Who’s Looking After The Family?

Our family is what most of us put at the top of what’s important to us. And government has a big impact on families: schools, health care, financial assistance while parents are on a lower income due to children and so on.

But the larger political parties seem to want to steer well clear of the subject of families. Harald Breiding-Buss investigated what parents can expect from them.

Have you made up your mind yet who to vote for? Perhaps you’re more sure about who not to vote for, following the great democratic tradition of the ‘protest vote’.

Given that the mainstream media rarely go into any depth about policy initiatives or law changes you’re not likely to find out what the major political parties are really up to from the 6 o’clock news.

Family is an area traditionally neglected in election campaigns, although signs are that people – at least those with children – do find it rather important.

In the 2002 election, for example, United Future came out of nowhere to take 10% of the vote and a significant chunk of seats in the House after party leader Peter Dunne steered a TV discussion onto family issues and successfully portrayed his party as the ‘family party’.

In the process they demolished a big enough majority to govern alone, which pollsters had forecast for Labour, and forced concessions such as the formation of the Families Commission.

The Families Commission turned out to be a dud but the message was clear nontheless: people will vote even for an obscure minor party for policies that hit close to home and support families.

Researching Family Policies for this article, it was interesting to see that the two main parties, at least, do not particularly push theirs. You won’t find them on their web sites, for one.

Asking National and Labour about them got a mixed response: National completely ignored the request, while Labour did reply but evaded specific questions about such things as single fathers or the mother-focus of health and social services – although they did say that they believe in creating equal parenting opportunities for men and women.

With Labour, at least, there is a track record, although it is not Labour’s alone. Over the last almost nine years government has heavily focused on the economical side of families – and the education and support of mothers, and mothers only.

One of its most high-profile initiatives, Working For Families, is not actually theirs – Labour only renamed the ‘In Work Tax Credit’ that dates back to the National/NZ First government of Jenny Shipley.

This government has substantially increased the payments, however, and shifted the income levels upwards from which these payments are being reduced. The result was that being in paid employment now pays much better for families than the benefit, but headway is slow between $40,000-$50,000 where you hit high abatement rates.

‘Working For Families’ is not disputed between National and Labour, and just as well: as one hard-working but low-income father told me, it’s ‘the difference between a life and an existence’.

Other financial assistance includes money for new babies and paid maternity leave, and primary health care for children and teenagers has become much more affordable or even free.

The maternity leave legislation was a low point in Labour’s track record of family initiatives, as it ignored both polls and almost unanimous expert advice that called for a separate non-transferable leave entitlement for fathers. Other countries at the time were introducing such legislation.

Paid parental leave was widely welcomed, but the restriction to mothers only was an anachronism.

This government has also pumped more money into social services for the less fortunate. However, because nothing has been done to improve the mother-focused infrastructure, such services have almost exclusively reached mothers only.

None of the parties, unfortunately, has any concrete plans on creating a whole-family service infrastructure.

Ironically, the once traditionally conservative National party probably faces more of an uphill battle on the family front. Policywise it’s all about money, but they can’t out-spend Labour on social issues.

The previous National government removed any tax advantages for families and removed mandatory penalty payments for shiftwork and work on weekends or public holidays. Weekly working hours for fathers with young children spiked as a result as it became harder to make ends meet, and so did parental breakup rates (which started a very moderate decline between 2001-2006).

With many that left the nasty impression that National is quite willing to sacrifice families on the altar of economic considerations, and prevented them from taking the moral highground ever since.

In the last three National years (1996-1999), however, direct financial assistance to families was ramped up, and the government tried to gauge New Zealanders’ beliefs about social and family values by issuing a feedback booklet to every household – almost like a ‘value census’.

At the time New Zealanders saw it as an attempt by a dying government to usurp their moral values and to distract from the socially divisive policies of previous years, but it may well have been a genuine attempt to form a national consensus on some basic questions of what New Zealand is really all about.

It’s a discussion worth having. Labour’s weakest point is that it refuses to define family from a child’s point of view. Even the UN International Convention on the Rights of the Child acknowledges that a child’s family is, in the first instance, mum and dad, and that these two have special roles and responsibilities ahead of anyone else.

In fact, signatories to the convention (including NZ) are obliged to do their best to assist these two in those responsibilities. In many countries family welfare is a constitutional right: France and Germany, for example. This does not distract from wider family and whanau, or step-parents – it just sets a priority.

