Two sides of the story

Can shared parental leave really work?

When writer Sally Howard, 42, became pregnant, she and her partner, Tim Davies, 38, a media lawyer, vowed to split the childcare, household chores, mental load and everything else completely 50/50 – including parental leave. But three years on, how did they fare? And can the burden of childcare ever be completely equal? Photography by Liz Seabrook

The right for couples to share up to 50 weeks of parental leave came into effect in the UK in 2014, but as few as two per cent of eligible couples have taken advantage of it, according to recent Department for Business figures. Studies have found that men fear being stigmatised in the workplace if they opt for the ‘daddy track’. What’s more, British women still contribute more weekly hours of housework than men, according to the Office for National Statistics. So, is it really possible to co-parent completely equally?

Sally

I was 35 when I met Tim and he seemed different to men I’d dated before. Those men had claimed to believe in equality, but when push came to shove (or, shoving a mop handle), they were conveniently elsewhere – usually replying to an ‘urgent’ work email. At 31, Tim seemed to hail from a more enlightened generation: he washed up without leaving rice stuck to the bottom of the pan, he cheerfully prepared Jamie Oliver’s 30-minute meals and arranged the fridge chronologically to make sure we didn’t have three halfeaten tubs of Lurpak in circulation. When we discussed whether to have children, four years into our relationship, he was on board with establishing a ‘fair family’ set-up, where chores were allocated according to unpleasantness (cleaning loos and emptying bins taking bottom billing), rather than sexual stereotypes.

As soon as I became pregnant with our son, Leo, we made a plan: we would both take the first few months off to set the parenting tone. After that, Tim would take six months off while I returned to work, then we’d switch and I’d become primary parent for a spell. Financially, it worked well, as we’ve always split breadwinning 50/50, and planning was relatively easy because I’m freelance and Tim works on a contract-to-contract basis.

But when we told friends and family the plan, they were shocked. My female friends felt sorry for me. ‘What sort of man,’ one single mum friend wondered, ‘would force his female partner to return to work so he could waft about at baby rhyme time?’ Meanwhile, Tim’s male friends were jealous. Most of their wives wouldn’t consider giving up even a week of their maternity leave for their husbands to bond with their kids.

And one elderly aunt was adamant that if Tim took a lengthy period away from the office, he’d end up workless and dissolute, spending his days on the sofa watching children’s TV. ‘It’s a man’s job to provide,’ she said.

But we shrugged it off. When I was four months pregnant, we went on a weekend minibreak to Stockholm and met a group of ‘latte pappas’ – men making the most of Sweden’s generous 480 days of state-funded shared parental leave. They were everywhere, smiling as they pushed kids on swings in the park and took fika (Swedish elevenses) in handsome gaggles, and suddenly Tim and I were spurred on.

Yet it soon transpired to be harder than we ever imagined. Leo was born during the hot summer of 2016 and somewhere along the line, in the fog of sleepless autumn nights, I inadvertently became ‘Mum’: the parent who knew if we owned enough poppered Babygros in the right size and if they’d been washed. I knew what we’d feed Leo for his first meal and where he stood on the baby weight centiles. I don’t know if it was simply because I’m hardwired as a woman, but it also ended up falling to me to know how much penne was in the kitchen cupboard, and I, not Tim, was the one who felt judged when our son went to nursery in a stained T-shirt, or Christmas cards went unsent. I was the chief organiser, soother and household controller – and, I felt, the parent with whom the buck always stopped.

Looking back, this may be because I was raised to take charge of the family domain. My mum was a home-economics teacher, so I knew how to rustle up a casserole against the clock by the age of 10. Also, I saw it as a mark of my feminine pride that the household ran smoothly and efficiently. While Tim liked our cottage to be tidy and clean, domestic chaos or forgotten family obligations didn’t strike deep to his sense of self-worth (as they did for me).

I recall my first night out after giving birth: a work Christmas do. I’d expressed 200ml of breast milk from mutinously raw nipples, squeezed my new moonscape of a midriff into a festive red dress and left detailed instructions at home with Tim. But halfway down my second glass of pinot grigio, the text messages started to arrive. ‘When you say warm it up, do you mean put the whole bottle in boiled water? Or is boiled water too hot?’ My phone pinged again. ‘Does he wear these tiny trousers to bed? Or are they tights?’ I felt cornered and irritated – was I not allowed to switch off for a single night? But in the same instant, I felt guilty. What did I expect if I abandoned my mothering post?

