daddy dearest . . .

Some are tight-fisted skivers, others are brutes and bullies. But, as Harriet Harman seems to have recognised yesterday, most dads want to be good dads. And they need a new deal, argues DAVE HILL

THANKS to the five young persons - the eldest nearly 14, the youngest just five months - who combined tenderly to carbonise my breakfast toast on Father's Day, the business of fatherhood is always on my mind. This is not only because I am routinely preoccupied by everything from the whereabouts of their bus passes, football socks or Barbie trainers, to morbid speculation about how I would cope with being alive if one of them should die. It is also because without them I would be less focused on some of the most contentious questions of our times.

For example, why do so many grownups feel that their dads are almost strangers, even if they've known them all their lives? How come large numbers of fathers lose all contact with their children a few years after separating or divorcing? How can they bear to do it?

It is nice to see that the Government too is trying to get to grips with modern fatherhood - after all, it is an institution which could do with a dose of reforming zeal. Last week it was announced that, in future, unmarried fathers will be granted the same legal recognition as married fathers and all mothers, as long as they are present at the registration of their children's birth.

Yesterday it produced proposals for speeding up the machinery of the Child Support Agency, that groaning bureaucracy which insubordinate absent parents, mostly of the male variety, find so easy to jam up.

Both initiatives have generated heated arguments. But although I am basically in favour of both, I wonder whether either will do much to address what is sometimes characterised as the crisis of fatherhood.

What is this crisis all about? It describes the greatest of our worries about the welfare of children and the wellbeing of family life.

But the picture is confusing. On the one hand, there is the growing feeling that the traditional models of fatherhood are outdated, that even the most diligent provider of bread for the family table lacked something as a dad if he hadn't the time or inclination simply to "be there" for his kids.

On the other hand, we remain nervous about "feminising" men and, at the same time, we hear so many dreadful tales of desertion and abuse. The result is a mixture of disillusion and deep anxiety. We seem to know what sort of chap we want New Dad to be, but often fear that a new species of Bad Dad is thriving.

Perhaps we need to help New Dad by offering fathers a proper New Deal - even though a lot do not deserve one. The New Deal would be based on two key principles. The most important is that, even though some children do very well without having a father at all, most children want and benefit from having relationships with their fathers that are as warm and loving as most have with their mothers, and if we don't strive to encourage them we should be shot. The second principle is that if we truly believe in the noble cause of greater equality between the sexes, we need to encourage and enable fathers to be as involved in the business of parenting as mothers are.

To these ends there needs to be a shift in men's relationship with their work. Changing employment patterns and women's demands for equality have resulted in men and women increasingly sharing the task of bringing home the family bacon.

So they should be helped to share the burdens and delights of caring for newborns and pre-school youngsters - "having it all" should be an issue for both sexes.

It is also an issue for employers.

Currently, one third of British fathers work for more than 50 hours a week, often unwillingly, either because bosses think it is more "competitive" to turn them into zombies, or as a result of peer pressure not to be the first to leave for home (journalists, let me tell you, are probably the worst). Meanwhile, while employed women are entitled to reasonable periods of paid maternity leave, men typically get just a few days if they're lucky.

Some might dismiss this as mere New Man trendiness. I see these issues as practical ways of supporting family life. But what about all those Bad Dads?

Firstly, not all of them are quite as bad as they might seem. I am well aware that many dads are tight-fisted skivers when it comes to parenthood, even before they desert their posts. Others are brutes and bullies, more of whom should be locked up. But the majority of fathers insist they want to be good parents to their children, no matter how estranged they are from those children's mothers.

CAN they be believed?

On balance, I think they should be given more opportunity to prove it.

There should be more mediation services to help parted parents find ways of sharing the care of their children as equally as possible, if, as is often the case, that is what those children want (some think the courts could help more in this way too). A father who is able to invest more time in such children is also less likely to require coercion to support them financially.

A New Deal for dads would have to be formulated with great care, and would excite considerable opposition. But if it gave them greater opportunities and incentives for being better fathers, and fewer excuses for being bad ones, it could greatly improve the chances of more happy fathers, mothers and, most importantly, children in the years to come.

Dave Hill is the author of The Future Of Men (Phoenix, GBP 2).

Copyright 1998
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