On Friday the 10th July, “Four Fab Fathers” came together as guests of Rachel Vecht, founder of Educating Matters.

Full recording can be viewed here Access Password: 5w!B=*i!

Like ageing pop stars, we jostled with top billing and soundbites. Early attendees were treated to the sort of behind the scenes banter and rubbish jokes that you would expect from 4 white middle class dads (mostly in their 40s!)

Joking aside, the webinar was such a success we broke the internet – well Zoom had a technical issue that unexpectedly and annoyingly capped live attendees at 100. Lockdown maybe easing but technology shenanigans are still waiting to catch people out.

Contributors were Brian Ballantyne, Dan Reed, James Millar and myself, Ian Dinwiddy

Links to our work in the footnotes.

Quotes throughout were taken anonymously from the chat box.

Positives of Lockdown

James talked about time with his family, while recognising that isn’t a positive for everyone – depending on relationship tensions and available space, but for him real quality time without any fear of missing out and being able to eat flavoured crisps without their air pollution hampering face to face meetings!

Brian appreciated the chance to decompress, relishing the lack of a stressful commute.  

Dan reflected on the unprecedented chance to spend time with his daughter, just turned 1, experiencing her milestones and being there for bedtime. In broader terms he made a great point about the democratisation of individual voices, with face to face opportunities likely to remain limited, location is no longer seen a disadvantage.

For me it was about the opportunity to invest in family time – weekend walks, movie night and eating together every day. We were all grateful and understanding of the privilege to have space inside to work and outside space to play.

Poll: What is the biggest challenge for working fathers?

A culture of presenteeism was the ‘winner’ with 42%, ahead of options

• choice of flexible working denied,
• fear of job loss and
• obstructive line manager.

Here is selection of other challenges identified in the live chat

“Fear of cultural stereotype and social judgement”

“Sexism, managers, male and female, assuming that it should be a woman looking after children”

“Fear of Job Loss – if you’re not available then it’s not viewed upon ‘favourably’ “

“I think working Dad’s themselves are part of the problem in recognising their own journey, its challenges and being willing to reach out for help”

Challenges of Lockdown

Moving onto a discussion on the challenges of lockdown, James found it hard to find time to yourself and your own thoughts – despite the benefits of being together as a family there was a recognition from all of us that your own physical and emotional space really matters.

In contrast to Brian, Dan had found himself missing the commute – his time to listen to a podcast, play on the Switch or read. Instead replaced by zero commute time and a flip from “family mode” to “work mode” at 08:59 without so much as 15 minutes of mindfulness.

Brian’s comment about a “Maslow reset” (Hierarchy of Needs) resonated in the comments with worries about basic needs such as health, food (and toilet paper) having taken priority in the psyche.

We had all found it tricky to set and maintain barriers between work and home life, while at the same time accepting that one of the key ways for everyone to survive the process was to accept a degree of blend between work and family life, no matter how messy that could get.

What are the implications of the experience of working flexibly and remotely during lockdown for dads in future?

What key lessons can we take from this experience?

After these initial thoughts Rachel took us into bigger topics around flexible and remote working for dads, as Dan noted, many men see formal flexible working as “for mums.”

You can see why when last year Daddilife’s “Millennial Dad At Work” survey found that 63% of men surveyed had requested some form of flexibility, but of those who requested working from home (1-2 days a week), less than 1 in 5 of those were successful in their request (19%).

This isn’t flexible working

Early in lockdown James wrote an article pointing out that this version of remote working was not working from home and Dan echoed that point.

There’s nothing flexible about being forced to work from home in a space you share with your family and with school, formal childcare and informal family babysitting being taken away in one fell swoop.

My own experience of coaching and mentoring dads during Lockdown tells me that despite the practical and emotional challenges of lockdown, dads have also seen the benefits of being much more active and involved parents. They don’t want to return to the working structures of 2019, they want to design something that fits around their family life.

I think that that says a lot for just how broken the system has been, when, despite everything, a man in a 2 bed flat with a young baby tells you he wants to work from home regularly in the future.

Benefits

I think that despite the chaos, stress, and tension of this surreal version of remote working, we’re learning something what single dads have always known –  that breadwinner and carer are not separate roles.

