James, 34, a marketing manager from Hove, remembers the weeks after his son Jude was born in spring last year mostly as a blur. “I had two weeks off, which is not enough time to adjust to parenthood,” he says.
“I found the experience uniquely confronting. Seeing and holding my son for the first time was overwhelming. I felt instant love for him, but was ill-prepared for the crash when the initial joy wore off. I felt a crushing pressure to be attentive and conscientious. At one point, after a visit from a health visitor, I found myself sobbing.”
The raw emotion, sleeplessness, snatched conversations and scoffed meals of those early days have convinced him, James says, that the UK’s paternity leave offer needs to improve.
“It should be far more generous; six weeks’ paid leave should be the minimum. My employer was supportive and flexible, but I found the adjustment to fatherhood brutal, and all the while in the back of my mind was the knowledge that I had to go back to work after two weeks, which felt cruel.”
The UK has the least generous paternity leave rights in Europe – the statutory paternity leave entitlement for new fathers is up to two weeks. Almost a third of fathers say they took no paternity leave at all after their last child was born, according to a recent poll.
Matthew is one of those fathers. The IT specialist in the West Midlands says he “dearly wanted to take paternity leave” when his children were born. “I thought then, and still think now, that it’s a vital time to bond, as well as to share the load,” he says.
Finances barred him from doing so, however, as his employer offered only the statutory legal minimum pay. “To take it would mean not having enough money to cover that month’s mortgage and bills,” he says. “Putting my new family even deeper into debt wasn’t exactly a palatable option. So I missed out on that opportunity for the sake of keeping our heads above water.
“I feel bitter that some dads are criticised for not taking paternity leave, without it being considered that doing so can be financially devastating.”
Fathers who benefited from longer leave were effusive about how beneficial it was for them and their families. Jacob, 30, a local government officer from Bromley, was able to take four weeks off work after the birth of his and his wife’s twin boys in March 2022, and considers himself “very fortunate”.
“My wife had an emergency C-section. We were in hospital for close to a week after the birth and she could barely walk in that time,” he says. “I had saved up as much annual leave as I could during the year to take two extra weeks off after the boys were born, and I’m really glad I did, so I could support her.”
Jacob’s employer paid him his full salary for the first week of his leave before statutory paternity pay of about £150 kicked in for the second week. “Taking a full month off, rather than two weeks, really allowed us to bond as a family and gave my wife extra time to recover,” Jacob says. “The twins are the most delicious little things and I wouldn’t have traded that first month with them for anything. We could get to know each other, work out a routine, find our new normal.”
Taking more time off with the help of shared parental leave was “out of the question”, Jacob says. “I earn quite a bit more than my wife, so it didn’t make financial sense for us to split her leave. If the finances had been different, I would definitely have taken shared parental leave. Three months off to be with my boys would have been fantastic, time I’ll now never get back.”
He feels attitudes towards parental leave are changing in his social environment. “I’m not sure my father ever changed a nappy, and I don’t think that’s terribly unusual for men of that generation. But the men around me of a similar age who are having children all want to be very engaged and active in raising them. I would love to see the implementation of fairer and more generous parental leave in the UK.”
Scott Inglis, 50, a university lecturer from Carlisle, was able to take shared parental leave after his daughter, Esme, was born. “So far, it’s been magical. I love it,” Inglis says.
“The two-week paternity portion, while woefully inadequate, was easy to organise. The shared parental leave, however, was hopelessly byzantine and overly complex. It took us a couple of months to sort that out with HR.”
Shared parental leave rules meant the couple ended up having to work alternate weeks, instead of splitting the working week between them during the leave period. “This is of no benefit to our employer, made no sense to anyone involved,” Inglis says.
He and his partner will both have to return to full-time work in September. “Esme will have to go to nursery when she’s five months old, which is not a great thought, but five months’ leave was the maximum we could afford.
“The culture here in the UK seems to be, Mum takes the leave, Dad gets back to work as soon as possible. Six months’ paid leave would boost breastfeeding, productivity – it would make all the difference.”
