How To… Fix Your Work Life Balance and save your Relationship

How to… fix your work life balance and save your relationship

Real men, real stories

“Lockdown”, “Furlough”, “Self Isolation”… Covid is the gift that keeps giving.

Relationships are under pressure like never before - stress, worry and physical confinement are a heady cocktail of ingredients for relationship trauma.

But, it WILL get better and then you’ll have a massive opportunity.

The New Reality

With so many men spending a lot more time at home, physically away from the regular work environment, we're in the midst of a massive upheaval and redefinition of who does what around the home.

and this includes parenting...

The world tends to assume that only mums are able to look after children and men can't do that role. It's incredibly damaging for relationships, choice and opportunity.

Men don't feel able to be anything other than "all in" for work and women struggle with trying to do everything for everyone.

At the moment the emotional and mental load are cranked up to 11 and men need to step up to the domestic plate in a way that we might not ever have had to before.

Photo credit: Matthew Rader via Unsplash @matthew_t_rader

The opportunity

But I have faith in our ability to take on those domestic roles that society doesn’t believe we can do and then we can change the entire conversation about what it means to be a dad.

We aren’t just breadwinners. We’re stand-in teachers, cooks, ironing machines and leaders and to continue the amazing benefits we’ve already experienced when we merging our work and home lives we’re going to need better work life balance.

Not just to be a hero to our kids and being there for the moments that matter, but taking on our fair share around the house.

This will be the opportunity to fix your work life balance once and for all and be the hands on, active and involved father you don’t remember growing up.

Don’t get me wrong, our dads did their best, but it that was a different time and you want to be a different type of dad.

If Covid-19 has taught us one thing, it’s that many of us don’t HAVE to be in the office to do our jobs. Technology and a can do attitude are powerful tools to create a new way of working.

A way that allows us to the type of dad you always wanted to be.

It’s time to fix your work life balance and save your relationship

⭐ You’ll need to be honest about what is truly important to you.

⭐ Learn to communicate effectively as a couple, so that everyone’s needs are met.

⭐ Understand the financial trade-offs you might need to make to ALL be happy.

⭐ Dedicate time to focusing on what is really important to your family.

Let these men Inspire You with Their real stories

1) Sean’s story

Doctor Sean and his family left London 18 months ago to escape to the country.

He made the decision to trade some professional kudos and financial reward for a life in the country, seeing his kids every night for dinner and bedtime plus most weekends. They choose to move to a part of the country where they have family close by for help and social life.

In contrast Sean’s London peers are out working all day, everyday and don’t get to see their kids.

After trying a couple of different work patterns, he and his wife have decided that the best combination of professional progress, income and family time are for Sean to work M, T, Th, F plus 3 in 4 Wednesdays and 1 in 4 Saturdays.

“This will be an income hit but I will at least be able to take the kids to school once a month and have most weekends with them.”

To support his work life balance Sean tries to work a bit smarter, allowing him to leave on time. He is also stricter with his home time - he has stopped answering emails etc out of work hours which he has found surprisingly liberating!

Challenges

“It’s difficult because I need to put the graft in now to make a name for myself, meaning more work will come my way at more convenient times, rather than working the graveyard Saturday shift.

But nothing has changed our underlying vision for how we wanted to live our lives”

2) Insight from Adam - how much money do you actually need?

Adam used to work in the Financial Services industry, he’s now part time in the building trade.

“Ian, you’ve no idea how much money I earnt two years ago, but I gave it up mate, gave it up for the kids, because wanted to spend time with them now.

I’m not saying I wouldn’t go back, but right now it matters to be there for them”

3) Will took action before it was too late

“It was Easter when I said I couldn’t do it anymore. I think it was something about always seeing darkness. I decided I couldn’t tolerate how I was living any more. I could feel the signs that it was getting too much.

The thing is I knew how bad it could get – I was an alcoholic (now 7 years clean). I didn’t want to reach rock bottom again before did something about it.”

Will’s full story is here.

4) A warning from Toby

“If there's one thing I wish we'd done better, it would have been to have those really honest discussions - rather than the more off-hand comments and observations - about the work life balance for both of us, including as a couple and as parents.

