Text of NZTV Morning TV Interview  - New Zealand 2003 

Claire:  How do men in demanding jobs ensure that they are also good fathers to their children?  That is the question that my next guest has tried to answer in his new book called “Fathering from the fast lane”.  Dr Bruce Robinson has some experience in this area; he is father of three, as well as a Professor of Medicine at the University of Western Australia, a practicing lung specialist and cancer researcher.  In his book he has interviewed over seventy five dads in busy jobs from Australian Prime Minister John Howard, to test cricketers, to pig farmers, to plumbers and Bruce Robinson joins me now in our Auckland studio.Good morning

 Bruce:  Hi Claire.

 Claire:  Well is it possible to have a busy demanding job and be a good father as well?

 Bruce:  It is indeed possible and in fact this is one of the surprising things that I found when I interviewed people for this book.  I thought the most successful people where going to tell me how much they had to sacrifice in terms of their fathering just to be successful.  But it worked out in fact that they were better fathers if they were more successful.  Or they seemed to think more about it.

 Claire:  Well I guess we need to talk about what is a good father to start with?

 Bruce:  Bruce:  Very difficult question.

 Claire:  Yeah  (laughing) what is your definition?

 Bruce:  Bruce:  Well, I think a good father is someone who looks at his children and says what do my children really need from me and then goes about trying to give it to them.  And it is more than just obviously money, a roof over their head, money for education, money for food, all of which is important, and it is more than just discipline and just straight forward love.  It’s making kids feel really special.  Special about their place on this earth, special about their future, special about who they are as a person and part of that is loving them unconditionally and really listening to them.  All those sorts of things.

 Claire:  It goes without saying that those are things that children need from their mothers too, but why have you chosen to focus on fathers in this book?

 Bruce:  For two reasons, one is that I honestly believe that mothers in general do a pretty good job.  Mothers who are working do a good job.  It is fathers I think that in general, not always, but in general are letting down the team.

 Claire:  Why do you think that is?

 Bruce:  It’s a good question.   I mean I think about it, when mothers get together.  They talk about mothering.  I have always noticed that.  Take the kids to kindergarten or standing outside the school waiting to pick up the kids or when they are having coffee together, they talk about mothering.  But I very rarely hear my friends talk about fathering.  We tend to talk about sport and work and that sort of thing.  So, I think mothers have this, I don’t know whether it is nature or nurture, that they have a tendency to share their wisdom but men don’t.  I guess the book is a bit of an attempt to help men share their wisdom.

 Claire:  You see, I guess some people would suggest that people talk about mothering because it is primarily what they do, whereas fathers are out there in the workforce in busy jobs whatever, they have a lot more different interests in their lives.  I mean, some people would say that, do you agree?

 Bruce:  Well, I think that is true, but it is not the reason why it happens because women who are also busy and successful are often better mothers than men who do the same type of job are fathers.  There is something about the way women go about it that makes them better at it.  And also, men (including myself let me hasten to add) get sucked in by work.  I think, probably a couple of hundred years ago if you were a hunter or farmer or blacksmith, your children would be around you and so would their uncles, grandfathers, their cousins, there would be lots of people if you like to do the fathering or the surrogate fathering.  Now the responsibility pretty much rests on Dad.  Very rarely do you have your grandfather, uncles, cousins, brother’s etc in the same street as you are.  So there are bigger demands on a man to be a good Dad and yet the demands to work harder are greater now than they used to be as well. 

Claire:  Yes, fathers today do face different challenges than their fathers don’t they.  There is more of an expectation as you say for fathers to be very involved in their children’s lives whereas perhaps, their fathers weren’t.

Bruce:  Correct.  And part of it is a perception of expectation, which I think is similar to a wife.  Maybe a couple of generations ago a wife was only expected to spend her life producing children and raising them, doing the cooking and therefore her expectations of perhaps a relationship with her husband were not the same as they would be now.

            Therefore, she is more likely to be dissatisfied now than if she had the same job fifty years ago and it is the same with fathering, you just can’t get away any more with doing the things that your father or grandfather did.  But also it is harder today.  The workforce has changed; you no longer have a job for life.  People don’t work for life.  Therefore you can’t take out a mortgage and know that you are going to be able to pay it. 

Claire:  Also people have to travel a lot more for their work I think.

 Bruce:  That’s right.  People are away a lot.  In the next town or overseas.

