Dad's dilemma

Ben Hudson would be the first to admit he doesn't get enough time to spend with his four young children.The hard-working joint owner of York estate agents Hudson Moody works 7am to 7pm, six days a week. Often, his four children - Alicia, six, Eleanor, four, Henry, two and one-year-old Zara - are asleep when he leaves for work in the morning, and asleep by the time he gets back.

"Sometimes it seems all I'm doing is giving them a kiss on the forehead when they're asleep," the 35-year-old dad admits, regretfully.

He and his wife Tarnia do what they can to make it up to the youngsters. He makes a point of trying to talk to the children every day, if they're not asleep. On Sundays, all he wants to do is stay at home and play in the garden with the children. And when he does get a couple of weeks off work, they all spend it together as a family.

The long hours Mr Hudson puts in are a deliberate choice. He is determined to build up the business, launched about five years ago, so he can build a secure future for his family.

"It would perhaps have been easier to stay with my old job (he worked for another York estate agent) but then I couldn't have given them the life I wanted to. Financially, I can now provide more for them," he says.

Despite rationalising his long working hours Mr Hudson admits he can't help feeling guilty sometimes.

"You hear people who say, 'be careful you don't miss their childhood. They're only young once and before you know it they will have grown up and left home,'" he says.

"But there are sacrifices you make in life, and this is one of those sacrifices."

It is a dilemma facing many young fathers: the desire to carve out a secure future for the children by throwing yourself into work which, of course, conflicts with the natural wish to spend quality time with them as they grow up.

Children themselves appear to be in no doubt which they would prefer.

A new survey released today conducted by the charities Fathers Direct and Children in Wales reveals that more than 90 per cent of youngsters aged between nine and 11 would like to spend more time with their dads. Most youngsters admit they would prefer their dad to be like David Beckham rather than Tony Blair or Prince Charles - few surprises there - and three out of four said looking after the children was their dad's most important job, not going out to work.

If only it were that simple. The reality is most dads today - and often mums too - have little choice but to work long hours in the constant struggle to make ends meet and provide a secure home for a young family.

That's not to say things haven't changed for the better.

Despite working ever longer hours men today are on the whole much more involved in bringing up their children than they were a generation ago.

The rise of the New Dad may be despite, rather than because, of working practices. According to Jack O'Sullivan of Fathers Direct, we still live in a deeply "father-unfriendly" culture - which, since dads are important to their children, means ours is also a child-unfriendly culture.

Britain lags way behind most of our European neighbours in terms of paternity leave, he says. And however much dads may want to spend time with their children there remains a perception in the workplace that caring for children is still a woman's work - even though many mums now work part or full-time as well.

"It is very difficult for a father to take time off work if his child is sick or whatever," he says. "We still tend to think of that as the woman's job."

Father's Direct is using the results of the latest survey of children's attitudes about their fathers as a call for employers to be more flexible over fathers' working hours - and for the Government to do more to promote a father-friendly working culture.

"The Government and business must listen to what children want from dads - not the latest toy, but more time so fathers can look after them," says the charity's Duncan Fisher.

"More flexible, shorter working hours would allow parents to do what children want them to do - share the roles of providing and caring."

Ben Hudson agrees that employers ought, when possible, to be more flexible when it comes to working dads' reasonable requests for time off to deal with family problems.

As a father himself who employs a number of men who are dads, he knows how important that is.

"People do need to be more flexible," he says. "Ultimately the family is the most important thing in your life."

It wouldn't only be fathers and families that benefited from a more father-friendly work culture, he says.

"If somebody is not worried about things at home, he'll obviously be able to get on better at work," he says.

Now there's a thought.

What the children say...

Youngsters at Westfield Junior School certainly seemed to agree that the best place for dad was at home with them - within reason, of course.

Jade Read, above left, 11, says her dad has two jobs, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. He usually gets home about 6.30pm, she says. "He's normally quite tired in the evenings." She would like to spend more time with him, she admits, so they could go swimming more often, or go to the cinema.

Catherine Parker, ten, says her dad usually doesn't get home until between 7-8pm at night. "I would like him to get home earlier," she says. "Then he could read us more stories and spend more time with us."

Andrew King, 11, would also like to see more of his dad - except when he's in trouble. Usually, his dad gets home just before 6pm, says Andrew: and sometimes at the weekend he referees football matches "I'd like to play more sports with him, and go out to different places more often," Andrew says.

Simeon Haslam, nine, says he's quite lucky because his dad, a website designer, works at home. "But sometimes he has to go on a course for three or four days, and then I miss him," he says. He enjoys playing snooker and making music with his dad.

Updated: 11:11 Thursday, June 21, 2001