Dads too?

When we were setting up By Day — a flexible working company — we had a choice. To create more options for mums who want to return to work but cannot comfortably commit to the 9–6 desk hours, we could create a company and a movement to give them access to exciting project-based work. Or — we could create those options for all parents.

Two years ago when I was having my first child it thrilled me to hear that the new Shared Parental Leave policy had taken effect. Giving Dads the time and space to look after their newborns and wives just made sense in every way — the only question was why it took so long. But looking deeper, what it did not give new fathers was money. Shared Parental Leave has had shockingly poor take-up — around 1% — and not equalising SPL and statutory maternity leave pay could be partly to blame. Financial, cultural and attitudinal reasons could well be the death of this new scheme before it even begins.

So looking into the status quo for fathers when it comes to work, it soon became obvious that not only do they need support to achieve their parental aspirations, but everyone benefits from their ability to dedicate more time to homelife. Parents who want to return to full-time work can be supported by flexible working partners, especially when it comes to working around school run times (which office job ends at 3:10pm?). Stay at home mothers or fathers can flex their professional skills by giving a percentage of their time that they feel is manageable. Enabling fathers to share domestic life is a form of control over our resource that is so desperately needed to achieve equality, balance and wellbeing, particularly in the baby years.

In general, research shows our generation demands more freedoms and flexibility from their employers than the last, yet the baby stigma that affects so many mothers — resulting in 54,000 losing their jobs due to maternity discrimination per year — also has taken shape for men too. Men are confessing that they do not feel comfortable raising working hours or parental responsibilities with their boss, and the statistics of working fathers versus those who talk wistfully of changing jobs to gain more family time speak for themselves.

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