 Claire:  Yes.  The quote in the book, it was an interview with one of the fathers that you spoke to, that really sort of stood out for me and I will just read it out.  “He says, I don’t see my three young sons awake between Sunday night when they are put to bed and the following Saturday morning when they wake up”. “I leave for work each day before they wake up, and I am home at night after they have gone to bed”.  And I just wonder, is it possible for this guy to be a good father with work pressures like that.

 Claire:  Well, no it is not.  And he has a very enabling wife.  But you know I have often thought about that because he told me that sitting next to me at a professional dinner.  And I am sure he told me that, I didn’t ask him, but I am sure he told me that because he wanted me to remind him that, that wasn’t the way to go about it.  And he is actually tying to improve things.  But he is driven by something that makes him want to work those hours.  He doesn’t need to work those hours; he is driven by something else.  And I think until he becomes aware of why it is that he is overworking, he won’t be able to succeed at being a good father and his kids are going to grow up resenting him.  He has got to try to understand why it is that he overworks.

 Claire:  Is that a common thing do you think?  That men work more than they actually have to?  That the pressures of their jobs aren’t as intense that they make out they are? 

Bruce:  Absolutely.

 Claire:  Why?

 Bruce:  Well,  I think there is two things.  Number one is that we all want significance in life.  We all search for significance.  A lot of men are working so that someone will say, “You are wonderful”.

 Claire:  So it is about status – you mean.

 Bruce:  Well, status in someone’s eyes.  We all want to be significant in someone’s eyes.  A lot of life is the search for significance.  We want someone to like us.  This happens for kids in the playground, for teenagers, a lot of what teenagers do is about someone thinking they are significant and liking them and doesn’t stop.  And for a lot of men, sometimes they are trying to please someone like a father who was never happy with them, they are trying to prove themselves to someone.  And that is probably one of the biggest driving forces.  Of course, we are all driven by wanting to do well and achieve and that sort of thing.  But I am talking about people who overdo it.  Obviously like the guy you mentioned, you shouldn’t be doing it that much.

 Claire:  So, are you suggesting that, that person who said he doesn’t see his kids between Sunday and Saturday, could work less and that wouldn’t have an adverse affect on his career.  Because obviously that is part of what is driving the hours of work thing isn’t it.   People feel that their career path will be affected by working less.

 Bruce:  Yes.  But it is a false assumption.  And you may well have heard about this thing called the bell curve.  Where if you don’t do enough, it is not enough.  And then there is the right amount.  And then when you do more, it becomes counterproductive.  So for example, if you don’t eat enough you starve.  If you eat too much you get fat.  But the right amount is just the right amount.  Everything in life is like that.  Same in medicine, which is my job.  Not enough drug doesn’t work, the right amount of drug works, too much drug has side affects and in fact you are worse than if you didn’t have it in the first place.  Work is like that.  If you overwork it actually become counterproductive.  Because what happens is this, number one you get tired and you start to make mistakes and then you spend half your time trying to correct the mistakes.  Number two, you get stale and you lose your creativity and you lose the ability to stand back from your job and think about where you should be going.  Number three; you don’t feel personally satisfied in life because you don’t have a rich well-balanced life.  Number four, you get sick and when you get sick you have time off work and maybe your wife might leave you and then you have got to worry about your kids and on and on it goes.  So, your productivity doesn’t actually increase with more hours of work.

Claire:  There are some studies to suggest and actually back that up aren’t there?  I think there have actually been some studies to suggest that the fewer hours of work doesn’t necessarily result in lower productivity.

 Bruce:  It depends whereabouts on the bell curve you are.  If you are over the top of the bell curve, if you pull back you will actually find that you are more productive.  Whereas if you are obviously not at the top, on the other side of the bell curve and you work less you are going to be even less productive. 

Claire:  People who are working the same hours and never see their children, you are suggesting that there is something that is, there is something that they are afraid of, spending more time at home, what conclusions have you come to about their reasons?

 Bruce:  Well, the first one is the one that I have mentioned.  They are trying to get significance from someone.  In fact, Tim Winton the author had a great quote.  “He said to me, you know” he watches these guys and he said, “you know what these guys are trying to do?”  “They are trying to get their boss to love them” and he said “the funny thing is, their boss is never going to love them”.  “When it is time to cut costs, the boss will cut them”.  “But back at home, there are kids that will love you anyway, you don’t have to ask for them to love you”.  “You don’t have to work for it, you actually have to put kids off loving you, and it’s a funny thing, here is somebody who is never going to love you and you work to try to get it, and here is somebody who is always going to love you unless you destroy it and yet men go about trying to destroy it”. 

