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

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.

(No sign up required)

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

Our Mission - inspiring dads to work more flexibly to benefit everyone

Why does male work life balance matter?

Ian Dinwiddy, founder of Inspiring Dads, explains why their mission is so important (600 words)

After 7 years of management consultancy, shortly after his first child was born, Ian became a ‘Stay at Home Dad’ which he successfully mixed with freelance work and national league hockey umpiring.

In 2018 Inspiring Dads Ltd was born.

The seven-year itch then?

Management Consultancy was never going to be a great fit with our primary, family goal of one of us always ‘being there for the children’ (at time of writing - Freya 8 and Struan 5). So, I took the bit of consultancy that I loved, and retrained as a coach before discovering my niche. I realised I wanted to help and support those men whose work-life balance is causing them stress.

Why ‘men’ and why ‘work-life balance’?

Within the coaching industry you’ll find plenty of Life Coaches who specialise in working with female clients and you’ll find executive coaching designed to improve work performance.

What you won’t find is coaching and support to help men be successful at ‘life’. When men become dads, it is as much of an upheaval and an emotional and practical challenge as it is for women.

Haven’t men always been considered the ‘hunter-gatherers’?

Surveys tell us that men want to spend time with their children, 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.

Is there positive news?

The good news is that there is a whole generation of dads who understand that the old model of one parent, commonly the man, being 'all in' for work is looking increasingly old fashioned, even archaic.

What do Dads really want?

Simple really – to Be a Great Dad AND Have A Great Career.

There are 3 key elements

👉 They want to be happy and they want their families to be happy.

👉 They want to see more of their families.

👉 They want better quality time when they have it.

Flexible working has a key role to play in facilitating improved work-life balance.

Does flexible working for men matter?

It would be very easy to dismiss this as men finding out what women have known for a long time, it's hard to have it all. At Inspiring Dads we see this as an opportunity… By harnessing the energy and desire of a new generation of dads, we can design a new way of living and working and unlock profound benefits for everyone.

When men are unable to access flexible working, too often it is women who are obliged to take lower paid roles in order to gain the flexibility that they require for family childcare commitments.

This reinforces the gender pay gap that develops long before adults become parents, as assumptions about childcare and parenting responsibilities discriminate against women and trap men in the cycle of men as providers, women as carers.

What are the positives?

When men are supported and inspired to access flexible working

✅ Dads would be happier

✅ Families would be happier

✅ There would be genuine choice as to how to divide childcare responsibilities.

✅ The gender pay gap would reduce.

Your vision for the future?

Men using their power, voice and agency to seek out and achieve flexible working, normalising it for everyone.

It’s time to inspire, support and challenge Dads to make changes for everyone’s benefit.

What are your options for improving your work life balance?

Call it work life ‘balance’ or ‘harmony’ or just life.

If it isn’t working for you…

You need to change things.

This post talks about HOW to change things.

Assumption 1 - You understand how you and your family feel.

If you’re not really sure then you must read this blog post first. It shows you how to assess your circumstances plus you’ll get some timely reminders about why it’s so important.

Assumption 2 - You have a problem with your current ‘balance’.

If everyone is happy then you don’t need to change anything.

✅We call it an ‘A’ in this blog post.

Assumption 3 - You believe it is possible to improve it!

If you don’t yet believe read how Dads like you have worked out their path.

Assumption 4 - You know your ‘WHY’

It’s a core principle that we teach:

✅ Talk honestly about what you truly want as a family.

a.       How often do you want to be at home?

b.      When do you want to be at home?

c.       What does this mean for you?

d.      What does it mean for your family?

Here’s a short video about Dads talking about what flexible working means to them.

✅ Know your options to achieve better work life balance

First up there’s a difference between ‘flexibility’ at work and proper work life balance.

Flexibility = taking time out from work to do life stuff.

Let’s include things like doctor’s appointments, emergency child care duties, working from home once a year to see the nativity performance.

For me this is just managing life.

For the purposes of this example, we’re going to assume a starting point of 40 hours - 9 til 5 pm

If you have others or a story to inspire than please do drop us a note!