Some minor parties have started to make noises on the fringes.

Both New Zealand First and United Future believe the Families Commission needs a ‘stricter’ definition of ‘family’. United Future, in fact, remains the party with the most comprehensive and detailed policy: fairer taxation for couples with children (income splitting), government-funded family centres, paternity leave, a presumption of shared custody after separation, flexible working hours – you name it, they’ve got it.

They call bonding of fathers with their newborn baby ‘imperative’ and as the only party acknowledge that family violence is not simply a men-hitting-women issue.

However, like the main parties United does not advertise their family policy on their web site and it seems to have become part of their ‘gender policy’.

NZ First, currently a government partner, also has a family policy, which reads a bit like a patchwork of individual hobbyhorses rather than a cohesive concept.

NZ First strongly pushes pre-school education, both through early childhood education (‘childcare’) centres and home-based services such as Parents As First Teachers (PAFT) and Home-Instructional Programme for Pre-Schoolers and Youngsters (HIPPY).

These two programmes are currently targeted at ‘high needs’ families and are wildly popular with those who manage to get in. NZ First wants to make them universally available. There is some mention of grandparents raising grandchildren, truancy, and intervention for ‘at risk’ families, but for the standard Kiwi family it is business-as-usual.

And then there’s the Greens. Far from sit-ins against rainforest logging they have made their name with what became known as the ‘no smacking law’ and is so unpopular that it nearly sparked the second-ever citizens-initiated referendum.

Their other big legislative success was also on an issue completely unrelated to the environmental issues they probably predominantly get voted in for: the Employment Relations Amendment Bill, which mandates that employers have to grant an employee flexible working hours on request, unless it would cause unreasonable economic disadvantages for the company.

While the Greens do not seem to have a specific family policy, their other policies and their track record suggest a traditionally socialist stance: better protection for minorities or disadvantaged groups (including children), more money and resources for the poor, equality between all, and the strong helping the weak.

In short this means they won’t let you down if you fall on hard times economically, but don’t expect them to put any particular special value on mothers and fathers.

Which leaves the question of how big a role family issues should play when you’re voting.

In our experience at Father & Child, family is a ‘big picture’ issue for men. Even the most socially liberal dudes seem to prefer a government that acknowledges the special role of mothers and fathers in children’s lives ahead of any other family constellation.

Nearly three quarters of parent breakups are initiated by the woman, indicating that men tend to hold on to the idea of a ‘whole’ family for longer, and would probably support more effort going into avoiding such breakups.

Men have also started to make a bit more noise about the narrow focus on mothers when it comes to parenting and child health services.

Equal shared parenting, as an ideal, is supported by 92% of New Zealanders, according to a 1999 survey, and 65% support both parents equally looking after children on a day-to-day basis.

So far research has backed up the idea that investing in families will address most other social issues at the same time. It’s a ‘big picture’ issue alright, but I doubt that any of the major players in parliament have got it yet.

Next: Government Departments

5 Ways to Do a Better Job

If you are working with ‘families’ but don’t see any fathers, you’re doing something wrong.

Here’s how to fix it:

1. Enrol Both Parents in Your Service

Always ask for names and contact details of both parents and preferably have both parents there for the enrolment visit.

Enrolling both parents automatically sets an expectation that both parents will be involved in your service.

If parents do not live together, and you are completing enrolment with one parent only, make a phone call or write a letter to the other parent advising of the enrolment and of the times you are available for questions. As a legal guardian he is entitled to all the information you generate about his child anyway—so why not be proactive?

2. Make Appointments With Both Parents

Always coordinate appointments with both parents, unless they specifically tell you otherwise. Most of the time even a working dad will be able to make time during the day for you – don’t assume that this would pose a problem for him. Don’t hide behind the ‘primary caregiver’ idea—these arrangements change.

As more and more mums with little children work fulltime as well, you’ve got to be prepared to do the occasional weekend or evening visit or you’ll miss some of the families that need you most. But most parents will be able to make time for you weekdays.

If parents are separated make sure you maintain contact with the other parent who is not attending appointments, and/or schedule some appointments while the child is with the non-custodial parent.

3. Use Inclusive Language

If you say ‘parents’ make sure you mean it. Even better: use ‘mums and dads’ and ‘dads and mums’ instead of ‘parents’. The word ‘parent’ is so often used as another word for ‘mother’ that readers or listeners do not automatically assume anymore that you mean both men and women.

