There are an increasing number of parents who want to spend more time with their children; however, there is the barrier of work that prevents them from doing so.
According to the Childcare and Early Years Survey conducted by the Department for Education, more than a third of working mothers (i.e. seven out of ten) would give up their job and stay at home to look after their children if they could afford it (‘One in three working mums want to quit to look after their children,’ www.dailymail.co.uk, 31 January 2014; ‘Working mothers want more time at home,’ www.thetimes.co.uk, 31 January 2014). Almost a quarter of working mothers would take on more hours if they could find affordable and reliable childcare with only 13 per cent said that they did not use childcare because it was too expensive.
The research stated: ‘Mothers in higher socioeconomic groups were more likely to prefer to work fewer hours if they could afford it in order to spend more time looking after their children, and less likely to prefer to work more hours if they could arrange good quality childcare.’
Laura Perrins of the campaign group Mothers at Home Matter commented that ‘The Government’s own survey confirms the fact that the majority of mothers in work would like to spend more time at home caring for their children.’
It is also fathers who want to spend more time with their offspring. The Working Families report ‘Time, Health and the Family’ found that 31 per cent of parents still have no option to work flexibly to meet childcare commitments (‘Young fathers ‘most resentful’ about lack of flexible working,’ People Management, 28 January 2014). Although the majority of mothers were called upon when things went wrong at school or with childcare, the fathers aged between 26 – 35 years stated that they were almost as likely to be called.
Most families reported that work impinges on family to some extent, with 40 per cent admitted that it happened often or all of the time. The category that stated that found that family life was mostly disrupted were again fathers aged 26 – 35 years.
In findings by the commercial law firm EMW based on Ministry of Justice figures, only 2 per cent (or 4,000 fathers out of 209,000) eligible for the additional statutory paternity leave of up to 26 weeks chose to stay at home with their new-borns beyond the statutory two week period (Job insecurity ‘deters’ new fathers from taking more paternity leave,’ People Management, 11 March 2014). The primary reason was that there was fear of job security and that it is financially difficult for many men to take time off work with the benefits being offered.
Jo Taylor, Principal at EMW, commented: ‘With only 2 per cent of fathers taking advantage of additional paternity leave it is clear that the government’s initiative isn’t working yet. The current level of paternity pay is below the minimum wage and a lot of fathers will struggle to absorb the drop in pay for two weeks let alone 26 weeks.
‘The majority of employers in the UK are small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) and are not in a position to supplement the basic additional paternity pay.’
He continued: ‘Unless their partner is earning significantly more than them there is a financial handicap for the father to take advantage of the additional leave and couples may feel that sharing leave will damage the career prospects of both parents and not just one.
‘It is going to take some time before the culture changes and men take more paternity leave, but it is worth employers starting to plan ahead for when they potentially will.’
Furthermore, in research by the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM), it was stated that cultural barriers have a direct impact in the uptake of paternity leave (‘Workplace culture stops dads from taking paternity leave, research shows,’ People Management, 24 March 2014). The majority of managers (58 per cent) regarded parental leave as being disruptive for their organisation with 72 per cent of managers thought that parental leave affected the efficiency and productivity of their teams. Nearly two-thirds (68 per cent) of employers supported women taking up to a year’s maternity leave, compared to 58 per cent supporting fathers taking two weeks paternity leave.
More than a fifth of men would rather look after their children rather than return to work, according to research for the My Family and the Baby Show (‘Fifth of working fathers ‘would rather look after baby’,’ www.bbc.co.uk, 21 February 2014). There was also evidence that 80 per cent of mothers felt ‘guilty’ about going back to work after giving birth and worried about leaving children in the care of others, compared with 39 per cent of men.
However, 24 per cent of women wished they had not returned to work, compared with 22 per cent of men.
More than 20 per cent felt less confident in their abilities when they did return to the workplace, as opposed to 2.5 per cent of men.
A mere 20 per cent of men and women could agree with the statement ‘I have found a balance and I feel that I have it all.’
More than 43 per cent of women stated that they did ‘most of the domestic chores’ as opposed to 27 per cent of men.
The importance of parenting the next generation cannot be overemphasised. The Bible tells us: ‘Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.’ (Proverbs 22: 6, cf. Isaiah 38: 19, Lamentations 2: 19)
It is in this responsibility that all of us, including employers, should be helping mothers and fathers to fulfil.
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