As Michael Ray https://michaelray.com.au/ pointed out in the comments:

“My current bug-bear is the preponderance of equality advocates who are too eager to classify bread-winning as somehow separate to care giving rather than a vital part of it which has allowed employers to be wilfully blind to parental responsibilities”

This messy, though ultimately rewarding, blend of work and life maybe be flawed but we want more of it.

Assumptions have flipped

Brian mused that the default has flipped. For office-based workers the default was office, with possibly some home / coffee shop / remote location and now we’ve gone the other way.

Yes there are consequences, as LinkedIn Change Maker John Adams pointed out this week, while major city / town centres and public transport firms will struggle in a new world of remote working, it does create an opportunity to rebalance the economy away from tax efficient corporate entities and into the hands of the local cafes and restaurants for instance.

Choice

Ultimately it needs to be about choice. Giving dads some sort of choice as to where to work to meet business and family objectives.

As James said recently, this is the route to “help fathers thrive and companies succeed.”

Not everyone wants to be in the office all the time, not everyone wants to be at home all the time, my wife (lawyer) is case in point. As part of writing this, I asked her what her ideal would be – 3 days in the London office, 2 days at home. But currently the 35-minute train journey isn’t very appealing…

At this point another poll Rachel ran showed – 82% planned to work more flexibility than pre-covid.

What guidance would you give to companies looking to support working dads and improve their experience at work, so they are able to be great employees and great dads

Ditch the assumptions

My response was stop assuming that working dads don’t have caring responsibilities or desires to be more involved in their children’s lives.

It’s so important to dig deep and have proper time-consuming human to human conversations to understand what sort of support each employee needs. The pressure and tension a dad might be facing as he tries to juggle his responsibilities may not be obvious, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Men have become adept at concealing the pressure they face, presenting a face of devotion to their business.

Companies need to treat everyone as individuals and understand that caring responsibilities aren’t just for mums. That sort of lazy thinking creates a 2-tier system that does nothing for gender equality, mental health or productivity.

From the chat box:

“Managers are key here. They should understand the individual’s needs and encourage them to flex in the way they need to. Plus, role model themselves.”

Understand intersectionality

This comment from the chat illustrates how the mental health pressures that dads face collides with ethnicity:

“Sadly, I was signed off because of the extreme pressure and now there is another dad (a good friend) with 2 small children, he’s been signed off for 4 weeks (I was signed off for 2 weeks). Being the only black man in the office, I feel all your pressure plus…”

Understand the effect of school holidays – especially in 2020

It’s especially important at the moment – school summer holidays have started, and the vast majority of childcare settings are shut, plus large numbers of grandparents will still be shielding until at least 1^st August.

Now is the time for business to understand the childcare responsibilities and support needs for all of their staff.

Tap into empathy

James talked about companies being both mindful of the return work challenges of returning from furlough AND also seeing it as an opportunity to improve empathy towards maternity returners amongst others.

“I’ve been on shared pat leave it is obviously great but a real eye opener for the bump back to work post maternity leave”

Identify and celebrate senior male role models

Working dads take their signals on behaviour from their male leadership.

Brian talked about changing to a more authentic version of himself, becoming a role model for active and involved fatherhood – blogging about fatherhood. His view was that if you can’t be yourself, consider if your company is the right place for you anyway.

But Dads do need to ask…

Lockdown has improved the awareness of personal circumstances and an element of everyone being in a similar boat. Communication has been enhanced, through the lens of Zoom it’s become more personal. Now more than ever is the time to future proof your life.

To ask for the long-term flexible working patterns you and your family need. If you’re a working dad with a working partner, what happens if you don’t push back?

Who picks up the pieces? Who looks after the children?

The good news is that good businesses will want to help.

So, if not now, then when?

Dads face risk

“The difficulty with asking for flexibility is that you worry that if the answer is no, then there will be further consequences in terms of career opportunities in future… I’m ashamed to say that I’ve put this (Zoom) in my calendar as a “private” meeting so my team can’t see what I’m doing at the moment.”

But we need to keep shouting about the benefits of flexible working.

Not just shouting because as James said on our podcast, it’s harder to be heard with a face mask on…

• Productivity Benefits
• Mental Health Benefits for the whole family
• Achievement benefits for our children
• Improved relationships with partners = happier employees
• Saving money on commuting
• Saving money on office space

Don’t feel guilty about being a dad. Speak up, because it might be easier than you think.