But hey - we live and learn, eh?!”

Toby and his wife are separated and to a large extent due to a failure to sort out their work life balance.

Things those guys know, and you need to know…

1. Be honest about what is truly important to you.

2. As a couple you must communicate and agree your priorities.

3. Do the maths - work out the financial trade offs you need to make.

4. Have a plan to stay focused on what is important.

That’s all great Ian but HOW do I actually achieve better work life balance?

get our free PDF and learn How to Implement Our Top Ten Tips to get control of your work life balance.

✅ Stop wasting time and find out what is really causing your work / life stress.

✅ Take control of your working life and avoid burning out.

✅ Reduce your stress - sleep and eat better, gain more energy for your relationships and playing with your children.

✅ Learn what are your real options and rights are, not just what your boss thinks!

✅ Evaluate what type of Dad you want to be and USE this to decide what you want.

✅ Checklist of the steps you need to take to be READY to get what you want.

✅ PLUS - get organised, manage your time and be there when you're there.

“Happier, Healthier and more Heroic.”

Get your free download today - no sign up required!

PS

If you want to know why I know what I’m talking about you can read my story here.

My Story - Why I Do, What I Do

My Story - Why I Do, What I Do.

(Updated in Jan 2022)

Three events and experiences shape what I do today with Inspiring Dads.

1) Growing up with Multiple Sclerosis

It was 1987, I was 11 years old and living in Taunton, Somerset, the medium sized market town I was born in. A comfortable existence, our parents grew their own fruit and vegetables in the allotments that backed onto our semi detached home, my grandparents had been dairy farmers and summers were all about cricket.

Our life was about to be turned upside down by Multiple Sclerosis, a cruel and debilitating disease. From a distance I see how treatment and diagnoses has come on leaps and bounds, but in the late 1980s medical professionals seemed at a loss as to how to treat the condition. For mum the idea of remission was a pipe dream - she had bad days and worse days. She went down hill pretty quickly, within what felt like months, she couldn’t leave the house without her wheelchair. We moved to a bungalow, got a converted car, learnt where the drop down kerbs were and practiced the skill of gently (!) tilting the chair back to negotiate the lips and edges that dominate our urban environments.

My teenage years fundamentally changed how I saw the role of men and males in the home. My dad, my brother and I couldn’t coast along relying on mum to do things for us. We had different responsibilities than most boys our age, we went on different holidays, we had to think about different things. It was just how it was.

In hindsight it was the type of domestic equality that I advocate today.

Our Mum, Ann, died in August 2008, aged 61. I still never, ever, park in disabled bays - even if “no one needs them.”

2) 2010 - New Dad, New Worries

It was 3am when I held our daughter, Freya for the first time and I knew nothing was going to be the same again.

I made secret promises to her, her little eyes piercing my soul. Promises I hoped I’d be able to keep. Promises about what sort of Dad I would be… Wanting to make Mum proud.

But not knowing what the hell I was doing!

Worrying that I would drop my daughter was just the first thing!

Would we have enough money? One income and lots of extra costs! I was worried I couldn’t be a great Dad and have a great career. Worried our relationship would take 2nd place to our children. Worried we’d just be parents, not partners. I’d have to grow up – no more spontaneous trips to the pub with the boys. No more gaming and an end to social life?

I muddled along as best I could.

Wanting to be there with our baby. But then wanting to be somewhere else. Because no-one tells you how boring life can be with a new-born. Everything arranged around nap time! But throughout I knew one thing for sure.

I wanted to be a different type of Dad.

I wanted to share responsibilities with my wife. We wanted an equal marriage, and the opportunity was there. I went to 4 days a week and then after 6 months of maternity leave, my wife, Lisa, went back to work as a lawyer - I took on the nappies and the naps. 9 months of full time baby things.

Without work I was worried people would see me as a less of a man.

Doing “women’s work” – not providing for my family.

I remember telling people I was a management consultant - stay at home dad was just a temporary job!

