Why we need to make fathers visible

A protest was held this week at the Scottish Parliament. Picture: Andrew Carr | Andrew Carr

There was an amiable gathering of fathers and mothers, and babies in slings and buggies outside the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday afternoon, protesting the poor provision of paternity leave in the UK. The Singing Mamas sang ‘Under Pressure’ and a parental leave version of ‘Bella Ciao’.

Paternity leave was introduced by Labour in 2003. In cash, it amounts to less than half the minimum wage. In duration, a basic two weeks. Hundreds of employers, of course, add their own more generous schemes on top of the statutory obligation. I discovered on Wednesday, that the Scottish Parliament is not among them. The campaign for fathers to spend more time with their partner and new child is like being in favour of virtue. Who can disagree?

The narrow focus on paternity leave, however, could be the key that opens up a much-needed wider debate on the visibility and positive resource of fathers that has been dormant during a period of significant demographic change.

I look back to 2012 and the launch of the Scottish Government’s National Parenting Strategy. The Minister for Children and Young People, Aileen Campbell, gave a passionate speech. She said, “Valuing parents is one of the single biggest ways of giving the nation’s children the best start in life.” It was part of the ambition for “Scotland to be the best place in the world to grow up.”

There were 14 pages of ‘commitments’. One page was specifically about fathers under the strapline ‘Parents facing additional challenges’. Funding was put in place “for organisations such as Men in Childcare, working to redress the existing gender imbalance and the need for more men in early years settings.”

The redoubtable Kenny Spence who has been driving the cause of men in childcare, reports the funding raised the number of men in the early years workforce from 2% to 4%. Is 4% in early years, or 9% of male staff in Primary Schools, enough?

Families Need Fathers Scotland – that’s us. We changed our name to Shared Parenting Scotland in 2020 to reflect the evolution of our client base as we took more calls from mothers, grandmothers and new partners. We were funded to “provide support to fathers and other family members facing contact problems with their children.” Much of our casework reveals the kaleidoscope of embedded barriers and disincentives to sharing parenting after divorce or separation.

There was a commitment to a “twice-yearly fathers round table meeting acting in an advisory capacity on national policy and how it impacts fathers.” The Fathers Advisory Board was very useful but just faded away about 2018.

There have been Third Sector bright spots. The birth of Dads Rock which now reaches across Scotland was based on the building the role and recognition of fathers in parenting from ante-natal classes onwards. Fathers Network Scotland came up with the Year of the Dad in 2015, which had buy-in from all sectors. Its annual Dads Survey is now becoming a valuable longitudinal study of both the time fathers are spending with their children, as well as the pressures they experience when balancing parenting with work – feeling guilty at both.

This would be a good time for policy makers at local and central government level to revisit and renew that 2012 commitment to a coherent parenting strategy.

John Forsyth is Policy Manager at Shared Parenting Scotland