Do You Have the Illusion of a fulfilled Life?

Yesterday I read a Harvard Business Review article called

"What's really holding women back"

The article explores the work / family 'narrative' in an unnamed global consultancy firm.

I really recommend it, it’s a pretty big read, but it’s a really well written and explores the impact of work place stereotypes in the working world.

Key takeaways for me.. (pay attention at the back..)

⭐ Distress over work / family conflict was primarily attributed to women, but the authors found that many men were suffering too.

"Two-thirds of the associates we talked to who were fathers reported work / family conflict, but only one was taking measures to ease it."

(by measures they mean things like flexible or reduced hours and working from home)

⭐ Many more women took measures to improve work life balance, they were stigmatised and saw their careers derailed.

⭐ The route cause was a long-hours problem

⭐ Business "social defense" mechanisms included a "belief in women’s natural fitness for family, and in men’s for work."

Dads defence mechanisms against guilt

Working dads were suffering guilt, while as a defence against how they felt, they were denying or deflecting their natural emotional responses to fatherhood. This "psychological defense gave many men at the firm the illusion of a fulfilled life."

The "illusion of a fulfilled life" caught my eye...

ouch.

So dads in that study were risking their mental health by creating psychological defenses that allowed them to remain "all in" for work. 

While women were positioned to be seen as "subpar performers or subpar mothers—or both"

Double ouch.

Supporting men to tap into, rather than, suppress their desire to be active, involved parents is vital for everyone.

Feeling a bit uncomfortable about that article?

Here's something you can do about it.

✔ You can take my short "Assess your work life balance" test.

It will help you get clear about your reality, how it affects you and your family and get some tips on what to do next.

​Stay safe

Ian

Why take Shared Parental Leave?

Why take Shared Parental Leave?

Since 2015 it has been possible for parents of new born or adopted children to share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay between you.

This post will explain the benefits of Shared Parental Leave (SPL) and why it has the potential to be a game changer as we move to equal parenting opportunities. Opportunities that will allow Dads to spend much more time with their children.

More and more Dads want to spend time with their young children, even at the cost of their own careers. The choices you make before your children are even born will set the scene for the rest of your life.

Shared Parental Leave gives choice to families. Dads and partners don’t have to miss out on their baby’s first step, word or giggle – they can share the childcare, and share the joy.

Business Minister Andrew Griffiths

Challenges and Opportunities

Aviva

The Insurance company Aviva has a policy that offers equal parental leave to men and women working at Aviva - up to 12 months in the UK, including 26 weeks at full pay.

As with all decisions around having children, returning to work, deciding who will looks after your children and for how long. There can challenges, especially with finances.

Unless you have an employer with enhanced parental leave policy >>

It’s important to consider

• What sort of Dad do you want to be?

• How do you want to be remembered?

• What kind of relationship do you want to build with your children?

The mentality around the early years won’t change until we all accept mums and dads equally equipped to look after their offspring.

Source - Dad Blog UK

A case study for your inspiration.

Uploaded by BEISgovuk on 2018-02-01.

Shared Parental Leave - The Benefits

1.       Improved relationships with your children.

Proof of the bonds with my son (!) - ‘You are a Poo-Poo Head Daddy’

As a new Dad, the time you spend building relationships with your young children is priceless. The potential is there to create brilliant early bonding experiences, they might not remember the details but those bonds will be there forever and you get to be the type of Dad you wanted to be.

I found, too, that it strengthened the bond between my son and me. He became less crazy-sleepysuit-of-madness and more of a little buddy. And when I came to be the one who was there when he was hungry or tired or had bonked his head, the more he understood I was a source of comfort, too. That effort has lasted into his toddler years and, I hope, long beyond that.

Adam Dewar - The Guardian

2.      Practical and emotional support for each other.

The prevailing wisdom is that Maternity Leave is wonderful time for mothers to bond with their babies, but many women struggle with the emotional and practical challenges of looking after babies, especially if they have other children too.

Post Natal Depression is very common among women and likely to be under-reported in men. Sharing leave either together or separately could literally be a lifesaver.

The peak time for postnatal depression in men is three to six months after the birth . As with postnatal depression in mums, it often goes unreported. The symptoms can look a lot like the everyday stresses of having a newborn .

Source: NCT

My own experience of the first 6 months of our first baby’s life was of phoning my wife each lunchtime and fearing hearing how she had struggled that morning with our reflux suffering daughter.

Click here for more on benefits of SPL for Mums.

By sharing the parenting duties you’ll be sharing the mental load and improving gender equality at home.

3.       earlier return to the workplace for your partner

It’s not necessarily going to be your priority as a couple, but SPL could be a powerful tool.

Rather than one parent taking 8 months of out work - with the associated practical and long term pay challenges this can lead to (aka the Motherhood Penalty). You both take 4 months.

Your partner can get back to the career she loves, knowing that the little one is in great hands. While you get the benefits of bonding with your kids.

The longer anyone is out of the workplace the harder it is to return. By sharing leave and care it allows women to return to the workplace earlier if they want by supporting a more seamless transition back to the workplace.

4.       You’ll be happier

If you are one of the many many Dads who wants to more involved in the lives of his young family then being able to take that opportunity and not feel frustrated and left out is so important.

By normalising Dads looking after children, you’ll be a leader of men, with all the fame, fortune and kudos that brings. Plus you’ll get to discover Octonauts, one of the best kids TV ever produced.

5.       Reduce the Gender Pay Gap

Source

This is the big picture really.

✅ Doing what you want - looking after your young children.

✅ Your partner doesn’t have to spend so long away from the workplace.

✅ Female progression in the workplace becomes more likely as employers can’t assume that it is only women who take time off when couples have children. They will have to treat talent equally.