I got patronised by old ladies in the supermarket, ignored by the mums who couldn’t get their heads round it and treated with suspicion by the dads who were ‘real men’, out to work. Men who thought I was out to hit on their wives.

But I met some guys who got it.

Who structured their working lives around their children, understood the amazing but limited opportunity we had to shape and guide our little people. Because they are only young once.

The importance of work and identity

I did some freelance work – kept my hand in 2 / 3 days a week – earnt some good money. My skills and expertise were needed. I was needed. I had a way of earning money and being an involved father. I also had the chance to umpire hockey matches on Saturdays - working towards the top domestic level in England, identity driven by sporting excellence.

I had what I wanted. Right?

But I knew it wouldn’t last forever.

I couldn’t be a management consultant anymore. Not with the travel and the hours. Being a great dad wasn’t the temporary gig. Consultancy was the temporary gig.

I'm a guy, so ‘naturally’ I didn't share my anxiety with anyone, but wrestling with these dilemmas took some of the joy out of becoming a Dad. I couldn’t wait for my daughter to start nursery, so I didn’t have to look after her for 5 days in a row. I was struggling to balance the conflict of wanting to be there and wanting to work.

The certainty of my previous existence had gone. The uncertainty and the lack of clear purpose was depressing at times. I should have felt happier, but it was not a problem I could easily solve. How to be a great dad AND have a great career?

And then the worst thing happened

3) George and Paul Burke 2012

I learnt that Paul Burke, “Burkey”, a university hockey mate had died. His 1 year old son, George, had suddenly died and lacking support in a system that didn’t know how to help suddenly bereaved parents he was overcome with grief, self blame and post-traumatic stress. He took his own life 5 days later.

It put everything into context.

Everything can change in an instant and having somewhere to turn is vital.

Men need to support each other and connect, tell stories and practice being vulnerable.

I set up an annual hockey match in memory of Paul. To remember him, to connect with old mates and to raise money for 2 Wish, the charity that his widow, and now my friend, Rhian Mannings, MBE, Pride of Britain winner founded. Out of a great tragedy we take the opportunity to connect. Now, 10 years on we also take the time to remember and celebrate the lives two more hockey friends - Jonathan ‘Bob’ Cheek and Deep Bolina.

The Three Bs.

2015

2021

Inspiring Dads

I was 11 years old when our mum’s multiple sclerosis broke any domestic gender role expectations I might have had as a young teenager in a family of males.

At 33, becoming a dad showed me how challenging the early stages of fatherhood can be - identity, anxiety and mixed emotions, it also demonstrated that work and ‘status’ don’t define a man.

I was 35, in 2012, when 1 year old George Burke’s sudden death, followed 5 days later by the suicide of his dad, my friend, Paul, showed how fragile life can be. The devastation these events caused, painfully illustrates the importance of both crisis support for mental health trauma and normalising men feeling comfortable talking about their emotions, worries and pressures.

Ultimately coaching has shown me a way to help.

The Mission

To help HR leaders support a new generation of dads as they navigate the vital early years of fatherhood. Creating structures and support that facilitate a redefinition of traditional, potentially divisive gender stereotypes around “breadwinning” and “caring”, helping new dads to be the hands-on, active and involved fathers they don’t necessarily remember growing up.

Coaching, mentoring and the creation of safe spaces is good for dads’ well-being and mental fitness, improves equality at home and at work and redefines, for everyone, what “being committed” looks like in the workplace.

Ultimately the mission to help men to solve this crucial question:

How to be a great dads, without sacrificing a great career?

Our Vision

Equal parental Leave rights, enshrined in law, for all.

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Important things that I’ve learnt…

1. Becoming a new dad is one of the most profoundly challenging experiences that men will ever go through.

2. Other people’s judgement can’t matter, doing what is right for you and your family is what matters.

3. Being male doesn’t insulate you from domestic responsibilities.

4. You can’t predict when everything is going to change.

5. Men need to know It’s ok to talk - being vulnerable and knowing where to turn might save your life.

The Ghost of Christmas Future

The Ghost of Christmas Future

You know the Christmas Carol story - three ghosts take Ebenezer Scrooge through Christmases past, present and future (it’s actually called The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come), Scrooge gets a glimpse of what it his future might look like, and faced with that sadness and despairs he promises to change his ways.