“Sometimes things you think others would find difficult are actually OK, but we are worried what others would think”

“Yes, if we didn’t worry about what people thought, we would just ask for it.”

Enhanced Parental Leave is so important.

Shared Parental Leave suffers because families can’t afford to use it and it is dependent on a transfer of rights (usually from a woman to man)

James talked about the benefits Aviva found with 6-month full paid gender neutral parental leave – giving others the opportunity to step up and improving the skjills and capability of the business.

Gender neutral leave is also really important for same sex relationships:

“I’m a mother in a same sex relationship and because I wasn’t the pregnant one, I was also only entitled to two weeks paid time off (despite breastfeeding!) The policy documents that applied to me were named “paternity” policies.”

This comment hit the nail on the head:

“Puppies aren’t just for Christmas and dads aren’t just for parental leave – both have ongoing needs and responsibilities. Too many organisations are patting themselves on the back after providing a shared parental leave policy and then frowning when dad requests to attend school sports day, lipstick on a pig”

Finally, in one-word what would like to see happen in the workplace for dads.

James – Awareness

Ian – Mentoring

Rachel – Communication

Brian – Authenticty

Dan – Openness

Connect to us

Brian Ballantyne    

Dan Reed       https://www.careerdad.co.uk/

James Millar        

Ian Dinwiddy https://www.inspiringdads.co.uk/

PS

A note from the chat

“Working Dad stoicism – this forum is shattering that antiquated, defuncted belief system. It’s wonderful to hear that Dad’s no longer need to suppress their emotions or fear reprisals or shame for doing so. This is so refreshing, revitalising, and becalming”

‘I never thought of you as someone who does DIY,’ was my Dad’s reaction to the news that I’d managed to fix our washing machine. Inspired by the YouTube videos of eSpares.co.uk, I successfully replaced the carbon brushes in our Bosch washer; I keep the worn-out coils in a souvenir box like baby’s first kiss-curls. My Dad was right, I’d never imagined myself that I would be able to repair any kind of domestic appliance, but unable to get a professional round during the Covid crisis, it was time to roll up my sleeves and have a crack at it.

My sleeves were already rolled up from a few weeks of handwashing laundry in our bathtub; at one point I even considered investing in a mangle to squeeze more water out of the dripping wet clothes and towels. Covid lockdown was becoming a stark reality-check on the basics of living together as a family. From laundry and cleaning, constant cooking and washing up, to face-masked grocery shopping, all while trying to keep the kids on track with school, and the ball rolling with work. And I am one of the lucky ones, with a job that I can do from home … on the eye-tiring screen of my laptop, and with a WiFi connection that regularly crashes.

Instability has been a theme for me during Covid, not just for the internet, but psychologically in terms of mental strain, and physically for the health and safety of my family. Before the start of lockdown I was terrified that one of my children was going to catch the virus, and I lay awake at 3am thinking through how I could nurse him, while avoiding contaminating the whole family. The next day, once the children were finally off school, I fed them oranges in the hope of boosting their immune systems, to stand more of a chance of fighting Corona if they got it. As a loving father, I have always tried to shield my children from danger.

Setting boundaries is an important part of parenting, and kids can feel more secure when they have a boundary to kick against. During Covid I also set boundaries for myself, on when I am going to be online with work, when I am present with the family, and frankly when I need time to disconnect on my own. When everyone is on top of each other and going stir crazy, it’s inevitable that tensions will flare up, so communication has been vital, trying to recognise and express our needs to each other. If I have video calls for work, I chalk the times on the IKEA blackboard in our kitchen, alongside our “Family Member of the Day” award (we vote on a winner, and they get a song from Alexa and choose what we watch on Netflix).

A major part of my mental perseveration during Covid, beyond social media distancing, has been walking in our local Luxembourg forests. Taking time each morning to get outdoors, in amazing weather, has been an effective way to clear my head and keep things in balance. It is definitely something that I will try to keep as we emerge into a new normal. There are many things about flexible working and engaging with my family that I’d like to continue, although working from home is certainly going to be less stressful once the kids are back at school. I have mixed feelings about going back to the office, top of mind is booking a holiday! For this Father’s Day, I will be content with the simple pleasure of an empty laundry basket.