True equality is gained by having true equality of choice of parenting.

“Better gender balance makes business more successful. The McKinsey Global Institute (2015) estimated that a scenario in which women achieve complete gender parity with men could increase global output by more than one-quarter relative to a business-as-usual scenario.

Source: Axis Network.

Shared Parental Leave - Next Steps

If this looks like something you would like to do we have a few key steps:

1. Find out what your firm’s policy is.

2. Find out and talk to people in your business who have taken SPL.

3. Run the UK Government Calculator.

4. Talk to New Dads. Build a network and discuss your options.

5. Talk to your partner - be honest about what you want to do

6. Understand what you can afford to do.

7. Compare the financial investment v the benefits you’ve learnt.

SPL pays currently £145.18 per week or 90 per cent of average weekly earnings, whichever is lower. Where employers haven’t extended enhanced maternity schemes to SPL, it often doesn’t make financial sense for the father, who typically earns more, to take SPL. 

Source - CIPD

Shared Parental Leave - The Facts

Below is a summary of the UK government rules - for full details click here.  

*** There are some differences in the eligibility of Shared Parental Leave (SPL) or Shared Parental Pay (ShPP). Please use the calculator or check the government guidance.

Use this calculator to check if you can get leave or pay when you have a child.

Some assumptions

To keep this simple we are talking about SPL for Dads of newborns.

Overview

1. You can share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay between you. The mother is obliged to take two weeks’ leave, but following that, it would be up to the couple as to how they split the remaining 50 weeks – 37 with statutory pay of up to £145.18 a week.

2. You need to share the pay and leave in the first year after your child is born or placed with your family.

3. You can use SPL to take leave in blocks separated by periods of work or take it all in one go.

4. You can also choose to be off work together or to stagger the leave and pay.

Eligibility

To be eligible for Shared Parental Leave (SPL) and Statutory Shared Parental Pay (ShPP), both parents must:

1. Share responsibility for the child at birth.

2. Meet work and pay criteria - these are different depending on which parent wants to use the shared parental leave and pay

If both parents want to share the SPL and ShPP

You and your partner must:

1. Have been employed continuously by the same employer for at least 26 weeks by the end of the 15th week before the due date (this is around the time you got pregnant).

2. Stay with the same employer while you take SPL.

3. Be ‘employees’ (not ‘workers’).

4. Each earn on average at least £116 a week.

If, as the mother’s partner, you want to take the SPL and ShPP

The mother must:

1. Have been working for at least 26 weeks (they do not need to be in a row) during the 66 weeks before the week the baby’s due.

2. Have earned at least £390 in total across any 13 of the 66 weeks.

You must:

1. Have been employed continuously by the same employer for at least 26 weeks by the end of the 15th week before the due date (this is around the time the mother got pregnant).

2. Stay with the same employer while you take SPL.

3. Be an ‘employee’ (not a ‘worker’).

4. Earn on average at least £116 a week.

Confused yet?

Use this calculator to check if you can get leave or pay when you have a child

When can you start?

You can only start Shared Parental Leave (SPL) or Shared Parental Pay (ShPP) once the child has been born or placed for adoption.

The mother (or the person getting adoption leave) must either:

1. Return to work, which ends any maternity or adoption leave

2. Give their employer ‘binding notice’ of the date when they plan to end their leave (you cannot normally change the date you give in binding notice)

You can start SPL while your partner is still on maternity or adoption leave as long as they’ve given binding notice to end it.

(You can give binding notice and say when you plan to take your SPL at the same time.)

Some more Inspiration…

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/dec/01/meet-the-couples-who-share-parental-leave-and-its-highs-and-lows

https://dadbloguk.com/shared-parental-leave-experience

The mental health cost of maternity leave

Women struggle with maternity leave, huge numbers of men want to be involved in raising their children and everyone’s mental health would benefit.

So why aren’t we talking more about Men’s flexible working?!

MENTAL HEALTH AND MATERNITY LEAVE

It’s estimated that 150,000 women a year struggle with maternity leave.

As James Millar, author of Dads Don’t Babysit describes in his blog post “That’s a mental health crisis by any standard.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46221187

What can be a wonderful time is actually physically and emotionally draining - looking after babies is no work in the park, I know this, our daughter had quite nasty re-flux from birth. Fortunately for me it was under control by the time I took over at 6 months.

We need to talk about men

“The two of you sign up to bring life into the world together. Then, after two weeks, suddenly they are out the door, whether they want to or not, and you are left literally holding the baby.

For some couples, this moment, and the clear societal division of labour, can sow the seeds of resentment.”

Emma Barnett, Presenter, BBC Radio 5 live

Source - BBC

SOMETHING MUST CHANGE

We know Men want to spend more time with their young families but society and the workplace is conditioned to treat men as providers (and women as carers).

Men who seek to spend more time with their families are treated with suspicion and are seen as ‘not committed.’ In fact, rather than spending more time with their new families men end up working harder and longer.

Lack of good work-life balance causes massive amounts of stress and potential relationship breakdown.

IT’S TIME FOR MEN TO STAND UP AND BE COUNTED

Your partner’s well being and mental health matters.

Your well being and mental health matters.

✅ Decide how you really want to live your life.

✅ Understand what your family wants and needs.

✅ Assess your work life balance.

✅ Start the conversation about flexible working.

✅ If you are an expectant Dad find out about Shared Parental Leave.

✅ Challenge the lazy stereotypes of Dads who ‘can’t’ be great parents.

✅ Sign this petition to treat ‘expectant’ Dads in the same ways as Mums.

Ready to find out how to achieve the work life balance you need?

Grab out our Top tips guide, sign up to this blog or join us in Facebook