I’m pretty sure no-one reading this will be living their lives like Mr Scrooge, but if you could see into the future how would it look for you?

The Times published a piece called

“Why aren’t successful, middle-aged fathers happy?”

“Looking for more from life? Join the queue. Middle-aged fathers open up about why “success” is a poisoned chalice”

If you put aside any concern as to whether well paid professional men at the pinnacle of their working lives deserve our sympathy and support, then there is a sad tale within the article.

❌ Stories of being financially trapped by their lifestyle.

❌ Stories of becoming disconnected from their families.

❌ Stories of long term illness.

A real sense that ‘successful’ should feel better than this.

Also a realisation that planning ahead and being honest about what they really want, working out how to be happy, would, in hindsight, have been more useful than climbing the career ladder and taking on financial commitments.

“we should have spent more time working out what would have made us all happier.”

“I never stopped to consider that I would effectively be an absentee dad,” says yet another City worker commuting from the nether regions of Sussex. “The priorities were, I suppose, old-fashioned — to have their mother there and to have me providing. Now I think we should have spent more time working out what would have made us all happier.”

“I hate my job… but it’s too late to change now”

“I hate my job, I couldn’t give a toss if I’m a success or not, but it’s too late to change now,” says a 44-year-old pharmaceutical executive with a familiar sense of abject resignation.

“I’ve just renegotiated our mortgage. Back to 25 years. The building society pointed out I’d be 69 when it finishes, but I promised them I’d still be working.”

dads are seeking out help

"I've been following with interest your Inspiring Dads work. It has been niggling me for a long time now, and I find myself working away from home in a sadly average job and then feeling like a bit of a spare part at the weekend. I am monumentally unable to discuss any of this with anyone and, quite simply, I need some help."

They realise that you don’t have to wait until rock bottom before you make a change.

There’s definitely no benefit letting the Ghost of Christmas Future creep up on you.

Our 3 Core Principles

⭐ Talk honestly about what you truly want as a family

⭐ Work out your finances - Understand how much you need to earn

⭐ Know your options for better work life Balance

Need to talk to someone who won’t pass judgement?

You can book a free call with me here:

Photo Credit: Javier Allegue Barros via Unsplash @soymeraki

Baby steps towards parenting equality

International Men’s Day 2019

When I was growing up in a market town in Somerset, dads went to work and provided, and mums looked after the house and made sure everyone was fed.  We didn’t know any gangsters, so my dad was the first person I knew who had a Carphone (back when The Carphone Warehouse seemed like the obvious name for a business).

He was a surveyor, out on the road in Somerset – calling in his reports over the phone to be typed up in the office. But despite the technology there never seemed any danger of being ‘always on’, technology was an enabler.

In fact, my dad even had flexible working – he scheduled his own diary of house surveyor visits and frequently made his schedule fit the away sports matches my brother and I were involved in on Wednesdays.

30 years on I can look back and appreciate that he had the type of hands on involved parenting opportunity that many men today are striving to achieve.

Flexible working and Paternity Leave initiatives are bound up together. They both represent potential opportunities to support the desire of a new generation of men to have greater involvement in raising their children and by doing so to move towards equality of opportunity in the home and the workplace for both genders.

There’s a long way to go to normalise equality of choice when it comes to parenting but on International Men’s Day it’s good to reflect on some of the key milestones towards parenting equality.

Key Milestones

• 1999 Set up of the Fatherhood Institute – “a great dad for every child”

• 2003 Statutory Paternity Leave

In 2001, Gordon Brown included men’s right to paternity leave in his Budget and, from 2003, male employees received paid statutory paternity leave for the first time.

• 2011 Additional Paternity Leave

Fathers were given the right to take six months statutory paternity leave while their partners returned to work, in effect taking the place of the mother at home.

• 2014 Flexible Working Rights

The right to request flexible working was extended to all UK employees with at least 26 weeks’ service with the same employer on 30 June 2014.

