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Meeting of the Parliament 27 February 2013

27 Feb 2013 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

Families Need Fathers

McDonald, Mark SNP North East Scotland Watch on SPTV

I congratulate my colleague John Mason on securing this debate.

In its national parenting strategy, the Scottish Government has set out its ambition to make Scotland

“the best place in the world to grow up”

and I think that we should all be striving to achieve that, not just for Scotland’s children but for Scotland’s families. We can make Scotland the best place in the world to grow up in partly by ensuring that children themselves grow up in a loving and nurturing environment.

Part of that environment will be developed through stable relationships between parents, but we must accept that there will be situations in which relationships will break down, for whatever reason. The most important thing is that the children’s rights are considered, and that includes considering the rights of both the mother and the father. The father’s rights are all too often forgotten in the process. We absolutely have to put the child at the centre, but we must not forget that there are two other players as well, and the father often gets left out.

Anne McTaggart helpfully summed up the range of family models that now exists in Scotland, none of which should be considered to be any less worthy than another, as children can be given a loving and nurturing environment in a range of ways. However, I want to focus on two specific groups. There are fathers who live with their partner and child. I am a father of two young children. I live with my wife and, obviously, we have our children with us. Those of us who are in such a position still need to be given support in the role of father. No father is ever handed an instruction manual on how to do the job, and support networks sometimes quite rightly in many ways focus heavily on the mother’s role and on directing support towards them. However, there can be times when the father needs to be given a bit of support in performing his role. How our public sector organisations include and seek to include fathers needs to be looked at. I will perhaps discuss that a little bit more a little later.

There are also fathers who live apart from their partner for whatever reason. The most important issues in that context are around access rights and custody. I sometimes wonder whether, in looking at access rights, for example, there is still a harking back to the Victorian attitude of the distant father and the nurturing mother, as if fathers somehow do not really need to have access to their children because they do not take as active and interested a role. How we view fathers and the role that they play also needs to be looked at.

On the wider support networks, obviously there is the support that can be provided through the public sector organisations. Voluntary groups have also been established, and groups of dads come together. Dads rock, which was in the Parliament recently, has established itself very well in Edinburgh and is now looking to branch out into other local authority areas. I told it to give me a shout when it comes to the north-east, although, given that it is based around a musical environment and I cannot carry a tune in a bucket, I do not suppose that I will be much help to it.

Fathers of children with complex support needs and disabilities also need to be seriously considered, particularly fathers who live apart from and have only very limited access to those children. How we support those fathers in their role as a father and in providing the support that they can provide to their children in those circumstances needs to be looked at.

17:28