UK Fathers Unwilling to Give Up Their Jobs for Children

Men are reluctant to cut back on work to help their spouses and look after children, claims a new book.

The U.K. author, Gidoen Burrows, states that the belief that a large number of fathers are replacing mothers to take care of their children is simply "a fallacy."

The book, 'Men Can Do It! The Real Reason Dads Don't Do Childcare and What Men and Women Should Do About It,' will be published next week.

The book also carefully scrutinizes the reasons behind hurdles in equal parenting, such as poor paternity pay, non-flexible jobs, public services inclined toward mothers and workplace prejudice.

However, Burrows also states that men themselves do not want to take up the responsibility surrounding child care. He describes his book as a 'wake-up call for all new parents.'

"The sad truth is that we don't really want to do childcare. It's lovely, but it's also boring, disgusting, unrewarding and tedious and entails career, financial and life sacrifices that we're just not willing to take. It is hard to swim against the tide of convention, but if we really wanted to do it, we would go ahead. We don't," Burrows told The Independent.

He further told the newspaper that he got the idea for penning down the book after he was diagnosed with incurable brain tumor. The 36-year-old author said that the diagnosis pushed him to finally write his thoughts on the subject. "I knew this might be one of the last chances."

According to the book, one in three men do not bother to take their statutory paternity leave. It further discloses that fathers in the U.K. spend much less time with their children compared to their wives. Men simply say they want to spend time with their children and do nothing about it, he writes. Burrows' study also reveals that a third of men do not even change nappies or bathe kids.