• 2015 Shared Parental Leave

Shared Parental Leave allows you to share up to 50 weeks’ parental leave and 37 weeks’ pay with your partner. Each parent can take up to three blocks of leave, more if their employer allows, interspersed with periods of work.

• 2017 Aviva set the bar high for parental leave

From November 2017 Aviva became the first UK firm to offer up to one year of leave, of which 26 weeks’ is at full basic pay for each parent employed by the company within the first 12 months of a child’s arrival.

• 2018 NZ Prime Minister takes Maternity Leave

Jacinda Arden took 6 weeks of maternity leave while in office and then her partner, a TV presenter, became a stay-at-home dad to baby Neve, a great example of showing that no job is too big for spending time with your children.

• 2019 Standard Life Aberdeen raised the parental leave bar still higher

When they became the first to offer 9 months full pay parental leave.

Daniel Cheung via Unsplash

More to be done

I was amazed to discover that paid paternity leave has only been around since 2003 in the UK and even 15 years on, when a child is born the dad (or the other parent or partner) gets just two weeks statutory paternity leave paid at £148.68 per week, less than half of minimum wage. 

Shared parental leave uptake is very low:

Analysis by the University of Birmingham found only 9,200 new parents (just over 1% of those entitled) took shared parental leave in 2017-18. That increased to 10,700 in the financial year 2018-19.

Just as additional leave suffered too

“Just 1.4% of new fathers taking it in 2012-13. In 2011-12, the first year the scheme was in operation, just 0.8% of eligible dads took advantage of it.”

What can be done

Two things need to be addressed

1. Financial constraints – Fathers are much more likely to already be earning more than their partners and therefore find it harder to take leave at statutory rates

2. Cultural constraints – the question of where society, employers and men perceive they belong. Too often we casually default to assume men to be the main breadwinners and women as the primary carers.

The Labour party pledge in 2015 to double the length and pay of statutory paternity leave had potential to be a big step in the right direction  but has sadly disappeared to be replaced by increased maternity leave – to find out why that is problematic you’ll need to read this piece i wrote for Daddilife.

Moves around the fringes of government are important indications as to which way the wind is blowing – even if parliamentary time seems taken up with other activity…

October 2018

In October 2018 the government announced that it planned to consult on a bill that would require large employers to publish their parental leave package. Read more here

July 2019

Helen Whately, Conservative MP for Faversham and Mid Kent a introduced the flexible working bill, to make all jobs flexible by default unless the employer has a sound business reason why particular hours in a particular place are required. Read more here about what this #FlexforAll bill is all about.

Some good moves but in the UK we remain a way away from the gold standard of well paid, protected parental leave for fathers.

Why does parental leave matter?

Men Gain Empathy & Awareness of Bias

“Would my job be safe? What would it mean for my career? How would it impact my team?” Then, he adds: “It hit me like a freight train. These are worries that women in the workplace have been facing for generations”.

Source: FT – Time off for new fathers raises bias awareness

Not only that, but dads accessing parental leave has significant and long-lasting benefits towards equality in the household.

In households where men were given the opportunity to use this benefit, fathers’ daily time in household work was 23 percent higher, long after the leave period ended. 

Source: Council on Contemporary Families

Well paid protected leave is a key part of breaking cultural assumptions which perceive childcare as a woman’s job, it supports equality of choice in families and is good for mental health, relationships and women’s income prospects.

On International Men’s Day we should be setting the bar much higher than 2 weeks of below minimum wage leave.

It does nothing for families, for fathers or for mothers.

This is what society and business needs:

1. Day one flexible working as a default position for all. #flexforall

2. Equalise parental leave provisions for new parents.

3. Provide men with paternity coaching before and after their leave.

4. Identify and support senior fatherhood role models.

5. Create and support fatherhood community initiatives in the workplace.

James Frith - MP and a Dad of 4.

James Frith MP and Dad of 4

Proxy voting and Pairing

Until very recently MPs had to be present in parliament in order to vote, a recent high profile news story made parliament take note of it’s own procedures and at the end of the ensuing debate that changed parliamentary procedures, I saw James Frith speak powerfully in favour of equality for Dads.

