It was Father’s Day yesterday. You’ll know because there was a range of stories over the weekend of dads explaining why it’s important to take time off. To avoid any misunderstanding, I agree – it is really important. I didn’t take a job that meant overnight stays or travel until my boys (now men) had finished school so I could be home with them every night.

Fathers should take leave, should go to school plays, should do school runs, and fathers should be present in family life without having to treat it as a career risk. But there is something odd about the way these stories are often framed.

A senior HR leader leaves work for a school event, and it becomes role modelling. A senior man talks about putting family first and it becomes a culture signal. A father says children remember whether you were there, and suddenly we are in the territory of leadership wisdom. And yes, maybe.

But also, the bar is very low.

Being a present parent is not radical. It is not a special act of leadership but ordinary care.

The question is not whether a senior HR leader can leave work for a school play. The real question is whether everyone else can.

Can the junior employee do it? Can the single parent do it? Can the person on a rota do it? Can the call handler, nurse, administrator, delivery driver, warehouse worker, contractor or part-time employee do it? Can they do it without losing pay, goodwill, progression or credibility?

That is where the story changes.

Senior leaders usually have more diary control, more status, more money and more permission. Their family choices are more likely to be interpreted generously. For other people, the same choice can still be treated as awkward, unreliable or inconvenient.

A culture is not proved by a People Director saying they value family. It is proved by whether ordinary employees can make ordinary caring choices without needing exceptional permission.

So yes, senior men should model taking leave and being present. But the test is not the story.

The test is the system behind it and asking:

• What leave is available?
• Is it paid well enough to use?
• Who actually takes it?
• What happens to the workload?
• How do managers respond?
• Are people quietly penalised afterwards?

Until those questions are answered, these stories can feel less like evidence of change and more like a polished version of the thing HR often does. Turning a structural issue into a personal virtue story.