            But there is a second thing and it’s simply quite true that a lot of men are selfish.  And I guess women could be the same in the same situation.  Which is, when it is six o’clock at night and it’s the dog end of the day when the kids are tired and ratty

 Claire:  Bewitching hour

 Bruce:  (Laughing) they don’t want to be at home when the kids are fighting and things because they will have to be a peacemaker and help with the cooking, help with the bathing.  They love the idea of coming home after all the kids – when the kids are sitting in bed waiting for dad to read them a bedtime story and its true, I have heard that story plenty of times, I can tell you.  From doctors, lawyers and all sorts of people.  They don’t need to be at work, but they will make an excuse to stay there to avoid that terrible hour.

 Claire:  What do you say to them?  It is a terrible hour, the kids go nuts, who would want to be there (laughing)?

 Bruce:  Well, this is what I say to men.  I think, I don’t want to be to critical about my colleagues and let me hasten to say I am guilty of these things myself

 Claire:  Still – but your kids are older now though aren’t they? 

Bruce:  Yeah – No.  I probably didn’t do too much of that, but I made plenty of the other mistakes. Don’t in anyway imagine that I am the perfect dad.  Because if my kids were here now they would tell you – and I would be happy for them to do so, because it is important not to pretend that you are better than you are.  I think that is one of the great things about the guys that I interviewed in the book; they were willing to talk about their problems.

            What I say to dads is this,  number one, you have to realise that you are important in your children’s lives and it is amazing to me that a lot of dads think that if they are a good dad, they do it for their own benefit. 

 But, father’s are very important in children’s lives and in fact if you look at statistics of kids that are drug addicts, who lose direction at school, who get depression and teenage suicides and that sort of thing, children in jail, it is like between 70 and 100% of them are fatherless.  And there is no doubt that for example of you could wave your magic wand and improve fathering in New Zealand overnight, you could have a dramatic impact on all of those things.

 Claire:  And when you say fatherless, you mean entirely without a father figure or a father who is there in body but not is spirit?

 Bruce:  Basically yes.  Fathers who are absent from their children’s lives and sometimes that is because they are not there and sometimes because they are there but they may as well not be.  Because it is sad to say, but true that it is only when father’s separate from their wives and have to look after the children half the time that they start to realise that what fun it is.  They are the ones that have to find the school notices under the apple cores in the bag and take their kids to school.  And they say, this is fun, I wish I knew this before.

 Claire:  Yes – so what prompted you to write the book.  I mean, were you facing a crisis in your own family or did you see lots of examples around you, what sparked it?

 Bruce:  The main thing Claire was, In my practice as a doctor I am a lung specialist and I deal with a lot of men who are dying.  When a man is dying, he evaluates what life I guess could have been like.  And the commonest without a doubt is the regret that they had not spent enough time with their children.  And you know I heard that very commonly.  I think the thing that really prompted me was that they said “I wish somebody had of told me as a young dad when work seemed so important that it isn’t really that important, but being a good dad is being important”.  “It is important for the father and it is important for the children”.  So having heard that week after week in my medical practice, I thought at least if I write a book with some of these tips then you can give it to young dads and they can’t say “well nobody ever told me”.  “At least maybe I would have helped”.  I think that I guess the fact that it has become a best seller has been very encouraging because it makes me feel like that it has been worthwhile.

 Claire:  So, you interviewed a whole lot of people, dozens of people – fathers in different jobs.  Where there are similar themes that came through?

 Bruce:  Yes, I mean they are all quite different of course and I think it is really important to make that point.  Every father is different and every child is different.  So there is no one way to do it.  I mean I always liken this book to a supermarket not a school.  It is not a school that lectures you on how to do it, rather a supermarket where you take your metaphorical trolley down and you pick and choose from the shelves that which suits you and that which suits your children at that point in time.  And every person would choose something different from the book.  But, the common themes were that, you have to have time.  You cannot expect to be a good dad without spending time with your children.

 Claire:  And when you say time, do you mean this concept of setting aside quality time?  Is there such a thing as quality time?

