Irish men and the Law Reform Commission: Rights for dads wanted

The population is requesting it, and a well-respected statutory body with a track record of 70 per cent of its’ proposals resulting in reforming legislation is recommending it. What more does the State need to implement more rights for Irish fathers?

Almost 75 per cent of Irish men think paid paternity leave should be available, according to research from Quinn Healthcare quoted in the MetroHerald today.

Men in the Leinster region were the biggest supporters of time off work for dads, with 74 per cent in favour of introducing paternity leave arrangements.

Half of the 1000 men surveyed would be happy to split the time of leave with their partner, with more than 23 per cent saying they would like to stay home full-time while their partner went back to work.

Also in the news today, The Law Reform Commission has recommended a wide range of changes to family law. These include changes that would improve the rights and responsibilities of unmarried fathers, and rights for children to maintain relationships with both parents. As listed in today’s Examiner, the recommendations include:

The commission also pointed out a recommendation from 30 years back that never made it into the statute books (sound familiar?). This recommendation would have given fathers automatic rights and responsibilities in relation to guardianship.

Tagged: Fathers Rights, Guardianship, Parenthood, Paternity leave

US government project campaigns for fathers to take time to be a dad

Image from fatherhood.gov

Image from nytimes.com

Image from fatherhood.gov

Maybe the Irish government could learn a thing or two?

Fears over longer maternity leave could lead to increased discrimination of female job applicants

The European parliament will vote on a proposal to extend paid maternity leave to 20 weeks today.

The controversy surrounding the proposal is a prime example of why introduction of shared parental leave and paternity leave is so crucial to gender equality.

The main arguments against the proposal is the burden of cost to businesses already struggling in the current economic climate, and that the proposal is ‘ludicrous interference in bosses’ freedom to employ women’.

UK MEP Godfrey Bloom contribution to the debate was the following:

About five and half years ago I caused a furore by suggesting that any small businessman with his brain in the right place would be mad to employ a woman of child-bearing age.

Since that time it’s got worse and got worse (…).

We have an extraordinary situation where we have young women, desperately keen to get into work, desperately keen to work for companies, especially small companies which are the driving force of the UK economy, and we have employers who are too terrified to take them on.

In the same manner, Irish Small and Medium Enterprises chief executive Mark Fielding said to the Irish Times today that most of the organisations’ members do not pay maternity leave, and that doing so ‘would have the effect of making employers discriminate against employing young women’. Godfrey Bloom said the same thing about the UK: ‘We’re making it (…) almost impossible for small businesses to employ young women, which is something they want to do’.

As much as one can understand the challenges for small businesses to have employees taking leave, these challenges should not under any circumstances translate into direct discrimination of women.

Most children have two parents. This is not reflected in leave entitlements. As a result, women are only welcome job applicants if they can be classified as too old to have children.

Men are discriminated against in leave entitlements, and women are discriminated against in work recruitment processes. And with that, Ireland acquires the neat sum of minus six million points in the race of moving away from those restricting gender roles.

Quote of the Week

‘Was it the right time [to become a father]? Paternity leave, taking a child on to licensed premises -such privileges were still being fought for then’

Blake Morrison in ‘When is the right time to have a baby?’, The Guardian Weekend 09.10.10.

Ah, the bliss of living in a country where the fight for paternity leave is a thing of the past.

Spanish ‘Babysitter Grandparents’ Go on Strike

Illustration from stock.xchng

An unusual strike is planned in Spain for next Wednesday.

A call has gone out for grandparents to go on strike to ‘prove that they are a key part of the way [Spain] functions’ and to illustrate that ‘grandparents provide the childcare that working parents cannot give and the state does not offer’.

In Spain, where work hours are long, part-time or flexible jobs are hard to come by, and childminders are expensive, the most common solution for childcare has become unpaid care by grandparents.

According to the Guardian, half of all Spanish grandparents look after their grandchildren every day.

In Ireland, only 30 per cent of all children under the age of 12 use non-parental care, as mothers often take substantial time off work to look after their children.

Relying on unpaid relatives for childcare is however still one of the main solutions for Irish parents returning to work, with around nine per cent of all Irish children aged 12 and under being looked after by unpaid relatives.