We met last week in the House of Commons and I asked him how he juggles his responsibilities as a father of 4, husband and MP representing Bury North.

How do you juggle those very different responsibilities?  

James:                  It's a good question. So, the juggling is a very real, daily, weekly kind of appreciation really.

We have to be careful as a married couple that we're not just basically forever planning, but we're living in the moment or as much as you can - but with kids anyway, you can quickly be just spending weekends dropping them off at parties, picking them up and sometimes you think, actually we need a weekend where we're out as a family and we go for a walk and that sort of thing.

So really, I don't think it's much different to what a lot of people do, but what we add in is a degree of this sort of public life to it. So sometimes we think about where we're going that just allows us to kind of switch off as well. Because although there are really good opportunities for me to do things in my constituency as a dad, I'm also known and the family's known.

When you are there as a public figure and your kids are misbehaving, it's a lot of pressure to put on yourself. So, you kind of brief the kids to within an inch of their life - do not misbehave! and you make sure you've got bottles for the younger ones.

Working away from home

James:                 From a parental point of view, I make sure that the kids always know that I'm back more often than not on Wednesday night. I tend not to tell them if there's a chance of getting back earlier because they're disappointed if it doesn’t happen.

Ian:                        Do you come down on Sunday nights?

James:                  I come down Monday morning and I'm back late Wednesday night for Thursday morning. So I'm down for two nights usually, but the third night's missed because I'm not back in time for bedtime, but I am there Thursday morning. From their perspective, it's essentially three nights away, three bedtimes, but it's okay.

When I come down after a hectic weekend it's quite nice, but by Tuesday I'm kind of like…. It's a bit quiet and you wake up in the middle of the night and you're in this strange flat away from the kids and stuff. There are moments when a degree of homesickness is quite real, basically what I do is I work flat out and then I leave as soon as I'm able to get back to the constituency.

Routines and rituals

James:                  For us it’s even things like coming through the door. If in the rare occasions I get home and no one is at home, there's that ability to then receive them as they come home as opposed to get home and be overwhelmed, before you've even put your bag down, which in the films is meant to be like the best feeling ever. In reality, you're exhausted. Just let me put my bag down. Let me get my coat off and then…

I mean it's probably very detailed, but we talked about that as a family in terms of just giving ... or like straightaway if Nikki wants to go out for a run or whatever, I'm like yeah, yeah go. I've got it. Go, go, go so that she gets that carved out time individually whilst at home.

Ian:                        There's routine as a family. There’re rituals.

James:                  Little rituals. Little kind of cognitive things about how you end up feeling 'cause I yearn for time at home, Nikki yearns for time out of the house. So how can we make that work? It takes some real management.

*** You can learn more about Nikki and her business Granny Cool by clicking here.

What other kind of practical things have you learnt? 

James: Coffee! I think all of our children have grown up knowing there's little point in asking for anything from me or my wife until we've had two coffees in the morning and Sky, Sky TV, and you're sorted (!)

Practical things - I think it's the same challenge that parents face anyway, which is concentrating on playing with your children and not just managing them. That's the thing I really struggle with because instinctively, not least because we've got four, but because of how busy, it's very easy (and I'm too guilty of it), very easy to just basically be managing your children rather than playing with them.

So having good walks or taking Henry to football or my daughter to drama or reading a book with my little boy or reading a story or watching a little film with my little girl, they're sort of quite deliberate activities so you're not simply just tidying up after them.

Ian:                        So for you it’s almost planned “quality time”?

James:          You've got to just have that time when it is quality time, and more often than not, that needs us to be out of the house for it to be really useful. Otherwise, you just get, I do anyway, kind of subsumed into just the management of the house and keeping on top of everything and tidying up!

Good team around me

James: It does take a considerable amount of effort to make sure it works and some of that is about just having good balance with your team, they have empathy as to my time. They'll ask themselves, before they ask me, whether another Thursday night or another Friday night or another Saturday afternoon is realistic. So we've built in some provision.

Ian:                        Core time?

