MONTREAL, June 9, 2019 – As the 2019 edition of Quebec Fatherhood Week kicks off with the theme “Proud to be a dad,” RVP (Regroupement pour la Valorisation de la Paternité) is hoping to launch a movement for a less stereotypical vision of parental roles. During this week devoted to promoting and celebrating the ways dads can and do embrace their role as parents, the organization is encouraging dads to show their pride and share their commitment to being fully involved in the lives of their children.
“Due to the social norms that continue to prevail, dads don’t feel very encouraged to express themselves and be confident in their role as fathers,” says RVP executive director Raymond Villeneuve. He points to a survey of 2,000 dads conducted on behalf of RVP in December 2018, which reveals that while fatherhood is a positive experience for 98% of respondents, the majority (53%) feel it is undervalued.
Promoting public policies that support more paternal involvement
According to RVP’s executive director, in order to convince politicians to change the public policies that continue to create disparities between mothers and fathers, dads need to mobilize around an inclusive vision of society—one in which moms and dads are fully equal and play an equal role in raising happy, healthy kids.
There need to be concrete measures such as birth classes that fully incorporate dads and address the process of becoming a parent, extending paternity leave to eight weeks to give dads more bonding time with their newborns, calculating parental insurance benefits based on combined family income instead of the individual income of each spouse to prevent income differences from dictating parents’ choices, modernizing the approach to work-life balance in male-dominated fields, removing the notion of “other parent” in the declaration of birth, and improving access to justice in separation cases by offering more free mediation hours or raising eligibility thresholds for legal assistance, among other measures.
These are a just few of the twenty or so policy positions presented by RVP at a gathering of some 150 fathers, mothers, and children at Olympic Park in Montreal on Sunday, June 9.
Read the full list here:
https://www.semainedelapaternite.org/fr/brochure-revendications-campagne-2019/
The #ProudToBeADad Challenge
Quebec Fatherhood Week begins as the #ProudToBeADad Challenge is already in full swing. From mid-May to Father’s Day, the high point of the Week, RVP is inviting Quebec dads to show their dad pride and fill social media with selfies of themselves with their kids. The campaign has already inspired more than 5,000 social media interactions and the RVP director hopes that the scores of activities presented across the province as part of Quebec Fatherhood Week will attract even more engagement and make the campaign go viral.
“We believe that by seeing positive role models they can identify with, Quebec dads will feel more and more valued in their role, helping them embrace it to the fullest,” adds Villeneuve.
About Quebec Fatherhood Week 2019
Quebec Fatherhood Week 2019, aimed at promoting the essential role of dads, runs from June 10 to 16, 2019. In addition to the #ProudToBeADad Challenge, there will be some 100 fun activities across Quebec celebrating dads’ dedication, thanks to the participation of the 250 members of Regroupement pour la Valorisation de la Paternité all across the province.
For more information about Quebec Fatherhood Week and the #ProudToBeADad Challenge: www.semainedelapaternite.org/en
Quebec Fatherhood Week visuals: https://www.semainedelapaternite.org/en/promotional-tools/
About Regroupement pour la Valorisation de la Paternité (RVP)
RVP is a group of 250 organizations and individuals from across Quebec who work to promote the role of fathers in child well-being in family settings as well as equality between men and women as parents. RVP’s goal is to ensure that family services and public policy in Quebec take paternal realities into account.
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Source : Regroupement pour la Valorisation de la Paternité
Information and interviews:
Christian Bélanger
Communications Officer
communications@rvpaternite.org
438-933-0545