Make Fathers Visible

There’s a ‘Dad Strike’ today. There will be gatherings outside the Scottish Parliament, the Department for Business and Trade in London, and elsewhere around the country to protest the poor provision of paternity leave in the UK.

The strike isn’t about withholding labour. It is about increasing the visibility of new fathers who would appreciate a bit of social recognition as well as sufficient financial support to allow them to spend time with their newborn and their partner for some weeks or months after birth.

By this time, you are likely to have read or heard the basic facts that the UK is behind Denmark, Sweden, Norway – well, every country in Europe – in the duration of and amount of paid paternity leave. Although some employers are more generous to their staff, the state system, introduced by Labour in 2003, amounts to less than half the minimum wage. No wonder take up is so poor. Self-employed fathers get nothing. Even the Princess of Wales has talked about it to business leaders.

All of the above UK facts are already known. Today’s gatherings may or may not move the dial on the political Richter scale. I hope it does. But to a large extent it doesn’t matter too much how many fathers, mothers, ‘non-birthing partners’ (such as adoptive parents or same sex parents, for example) and other families show up for the TV cameras later. The real achievement of the two individuals, George Gabriel and Alex Lloyd Hunter,  who conceived the organisation, Dad Shift, and have worked for the best part of a year towards today’s event, is the traction the idea has achieved in the mainstream, specialist and social media over the months leading up to Dad Strike day.

The holy trinity of influence are Timing, Opportunity and Clarity. The Labour Government had a 2024 manifesto commitment to an Employment Rights Bill. A review is under way. The message is clear: better parental leave, including paternity leave is ‘Good for women – it will address the maternity contribution to the gender pay gap; good for men in recognising the benefits to them of family life; and good for children, helping build the nurture of both parents into their life path.’

They are tuning in to the overriding message of the Chancellor and Prime Minister. They argue it is not only good for fathers, mothers and babies to have time together, it fits within the drive for improved workforce productivity and economic growth. It is also popular in red wall constituencies.

From Scotland, I wish them every success. Being visible as fathers is important to the healthy development not only of children but also to embedding a narrative of their value throughout our public services.

It has taken me 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.”

It is easy to snipe. I can snipe with the best, but here I would rather recall the ambition and the determination of the Minister that day to look on parents, including fathers, as a resource for their children, to be included and supported, rather than think first of criticism and risk.

I see a direct line of thinking about visibility and inclusion between the National Parenting Strategy and Dad Strike.

There were 14 pages of ‘commitments’. There was one page specifically about fathers under the strapline ‘Parents facing additional challenges’. There was funding 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 throughout reports The project was a huge success and we raised the number from 2% to 4%.Over 3000 men across Scotland took some form of training from Intro Courses all the way through to HNC. Apart from Norway and Germany we had the highest percentage of Men in Early Years in the World. England remains at 2% which is where we started.” Is 4%, or 9% of male staff in Primary Schools, enough?

There was funding for a Fathers Project run by Children in Scotland to ensure more equal treatment of fathers and male carers. That seems to have been discontinued some years ago.

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 explained recently to the Scottish Parliament’s Equality and Civil Justice Committee inquiry into legal aid that we find ourselves in the ambivalent position of making efforts to help individuals understand and make the best of the current adversarial system in family justice that we think has fallen behind the realities of parenting in modern Scotland and which we would like to change.

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 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 over work.

Upwards of a third of the school roll in Scotland have parents who do not live together. We urge policy makers at local and central government level to revisit and renew that 2012 commitment to support and inclusion.