By Brian Ballantyne

Author of Confessions of a Working Father

When I was growing up in a market town in Somerset, dads went to work and provided, and mums looked after the house and made sure everyone was fed.  We didn’t know any gangsters, so my dad was the first person I knew who had a Carphone (back when The Carphone Warehouse seemed like the obvious name for a business).

He was a surveyor, out on the road in Somerset – calling in his reports over the phone to be typed up in the office. But despite the technology there never seemed any danger of being ‘always on’, technology was an enabler.

In fact, my dad even had flexible working – he scheduled his own diary of house surveyor visits and frequently made his schedule fit the away sports matches my brother and I were involved in on Wednesdays.

30 years on I can look back and appreciate that he had the type of hands on involved parenting opportunity that many men today are striving to achieve.

Flexible working and Paternity Leave initiatives are bound up together. They both represent potential opportunities to support the desire of a new generation of men to have greater involvement in raising their children and by doing so to move towards equality of opportunity in the home and the workplace for both genders.

There’s a long way to go to normalise equality of choice when it comes to parenting but on International Men’s Day it’s good to reflect on some of the key milestones towards parenting equality.

Key Milestones

• 1999 Set up of the Fatherhood Institute – “a great dad for every child”
• 2003 Statutory Paternity Leave

In 2001, Gordon Brown included men’s right to paternity leave in his Budget and, from 2003, male employees received paid statutory paternity leave for the first time.

• 2011 Additional Paternity Leave

Fathers were given the right to take six months statutory paternity leave while their partners returned to work, in effect taking the place of the mother at home.

• 2014 Flexible Working Rights

The right to request flexible working was extended to all UK employees with at least 26 weeks’ service with the same employer on 30 June 2014.

• 2015 Shared Parental Leave

Shared Parental Leave allows you to share up to 50 weeks’ parental leave and 37 weeks’ pay with your partner. Each parent can take up to three blocks of leave, more if their employer allows, interspersed with periods of work.

• 2017 Aviva set the bar high for parental leave

From November 2017 Aviva became the first UK firm to offer up to one year of leave, of which 26 weeks’ is at full basic pay for each parent employed by the company within the first 12 months of a child’s arrival.

• 2018 NZ Prime Minister takes Maternity Leave

Jacinda Arden took 6 weeks of maternity leave while in office and then her partner, a TV presenter, became a stay-at-home dad to baby Neve, a great example of showing that no job is too big for spending time with your children.

• 2019 Standard Life Aberdeen raised the parental leave bar still higher

When they became the first to offer 9 months full pay parental leave.

More to be done

I was amazed to discover that paid paternity leave has only been around since 2003 in the UK and even 15 years on, when a child is born the dad (or the other parent or partner) gets just two weeks statutory paternity leave paid at £148.68 per week, less than half of minimum wage. 

Shared parental leave uptake is very low:

Analysis by the University of Birmingham found only 9,200 new parents (just over 1% of those entitled) took shared parental leave in 2017-18. That increased to 10,700 in the financial year 2018-19.

Just as additional leave suffered too

“Just 1.4% of new fathers taking it in 2012-13. In 2011-12, the first year the scheme was in operation, just 0.8% of eligible dads took advantage of it.”

What can be done

Two things need to be addressed

1. Financial constraints – Fathers are much more likely to already be earning more than their partners and therefore find it harder to take leave at statutory rates
2. Cultural constraints – the question of where society, employers and men perceive they belong. Too often we casually default to assume men to be the main breadwinners and women as the primary carers.

The Labour party pledge in 2015 to double the length and pay of statutory paternity leave had potential to be a big step in the right direction https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31253409. but has sadly disappeared to be replaced by increased maternity leave – to find out why that is problematic you’ll need to read this https://www.daddilife.com/labour-maternity-and-men/

Moves around the fringes of government are important indications as to which way the wind is blowing – even if parliamentary time seems taken up with other activity…

October 2018

In October 2018 the government announced that it planned to consult on a bill that would require large employers to publish their parental leave package. Read more here

July 2019

Helen Whately, Conservative MP for Faversham and Mid Kent a introduced the flexible working bill, to make all jobs flexible by default unless the employer has a sound business reason why particular hours in a particular place are required. Read more here about what this #FlexforAll bill is all about.

