Mark Woods: Family Matters

A recent parent colleague of mine who is preparing to return to work has been hit hard on all fronts. After eventually finding a childcare option – in her case, a child minder – with who she can stomach the thought of leaving her gorgeous one-year-old son all week, she began to fully comprehend the costs involved. “I’ve got to pay for the childminder’s holidays too and if my baby is poorly and not even there!”

Yes, indeed, the financial pressure is immense on millions of mothers for whom staying at home with their children just isn’t an option if they want to be able to feed, clothe and shelter them. The two-income family used to be a spoken of in the same terms as the two-car family, seen as a status symbol almost. No longer.

Never mind the recession, rising property prices alone have meant that two earners are an essential for millions of families to keep their heads above water. A recent survey suggested that mothers going back to work are twice as likely as fathers to feel guilty. As ever with the endless stream of statistical candy floss we are fed with these days, it may be wise to be taken with a good length of dental floss, but the findings show that 80 per cent of women worry about leaving their child in the care of others, while just 39 per cent of men feel likewise.

Old habits and the anatomical and emotional tools nature equips mothers rather than fathers with mean that while there’s plenty of gender equality when it comes to having to be a wage earner, the same often isn’t true when it comes to where the burden of childcare is concerned.

And if you’re a father who does your fair share of the rearing you are still seen as an oddity. This can at best take the form of undue and patronising praise for doing what comes naturally or more often it arrives via an unshakable belief from perfect strangers that they still know your child best. As a society we are re-learning something we’ve forgotten since pre-Industrial Revolution times, and circumstances are increasingly dictating that working at home and in the fields, factories and offices needs to be something that’s shared between us as couples.

Twitter: @mark_r_woods