Kiddies Only Get 30 Minutes Quality Time With Da
I am not sure why the press release for this new fact sheet from the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) (see link, below) had the title of ’Fathers Spend Less Time with their Children’ when the actual fact sheet was about the overall well-being of children. Drumming up figures like the above, that da only spends 30 minutes or so alone with his children every work day is supposed to indicate, what? That fathers don’t love or care for their children? I think that by cultivating and perpetuating the myth that caring is a quality that belongs only to women, we deny ourselves not only the reality of all those men who do love and care for their children but also, the possibility of challenging those men who are sadly locked into that masculine ideal that childcare is ‘women’s work’.
To me, this fact sheet is yet another in a long line of government propaganda, fundamentalist Christian, neo-liberal bunk that rambles on about truisms, for example, that children need a ‘good start’ in life, without turning the spotlight on all those structural problems that delimit such truisms from ever being actualised. Notably, as I myself ramble on about on this blog and elsewhere, men and women in Australia are forced to work like dogs to keep their financial heads afloat, and hardly have enough time to scratch themselves at the end of the day, let alone invest in any quality time with anyone. The Federal Government should be called to account for having the hide to push this ideological rubbish onto a population that can, at present, only feel slighted by failing to meet what are highly aspirational goals…
Blah! Blah! Blah!