Dad’s the word: Our kids need their father’s presence now more than ever

4 April 2025, 12:20

This Friday, from Stirling in Scotland to St Austell in Cornwall, Labour MPs are meeting up with local dads in their constituencies.

In a pub, a zoo and a train museum, dozens of MPs are getting dads together to hear about the ways fatherhood is changing, the challenges facing fathers today, and the support they need in the face of them.

It couldn’t be more timely. This week marks the anniversary of the introduction of statutory paternity leave in the UK just over twenty years ago. In that time, 4 million babies have benefited from having their dad or non-birthing parent around in the first two weeks of life.

The current cultural conversation over the last few weeks however, has been the Netflix mini-series ‘Adolescence’ which woke the country up to the rise of toxic influencers and the extreme misogyny they’re pushing on British boys.

That contrast just about sums it up.

On the one hand, 90% of dads agree that fathers these days want to be a more active part of their kids' lives, and 86% of the public agree it’s better when both parents can be active caregivers.

On the other hand, figures like Andrew Tate have exploded in reach and influence for young lads across the country, with 36% of young men now believing feminism has done more harm than good.

We need to take a focused look at these influencers, how they rise and the business models they build that prey on our kids. We need to take them apart bit by bit and make it clear we’re not going to stand by while men who punch down, disrespect women and forever play the victim claim to “represent masculinity” - let alone teach it to our boys.

But we also need to build a society resilient to their influence - and that’s where, as a father myself, the role and anguish of the dad in the Netflix series hit so hard.

While the introduction of paternity leave 20 plus years ago was a major step forward no progress has been made in the years since - we now have the worst leave in Europe at just two weeks on less than half the minimum wage, with no support at all for self employed dads like the one in Adolescence.

The pressure dads feel to focus on protecting and providing rather than spending time with their families starts on day one and continues every single day after that. We need to ease that pressure. We need to free British dads to provide the thing that matters the most: their presence.

We need to free British dads to protect their families by being active role models in the lives of their kids - for the sake of boys and girls alike.

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George Gabriel is Co-Founder of The Dad Shift.

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