Nick Thorpe: Home truths about fathers' rights at work

Men at work often find that line managers make no allowance whatsoever for their family commitments, a familiar story for many new mothers too. Picture: Contributed

TOO many employers could not give a fig about male employees right to a family life, but it is time that changed, writes Nick Thorpe

‘Why are you still here?” barked my boss at 6:45pm one memorable evening, early in my journalistic career. It was a blunt question, and a good one. In truth, I had finished my story for the following day’s Scotsman, and was busying myself with a few non-essential loose ends, hoping – like several other lurking colleagues – that my long hours would mark me out as ambitious and committed to the newspaper.

My news editor, a family man, was having none of it. “Go home,” he told us all, logging off his terminal. “Haven’t you got lives outside this place?” Nearly 20 years on, I remain grateful to that man – now a senior editor – for his stark and frankly unusual challenge to presenteeism, that disease of modern working culture. As a father myself, and one of the organisers of Scotland’s Year of the Dad, I know the immense pressure there is on men in particular to prioritise work over family.

If you doubt this, ask yourself: how easy would you find it to ask your employer for a significant stretch of shared parental leave – now possible under legislation introduced last year – or even just permission to leave early one afternoon to attend your child’s sports day? Our research shows while mums are traditionally waved through under the sexist assumption they will be primary carer, modern Scottish dads still fear any request for child-related flexible working or leave will affect their career.

Men questioned for the Modern Families Index in Scotland [http://familyfriendlyworkingscotland.org.uk/research/] even reported inventing medical appointments rather than admitting they were leaving work to pick up their children! This absurd and entrenched attitude means that when emergencies crop up – as they do in any family – men can find themselves talking to a brick wall. “Not my problem,” was one reported response from a line-manager who forbade a dad from leaving a planning meeting to pick up his sick daughter from school.

That, in a nutshell, is why Year of the Dad needs everyone on board – dads, mums, employers and services – to help Scottish society catch up with a profound shift in culture over the last few decades and promote t