European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 31, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Is a dual role incorporate culture offers Only Token tribute by Susan Harte Cox news service i n Jay Smith s mind work is important but family is first. H Quot i try to do a Good Job for the company Day in. And Day out but it s a Job Quot says Smith 35, a forecaster with Southern Bell and father of Jeffrey 11 Quot my family is More important to  while Smith works for a Large employer with Liberal parental leave policies he uses vacation time a not parental leave a when he attends to family business during the workweek. Though 44 percent of the largest . Corporations now offer unpaid parental leave for fathers fewer than 3 percent take it. That statistic from 521 companies comes from the conference Board and from catalyst two non profit research groups trying to make sense of conflicting american values and the corporate response to them. So it seems that Smiths is a generation in Between. The women a movement and influx of women into the work Force have encouraged men to get involved with their children in fact women have been the impetus behind new and improved leave policies that now include a maternity leave. This Short paid leave is usually covered under companies health and disability policies. A personal leave. Many companies now allow employees to be away from work without pay for various lengths of time for reasons that include dependent care. This is also called parental leave and can apply to either gender. It is often used after a birth or adoption. But it can apply to elder care As Well. A personal business Days. Some employers allow their workers a certain number of paid Days annually As Long As there is a compelling reason. These Are commonly used to take care of children a needs and emergencies. 9 paternal leave. This is still the rarest Type of leave Benefit Overall. When it exists fathers Are usually allowed a Small number of paid or unpaid Days off for the birth or adoption of a child. However neither the corporate culture nor the larger one is doing much More than paying Token tribute to the idea that children belong full time to fathers and mothers and other thana few Days off when children Are Home or adopted fathers a Are not expected to take parental leave. The locus of such attitudes is at the top of companies says organizational psychologist Mitchell l Marks of William m. Mercer consulting. Quot the 50 and 60-year-ofds who Are leading companies play by a set of rules that say the Job comes first. But there Are More men today Likely to say my family is going to get a higher priority than my father gave his  that a growing but its still a  Atlanta paediatrician Olin Shivers agrees. A a in be seen great changes in 35 years. There Are far More men bringing their kids to the doctor being Good fathers a he said. But he acknowledged most of these men have flexible schedules and done to have to negotiate permission to leave work during the Day. And picking up a child from Day care is still a higher status task than ironing clothes and cleaning floors University of North Carolina sociologist Dennis k. Ortner observes. In Short men still expect a and Are expected a to be men if there Are no More visigoths to fight off manliness Means paying unremitting homage to a corporate culture that laments the addict while lauding the Workaholic. Regardless of a company a Public stance its real value system does not support the dual role Man. Companies do not regard assisting parents of itself As being Good for business. What its Good for is employee morale according to a Survey done by Mercer consulting. I daddy track male or female single parenting is difficult associated press m Ore than 1 million divorced and widowed fathers in the United states Are on the a a daddy track a learning to balance children housework social life and career As a single Parent their numbers Are growing and Are expected to continue rising As More american fathers seek custody and courts become More inclined to go along. Like single mothers these men Are discovering there Are Pitfalls in raising kids alone but their problems often Are different single fathers usually Are better off financially than single mothers. On the other hand people tend to treat men differently than their female counterparts. From the sales clerk to the next door neighbor people often react by heaping assistance in these single Parent fathers offering help with child care cooking cleaning and shopping says Geoffrey l. Greif an associate professor at the University of Maryland s Baltimore school of social work the result Greif says is that Many of these fathers get  messages they Are praised for what they Are doing. But on the Caber hand they Are offered a helping hand Quot he said in an interview last week. A people think they Are incompetent to do it by themselves. Its a funny position that these men Are put in. Being praised and  psychologically the adjustments Are different also a when men gain custody they often feel like freaks like there Arentt any other people out there doing it Quot Greif said. Greif who profiles single fathers in a new Book said a father once asked him a How Many other freaks Are there like me a a the impression is that they Are doing something that is strange and some men interpret that to mean they Are doing something that Isnit masculine and that takes a toll that a harder to measure and harder to see. Quot it tends to isolate some of the fathers a. And in a society that be Ives women Shou d be the ones raising children it has the potential for hindering the self esteem of the children he said. Using a Survey of More than 1,100 single fathers with custody and interviews with dozens of others Greif crafted a  of these men for his Book the daddy track and the single Parent. R the Book debunks Many of the myths of song e fathering including Pupu a notions of men  in the Kitchen and chaotically coping nth the Dally chores. In fact one of the biggest trouble Page 14 a a a the stars and stripes a a 18 a a i f t a / amp in general men find single parenting much More difficult than they thought it would be but few say they regret the Choice. Up areas for single fathers like single mothers is balancing work and child rearing. Greif said some of the fathers he interviewed had to quit their jobs and some were fired but most often the problem was a frustrating halt to their Rise up the career ladder. Quot men in our society define themselves As males based in Large part on their Success at work so when you place a Man on this track. He sometimes has to make a Choice Between pursuing his career path or putting his career in hold Quot Greif said. Sage parenting often limits an employee s  to travel on Short a ctr be which can hinder the r chances for promotion. Quot some men feel they Are  passed Over Quot he said housekeeping and child care Are easier problems to overcome Greif found. After the first few months on their own most men had these areas under control and generally their relationships with their children were positive he said. In 1383, about 1.2 million divorced and widowed fathers were raising their children compared with 8.1 million single Parent mothers according to the census Bureau. But the ranks of these fathers Are growing a by More than 50 percent compared with 16 percent for single Parent mothers in the first seven years of the 1980s, Greif said. The jury is still out on whether children fare better with their Mother or father a but generally the outcome seems to be the same Quot he said Greif concludes that in general men find single parenting much More difficult than they thought it would be Quot but very few say they regret the  tues i