 Bruce:  Well, there is and there isn’t.  There is no such time as quality time in the way that it was defined in the ‘80’s where you could come home and set aside some quality time with your children.  Everybody I interviewed realised that this didn’t work. 

 Claire:              Cause, you can’t legislate for quality time can you?

 Bruce:  It has to be done, those quality moments happen on a child’s agenda not on parents agenda and so what you need is quantity of time is the platform – it is like the foundations of a house and the quality is the house that sits of top of it.  You can’t have one without the other.

            So you have to be doing things with your child for those quality moments to happen and that is when you have those really special times – when they want to talk to you or tell you about a problem or whatever.

 Claire:  Is it difficult though, or I suppose difficult for some men – fathers particularly those with busy and demanding jobs to switch off from work once they get home?  Is that a problem?

 Bruce:  That is a problem and you know sometimes when I talk about fathering people say to me what is your biggest mistake?  What would be my biggest mistake?  I have a thinking intensive job and I did notice that when I got home I often didn’t I guess have the energy to tune into the children as well as I could have.  So some days I just finish early 5pm instead of 6.30pm or something and then go home and kick the football with them, or muck around with them or go to the beach or whatever – specifically so I didn’t come home every day to exhausted to engage with them.  A lot of guys have that problem and in the end they have got to make the same decision.  Are they willing to sacrifice some of their work in order to be able to engage with their children and in fact very interestingly I had an interview in Canberra where a computer specialist who said that when he realised he was overworking and didn’t have the energy to engage with his children, he actually cut back on his work because he realised that it was becoming a problem.  Very impressive.

 Claire:  Yeah, the answer seems to be, to make a conscious decision to work less in order to spend time with their families.  But a lot depends on their employers as well.  Not everyone is self employed and can say okay I am going to take Wednesday afternoons off or whatever.  To a large extent don’t we need to see a shift in consciousness among employers?

 Bruce:  That is true.  But that that has two parts to the question.  I mean, I don’t find that many people who can’t actually do most of this because when I talk to people they say what about so and so, they have got a job where they can’t possibly be flexible and be early and then coach their kids cricket team or start late and then go to school with the kids or anything like that.  But it is a very small percentage of people who can’t actually find the time to just do all of these things with their children.  There is 168 hours in a week and even if you have like 8 hours sleep a night you still have got about 112 hours if you are working 60 hours a week that leaves about 52 hours left in which you can engage with your children.  And I wouldn’t think that most fathers engage with their children for 52 minutes a week and in fact the statistics show it is more like three minutes a day max.

 Claire:  Is that right?

 Bruce:  We are talking about engaging with your children.  Talking about what they need and going about doing special things with them. 

 Claire:  So what you are saying is, there is time to do it and still play golf?

 Bruce:  If you want to play golf, that is fine.  But the question is, what do my children need from me?  They need to know that I care about them.  They need a minimal amount of time and in that time what do they need of that time? Number one, they need to know that I am always there for them.  I will never abandon them.  Number two, I love them unconditionally, it doesn’t matter to me whether they are not going to be straight A student or a doctor or a lawyer or whatever the top marks get.  It doesn’t matter to me what their scholastic ability is; it doesn’t matter to me whether they open the batting at cricket on the weekend or if they just can’t perform at sport.  Neither sports nor looks nor academic ability, I love them, they are special regardless of that but despite that.  It makes no difference.  And thirdly and probably most importantly, that they are really special.  As I was saying before, to make a kid feel special, what are you going to do to do that?  If any of your listeners think about what that means just say to themselves who made you feel special when you were a kid.  Mum, dad, grandparents, schoolteacher or priest.  Who made you feel really special?

 Claire:  You interviewed in your book some people with really particularly high-pressure jobs.  I mean John Howard springs to mind.  How did he juggle being Prime Minister and being a father?

 Bruce:  He was actually very impressive in his wisdom on this subject.  And no matter what you think about his politics, his wisdom in the area of fathering was ……. Very interesting to know where it came from.  But he always gave his children access to him.  They could always call him anytime – obviously they couldn’t if he was in a cabinet meeting unless it was urgent.  But they had direct access to him all of the time.  And he always made an effort I guess to be at his kids special functions and he told the story about how he had promised his son he would be at a debating competition at school.  But his son watch the evening news and his dad was on the news up in far north Queensland at some drought area and he realised that his dad was not going to be there.  But at 8pm at night when the debate was about to start – in walked his dad.  He had come straight from the airport and he said, “I promised that I would be there and I went straight there”.

