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BUSINESS PATERNITY LAW
Words Adam Bernstein
Modern man,
modern fatherhood
Companies should revisit their parental
leave policies to accommodate new dads
Arose-tinted look back at early post war history,
Printweek April & May 2020
often through the medium of film and TV,
shows that the demarcation of familial roles
and responsibilities was generally quite distinct.
Mother looked after the house and the
children, father went out to work and brought
home the bacon.
But in the intervening years the evolution
of employment law and parental rights has changed the equation
somewhat; it’s now not uncommon to see a mother go out to
work while the father stays at home caring for the children.
This societal sea-change has not gone unnoticed by Han-Son
Lee, founder of Daddilife.com, an online community that seeks
to support fathers. Last year, Daddilife published research that it
undertook to see what life was like for 1,200 fathers at work: “We
found that 87% of millennial dads were active in a day-to-day role
as parents… but there is still too much of a stereotype that ‘dads
should just be at work’. It’s a position that does nothing for true
gender balance and gender equality.”
With print being so male dominated, a natural question that
follows is how men – without touching on the niceties of political
correctness – find the world of parental rights? Are there hurdles
to their taking a greater role in the upbringing of their children?
Lee thinks men are lagging behind women in taking time out.
He says: “It’s difficult to give a precise number as to the proportion
of fathers that take time off, as not all firms track it accurately,
but our research shows that up to one-third of new fathers
are not even taking their two weeks.”
The law
Looking at the law, Arwen Makin, senior solicitor at ESP Law,
notes that an employer’s obligations to men begins before a
child’s birth. She says that “employees who have a qualifying
relationship with a pregnant woman – most commonly as a
husband, partner or father – have a right to unpaid time off to
attend antenatal or adoption appointments”. However, she points
out that these are limited to no more than two occasions and
lasting no more than six-and-a-half hours each.
It’s interesting that Lee finds it bizarre that this “one element of
the policy – that dads-to-be are legally only entitled to go to two
of the three antenatal appointments – is just madness in my eyes”.
But once the baby is born, new fathers (or the non-primary
care giver in same-sex couples) are entitled to two weeks of
paternity leave – to enable them to care for the child and the
/Daddilife.com