ASK an expatriate mother what she thinks of Hong Kong fathers and she will probably remark approvingly on the number of local men she sees escorting their brood to the playground on a Sunday morning or carrying the smallest child around while Mummy does the shopping.
Appearances can be deceptive. Perhaps these are only weekend fathers, visiting 'astronauts' on home-leave from Canada, or men whose wives have given them an ultimatum. Maybe expatriate mothers have forgotten how many more fathers they see at home with junior strapped to their backs. Be that as it may, a survey carried out by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Assessment has found that Hong Kong fathers spend less time with their children than any other nation surveyed.
Compare the six minutes a day a Hong Kong four-year-old spends alone with his or her father with the daily 54 minutes a four-year-old gets with Dad in unhurried China, and the superiority of the territory's high-incentive lifestyle begins to be called into question.
Blame it, if you must, on greedy landlords or hard-hearted employers, who make it so hard for Hong Kong fathers to let up for a few extra minutes a day and go home to their children. What father has not come home late and explained to his wife that no work equals no pay? Working mothers now have the counter-argument that Hong Kong children also spend the lowest number of hours in day-care - 3.4 hours a day compared with 11 hours in China and Thailand - so mothers must be dividing themselves in two in ways not expected of fathers. (Fathers can reasonably object here that domestic helpers may be taking some of the strain). But whoever wins the domestic argument, the lesson is surely this: there is more to life than profits and take-home pay. If fathers take the time to enjoy their children, children will repay the investment by enjoying their fathers too.