James:                  Yeah, and we alternate weeks. So I'll do a late finish Friday and work on Saturday one week and then finish normal time Friday and not work the weekend . So a team of six in the constituency and then I have support three days a week when I'm down here.

The nature of it, as with any job, just takes a lot of teamwork and a lot of diary management and committing to solid things. Good time away, weekends off, good walks, time for bath, football, taking Henry to the Carabao Cup Final, which I can't wait for!

It is a lot of work, but there are a lot more dads in hardship. The status, the money, the reward for the job is significant. So I'm not complaining.

What’s the best thing about being an MP?

James:                  Genuinely it's that ability to change somebody's circumstances who've come to see you. The individual case work, which actually is somebody else's success largely. It's one of my case work team who work through the authority of the office essentially, but the case work then plan of action is then agreed and ordained by me or action is taken and letters written…

Ian:                        In your name?

James:                  In my name. Through an effective office operation we're able to transform or change circumstances, some of it very small. It can be appropriate railings outside of school or it can be sorting out the Motability license for a newly diagnosed Parkinson's sufferer who actually is going be able to use their car for a period of time having been sanctioned by the DWP or it can be saving the walk-in centre which we did quite early on.

So my SEND focus on special education needs is because I've been inundated with case work. 50 plus parents come and see me with issues about the struggle and there's a universal view across the country which is why I pressed for the national inquiry from the committee that I'm on. (Education Select Committee)

It's that ability to influence change and improve circumstances for people. That's for sure.

Elected by surprise

Ian:                       You said earlier that it was a surprise to get elected. How did you feel after the first time when you lost, it was '15?

James:                 Yeah, 2015. So I lost by 378 votes, it was 0.8%.

Ian:                        I'm not sure but I think I might have fallen asleep on the sofa by that stage…

James:                  That was a better option than being at the count. I was gutted. I spent some time getting over that frankly. I threw myself into the company that I ran, but it was quite a significant challenge to my outlook because you feel, you can't help but take it personally.

Ian:                        Yeah. Investing so much of your soul….

James:                 Two and a half years of being the candidate and running campaigns and working really hard, all in a voluntary capacity so our family had endured that. But when '17 came around, the opportunity to stand again…

There was no hesitancy in me. I was just cautious of putting the family through it again, but Nikki was just like absolutely you've got to go for it, and of course we had our eyes wide open in this instance. So, we knew what we were headed for whereas previously it was just like, oh my god this is taking so much!

In 2017 we were pregnant with Bobby. That was an active decision and we'd been pregnant with Lizzie the election before. So, some say it was a cynical ploy to win votes with my pregnant wife! “Kiss a baby”. It doesn't have to be your baby as somebody pointed out.

But it's all good. I'm loving work.

Political Heroes

James:                  Last week, I hosted Kerry Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy's daughter, it was amazing. She was awesome. She does a lot for human rights globally and she wants to do a Human Rights festival in Manchester.

So I put together some MPs and she came and spoke, we were just like hanging off every word.

She told the story about the night as a nine year old girl, the day that Martin Luther King was shot and how she remembered watching the news with her dad and he decided he needed to go down and address the crowd. He went upstairs, put a suit on, came down. She saw him leave the house, walk out into his car and pull up 10 minutes later on the news and delivered this incredible speech in Indianapolis. A speech that he delivered which helped keep the peace. It was just amazing. Absolutely brilliant.

And we talked about Shared Parental Leave

Why take Shared Parental Leave?

Ian:                        The thing about Shared Parental Leave, it really needs to be more powerful. There aren't that many places that fund it the way that maternity leave is funded. You need one partner to be earning enough that you can cover a second salary being lost, and it tends to be the man in part because those gender pay gaps come in quite early.

James:                  It's a good way of looking at it. It's an argument for equality that is often not made in terms of that need to have equality so that there is freedom for both the man and the woman to go back to work and what's best for their family rather than just necessity. Usually, as you say, because of the ingrained inequalities on pay still, then it ends up being the man that goes back to work. There should be that freedom.

Ian:                        Yeah, it's that straight jacket of choice. For a lot of couples, the certainty of dad working, mum looking after children, raising children, that's great. For a lot of dads, it's like, actually I want to be more involved and I can't or for mums - actually I want to work.

