TV presenter Julia Bradbury has called for a “cultural shift” in attitudes towards fathers in the workplace.
The mother-of-three, 48, recently filmed a new series on Australia, which meant being away from home for two-week stretches at a time.
She told Hello! that she “missed” and “felt pangs of guilt” about being away from seven-year-old son Zephyr and three-year-old twin daughters Xanthe and Zena.
But the ex-Countryfile star said: “I don’t buy into guilt. It can be a very negative emotion, and it clearly wasn’t going to help as this was a job – I had to do it.
“You have to make peace with yourself and get on with it.”
She said of her partner, property developer Gerard Cunningham: “Gerry’s a very loving, caring parent, and his cuddles are as important as mine.
“If I’m on the other side of the world or on a shoot up a mountain and you can’t get me because my phone’s off, he’s the go-to daddy.”
But she told Hello! magazine: “Why is it not so acceptable for the father to run off from work to the child who has fallen over in school?
“The workplace needs a cultural shift where it is as important for men to have family time as it is for women.
“There’s a great expression, which goes something like: ‘We bring our daughters up to be more like men. When will we bring our sons up to be more like women?’”
Bradbury had twins, aged 44, after undergoing IVF.
The full article is in Hello!, out now.