Some good moves but in the UK we remain a way away from the gold standard of well paid, protected parental leave for fathers.

Why does parental leave matter?

Men Gain Empathy & Awareness of Bias

“Would my job be safe? What would it mean for my career? How would it impact my team?” Then, he adds: “It hit me like a freight train. These are worries that women in the workplace have been facing for generations”.

Source: FT – Time off for new fathers raises bias awareness

Not only that, but dads accessing parental leave has significant and long-lasting benefits towards equality in the household.

In households where men were given the opportunity to use this benefit, fathers’ daily time in household work was 23 percent higher, long after the leave period ended. 

Source: Council on Contemporary Families

Well paid protected leave is a key part of breaking cultural assumptions which perceive childcare as a woman’s job, it supports equality of choice in families and is good for mental health, relationships and women’s income prospects.

On International Men’s Day we should be setting the bar much higher than 2 weeks of below minimum wage leave. It does nothing for families, for fathers or for mothers.

This is what society and business needs:

1. Day one flexible working as a default position for all.
2. Equalise parental leave provisions for new parents.
3. Provide men with paternity coaching before and after their paternity leave.
4. Identify and support senior fatherhood role models.
5. Create, support and persevere with fatherhood community initiatives in the workplace.

guest post by Ian Dinwiddy founder of Inspiring Dads

Having just had Father’s Day, it’s worth reflecting on what dads really want. We know a lie in would be good, socks even better and maybe a novelty selection of real ales. But in terms of the workplace, dads just want to have options. Options about how to organise their working lives, without being told that they can’t raise their children or that being a committed dad means you can’t be committed to work.

A New Generation of Dads

A whole new generation of men want to be much more actively involved in raising their children. They expect equality in the workplace and at home and they are frustrated when their needs and the needs of their families can’t be met.

In short they want to be great dads and have great careers.

GQ magazine found that the number 1 aspect of modern masculinity, identified by 66% of Men was “being a present father”.

 Source: GQ Magazine

But it can be tough when this desire to be an active present father is dismissed or not taken seriously…

Dads are changing jobs to get what they want.

 

Daddilife and Deliotte Report – THE MILLENNIAL DAD AT WORK

The Millennial Dad at Work

Not all men or families are the same.

Income and childcare priorities change and for many heterosexual couples the certainty of a man being fully committed to his career, while a female partner takes on the majority of the childcare can give great comfort and certainty.

However we do an enormous disservice to society, the workplace and individuals when we assume that men don’t want to be fully involved as parents. That attitude is no more valid or helpful than assuming that women only want to stay at home and look after children.

Choices!

We need to allow couples to make genuine choices – both for their own benefit and for benefits of building gender diverse workplaces.

When we cannot tell whether a man or a woman is more likely to take parental leave or seek flexible working, gender ceases to be an issue in hiring and promotion decisions.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

As a man access to flexible work can be difficult to achieve. It can be seen as a perk of seniority or as something that solves a female childcare ‘issue’.

72% feared their employer’s reaction if they asked for flexible working.

Source: Workingdads.co.uk

But when it works well the benefits to the man, the family and their partner are clear to see as the ‘Good’ storyof Susha and Magnus and will show. The example of the ‘Bad’ show how a lack of flexibility for Dads will cost businesses their talent and the motivation and good will of their staff. Finally the ‘Ugly’ shines a light on the type of casual dismissive bias that one man faced trying to access part time work. It shows how attitudes towards men’s flexible and part time working desires can directly and negatively effect women’s aspirations.

Things will change but this Father’s Day we need to think about the next generation of Father’s Day.

“The current crop of male, mid-fifties business leaders are completely out of touch in respect to the changes to the role of the father that have taken place in the two decades since they were young dads.”

Source: Evening Standard Colo

The Good

Susha Chandrasekhar is a Senior Lawyer at the Department for Business.

Her husband is Dr Magnus Ryner, Professor of International Political Economy and Head of the Department of European & International Studies at Kings College, London

Their son is called Axel.

