Q&A with Working Families Ambassador Elliott Rae

Published: 10 Feb 2023

We recently sat down with our new ambassador Elliott Rae—founder of parenting platform MusicFootballFatherhood and one of the UK’s most prominent speakers on fatherhood—to  talk about flexible working, mental health, and gender equality.

We’re delighted you’re joining us as our newest ambassador; why do you want to be involved with Working Families?

I’ve admired the work of Working Families for many years now. The impact the team make is huge and the values and mission of the organisation completely align with what I do.

So when I was asked to be an ambassador the only answer was ever going to be YES!

You’re working hard to start more conversations with men around gender equality. How do you see flexible working helping to address gender equality in the workplace?

Workplace culture, family-related policies, and flexible working have a huge impact on the choices a family makes about how they share their caring responsibilities.

Flexible working is so crucial to workplace gender equality as it enables dads to be fully active and involved parents. We know that the motherhood penalty exists and mothers are more likely to work part-time or flexibly, less likely to be represented in senior roles, and more likely to have smaller salaries and smaller pensions. So encouraging men to share some of the joys and responsibilities of childcare helps to create more equality.

However, men are less likely to request flexible working and when they do, they are more likely to have those requests declined. There is still a stigma around male caring. I have personally seen this too often in my work. So it is really important to create an environment where dads feel able and comfortable to request flexible working alongside embracing the other family related policies on offer.

I approach my work from two angles. Firstly, to explain how men taking on their share of the childcare is good for mothers and women. But also, how men taking on childcare benefits them. Traditional and outdated ideas of masculinity mean that men and women are often confined to gendered parenting roles. And all too often, men miss out on the joys of building a strong bond with their children. They often take on the pressure of being the main breadwinner and miss out on seeing their children grow up. I encourage men to live a full life and experience the richness of family life, alongside a successful career.

A study by the World Health Organisation found that living in a country with gender equality benefits men’s health, leading to lower mortality rates, higher wellbeing, half the chance of being depressed, a higher likelihood of having protected sex, lower suicide rates, and a 40% reduced risk of violent death.

My main message is that gender equality is good for everyone and we all need to do our bit to strive towards it.

What actions do you think employers can take to tackle this issue?

There are so many things that organisations can do to encourage dads to ‘parent out loud’ at work. I define ‘parenting out loud’ as being proud to request flexible working, proud to take paternity leave, and proud to tell your colleagues that the school’s emergency number is yours!

When dads are able to parent out loud, we will have truly created an inclusive family friendly workplace culture. And there are endless benefits to this – from gender equality, mental health and wellbeing, retention and recruitment, and outcomes for our children.

The UK’s current statutory entitlement of two weeks’ paternity leave is just not good enough. It isn’t enough time for a dad to bond with his new baby. And often the dad can end up feeling like a spare part in the family as he is not able to learn how to parent independently on his own.

Some employers are taking this into their own hands. There are around 29 employers in the UK who have equalised their maternity and paternity leave polices and many more that offer new dads an enhanced period of paid paternity leave. This early time that a dad spends with their baby is absolutely crucial to bonding and can play a massive part in how a family decides to share caring responsibilities once the parental leave is finished. I would encourage all organisations to review their parental leave policies and look at enhancing their paternity leave offer. Even if you can’t equalise parental leave at the moment, there are incremental steps you can take that will make a massive difference to families’ lives.

In regards to flexible working, we should be aiming to advertise jobs as flexible by default. Jobs that are not flexible need to be an anomaly, not the norm. We also need to embrace the full range of flexible working options. For example, term-time hours, job shares, hybrid working, and many other arrangements.

This all needs to be supported by strong leadership and line management.

How have expectations for fathers changed in recent years, and how has this impacted on the fatherhood experience?

We’ve come a long way over the past couple of decades. The expectations and experiences of many new dads now are very different to what our grandads and even our own fathers encountered. My grandad never attended the birth of any of his 6 children. Now in many delivery rooms across the country, and in heterosexual couples, the father is the main birthing partner.

There are 10 times as many stay-at-home dads in the UK now than there were 10 years ago. And the introduction of Shared Parental Leave in 2015, followed by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, have all helped to shift the conversation around fatherhood.

Younger fathers are making decisions on where they work not just based on monetary remuneration, but also flexible working and family policies. Many younger fathers (and slightly older ones I should add, too!) are breaking out of the ideas around toxic masculinity and gendered parenting roles and designing a life that works for them and their families, regardless of societal expectations. But often, they need help and support in doing this.

That being said, many families continue to suffer with the cost of living, cost of childcare and an immense pressure on their time. And women continue to do the vast majority of caring, both for children and elderly parents.

We also continue to see issues in regards to low-income jobs and site-based roles. I am glad to see Working Families focus on this area. Until we fix the problem for all, we haven’t fixed the problem.

Your work focuses on improving dads’ mental health. How can flexible working and other family friendly support this?

Men’s mental health is such a massively under-discussed topic. Suicide is the biggest killer of men under the age of 45 and, in England, around one in eight men has a common mental health problem such as depression, anxiety, panic disorder, or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

39% of new dads are concerned about their mental health and 1 in 10 new dads will experience some kind of PND symptoms in the first 6 months. Men are at more risk of suicidal ideation when they are new dads, over and above any other time in their life.

Good paternity leave policies allow dads to bond with their babies, support their partners, and look after their own mental health. Flexible working allows dads to balance their work and home commitments.

I have seen the devastation that poor mental health can have on parents and the whole family. There are also, of course, ramifications for the workplace in sickness absences and retention issues.

Supporting working parents through policy and culture is absolutely essential to the functioning of family life, society and business.

I am delighted to join Working Families as an ambassador to help tackle these issues and create a better world for families.