Parental leave for dad a profound experience
Dean Wharewera jumped at the chance to be a stay-at-home dad when his employer changed its parental leave policy last year. In October, Lion NZ extended its 12 weeks’ paid parental leave to all employees regardless of gender or parenting role, one of few big New Zealand companies whose leave benefits both men and women.
Wharewera’s partner, Gina Huggard, was keen to get back into paid work having spent years at home with their children, so when the policy changed it was perfect timing for them both.
‘‘We’d been talking about it for some time but obviously being able to do it with the support from Lion, actually getting paid for it just made that decision a hell of a lot easier,’’ said Wharewera (Nga¯ti Awa), culture and change leader at the company.
Wharewera already had a pretty good idea about the highs and lows of being a stay-at-home parent but actually taking the leave himself was a bit of an eyeopener. He gave his manager about six months to prepare but even so, he felt guilty about leaving his team in the lurch.
He loved having time with his family, and building an even stronger bond with them.
‘‘I’ve been a shocker in the past where trying to juggle work and the family, you’re just not completely present. I’ve always just got that thought in the back of my mind that I’ve got meetings or something to do that evening.
‘‘When I took that 12 weeks I was just totally present, no distractions, it was just an awesome experience to feel that.’’
He was one of the few dads doing the morning walks to the library, and got comments congratulating him on spending time with his children.
‘‘I was like well, there’s plenty of other female people looking after their babies as well, but I think it’s definitely an exception seeing dads do that.’’
Many men probably did want to stay at home, he said, but there was a need to make it work financially. Stereotypes of men and parenting also made men hesitate.
But the more men who took up the opportunity, and celebrated it, the more normal it became, and the better it was for the family as a whole, he said.
‘‘Even though I’ve got three kids, I’ve learned a lot just from this recent experience and I wish I’d learned those lessons earlier on in my parenting.’’
When KPMG looked into changing its parental leave policy last year, just a couple of companies out of 30 large corporates had gender-neutral policies, said executive chairman and father of five Matt Prichard.
But the situation was improving, and big companies were comparing their parental leave policies. KPMG now offered 18 weeks’ leave at full salary for primary or secondary caregivers.
‘‘I think that kind of discussion of that being the right thing to do only started in New Zealand large corporate land in the second half of last year, so it’s reasonably fresh thinking,’’ said Prichard, co-chair of Global Women’s Champions of Change.
Married to Leanne, a doctor, Prichard took part-time parental leave for two of his older children, and then nine months’ full-time leave to care for their fifth child in 2016.
He had easily slotted back into work before, but this was different.
‘‘Without being at all prepared for it, I felt enormous anxiety and guilt about not being at home looking after my kids.
‘‘My colleagues probably thought they were helping me out by not overloading me with work when I first came back, and I just felt useless.’’
Prichard had been involved in trying to improve gender diversity at work, and thought he was pretty aware, but ‘‘I’d been pretty clueless, really’’.
‘‘I had no idea until my own ‘manternity’ experience what it was really like to go from the intense experience of caring physically and emotionally for a baby to re-entering the workplace and trying to pick up where I’d left off as if nothing had happened, and it was surprisingly rubbish inside my own organisation.’’
Some companies worried about the cost of more people taking 18 weeks’ paid leave. But having a policy that kept employees loyal and engaged made perfect financial sense, given the costs of recruitment.
The battle for workers was even more reason to change.
Diversity works chief executive Maretha Smit said companies had a better understanding of the need for genderneutral leave policies. A law change in 2018 also contributed to the topic being on the radar.
There was more willingness to offer parental leave for men than there had been uptake, partly because it might not suit every couple for the woman to return to work, she said. There were also practical issues such as women needing to recover from childbirth, and breastfeeding.
‘‘There’s still those patriarchal views that argue that men should be the breadwinner and not the caregiver, and that is not something that the workplace in and of itself is going to shift.’’