Almost any man can father a child but being a dad requires active engagement in caretaking. Across the world this involvement is increasing for a variety of reasons.
authors
Tamta Jijavadze
Author's stories
In Georgia raising children is a man’s job too
During the rough-and-tumble decade of the 1990s following the breakup of the USSR, the community migrated en masse to Greece, seeking work in their forefathers’ homeland where they were offered citizenship. Slowly, yet steadily, villages became emptier and quieter. The 2014 census sets the number of ethnic Greeks living in Georgia at 5,544, the majority of whom - 2,113 individuals - are scattered across villages in Kvemo Kartli.
Greeks in Georgia, Caught Between Two Homelands
Fatherhood erupted into Giorgi Chanturia’s life when he was 26 years old -- intracranial pressure meant that his son Sandro cried unceasingly and the lack of sleep was taking a toll on him and his wife. Chanturia, then an employee of the MInistry of Education, took an unusual step for a Georgian man -- he took parental leave. “Sandro would just not sleep, I was so tired that going to work was like taking a rest,” recalls Chanturia, now 29. “My wife was exhausted, I decided to help her raise our son.” Chanturia took two months off, using the option of parental leave the Georgian government introduced in 2013 for the private sector and in July 2017 for the public sector. He is one of the few who have done so; in conservative Georgian society, being a father rarely means even changing diapers.
In Georgia Raising Children is a Man’s Job Too
A maze of tightly packed stalls with drab tin roofs and shops, the Eliava opened in 1995. The Soviet Union’s meltdown in 1991 had led Georgia to two civil wars, pushed its economy in freefall and driven its people into desperate bread lines. Tbilisians would flock to the newly opened market to find cheap repair material to fix anything from bathrooms to roofs. Since then, every day thousands of vendors offer a bonanza of shower coils and taps, nuts and bolts, screwdrivers and hammers, nails and arc-welding machines, electric wires, paints and brushes - you name it.
The Future of Eliava Market – Vendors Waiting for a Specific Decision
Abutab Aliyeva, 63, Maguli Okropiridze, 52, and Seda Chagharyan, 69, live in different countries in the South Caucasus but today, in the post-conflict period of this war-torn region, they all face the same challenge: for the last 30 years these women, who all live near conflict zones, have lived in constant fear for the security of their families.