinforcing the behaviour we want to see. While Venise talked wrote about “normalizing normal, until it IS "normal”

Social Expectations

Sean picked out the importance of social and family barriers, as well as the importance of encouraging pioneers who want to change how society has told them they should be.

In my mind, this is the crucial part…

With the ONS reporting in July 22 that 83.9% of men are working full time v 38.4% of women, we can’t divorce what men do domestically, from what they are ‘expected’ or perceived to be expected to do at work.

“Most cite fears of being discriminated against professionally, missing out on pay rises and promotions, being marginalised or even mocked as reasons for not taking time off.”

Paternity leave, the hidden barriers keeping men at work.

And this cuts both ways…

“When I first met Lisa, I didn’t think she had kids, because I didn’t think a mum could do this job”

Gender Judgement

And spills over into judgement about men who don’t work. As Laura talks about her husband

"I've lost count of the comments he gets about the fact he is not undertaking paid work while he cares for the children. He is also sadly still one of the only men at many parent events and has been since the kids were babies at play groups."

Unhelpful judgements are everywhere

·      Mums ‘damaging’ their children if they are in nursery too early or for too long.

·      But ‘damaging’ them if they don’t have the social exposure to childcare settings.

·      Talking about nursery fees in the context of mum’s income rather than family income.

·      ‘Lazy’ SAHD dads who aren’t providing and get treated with suspicion.

The truth is that society’s bar for ‘good’ fatherhood is set too low and too narrow to the detriment of too many, while I think the opposite is true for motherhood.

What is normal?

“Men who do half of the household chores… it should be normal”

Frances Cushway and I explore the complexity what ‘normal’ looks like for individuals and relationships in our webinar

“The Home Contract – Managing Second Shift and Mental Load Challenges”

When we think about household chores, it is often through the prism of second shift activities and in that regard, research suggests that in heterosexual relationships, doing half isn’t normal and it also depends on what the task is.

Doing half is much more than the second shift, we also need to consider the mental load, the hidden, often unseen, emotional and cognitive labour.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/26/gender-wars-household-chores-comic

Building Pedestals at work

In a world dominated by damaging gender expectations, 2 weeks of statutory paternity leave (and nothing for the self-employed) and the fear of being seen as uncommitted at work, we absolutely do need to put fatherhood on a pedestal and celebrate and support dads who seek to normalise the domestic equality that we need in society.

No, I don’t think we should be handing out participation medals at home, but in the workplace celebrating fatherhood really matters if we are to reframe the conversation about parenting and ‘commitment’ and improve gender equality in the workplace.

Workplaces need to use policies such as equalised parental leave as an enabler to drive culture change. To encourage and support dads to take extended leave, to work flexibly or part time and to build the skills, experience and empathy that solo parenting inevitably brings.  

When fear, circumstances or expectation prevent dads from seeking out extended parental leave or flexible working it reinforces the idea that caring responsibilities are only for women and frequently we end up with domestic inequalities that manifest themselves as a two-speed race at work where some runners face very different hurdles to success.

 Conclusion.

Let’s go back to the premise - does fatherhood deserve to be put on a pedestal?

My view, absolutely at work.  #Equalitystartsathome, but the foundation for that equality is built by the culture in the workplace.

When we celebrate active and involved fatherhood at work and support new dads through maternity and beyond, we break the reality and perception of a two-speed system and start to remove the fatherhood fear that so that so many dads worry about.  

"Simply telling men that their peers support parental leave and flexible working, increases their intention to share care." 

The Behavioural Insights Team

Your next steps…

Contact me to discover our range of webinars and workshops or to talk about coaching support for new dads.

Join my next free webinar "Why Supporting New Dads At Work Is the Route to Gender Equality", on Tuesday 24th January

PS Why not connect and follow some of those, whose wisdom and insight, I have tapped into here.

Elliott Rae Laura McCambridge Lizzie Martin PCC Alison Main Emma Banister Sean Coffin Frances Cushway Katie Tucker K. Venise Vinegar Dorothy Dalton Daniel Bailey (Assoc CIPD)