Mothers and work - what about the fathers?

In the Observer last Sunday, there were two related articles about mothers. One announced a round-table discussion of mothers with 'Mothers and Work: The Great Debate' and another was a comment piece entitled 'Mothers are to be blamed for this child-obsessed society of ours'. Both touched on the issue of the 'supermum' - the theme revisited countless numbers of times in various articles asking the hackneyed questions of 'Should Mothers Go Out To Work?' and ultimately the ridiculously non-specific question: 'Can Women Have It All?'

I have a problem with the usual definition of 'having it all' - which generally in these types of articles means women combining family life and an independent career. This question is never really asked of men, who seem to be free to choose whichever without having it made a label, or a problem. Further, 'having it all' is really a subjective thing, and to do with very personal elements which might make up a happy life for an individual. It is irritating that society automatically presumes that a woman having 'all' that is fulfilling in life will necessarily include having children and the fact that at some point she will inevitably have some 'choice' to make between two simple binaries. What about those who actually don't feel that 'having it all' involves having children at all, but might instead include travel, friends, a house full of cats (to call up the old spinster stereotype)?

The Observer article on mothers and work featured a round table discussion of women, motivated by the findings of a Cambridge study which reported that most British people think family life suffers if women work. The issue I have with these types of discussions is that they ALWAYS focus on women. While female biology might dictate that we are the ones that actually give birth to the children, we do not make ourselves pregnant, a fact that many vicious rants against single mothers often like to ignore. There is a joint responsibility in conceiving a child, and therefore surely an equal responsibility on dads to have a role in bringing up a child. Therefore, shouldn't a discussion about the effects of working parents on children include the dad's role in this? Why is it not the father's fault if the child 'suffers' because one of the parents is working?

On Radio 2 a couple of weeks ago, they featured a mother and daughter discussing the mother's dilemma about going out to work and the daughter's feeling that she had missed having her mum around. Apart from the fact that class-wise the pair were totally out of touch with probably most family situationa (the mother said she worked to keep the daughter educated in private school and to provide her with riding lessons), I thought it was unfortunate that there was only a cursory nod to what the father was doing all this time. His role was alluded to, but with so little unpacking that I can't even remember what they said about it.

While there weren't any men present on the round table of the Observer article, it was good that the issue of men did come up. One of the women rightly pointed out: "Society has to address the fact that there are some superdads out there who are brilliant and not working...is the debate not necessarily 'can supermums exist?' but 'are children affected by both parents working as opposed to one parent working?' I think that's the great thing that needs to be discussed."

Indeed, personally I think the potential 'problems' caused to families by working mothers will only be sorted out if we turn the focus so much off of the mums and have a look at what dads are doing. Parenting is a joint responsibility, and with it there comes a joint responsibility for the impact that BOTH parents working lives will have on their children. But the focus of discussions on this issue rarely seem to include discussions of what the fathers role is or could be, instead often focusing on the mother's 'guilt'. I'm sure this omission helps perpetuates the notion for men that juggling work and children is not their concern at all. Why should women be juggling the burden of work + kids? Why should we always focus on the mother's 'guilt' or 'selfishness' for wanting/having to go out to work? We should also be listening to those men who are already taking on the role of childcare while mum goes out to work. We should also be encouraging and educating men and boys that childcare is equally their responsibility as much as the woman's. While it is true that women have traditionally been the main carers of children, I don't see why we are still hanging onto this stereotype. Thanks to increased contraception choices (at least in the UK), women are now able to have an element of control over their fertility, so why is it that we are still defined by our 'biology' as childbearers to be the main one responsible for the welfare of the child?