Another unexpected challenge was how hard it was for Tim to fit in at parent-andtoddler groups. I felt anxious as he complained of strangers ‘mumsplaining’ how to insert our son into his buggy or gravely warning him that Leo was overheating in his snowsuit. He didn’t have much more luck with the smattering of stay-at-home dads he came across in our local park, one of whom wore cut-off jogging bottoms yearround to keep cool and therefore elevate his sperm count. So, when it was my turn to go back to work, I’d sprint home from the office, guilt-ridden, to find Tim swearing at the saucepans and Leo coiled in tantrum mode on the kitchen floor. Tim admitted

that he felt isolated and lonely, which was painful to hear. It was painful, too, when Leo began calling, ‘Daddy, Daddy,’ rather than the sing-song ‘Mama’; I slipped into the bathroom for a quiet cry.

Today, Leo is three – Tim has taken two six-month stints off solo compared with my eight months. It’s still me who frets about getting biscuits in for visits from the in-laws, as I feel I’ll be judged as a woman if these domestic touches aren’t in place, but slowly we’re getting there.

Now, of course, Tim knows what to do if Leo bashes his head on the doorframe or develops a weird rash. I still struggle with giving up mothering ground; we’re built to believe that kids ‘just need their mums’. But these days I don’t feel upset when Leo calls, ‘Daddy, Daddy,’ when he wakes at

3am. I just roll over and go back to sleep.

Tim

When I agreed to share parenting with Sally, I didn’t think of the practicalities. How hard could it be to care for your own child?

Turns out, much harder than I thought…

My plans to use the time to write a novel and catch up with friends were soon out of the window. And I’m glad we had that shared period of parenting for the first few months so Sally and I could bounce ideas off each other – we soon had Leo in a good routine.

After she went back to work, I’d get a few precious hours to myself on the days Leo napped, which helped to keep me sane. On the days he didn’t nap – and there was a grim month when he was teething and didn’t sleep night or day – I couldn’t get anything done around the house or take a breather. I’d manically walk Leo around in his pushchair, while he was screaming at the top of his lungs and refusing to sleep, as women passers-by looked at me as if I was torturing him. Their reactions riled me. I suddenly understood why the mums I saw with young kids in supermarkets seemed at the end of their tether.

The other challenge in those early days was that Leo was tied to Sally. When he started talking, I’d go into his room in the morning and he’d say, ‘I don’t like Daddy; I like Mummy,’ which was painful, especially with a long day of solo parenting ahead.

But the most difficult part of flying solo was joining mother-and-baby-type meetups. As the only man, I always felt slightly uncomfortable and had a vague sense of being on the wrong turf.

On one occasion, I went along to a singalong session, expecting to find a group of babies chortling along to simple tunes. Instead, I was taken aback to find it was for mums. I was horribly conscious of my deep voice booming out and didn’t go back.

It made me jealous of the latte pappas we met in Sweden. There, it’s normal to see packs of dads with babies in buggies hanging around the cafés – men are still the rarity in the UK.

I did find one dad-friendly parent-andbaby group, led by a Bob Dylan lookalike who played a guitar for the children (lots of Guns N’ Roses). Though fun, it was surreal to find all these dads who used to go to rock concerts bouncing drooling kids on their knees.

Other issues have been predictable – a lack of accessible changing tables means I am adept at replacing Leo’s nappies in a stall in the men’s loos. More annoying is the mumsplaining that goes on. Leo often has shiny red cheeks, especially when he wakes up from a nap. It’s not something I worry about, but it seems to disturb many of the women I meet. I’ve been told countless times that it could be the virus slapped cheek syndrome. I take the mumsplaining in good humour, mostly, but sometimes I just want to say that, yes, I know what I’m doing and, no, I haven’t dropped him on his head.

These days, Sally and I share the domestic chores: if I’m at home in the week, I’ll cook and Sally takes over at weekends. We both do the cleaning, though I probably pick up more laundry. And Sally tends to stay on top of Leo’s vaccinations and applying for nursery, while I spot if he needs new shoes. There’s no set routine now – it just works.

And having entered the traditionally female domain, I see things much more from a woman’s point of view. Though at the same time, I know this isn’t possible for every couple. Had I continued climbing the corporate ladder in the City, rather than taking on contract work, I’m not sure attitudes would be so enlightened. A (male) corporate lawyer friend, who works 16-hour days, recently told me he’s planning to take shared parental leave with his firstborn, so hopefully things are changing. Although the fact he has a Swedish wife might have something to do with it…

Shared parental leave has had its challenges, but my relationship with Leo, and closer relationship with Sally, makes all that worthwhile.

The Home Stretch: Why it’s Time To Come Clean About Who Does the Dishes, by Sally Howard, is out 5 March 2020 (Atlantic Books, £14.99)

Sally, Tim and their three-year-old son, Leo