The example I like to use is of 2 candidates – 30 something, recently married. If you, as a potential employer, didn’t know which one was likely to take a year off to look after children then you wouldn’t be able to make a judgement in narrow terms based on gender.

James Frith, Labour MP for Bury North was interviewed by Ian Dinwiddy, Founder of Inspiring Dads and he kindly made the following endorsement afterwards. Need some help Being a Great Dad AND Having a Great Career? Why not get our FREE top ten work life balance tips…

One man's story of how he fixed his work life balance.

One Man’s story of how he fixed his work life balance

It’s not easy to get the right work life balance for you and your family. But it is possible.

I’m often having conversations when people tell me

I’d love to get better work life balance but I can’t see how it is possible and I definitely can’t afford to step away from my path.

Will’s story is here to show you how, by following the key Inspiring Dad’s principles, you too can make real progress in your life.

1.       Discover Your Values, Priorities And True Purpose

2.      Develop Your Communication Skills And Nurture Key Relationships.

3.      Create A Work Life Balance That Delivers The Priorities That Really Matter To You.

Q&A with Will

⭐ Tell me what life was like for you.

Photo Credit: Ben White via Unsplash

“We had 2 children and I was struggling with my work hours. I didn’t see them in the morning, I was out house at 6am, not back before 7.30pm at the earliest

I was earning very good money, but I was doing it because I’d always done it.

When our son was 4, we didn’t get the primary school place that we really wanted. So, we decided to send him to a local private school. It was the right decision at the time, but it increased the pressure on me to carry on earning at the same level.”

⭐ How did you feel about your life at that time?

“Unhappy. So busy, too busy. And too tired at the weekends to enjoy our downtime.”

⭐ What made you address it?

“It was Easter when I said I couldn’t do it anymore. I think it was something about always seeing darkness. I decided I couldn’t tolerate how I was living any more. I could feel the signs that it was getting too much.

The thing is I knew how bad it could get – I was an alcoholic (now 7 years clean). I didn’t want to reach rock bottom again before did something about it.”

⭐ What did you do?

“My wife and I went back to barebones – what matters to us and how do we do more of it? We decided to focus on what really makes you happy – gives you joy. For us it was about being there for the kids, rather than grand expensive gestures. In contrast to me my wife loves her job and it allows working from home too.

We started by trimming our income. We spoke to our son’s private school and the primary we wanted and managed to move schools – massively reducing our outgoings. My wife increased to 4 days a week – but 2 days a week from home. This saved us the money needed to give me to allow me to retrain, but I still needed to do it quickly.

I wanted to do something worthwhile to answer the question – “why am I here?”. It needed to build on the skills and experience I already had. I decided to become a financial advisor. The industry has moved on from the hard sales mis-selling scandals of recent years.

It’s possible to be ethical.”

⭐ How is life now?

“I love my life. I’m effectively self-employed, I get to set my own schedule, to help out at Cubs every week. I’m not too shattered by the time it comes to the weekend.

The downsides are I spend something like 40,000 miles a year in the car visiting clients, we have less income, and I’m never really ‘not working’, I can’t afford to miss contacting potential clients ‘just’ because I’m on holiday.

But those are relative downsides when set against the benefits and the opportunity to ‘be there’ regularly.”

⭐ What are your top tips for other Dads?

✅ You have a choice
✅ Don’t wait for rock bottom – it’s not a lot of fun there.
✅ Identify what you what - Be honest.

It can be hard to see a way out but there are always choices, the option to take some control of your circumstances.

And hide your phone away when you are with your family – it stops you being ‘present’ and it causes you stress.

👉 To sum up

Will was struggling with his work life balance, even if his family were happy. This can be a tricky place to be, but knowing what rock bottom could mean, he knew the stakes were high. He needed to be vulnerable – to let go of the provider mentality.

His fear of rock bottom was greater than his fear of being honest.

✅ He was honest with his wife.
✅ He got her support. They communicated openly. 
✅ They made and followed through with a plan.

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