One man, two children, three mothers: Jochen König is a father, single, blogger and author. To that end, he lives in a co-parenting model by conviction. For Familyship, he talks about the “father” in our society.
Jochen, what is family in 15 years?
Family is where people permanently and reliably care for each other and take responsibility. This is already happening today in a wide variety of constellations. Unfortunately, politics and the public are far behind reality and are still far too often oriented towards the mom-dad-child model. Hopefully, this will change in the next 15 years and more constellations will find consideration in social debates and political decision-making processes.
The family image has changed frequently in the past and will continue to change. I don’t dare make an exact forecast, but I don’t think it’s too bold to assume that the mommy-daddy-child model will continue to lose importance, the number of single parents as well as rainbow families and co-parent families will grow, and new constellations will emerge.
How has the father role changed?
There is definitely a development. In the meantime, the self-image of the majority of fathers includes not only filling the role of breadwinner alone, but also establishing contact with the children and understanding time within the family as something positive and desirable. More and more fathers are taking parental leave, but the majority of them take exactly the two months for which there is only money if they are taken by the father. At the end of his own parental leave, in many families the father then takes over the settling-in process at the kindergarten and thus the first contact with the public, true to the classic roles: The woman is responsible for the family at home, the man regulates the family’s contact with the outside world.
What is the image of a father in the media and how do you evaluate it?
In the media, fathers are often portrayed as modern heroes. They are praised and celebrated when they – like Mark Zuckerberg – have changed a child’s diaper or when they – like Sigmar Gabriel – have stayed home with a sick child for a day. And every year it is worth a new success story when a handful more fathers have taken parental leave for two months. Throughout this time, most care work continues to fall to mothers as a matter of course and without special appreciation. With only 6% of fathers taking more than two months of parental leave, there is still a long way to go before the father’s role changes more seriously. Against this background, the media presence of “modern” or “new” fathers seems abundantly absurd.
What is the role of a father compared to the role of a mother within a family?
Each family must negotiate the arrangement of roles for itself. Gender, as well as participation in the conception of a child, does not automatically determine roles and responsibilities within the family. It would be nice if in the future the burdens of caring for a child were not divided so much on the basis of the genders of the people involved, but rather on the basis of individual interests, possibilities and needs – regardless of whether they are single or multiple mothers, fathers or other responsible parents.