⭐ your options to improve your work life balance ⭐

1. Core Hours with flexible hours outside of that.

2. A day or more working from home.

3. Leave early, log in at home later.

4. Flex start and finish times.

   1. Early in, early home. 7am – 4pm

   2. Late In, Late home. 10am – 7pm

5. Compressed hours - 5 days work ‘compressed’ into 4 days.

6. Home based working.

7. Part-time jobs – 4 days, 3 days, 2 days a week.

8. Job Share

9. Career change

HERE’S Some Inspiration…

Case study 1 - Flexi-time - with core hours

‘I exploit flexi-time in this area. I drop son off between 8:15 to 8:30 in order to get into the office for 9:00 am. I knock off early on Friday afternoon in order to collect son from nursery

Apart from core hours of between 9:30 and 4:30 tend to stay later twice a week to get out early or on time the rest of the week’.

Case study 2 - Flexi-time - with core hours

‘For me, it's all about flexibility and a credit to my employer, the kit they provide, and a boss who allows me to flex around work and childcare commitments.

My team and I keep core hours of 10am - 4pm, but flex around that to allow for earlier or later starts and finishes depending on life commitments.

And there's flexibility to work from home and/or catch up from home in the evenings if necessary. But it's all founded on trust and respect that it's all a balance... ‘

Case Study 3 - Compressed Hours

‘I do 10-2 pm Mon, normal hours on Tue , Weds and Thurs, Fri 10-2 pm ...so 4.5 days over 5. It worked really well. I got to set the week up well, work through Thursday with everyone and on Friday make sure everything wrapped up as well as could be.’

Case study 4 - Compressed Hours

‘10am - 4.30pm. This is to enable me to do nursery and school drop offs and pick ups.’

Case study 5 - 35 hours compressed into 4 days

‘I’ve been on 5 in 4 for the last 6 years. I had to cover off 8.75 hours a day.’ 

A note on compressed hours v 4 days

If you try and work part time, 4 days a week the reality is you're still going to work full time hours anyway, so go for 5 days worth of hours compressed into 4 days.

Your rights

Since 2014 everyone in the UK has had a right to request flexible working. Yes, you absolutely can ask!

Click here for a link to the UK Government press release.

Click here to find out about flexible friendly businesses.

There are clear rules that Employees and Employers must follow

Click here for a link on the rules on requesting flexible working.

Your plan

You need to consider a number of factors

1. Your boss’s potential attitude - how much do they trust you?

2. Your seniority - the more senior you are the more they want to keep you happy.

3. What are your remote tech options?

4. Meetings schedule

5. What have other people done? - most business it will be women who have achieved flexible arrangements.

6. Client expectations.

7. How much do you want it? What’s your why!

✅ Anticipate all their specific objections and address them.

✅ If you currently have team meetings at the start / end of the day, suggest that they can easily be moved.

✅ Accentuate the positives

✅ Say you'll be available at home for calls and emails if necessary during busy periods.

Need help designing and implementing your own plan?

We’ve got a FREE 10 page PDF called The Work Life Balance Top Ten Tips that sets out our key tips. click below to get it>>>

Or join our free Facebook group - full of guys like you designing and making changes to their lives.

The world is changing

⭐ How about this for innovation?

⭐ Four days a week?

Does your 'life balance' work for you?

Does Your ‘Life Balance’ Work For You?

Photo credit @photoholgic via Unsplash

30 years ago, I don’t suppose anyone really talked about “Work / Life Balance”. Life was simpler. 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.

Our dad pretty much worked for the same company for 30 years until he took early retirement on medical grounds.

Sure, our mum worked a bit. I vividly remember that she had a cottage industry of ‘making boxes’ – even 9-year-old me could tell the piece rate was ridiculously low and she was also a childminder for time too.

Life felt a bit uncomfortable in the early 1990s but somehow dad was one of 3 out of 30 or so ‘at risk’ to survive a redundancy round.

One thing is certain it never felt like dad was always ‘at work’.

