Germany’s superdad

Can German vice chancellor Sigmar Gabriel help break rigid traditions in society?

With the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, confined to bed following a skiing accident, the field is open for Sigmar Gabriel, 54, the vice chancellor, to gain a more significant international profile. He has seized that opportunity, albeit in rather unusual circumstances, by announcing that he intends to work a half day each Wednesday so he can spend more time with his two-year-old daughter, Marie.

In a country where parents are often divided into the seriously career-minded and those who opt to stay at home, Mr Gabriel’s “daddy care” policy has made him the poster-boy of a new breed of executive superdads seeking to change the traditions of German society. That fact was underlined when another prominent father, Jorg Asmussen, a former member of the board of the European Central Bank, offered to take a $230,000-a-year (Dh844,790) pay cut so that he could get more time with his children.

One wonders if Mr Gabriel’s arrangements will stick. As any parent of a toddler will know, there is a very good reason why the twos are often described as “terrible”. A few weeks of young temper tantrums and he might be yearning for the comparatively quiet life of Wednesday afternoons in his government office helping to run the largest economy in Europe.