Does Brooklyn bridge homework divide?

The media has enjoyed a bit of frenzy over Manchester United football star David Beckham's punishment by his manager, Alex Ferguson, for staying at home to mind the baby - good grief!

Although Ferguson refused to comment on why he had decided not to allow Beckham (hubby of Posh Spice, Victoria Adams) to play in a crucial match against Leeds, the footballer's PR company, Outside Organisation (who also cater for the likes of Elton John, Lenny Kravitz and David Bowie), issued statements claiming he missed a training session because he had been at home taking care of his sick child.

As a result, the PR suggested, he was left out of the match and fined £50,000 - not quite the stuff of family-friendly policies. The Posh/Becks (and baby Brooklyn too) story throws up a couple of very pertinent 21st century issues surrounding the role of parents, not least of which is how parents can maintain stressful careers and cope with the demands of parenting. We seem to have shaken off an old family image - happy baking mummy, two smiley kids and kindly dad hard at work - in favour of mum and dad both balancing successful careers with quality family time. David, Victoria and Brooklyn seem like the embodiment of the new millennium family. Indeed, if they aren't adorning the cover of OK magazine, they're snuggling up together on the front of Hello!, full of the joys of ideally balanced career and family lives.

We really are in love with this new-dad, new-family ethic. So much so, you'd wonder if the sick baby story was pushed by a shrewd PR company feeding into a growing public fondness for "new dad". But is the new-dad ideal a romantic aspiration, or is it a concrete reality?

It's no more than 10 years since the idea of a man, famous or otherwise, who would take a day's leave from work because of sick kids was a distinct rarity.

But have things really changed all that much? True, more and more fathers express a desire to play a more active role as parents. And more and more do just that. But despite the raging childcare debate, the workplace is still not family-friendly. Far from creating circumstances which facilitate fathers (or mothers for that matter), your average workplace dishes out a very insidious punishment of its own - no promotion. Fathers who spoke to E&L for this article (and preferred not to be named) explained that unless you were shown to have a 1000 per cent commitment to the job, you wouldn't find yourself going up the ladder at breakneck speed. On the contrary: looking for time out to care for children was met with nothing short of disgust, and where both parents were working, invariably the mother stayed at home with sick children. Which of course raises questions about just how much our view of the role of mothers has actually evolved . . . .

Increasingly, workplaces are implementing family-friendly policies, though as yet they are still thin on the ground. According to the Equality Authority, growing skills shortages will force the whole nature of the workplace to change. Part-time work, job-sharing and home working initiatives will have to be taken on board. However, in spite of employers' apparent needs, and in spite of wider social aspirations, change is proving exhaustingly slow.

UNDER THE Parental Leave Act 1998, parents of children under five are entitled to 14 weeks' leave. That's unpaid leave, and 14 weeks in total for the first five years - perhaps the children of parents working outside the home don't get sick after the age of five.

The legislation arose out of an EU directive on parental leave; however, it is considered quite a weak interpretation of the directive. Following a complaint lodged with the European Commission by ICTU, the legislation has been described as being in breach of the directive. The Government disputes this description, and a final decision from Brussels is due shortly.

Later this year, the Equality Authority will publish an update of its report on family-friendly initiatives in the workplace. The original report highlights the value of creating family-friendly initiatives from the employer's perspective. "The success of most organisations depends on factors such as quality, competitiveness, efficiency," the report stated. "An essential part of achieving these qualities is to create a working climate which generates . . . commitment in employees . . . . A family-friendly organisation which enables employees to balance the often conflicting demands of their work and personal lives will help create such a work environment."

There are also benefits in terms of stress levels. "Some employees fear that mention of non-work responsibilities or admission of stress will have a negative impact on promotional opportunities," the report continues.

It says organisations should facilitate "a healthy balance between work and family". Take note, Sir Alex Ferguson. And indeed employers right across Ireland. Whatever the benefits of employee initiatives for the work place itself, imagine how much easier the lives of parents and their children would be if meeting family needs was a fully understood reality, rather than a romantic ideal we enjoy as we flick through the pages of Hello!