Men need to be allies of women and seek more parental leave from their workplace.
That's according to writer and broadcaster Keith Walsh, who was responding to Ireland ranking second last in a new study on parental leave entitlements.
The research found the average parental leave package across Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) states stands at 32.73 weeks for mothers and 4.73 for fathers.
However, Ireland was found to have 7.6 weeks for mothers and just 0.5 weeks for fathers.
Only the United States, which has no paid parental leave, ranked lower.
Keith told The Hard Shoulder while things have got better in recent years, men should be pushing for more.
"It's better now, but the messaging then was... the dads would get a couple of days off or something and that'd be it.
"But the whole messaging around that is the man's job is more important - and it's the women's job, basically, to do the looking after the children forever.
"And that's kind of the message that it's sending out right from the get-go.
"Like for me, I didn't even give it a second thought."
'It was all directed to my job'
He said he looks back at when he had his first child.
"When I look back now there's a bit of embarrassment that I didn't even think that I should have been asking for more time off, being more available to my wife at the time and helping with the bringing up of the child.
"You'd sort of be like 'Yeah, I didn't get much sleep last night and I did the late-night feed, but I was in bed by 12 because I have to get up for work'.
"As I remember back then it was all directed, in my personal experience, to my job and me getting up for work and not being tired".
But he said the change has to come from men themselves.
"It has to change... us men need to be asking for that as well - we need to be saying 'No I need the time off'.
"Even when the child's a bit older and they're sick, and both partners are working, it's generally the mother who takes the time off.
"But I think men need to be stepping up and demanding of their workplace 'I need to be able to say to my wife I will stay at home every second sick day'.
"We need to be asking for the time - I think we are getting better, but it needs to come from men.
"We need to be proper allies to women and asking for that time off of our bosses", he said.
