\n<\/p>\n
\u201cW<\/span>ho\u2019s in your team?\u201d asked Elliott Rae, pumping up the crowd in central London at what he billed as the world\u2019s first Working Dads\u2019 summit. \u201cWho\u2019s your goalkeeper, your defender, your striker? Do you have a full 11? Do you have subs on the bench?.\u201d<\/p>\n Football analogies are generally rare at events about parenting, particularly those that seek to tackle gender equality. But then, so are men. At the Working Dads\u2019 summit \u2013 almost certainly the first in the UK \u2013 both were in plentiful supply, as fathers were urged to \u201ccreate a new idea of masculinity\u201d.<\/p>\n Rae, founder of the network Parenting Out Loud, which organised the event, urged fathers to start a \u201cnew national conversation about working dads\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018We are creating a new idea of masculinity,\u2019 said Elliott Rae.<\/span> Photograph: Jill Mead\/The Guardian<\/p>\n \u201cWe are creating a new idea of masculinity. A new model for what it means to be a man and a dad,\u201d he told the several hundred attenders on Tuesday, who were joined by another 2,000 online.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the face of increased far-right rhetoric, and some businesses rolling back D&I [diversity and inclusion] initiatives and demanding their employees come back into the office full-time \u2026 our voices need to be louder.\u201d<\/p>\n Rae said it was time for dads to be \u201cloud and proud\u201d about their parenting responsibilities, encouraging them to take all parental leave available to them, have an open calendar and be honest when they had to miss a meeting because of school drop-off or pickup.<\/p>\n He appealed to men and women to work together to push for more equal parenting, arguing that it was vital to combat the motherhood penalty, which recent analysis of Office for National Statistics data suggested contributes to women with children earning a third less per week and 20% less an hour than men with children. Noting that men account for about three-quarters of suicides in the UK, he argued that men involved in childcare were also less stressed and happier with their lives. \u201cIt\u2019s not a competition, it\u2019s not a zero-sum game,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a win-win for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>A mother and baby in the audience look on.<\/span> Photograph: Jill Mead\/The Guardian<\/p>\n The summit will put further pressure on the government to improve the UK\u2019s paternity leave offering, which was ranked 40th out of 43 in an international comparison based on Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development figures. Last week the Commons women and equalities select committee called its failure to commit to improving the UK\u2019s paternity pay and leave during the current parliament \u201cdisappointing\u201d.<\/p>\n A government review of the UK\u2019s parental leave system, which launched in July, was a \u201cwatershed moment\u201d said MPs, but \u201ctinkering around the edges of a broken system will let down working parents\u201d, they said.<\/p>\n <\/span>Audience members at the event.<\/span> Photograph: Jill Mead\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Speaking at the event, the Labour MP Stella Creasy warned that Labour\u2019s flagship employment rights bill could, by giving women better maternity rights, perversely result in more maternity discrimination in the short term. This could be combated by equalising parental leave, she said: \u201cChanging the law on parental rights so that every parent can be present is about every parent being equally discriminated against.\u201d<\/p>\n The summit is a significant marker in a year when growing numbers of men have joined women\u2019s voices in calling for better paternity leave in a bid to tackle entrenched inequality. In June, hundreds of fathers took to the streets to demand better paternity leave in the first ever \u201cDad strikes\u201d in London and Edinburgh.<\/p>\n New campaign group The Dad Shift, which organised the protest, have also rallied a new group of predominantly male Labour MPs, many with seats in \u201cred wall\u201d constituencies, who are putting internal pressure on the government to appeal to men directly.<\/p>\n <\/span>A panel discussion at the summit.<\/span> Photograph: Jill Mead\/The Guardian<\/p>\n \u201cIt does feel like this is a moment, it\u2019s part of the zeitgeist,\u201d said attender Oliver Daniels, a father of one who works for the childcare platform Bubble. He pointed to the coronavirus pandemic, credited with causing an 18% increase in the amount of time fathers spend looking after their children, as a turning point in the conversation.<\/p>\n \u201cDads suddenly found it wasn\u2019t just that they could be more involved parents, but that they wanted to be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n A spokesperson said the government was committed to supporting parents to balance work and home and was making paternity leave a day-one right through the employment rights bill. \u201cWe know the parental leave system needs to be improved and are carrying out a review to ensure it best supports working families,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cWho\u2019s in your team?\u201d asked Elliott Rae, pumping up the crowd in central London at what he billed as the world\u2019s first Working Dads\u2019 summit. \u201cWho\u2019s your goalkeeper, your defender, your striker? Do you have a full 11? Do you have subs on the bench?.\u201d Football analogies are generally rare at events about parenting, particularly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[3788,330,11747,14225,1329,9529,2591,5215],"class_list":{"0":"post-23326","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-conversation","9":"tag-dads","10":"tag-kicks","11":"tag-loud","12":"tag-men","13":"tag-proud","14":"tag-summit","15":"tag-working"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}