“I wanted to be a present father, not perfect, but present, available and in favor of work (…) I had an absent father and I wanted to be there. I also don't want the book to seem like I'm giving fatherhood lessons because all I'm saying is one basic thing: that you have to want to be a father and you have to be present,” said Sergio C. Fanjul in a recent interview in Moms & Dads regarding the launch of The father of fire (Aguilar, 2024), the new book by the writer and journalist, Culture editor of this same medium. That idea, that of wanting to be a father and be present, seems more internalized than ever by men who become fathers in the third decade of the 21st century. Not in vain, according to report data State of paternity and care in Spain, prepared by the Cepaim Foundation and published in November 2023, there are more men than women (75% vs. 70%) who affirm that if they were going to have a son or daughter they would consider the possibility of working part-time to take care of them or she; or that they would be willing to take unpaid leave from work (36% vs. 25%). There are also almost more men (69% vs. 68%) who consider that parenting justifies giving up some job opportunities.
The reality, however, is that things continue as usual, according to A study carried out by the Iseak research center on the impact that equal and non-transferable maternity and paternity leaves have had on gender inequality in employment in Spain. Or that, at least, the data says. At the end of 2022, two years after the implementation of the permits, 95% of the people who worked part-time for care were women and only one father for every 15 mothers made use of the right to leave for care during the first three years of the baby's life.
As the protagonist of the Hamlet As Shakespeare begins his monologue, Spanish parents seem to be struggling between being (the ideal) or not being (reality), between being or not being. “It is the common gap between what is known and what is done. Thought and will do not completely direct human behavior. Knowing something is wrong should be reason enough not to do it. And yet, we do it,” reflects perinatal psychologist Máximo Peña, also author of Fatherhood here and now (Harpa, 2023).
Ritxar Bacete, writer, social worker and specialist in equality and positive fatherhood policies, observes excellent news in the apparent contradiction between fathers' ideals and reality: “That men want to care more and that many are doing so already tells us “It allows us to have a novel ingredient and a variable to explore in order to promote change from desires to facts.” Bacete, who participated in the preparation of the report State of paternity and care in Spainadds that the trend observed in Spain is part of “a global wave”, since the desirability of caring was also observed in a very significant part of men from different countries in the report. State of the World's Fathers 2023. “Men say that they do more and that they want to do more, but there are still structural, regulatory, individual and financial barriers that prevent an equitable distribution of care,” maintains the author of New good men (Peninsula, 2017).
Máximo Peña, who ironically talks about the impact that equal and non-transferable permissions have had to date on the involvement of parents in parenting (“its implementation was supposed to bring the paradise of equality in parenting, care and work.” domestic, but it seems that this is not the case”), considers that it is not just a matter of time before this measure bears the desired results. “Equal and non-transferable permits, designed, probably, with good intention, in addition to contradicting the scientific evidence according to which the mother, during the first months of the baby's life, plays an essential function for the well-being of the child, are not enough to promote that true social revolution that would be the real involvement of men in the world of care,” he says.
Half-hearted optimism
For this psychologist, it is necessary for the labor market to adapt more quickly to the social demand that men become involved en masse in domestic and care tasks, invest public money in education on gender equality starting in childhood and at all ages, significantly raise the salary of professions linked to care and education, apply a universal income for all those under 18 years of age, and create multidisciplinary perinatal units in public health centers that include Social Work and General Psychology Sanitary. “In countries such as the United Kingdom, these perinatal care units have been linked to a more satisfying experience of motherhood and fatherhood. And we know that when there is perceived well-being, men are more likely to behave egalitarianly,” he argues.
Bacete is also in favor of these and other measures, although he is more hopeful about the long-term effect that equal and non-transferable leave can have on the status of parents in relation to the care of their children. “In historical terms, these permits, although symbolically they are very powerful due to the message of equity and change of cycle that they convey, are so recent that they have not even taken root in the collective subconscious. In fact, for 95% of the women and men who are mothering and fathering at the moment, the measure came late, so the results and benefits will also take time to be socially and statistically visible,” he reflects.
In that sense, Bacete, who recognizes that this measure alone does not generate a deep cultural change or change social dynamics, urges us to analyze what has happened in countries like Sweden, where egalitarian measures related to care started more than 50 years. “In Sweden they have managed to impact the work culture and the meaning of the man's role to such an extent that it has become a taboo or a socially sanctionable fact for men to skip parental leave, while, in Spain, especially In the most masculinized employment niches, men who wish to exercise their right encounter significant resistance.”
Despite this resistance and despite the complexity of producing profound changes in the political and cultural system, Bacete is optimistic. “The data supports that millions of men around the world, in the context of the evolutionary journey of our species and after several disastrous centuries for equality, are returning home, to care and support with an intensity and extent that is surely insufficient, not still equitable, but unknown in the recent history of humanity, and deeply hopeful,” maintains this specialist in equality and positive parenting policies. It also points to scientific evidence, according to which the involvement of parents in care has benefits for all parts of a family: “Girls and boys grow up healthier, with less violence and developing more capabilities when they have a double figure of attachment; Women see their possibilities of empowerment increased while the possibility of suffering any type of violence from their partner when they are caregivers decreases; and men themselves live longer and more satisfied the more we take care of them.”
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