The great job of being Dad
So what does it mean to be a dad these days? Reporter Deena Coster asks a few to find out.
Every day Duane Luke wakes up and takes on what he considers to be the most meaningful job in the world. The Taranaki man is a stay-athome dad to son Rongomaiira, 3, and daughter Te Auripo, 14 months.
‘‘It’s the most important job you can have I think, looking after the kids.’’
With a 20-year career in the banking industry and a stint as a sharemilker behind him, the 47-year-old says life came into focus when partner Liana Poutu fell pregnant with their first child.
‘‘Everything was about the kids at that point,’’ he says.
And as Poutu became busier at work in her role with Te Atiawa iwi, she approached Luke with the idea of him staying at home and caring for their children fulltime.
‘‘I jumped at it – it just made sense.’’
Luke finds himself in good company. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s partner, Clarke Gayford, is in the same boat.
In August, he took on the primary caregiving responsibilities of the couple’s daughter Neve, while Ardern returned to lead the country.
Gayford’s decision to put his career on hold to raise the couple’s daughter has been met with high praise globally.
Former Prime Minister Helen Clark went on radio and said Gayford was as much a role model as Ardern.
‘‘This is just such a powerful statement about sharing roles in the family and again it’s of global significance,’’ she said.
Statistics New Zealand don’t hold specific data on the number of stayat-home fathers in New Zealand, but a 2017 Household Labour Force Survey highlighted how 3 per cent of men not in work cited the reason for this was related to looking after children.
For Luke, parenting involves tending to his children’s day-to-day needs, dealing with them when they’re sick and tackling the tantrums – all those roles that were traditionally expected to be filled by mums. But the pay off in switching those ‘‘traditional’’ roles has been huge for Luke.
He gets to be there for all the little milestones which define the early years of any child’s life.
‘‘I think every father just wants to see their kids grow up and be happy.’’ Nathan Wallis, co-author of
Nurture: The Art of Parenting and neuroscience educator, firmly believes parenting is the fundamental cornerstone of social wellbeing.
He says there is a huge evidence base which shows the benefits of a child having two parents, regardless of their gender, but there are also unique advantages to a father being on the scene.
Wallis says fathers tend to ‘‘play differently’’ with their children and such rough-and-tumble interaction gives children different spatial understanding, which helps with things like mathematical skills.
Children who have fathers involved in their lives also take more risks, Wallis says, which studies link to increased creativity, innovation and intelligence in later life.
But Wallis says, in no uncertain terms, that New Zealand has a long way to go in terms of accepting how important parents are to building a healthy society.
He says at the moment it is ‘‘shockingly and disgustingly’’ under-rated.
‘‘I see that lack of family nurturing everywhere,’’ he says. ‘‘We have to change.’’
One thing he would implement immediately to make a positive move in this direction would be to provide a way for one parent to be able to stay at home with their child during the first 12 months of life.
He says the bold move would require social, policy and law changes, but it was doable in New Zealand.
‘‘We’ve given women the vote, we’ve gone nuclear free, we’ve gone bigger.’’
Putting his young family before all else is a no-brainer for Eli Vollebregt.
‘‘I’m a husband and a father first,’’ the Opunake farmer says.
When the 30-year-old found out he was going to be a father for the first time last year, he was standing in the cowshed, with his head down, tears pricking his eyes.
His eyes were fixed on the screen of his cellphone, looking at a photo his wife had sent of her positive pregnancy test.
Future scenes of his unborn child’s life quickly flashed through his mind. The birth, the first day of school, the 21st party.
Vollebregt always wanted to be a dad, a dream realised with the birth of his son Sebastian four months ago.
But the reality of fatherhood is better than Vollebregt ever imagined, he says.
Involved from the outset, he attended all the ante-natal classes and appointments, wanting to learn as much as possible in the months before his baby boy came into the world.
He was there for Sebastian’s birth and remembers being totally overwhelmed with emotion. ‘‘It’s been life-changing,’’ he says. While it’s early days for Vollebregt on the fatherhood front, he believes time is one of the most important things he can give his son. It was something his own father gifted him during his childhood growing up in Masterton, where Vollebregt trailed after his dad on the farm, camped out at night and spent time together gazing up at the stars.
‘‘If you can give your time to your family and your children, that’s the one thing they will always remember.’’
It’s a sentiment Dave Owens wholeheartedly agrees with.
Owens set up Great Fathers in 2008, an organisation which aims to give dads the information they need to best meet the needs of their children.
But despite heading up an organisation called Great Fathers, Owens considers himself to be a voice for children first, rather than dads.
‘‘I call myself an advocate for children,’’ the father-of-two says.
‘‘Children have far better wellbeing if their father is involved in their life.’’
They are more secure, have a better ability to cope and an easier time making friends, he says.
Later on in life, children with a present and engaged father are more likely to finish school, find work and be less likely to experience depression.
‘‘A mother is essential to a baby’s survival – she is the critical one’’ but add in an engaged father and children ‘‘just do so much better.’’
‘‘If you’ve got a bond with your children, you’ve got it for the rest of their life. Giving your attention to your child is the most critical thing.’’