 Claire:  Is that one of the golden rules – never break a promise?

 Bruce:  Sometime you can’t help it if you are in a pressure job.  But you know I try really hard to be at all of my children’s birthdays.  I don’t like to be overseas on any of their birthdays.  But sometimes you just can’t help it.  So you make up for it and I think to be perfectly honest I think agonise so much about it and apologise to them that I think it is more special that I am not there as I agonise over it and talk to them and they probably wouldn’t have noticed if I had been there if you see what I mean.

 Claire:  So what do you think are the golden rules for being a good father?

 Bruce:  Number one – make time.  Don’t lie to yourself about why you have to work.  You have to make time.  Number two – what do my children need from me in this time? And it is not discipline, that is a small print thing and it is not just love.  You say I love you – but it is different to that.  It is unconditional love that the child knows that even though you want them to do well at school that, that is not part of the reason why you love them.  You will love them anyway; you will always be there for them. 

 So in fact I have got three initials for this: BUS.  Sometimes people ask me about this.  When you think about what kids need from you.  Think about a child at a bus stop.  B stands for being there.  A child needs to know that you are always there for them.  And when teenagers leave suicide notes one of the things that they say is “there is just no one on my side”.  Children need to know that their dad’s and their mum’s as well, that whatever happens dad is always on their side.  He would never abandon them.  He may not always rescue them, but he will never ever abandon them.  Number two, that they are loved unconditionally – which we mentioned and number three – that they are special.  Not that they are just special to dad, but that they have special talents and a special set of gifts and a special future – that is even more important because again, why do teenager get depressed? Because they don’t feel that they have any future.  Because they are not good at sport, they are not good looking and they are not smart.  Dad has to tell them that they are special.  They are specially talented.  It is a unique future that they have got and he is looking forward to seeing it.

They are the three rules  - BUS.

 Claire:  What sort of reaction have you had to your book?  It is on the best seller list.  But what do men who have read the book say to you about what they have learnt?

 Bruce:  It is very encouraging.  Sometimes at conferences men bounce up to me as soon as they see me and say they have read the chapter about taking their children on conference trips and how they have done it and how it has been the best thing they have ever done in their lives.  I always feel like they are about to hug me.  One lady I met, I actually met her accidentally and she said are you the guy who wrote the book?  I said yes and she said her husband and two friends have been reading a chapter each week and she said that their lives have been transformed by it.  And I can tell you it nearly bought tears to my eyes, I went all soft.  But it certainly has been I guess rewarding.  I figured that when I wrote this book, if one person benefited from it then I would be happy.  But I guess that because so many people have it has become very meaningful for me.

Claire:  Any reaction from employers who are seeing their staff members you know spending less time at work?

Bruce:  Actually Claire, you did ask me that question before and I didn’t answer it – and I apologise for that.  Women have fought hard in the workplace to get the opportunity of having a career and a personal family life.  Men haven’t done so because they have wanted to but didn’t want to feel like they were wooses.  And I think it is going to be hard.  And one of things that we are doing in Perth at the moment is some research to prove this bell curve.  In other words, be able to say to employers if you allow men to become good fathers and give them the time and flexibility to do so, their productivity will actually improve by 10% or whatever number is.  That way, they will have to do it, because they have an obligation to their shareholders to improve productivity.  There is no excuse for them to make people overwork because it just won’t work for the company.  I think this is the way we are going have to handle it.  Because it is kind of hard to convince people in this modern era.

Claire:  Sure, there has to be an economic benefit to it for it to obtain traction I suppose.

 Bruce:  It has to come from the top down.  You have to convince the bosses that it is a good thing to do.  If you can convince them that it is the morally right thing to do because it is going to cut down the rate of drug addiction, depression etc amongst kids.  If you can convince them of that, then at least they will feel a moral obligation, if you convince them of the productivity issue then they will feel an economic obligation.  It needs to be bottom up as well.  Unions are very good at seeing these sorts of things and pressurising and even groups or individuals lobbying to say “look I want a career  - but I want a good quality family life as well”.

Claire:  Bruce Robinson – many thanks for joining us this morning. 

Bruce is the author of Fathering from the Fast Lane – Practical Ideas for Dads.