A FEW weeks ago, I was chatting over an internet messenger with my friend Duke. During the course of our chat, I told him that I am on paternity leave and that I am taking care of my daughter. She is just a little over one year and I don't want her in the daycare centre yet. So, I'm going to stay with her until January when she is a little bit older. Then she can start in daycare. One month before she was born and for the first 11 months of her life, her mother had been at home on maternity leave to take care of her. I got 14 days off work during this time to also be home with the two of them. Under the Swedish system, this is very permissible and encouraged.

During my on-going leave, I once received a Nigerian woman as a visitor to my home and she actually laughed at me. She asked if I would have accepted this status in Nigeria: that which allows me to stay at home while my wife is at work. Considering the ego of the Nigerian man and our cultural attributes (or is it attitudes?), she thought it would have been impossible for me to accept the situation. Maybe she is right - I have seen Nigerian men here in Sweden who gave all the parental leave days to their wives. To them perhaps, ego and cultural attitudes must be sustained everywhere. Duke was alarmed that it was possible for a man to get paternity leave to fulfill family obligations.

I could almost hear him through the chat! He had exclaimed that getting a regular annual leave in Nigeria is very difficult in some organisations. My chat with him on that fateful occasion was the first time that Duke, a man of about 36 years, would learn about the concept of paternity leave. Almost everyone that I'd discussed my present status with agrees that the concept of paternity leave is a good one. They all concurred that it is the best way to knit a family with children together. If one take a good analysis of this concept against the backdrop of family values, it will be well in order to suggest that we need such a positive system in Nigeria. In present-day Nigeria, many children are growing up in the bosoms of their mothers while their fathers are seen from a distance, or they are absent altogether.

Distance in the sense that a man usually regards himself as the main breadwinner of the family and therefore absents himself from home for most part of the day. In a country like Nigeria, working hard to put food on the table sounds like a reasonable excuse. Notwithstanding it would be nice if we can work things around and create a standard approach for would-be mothers, nursing mothers and fathers. The burden here is that in Nigeria, many things are in disarray such that setting up a proper family system regarding newborns may invariably amount to wishful thinking.

However, considering the importance of the family as the smallest and the fundamental unit of every society, no amount of attention or priority given to a family will be excessive. As a matter of fact, the attention should start from when a woman is pregnant. During those nine months and beyond, she and her baby are highly susceptible to diseases and infections because of their states of immunity which are compromised and immature respectively. They should be able to get special health care from qualified midwives and doctors on regular appointments. The percentage of mothers (including teenage mothers) who are single parents seems to be on the rise in Nigeria and this is a clear departure from the way things were in the olden days. In the absence of divorce and unwanted pregnancies, there are still other factors that are making men to be more and more absent in the family units. I can only imagine that these factors which would include economic reasons are varied and many.

In line with the discussion at hand, it will be useful to see clear governmental policies (that would apply also to the private enterprises) aimed at improving the relationship at home because the society at large is a reflection of different homes. It is absolutely wrong for children to see more of their mothers and less of their fathers or vice versa. It is criminal for both to be almost absent due to pressure from work or other obligations. Children are always innocent as they have no control over their immediate and remote surroundings. They are in this world because of two people who they imagine are responsible parents. The expectations of babies or small children is nothing short of being taken care of by two adults of separate sexes and a society that they hope to call theirs someday.

In Nigeria today, many working class women will not be entitled to annual leave if they have been at home for sometime taking care of their new-born babies. I knew of a friend in Nigeria whose wife had to resign her employment in order to take care of her baby. After nursing her baby for just five months, she was back in the unemployment market. Was five months too long to be off from work? I think that it is morally wrong for any organisation to expect a pregnant woman to tally her maternity leave with her annual leave. It sounds wicked indeed. In many ways, women as mothers are special. Hence their situations regarding work and family deserves special treatments.

Indeed, it will be difficult to create a standard approach that will fit all working and non-working mothers. Yet, it will not be wrong to promote a system that correlates remuneration for women in accordance with their level of income and a common rest period of up to one year is not an anomaly in our modern world. Babies are helpless and they need more time with their parents before they are sent to daycare centres or grandmothers. The first year of their lives is critical and no amount of care or nearness to their mothers and fathers is too much.

Fathers should stop hiding under the shade of work just to distance them from taking care of the baby or children at home. They should own up to their responsibilities and allow the children to grow up knowing that they are loved not just by their mothers but by their hardworking fathers too. Children should not be seeing their father as the wicked one, more like the terror whose approach causes trembling every time the sounds of his shoes are heard on the stairs.

The sight of him should not bring fear and tears. Government policies are overriding in many societies regarding family issues and the care of babies especially. Nigeria cannot afford to be left out for any reason at all. It is high time we created the enabling environment that will allow our children to grow up under the care of both mothers and fathers. The policies that suit our national situation, which would encourage family planning and discourage absent parents will be most useful.

• Aderounmu lives in Sweden