If your publications have a ‘fathers corner’, have a ‘mothers corner’ as well, where you can stick articles such as ‘how to look after your pelvic floor’, rather than putting them in the main body.

4. Talk to Both

Make eye contact with both and involve both in your service as you go. If you are doing home visits this makes for a much richer working environment and more honest discussions about parenting or child health issues, for example.

Unless you convince both parents, whatever you suggest will only be implemented half-heartedly, or not at all. And as much as you’d like to think that, for example, breastfeeding is a mother’s decision, she’ll be talking about it with her partner and his support, or lack of it, will have a bigger influence than your advice and information. If you don’t get him on board, he’ll undermine you, but good information influences fathers as strongly as mothers. So make sure he gets it from you and don’t assume the mother will ‘let him know’.!

If parents are separated, be aware that day-to-day care of a child often changes as children grow older. A single mother today may have much less influence over parenting that child in a few years time, so by continuing to talk to the father you are improving the child’s future more than you can guess from the present.

5. Treat Parents as Equals

This is the hardest challenge for professionals working with young families, as they almost always assume that the mother is the ‘primary caregiver’. However, in acting on that assumption a professional has a big role in creating the situation in the first place, even if parents want to share the role more equally.

In practice this means such things as talking about the same things with both. If you ask mum how she is coping, ask dad as well. If you are discussing getting a break from baby, discuss it with both and how they can work it out between them. If asking questions about the baby or child, address the question to him as much as to her. Don’t open a conversation with dad by asking about work – that puts him squarely into the ‘provider’ box and does nothing to improve his confidence as a parent. Think of mothers and fathers as people first, women and men second.

Consider also that New Zealand has high rates of single fatherhood (18 % of sole parents). This means that about one in 15 children you are working with will eventually end up in the care of their fathers, temporarily or for good (it’s a much higher proportion if you are working with disadvantaged families). This may be many years down the track, but do you want to take the risk that that father has learned nothing about parenting while you had the chance?

Next: Young Musicians

10 Years of Father & Child Trust

As the Father & Child Trust celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, Harald Breiding-Buss reflects on how it came about and what difference it made.

Having a good idea is one thing, putting it into practice quite another. And then to still keep the idea going after 10 years is yet another ballgame.

Calling that first meeting back in August 1997 was rather nerve-wrecking. I had asked five other guys to come along to discuss forming an organisation, most of them members of a playgroup for at-home dads which I had known for a few years. We all got lots out of knowing other guys in that situation, but would that be enough to take it one step further, and would people be prepared to make the commitment to get it going? Would they really find it worth their while, or would I start hearing excuses after a few months that people are too busy and so on?

I needn’t have worried. After 10 years some of those original guys are still with it—and have become friends in the process.

What we wanted to create was something that would offer fathers support – simply being taken seriously in a caregiving role, be it fulltime or part-time. ‘Fathering’ was a fairly big issue around about that time, with statistics being thrown around that New Zealand children were a ‘fatherless’ generation. The official answer to that was that men need to be told to be better fathers.

To someone at home with his children day after day that is an odd, rather patronising concept. At the time my main worry was how to get more time for myself, not even more time with my children. A TV ‘documentary’ at the time, featuring Sean Fitzpatrick, took 1 ½ hours to tell fathers what and what not to do, and in all this the already invisible involved father became even more invisible.

In our day-to-day experience, if you are an involved father you are completely ignored. For midwives, Plunket nurses and other ‘health professionals’ you as good as don’t exist. The stereotype about what you should be as a guy was proving stronger than what they actually encountered in New Zealand houses and families. While New Zealand’s rates of solo fatherhood and the time men spend around children was soaring through the roof, the political discussion remained on the uninvolved dad – it was safe to keep blaming men, when the actual problems were with support and health systems.

So our mission was to offer support for fathers where needed, but mainly to educate those service providers that every baby and child has two parents. It is simply not good enough to give all the support and education to one parent only. In all our publications and activities we would presume involved fatherhood, and look for obstacles if that was not the case. The onus is not on men to prove that they are good fathers – it is on the professionals to show that they care about fathers as much as they care about mothers.

