Bringing up baby

There is only one problem, Mark's wife Melanie, who returned to work full time after her maternity leave, is not a committed career woman; she feels she is ''missing out on time with her daughter''. So in a few weeks she will give up her job as a full-time editor and will work part-time from home. And Mark, the couple hope, will find part-time paid employment too: their goal is to be ''fully interchangeable parents'', both equally involved in the responsibilities of raising Christina and earning money.

Whereas the concept of part-time work for women has been fully recognised, such a concept for men who wish to be involved as parents without totally sacrificing their careers has rarely been considered as an option. In recognition of changing needs, this year, as part of a ''substantial project'' on fathers, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) is set to commission research intended to highlight the possibilities of part- time work for men.

''In the past the research concentrating on part-time work has focused on women,'' says Karey Oppenheim, director of social policy at the IPPR. ''We want to rectify the deficit in the research, and to look at the possibilities for two people working part time. For instance, can couples share hours? Do companies have family-friendly policies focused towards men? We want to look at women's relationships with the home and men's relationships with the home and ask how they can be supported.''

Oppenheim points out that there are economic as well as social reasons for men working part time. In the Netherlands, policies encouraging part-time employment among men have helped lower unemployment. If other European men were encouraged to work part time, this would go some way towards redressing the unemployment situation, she says.

There is a growing awareness that children need to spend more time with their fathers, and that some fathers, like Mark Parry, want to spend more time with their children. A recent survey found that 86% of Britons believe that fathers should be more closely involved with their children - and yet the reality is that British fathers work the longest hours of any fathers in Europe and spend less than six minutes a day interacting with their children.

It is a situation that the distinguished Australian family therapist, Steve Biddulph, has commented on: ''We are in danger of producing the most under-fathered generation on earth - damaging for our girls and crippling for our boys.''

The statistics bear him out. Post- divorce, only 3% of fathers get custody of their children. Worse, one-third of all fathers lose contact with their children within two years of divorce. Yet there are signs from America that this trend may be set to change. According to a Census Bureau Survey, the number of single fathers awarded custody of their children has increased nearly five times in the past 25 years, and there are now at least two million house-husbands.

''I had no idea what babies were about,'' says Mark Parry. ''I was very fearful. When you are faced with a crying baby what do you do? But when Christina was on the way I knew I wanted to be involved with her. In our marriage the traditional boundaries of job demarcation in the home had long gone by the way. I had no concerns about doing chores such as nappies, although I thought they might be horrendous.''

Deciding to become fully interchangeable parents, both working part time, was a concept the Parrys reached by trial and error. When Christina was born, Mark was working full time. ''I could have a couple of hours with her if I got back by 5.30,'' he says. ''She was five-months-old by the time I was made redundant and Melanie was still on maternity leave, so we overlapped for two months. Initially I looked for a full-time job, and when nothing came up that I really wanted to do, Melanie said: ''Why should it be you who goes out to work? You could stay here and look after Christina instead.''

At that point Mark still saw himself as the role of main breadwinner, but he had so enjoyed spending time with his daughter that he agreed. But with them both want-ing to work part time there has to be an adjustment in their standard of living. While most of their upwardly-mobile friends with young families are expanding to larger houses, early in the New Year the Parry's will move from the city to live in a two-bedroom house in Galloway.

''You adjust your spending,'' Mark says of the drop in income. ''The meals out went a long time ago, as did going out to the pub. You think twice about buying the things we did when I was in stockbroking. I do hanker after the skiing holiday. But we both feel our family is more important than our careers.''

A part-time job, he concedes, may be difficult to find. ''There are a lot of entrenched views, which is understandable, and it takes a lot to unravel those. In Britain in the nineties, your identity is all bound up with your work. Some people are quite shocked I am looking after a baby, but with close friends it isn't an issue.''

Melanie says: ''We seem to be going into a situation where we will be earning comparatively little but spending lots of time with Christina. I am sure it is the right thing to do, but it seems odd when we look at ourselves in comparison to what everyone else is doing.''

While Christina sleeps, Mark makes sure he keeps in touch with the financial world by reading the papers, aware that he risks falling behind. ''When Melanie went back to work she said being at the office was a real rest. Being at home is not the easy option. I didn't know how hard it was. There are days when I feel I haven't achieved anything and I need Melanie to come back and encourage me.''