Susha kindly shared their story…

“I am a lawyer working part-time which is demanding since my responsibilities include EU issues. Fortunately, my husband’s (more than) full-time work can be carried out flexibly. He comes into and leaves the office at different times, works from home, and catches up on things in the evenings on the days he does the school pick-up. My husband is an academic which helps but professors have to teach, attend meetings, supervise students, undertake research etc. which require a physical presence in the office or a library. It’s still a juggling act.”

Here are the top 7 ways in which my husband’s flexible pattern improves my life.

1. Morning mayhem

My husband does the morning shift and the school run. That pressure is off me as soon as I wake up which is always a good start. I do the evening routine of bath-book-bed.

2. School pick-up

My husband does two school pick-ups a week so there are least two days on which:

·         I do not have to rush home and can deal with last minute work emergencies;

·         My husband helps our son with his reading and maths homework; and

·         There is dinner on the table for me when I come through the front door.

The other 3 weekdays on which I do the pick-ups, my husband gets these benefits in return.

3. Dealing with illness

It is not the default position that I drop everything and deal with a sick child. We see whose schedule is the more flexible. Sometimes it’s his.

4. Caring for Grandparents

There comes a time when our own parents need care. I value the chance to do this.

5. Finances

As we do the childcare ourselves, we do not need to employ a nanny which is expensive.

6. Reliability

If my husband says he will do something, he has the flexibility to do it. I feel assured it will be done without having to check up on it.

7. Frazzle factor

I can deal with the organisation of raising a child e.g. costumes, presents, dental appointments without too much stress. I also enjoy time with my family and friends instead of fretting non-stop about everything that needs to be done.

“No system is perfect and ours breaks down once in a while when the adventures of life are thrown at it. But one thing makes us truly happy. When our son cries out when he has a nightmare or has fallen over, he doesn’t just call for “Mummy, Mummy”, he calls for “Mummy-Daddy, Mummy-Daddy.” To him, we’re equally present, equally important. To us, his opinion is the most important one.”

The Bad – Losing Talented Staff

James wanted flexible working after the birth of his baby

He worked long hours for a private jet firm, but wanted more flexibility after his baby was born. While the official office hours were 9am to 6pm, in reality everyone was in the office until 8.30pm.

“If you didn’t do that it was frowned upon. I was struggling,” he says. He had been at the firm for four years and was one of its top sellers, so he asked for flexible working and expecting a positive response.

“I tried to talk to them several times, but it was always a blanket ‘no’ because they said others would want to do it too.”

In the end, he quit, and now the 28-year-old works for his father’s firm Bloomsbury Estates where he says he’s happy to work at home on weekends to catch up from when he leaves early in the week.

Source: BBC website

The Ugly – Trying to Get Part Time Work

‘Phil’ tried to get part time work in SW England so that he could support his partner’s work expansion plans by taking on more of the childcare responsibilities, including looking after a boy on the autism spectrum.

He struggled badly in the recruitment process and ended up having to take a full-time role.

Overqualified and bored?

Farcical the amount of times I have heard “overqualified” or “you would be bored” or “your skills wouldnt be used” in spite of yelling into peoples faces that I only wanted part time and 2 days a week would not be boring.

Could it be because you are a man?

It definitely is. One of the interviews I had I actually was told that I would probably be embarrassed being shown the systems by a 20 year old girl. “Considering my experience.”Ironically, i would say the most dismissive were female HR professionals, which makes it even more of a joke.ICasual sexism?

I think more unconscious bias as the notion that a white middle aged straight male with no disability under the Equality Act could feel discriminated against is laughable. I flip it round as well…  are we saying that part time ‘easy’ office work is the only thing young women or mums can do?

Unconscious Bias

As a footnote, the role I secured is the 1st full time role I applied for. But that was secured through a friend in recruitment who could see off the bias before it was made…

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What do we need to do

Let’s forget the socks and real ale gift sets this year…

✅ Encourage and support dads to talk about the pressures they face.

✅ Normalise flexible and part time work for men.

✅ Senior men to lead by example – embracing flexible working opportunities – making it ok for men in the workplace to spend time with their kids.

✅ Change the working culture so that raising happy, successful children isn’t just a female thing.

Dads will be happier and more fulfilled and the opportunities for families to choose how best to arrange their working lives will increase.

Guest post by Ian Dinwiddy of Inspiring Dads