Awareness that there are big obstacles for fathers has grown over the last 10 years. The ‘deadbeat dad’ is not exactly dead, but it is no longer automatically assumed that a man’s natural inclination is to stay out of childcare as much as they possibly can. But as yet, that awareness has not shown itself to make any difference in practice.

Father & Child magazine played a role in bringing that awareness about. The first issue was produced in December 1997, but it didn’t become a printed publication available through bookstores until 2002. Its mission was and is to tell fathers’ stories, both the good and the bad. Amateurs that we all were we did our own investigations and prominently covered important research.

When Father & Child magazine moved from a photocopied publication to a printed one, it also drew more attention from people outside Christchurch, and some of them have come to occupy key roles in the Trust. In 2005 two non-Christchurch members were elected to the Trust’s governing body, the Board, for the first time. Auckland-based Brendon Smith has since become a paid staff member, the Trust’s first outside Christchurch, paving the way for a permanent presence in Auckland. Wellington’s Mark Stephenson represents the Trust in the all-important political circus of our capital and is set to lead a Trust research project on single dads.

Initially our focus was on the maternity sector: Those months before and after the birth of a new baby. It is a window of opportunity to reach parents as often they are actively looking for information. It is also the time when fathers most need to be included as equal parents and decision makers so this can become the pattern for years to come. Sadly, the maternity sector was, and still is, the time where least effort is made to include fathers.

So the Trust started some work in antenatal classes to give fathers the opportunity to talk about their own issues – not just supporting the mother, but identifying what support they themselves need and should have, and what their own concerns and feelings about birth and the months after really are.

One of the first discoveries in doing that was that the guys tended to be rather quiet as long as they were in the same room as the women. Once they were amongst themselves, and after about one minute getting over the awkwardness of finding yourself in a ‘men’s group’, it was extremely hard not to go overtime because the guys were talking so much.

The fathers’ way of supporting their partners during pregnancy was (and is) not to burden the expecting mothers with their own feelings, expectations and issues. Disagreeing with your partner at this stage would seem unsupportive, and so the men rather say nothing. When by themselves, however, it turned out that the guys have very clear ideas about what they would like their family to look like in six months, a year or two years’ time. Most commonly such plans involved an increased share of the caregiving as time progressed.

Then, and now, young children are seen as a women’s issue, and men are simply not asked about what they’d like to see, and neither are they given the skills to be competent caregivers. Just trying to get the midwife or Plunket nurse to visit at a time when the father can also be around can be a real mission, and is certainly not in the average midwife’s brief anyway. Instead of increasing the childcare share, a new father is increasingly missing out, and being much more than ‘mum’s helper’ becomes ever harder to realise.

The Trust also looked at the issue of teenage fathers – a group of parents you never used to hear about. In the public eye teenage parenthood means single motherhood for young women and they might as well have been impregnated by airborne pollination for all we would hear about the fathers. This has definitely changed, and the Trust can take credit for this. While still almost completely ignored by social services, teenage fatherhood is no longer an exotic concept or issue. When we started our teenage fathers project there was still an assumption that the fathers of the children of teenage mothers were several years older than them, sometimes even in their thirties, and that ‘teenage fathers’ as such hardly existed. But the Trust told the stories of some of them, including some single teenage fathers.

There were always individuals that happily took the message on board in their practice. One Christchurch community worker, who had been working with teenage mums for nearly 20 years, said that she now realises that she needed to ‘widen her horizon’. A Plunket worker, working with postnatally depressed women, changed her practice to not only tell fathers how to support their partners, but by also simply asking them: “and how are you in all this?” At least one lecturer at a Christchurch institution that is training midwives makes sure that her trainees are exposed to fathers issues, by regularly inviting the Trust to do a session with the trainees and giving other information.

But when such people leave their jobs, their efforts at providing an inclusive approach go with them. To get an inclusive approach working everywhere would require training and backup support for nurses, midwives, parent educators and so many other people working with families , that it would in turn require a much bigger agency than us to provide it. But since government does not see the necessity for such an approach, there is simply no money for it. And so we keep plodding away at an individual level, and, given our size, rather successfully.

Just being around helps a lot. It’s not so much about whether you can provide, for example, a staff training session, but whether you can provide it again after one, two or even three years. Including dads is not just a fad—it’s a long-term issue, and much of our job is to prevent it from being filed away under ‘been there, done that’.

Next: Going the Distance