The signs of a changing world

We didn’t know any gangsters, so my dad was the first person I knew who had Carphone (back when The Carphone Warehouse seemed like the obvious name for a business).

He was 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 was never any danger of being ‘always on’.

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 Wednesday.

To state the obvious, life has changed…

The pressures are different - our parents didn’t have to cope with emails on their phones, data at their fingertips. Everything requiring their action.

If you’re a working dad, it’s important to make sure your work life balance is right for you and for your family. Long standing traditional gender roles of Men = Provider, Women = Caregiver serve many couples very well and can provide certainty in life. Giving opportunities to experience deeply accepted elements of masculinity and femininity.

But it doesn’t work for everyone.

Maybe your partner wants to build her career and would prefer not to be tied to endless parenting ‘duties’?

“I am not a parent yet, nor have plans to be in the next couple of years… I'm particularly keen for my hubby to be a 50/50 parent. I already get push back from him how that will be difficult!”

Maybe you are one of the many men who wants to spend more time as a parent - even if this means foregoing progress at work.

It’s time to Assess Your Work Life Balance….

Ask yourself which category do you fall into?

Be honest - how do your family feel about your ‘work life balance’

A = Everyone is happy with my work life balance.

B = I’m happy with my work life balance, but my family aren’t.

C = My family is happy with my work life balance, but I’m not.

D = No one is happy with my work life balance.

(E = I’m not sure what they think)

---

What does this mean for you and your family?

A – This is the perfect situation - everyone’s a winner.

Photo Credit @juniorferreir_ via Unsplash

🏆 It doesn’t matter how you do it - this is what you want.

It might be that you work long hours, doing a job that you love and that provides you and your family with the life you all want.

✅ Perfect! Keep doing what you are doing - make sure you don’t inadvertently slip into B though…

B – This could easily become an issue.

❌ Here’s a couple of warnings… to jolt you out of complacency.

Imagine it’s your work anniversary on LinkedIn… among the notes of colleague respect is a comment from your wife:

“Congrats, let’s catch up”

I hope you don’t need me to tell you you’ve got a problem here and it’s time to do something about it before you face what Toby' faced…

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

“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?!”

B is not a good place to be.

---

C - tricky one

Maybe your kids aren’t bothered if they see much of you as long as they get a new Xbox for Christmas?

Your partner likes the lifestyle you are able to provide.

If you want to reduce your hours, be more flexible or change jobs - how will this impact on your family - what you might see as good thing, they may only see the downsides.

✅ Open and honest conversations are key here - you need to be honest about how your current situation is affecting you.

✅ You will need understanding and practical and emotional support.

---

D – what are you waiting for?

Time to do something different today!

E – Definitely time to find out

---

Hopefully you've assessed your work life balance as an A, but as you can see above B and C aren’t great places to be.

Please don’t wait until the stress and anxiety gets too much, grab your free “5 Ways To Achieve Your Ultimate Purpose” download via the button below and make tangible steps to future that works for you.

---

Is Jamie Oliver really 'just' a weekend dad?

“Jamie Oliver admits he's happy being a 'weekend parent' who doesn’t see the children for five days - and says they're 'fine with it’ ”

I clicked on this article thinking 2 things…

1) It’s the Daily Mail - I’m sure to regret this.

2) I’m a bit sad for him if he is actually happy with not seeing his kids during the week.

What I found was something quite different…

‘I’m mainly a weekend parent – I will get to the key school events but I’m flat out Monday to Friday and normally see the children a couple of nights during the week. I’m happy with that, I think they are fine with it.’

This didn’t seem too bad to me.

He’s at key events and home a couple of nights a week - 2 out of 5 maybe?

I know there are other Dads out there that would kill for that sort of work life balance and flexibility and yet the Daily Mail portray his work life balance as some sort of failure.

One of the core principles in our 6 Steps to Working Dad Success programme is that communication is a vital part of Being a Great Dad AND Have a Great Career. As a family and definitely as a couple, you all need to be on the same page when it comes to work life balance.

⭐ So my top tip to Jamie Oliver is to make sure everyone is ok with it.

