Call it a competition and dads will rush to bring up baby
Normally speaking, a big insurance company really ought to spend time showcasing just how cautious its attitudes are. After all, public demand for game-changing, risktaking purveyors of financial protection is understandably limited.
But on Friday, surprising news came in from the City that Aviva, a British-based multinational, is to strike out ahead of the field in its staffing policy by offering equal parental leave to all those new fathers, as well as mothers, who work for them. Each parent will soon be able take up to a year off with six months’ pay – certainly good cause to chuck a bowler hat up in the air for joy.
Social futurologists and medical pundits have often indulged in debate about whether men will ever be able to carry a baby to term and yet, somehow, we have still not noticed that, while dads cannot get pregnant, there is nothing physiological stopping them looking after a baby for a few months, especially since the invention of hi-tech breast pumps and milk storage systems.
The true obstacle for prospective fathers in employed work remains a very real concern that they might miss out on promotion, or a pay rise, simply because they opted to take some extended leave. But this shiver of fear is also felt by lots of women as they walk out of the office door with a cheery wave, a big bump and some gift-wrapped parcels of pastelcoloured baby grows.
If we want to shift attitudes among more working men permanently, the answer is probably to start talking about paternity leave as if it is a bit like an Ironman race or a Tough Mudder challenge.
This would allow all those fathers-to-be who secretly love the thought of washing piles of muslin squares at 90 degrees, while their baby naps in a pouch, to retain some outmoded macho pride among their colleagues. In fact, there would be very little deception in it, because childcare is absolutely no cinch. As many a bewildered, surprised new mother has tried to explain, it is an emotional and physical assault course like no other. (The clue to this surprise is in the way that, as with marriage, maternity is dressed up to look so pretty and such fun.)
Aviva’s management should be proud of its initiative. Its actions may be dismissed by some as an attention-grabbing ploy, but by levelling the field in this way Aviva will increase the diversity of its employees, just as it hopes. The move will help to stop an unconscious inclination for bosses to favour a man for a job over a woman of child-bearing age.
The only further step a seriously enlightened company might take would be to ensure that those employees left behind in the office or on the factory floor do not have to suffer while their colleagues are absent.
One thing is for sure, once men of every type have started to shoulder a fairer load of the baby care, there will be a lot more whizzy laboursaving gadgets given out at the average baby shower. Pushchairs are also set to become even more like hefty off-road trucks.