Facilitating Dads to be Dads isn’t Quite the Irish Way

Illustration from Stock.XCHNG

Last week, the Independent had an interesting article about dads being sidelined in maternity wards. The article describes a pilot scheme in Britain allowing fathers to stay overnight in hospital after the birth of their child. The scheme, Partners Staying Overnight, aims to allow dads to bond with their babies, take care of their partner and to ease the workload of the maternity staff.

According to the Independent, providing family rooms are already common practice in countries such as Canada and Sweden. Most hospitals in Ireland however, have no facilities for partners to stay overnight, and visits are restricted by the individual hospital’s visiting hours.

But then again, unlike the Irish, British men are entitled to paternity leave and can thus avail of family friendly schemes like this.

The lack of paternity leave in Ireland is a far cry from what Nathan Hegedus describes in Snack Bags and a Regular Paycheck: The Happy Life of a Swedish Dad.  The American lives in Sweden with his Swedish wife, describing how 80 per cent of Swedish dads take paternity leave, and that Swedes expect both fathers and mothers to take leave at the arrival of a new baby. Hegedus thinks the paid, statutory leave has made a change in the hegemonic masculinity. He claims to have noticed this change through small, everyday details of conversations:

No sports. No politics. No cars. And no questions about your job. Think about that. When in America—outside of maybe a sports bar during a really huge game—will any group of men gather and never ask the question, “So, what do you do?”

Another fascinating story that emerged recently was the one of the Swiss goal keeper Diego Benaglio. The 26-year-old is the first-choice keeper for the Swiss National soccer team. Just before the crucial Euro 2012 soccer qualifier against England, Benaglio made the controversial decision to take paternity leave to be with his wife who was about to give birth rather than be part of the squad, making many fans question the chances of qualifying for the Championship.

Photo from football.co.uk

Ireland is the Most Expensive Country for Childcare (If You’re Lucky Enough to Have Access to It)

Photo from Stock.XCHNG

According to yesterdays Irish Daily Mail, a OECD report concludes that families in Ireland pay more for childcare than any other European country. A double-income family with two children spend 45 per cent of their net income on childcare and playschool bills. (The OECD average is 17 per cent.)

Single-income families spend less according to the report, and overall the average spending in Ireland makes for the 3rd most expensive country of the 32 countries surveyed.

Such high costs mean that many families are forced to choose other options for childcare. According to the latest Quarterly National Household Survey on childcare (2007), only 30 per cent of children aged 12 years and younger actually used non-parental childcare.

A majority of 70 per cent were being looked after by their parent(s). An explanation for this may be that 60 per cent said they did not have access to high quality, affordable childcare in their community.

In March 2010, the labour force participation rate was 60.7 per cent. The number of men participating in paid work was higher than the number of women; 68.8 vs. 52.7 per cent. In addition, women in paid jobs work an average of 8.6 hours less every week than men do.

Add in the fact that there is no legislation for paternity leave in this country, and you don’t have to be a genius to figure out who’s staying home with the kids.

There is no chance of achieving gender equality at work, work life balance or a reasonable degree of choice for men and women on how to work out such balance until these issues are prioritised. While the cost of childcare is by all means inexcusable, it’s only a small part of the state’s persistent ignorance of childcare and work-life balance.

Did Robbie Keane Just Do All Irish Fathers (and Mothers) a Big Favour?

Watching the Ireland-Argentina match yesterday I found myself shouting at the screen before the match had even started. I just couldn’t see the point of Robbie Keane carrying around his child for ages; waiting to enter the pitch, walking around the pitch being photographed and even through the anthem. Would he not just hand the child over to someone else already, wasn’t he there to play? Surely, people couldn’t be that interested in watching a toddler?

Then, as the match started and got less and less entertaining, I started thinking. Had one of the greatest Irish soccer players just given fatherhood a face? In the few moments where fans were celebrating his 100th cap and all eyes were on him, didn’t he choose to appear not only as a footballer, but also as a father?

On the negative side, Keane’s baby-on-arm appearance is probably influenced by the growing public interest in celebrity children, something which, in my opinion, is a worrying trend. Keane Jr. is born into a celebrity culture where children are the new ‘It’ accessory and where the ultimate representation of a successful woman is a yummy mummy.

On the positive side, in a country offering no statutory paternity leave and where unmarried fathers don’t even have automatic guardianship for their own children, Robbie Keane proudly brings his toddler to work. For the whole country to see.