⭐ Make sure everyone’s needs are being met because I know that if you’re happy but your family isn’t, then you’re storing up trouble.

I’ll let ‘Toby’ tell you why.

“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.

What do you think? Has Jamie Oliver got his priorities sorted out?

PS I didn’t regret reading the article, but I definitely regret seeing the comments 😒

Guys, you aren't alone - your struggle is normal.

If you’re a dad and you’re struggling with your work life balance, it’s important to know that you can get help.

Life can be better!

Generally, society still tends to expect dad to be ‘provider’ and mum to be ‘carer’.

We talk about dads ‘babysitting’ when they are just being parents.

Mums will get asked “who will be looking after your children when you go back to work?”

But times are changing

New dads don’t necessarily want to spend their paternity leave checking their email before starting their new role of trying desperately to be home for bathtime and worrying about what they are missing out on.

They want to be there to share time with their families. Where possible, they want flexible working arrangements and they are finding out what mums have always known - it’s hard to have it all.

BTW… This isn’t a pop at you

I know some of you are reading this and it’s got your back up.

This bloke is having a pop at me.

I work hard to provide a great standard of living for my family, I make sure the time I spend with my family is quality time.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely not saying that you shouldn’t be at work earning a living to provide for your family.

Hell, someone needs to earn the money and if your work life set up works for you that’s awesome.

In fact drop me an email and share your story and inspire others.

Nah, i’m not talking to you.

To be fair I’m talking to the bloke who’s feeling the stress, the anxiety, the pressure of a work life balance that is failing him and his family.

It’s time to get it sorted.

Your problem is their problem

We run a private Facebook group called “How to be a Great Dad AND Have a Great Career”.

When guys like you want to join and get some support, one of the questions we ask is

What do you hope to get from being a member of this group?

✅ "Ideas for practical things I can do to achieve that balance between my career and being a co-parenting dad."

✅ "I would like to be able to share tips and advice with other dads have are feeling the same pressures in their day-to-day life that I am."

✅ "Insight and tips on work life balance."

✅ "Discuss how to get the work / life balance that I need...maybe get inspired to take my career in a more fulfilling direction."

✅ "To see potential work-life balance problems coming before they hit, learning from other dad’s who’ve been there and taking their advice preemptively."

✅ “Seeing how other Dad's have made a good deal of difference to their own happiness, as well as that of their kids.”

✅ “Learn how to have a better work live balance.”

If those sound like the type of thoughts you’ve got in your mind it’s time to join us.

Book Review - Dads Don't Babysit, Freed and Millar 2018

click here > my review on Amazon

A couple of weeks ago I discovered a podcast called First Time Dads and heard James Millar, one of the authors of Dads Don’t Babysit.

I loved the discussion so much I went and bought the book. Now I love the book - it’s like reading my own ideas only a lot more coherent (!)

Crucially it seeks to answer the questions - why are fathers sometimes unwilling, but more often unable to share the pleasures of parenting?

#worklifebalance #equallives

Joe Marler and Work Life Balance

Struggling with the demands of work and the demands of family?

Is it causing you stress, anxiety and a sense of letting everyone down?

After 59 caps, Joe Marler, England Rugby player decided to step away from the England set up "Being with England you have to spend an incredible amount of time away and I could not do that any more," he said.

He went one to say he was "looking forward to being able to give my wife and children more of my time".

After struggling with “the emotional and mental toll of being away from his family for long periods”, Marler choose to address it.

To work out whether it was all worth it.

Most of us are not going to reach the heights of international sport and the pressures on mind body and time that this brings, but we can all seek to understand why we do what we do and make sure it is all worth it.

Don’t keep putting your mental health at risk.

Start to be honest about what you really want and take action to get it.

As Joe Marler found, your honesty and integrity will gain you the respect of the people around you.

Eddie Jones, England Coach said

"He's a good guy - an honest, mature person who understands the demands of the game and the demands of family life. I have got to admire his honesty and the way he has gone about this."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/45659034

Photo credit - PA

Feeling like Joe Marler?

It’s time to plan your next steps