Why aren’t more men stay-at-home fathers?
As figures show that only 3,000 dads have opted for shared parental leave this year, Radhika Sanghani discovers why
‘I didn’t realise it takes two hours to get a child ready to leave the house’
Jaron James is refreshingly candid about his reaction to his wife’s suggestion that they should share parental leave after the birth of their second child: “I was trying to find excuses not to do it,” he admits.
“I had a very negative response to it, instantly. I thought it would be such hard work and I just wasn’t that up for it. I was dreading telling my boss about it and kept thinking, how would it affect my career?”
A change in his circumstances at work as a photographer for the V&A museum, however, left the 41-yearold with “no really good reason to say no”.
It didn’t just make financial sense for his wife, Sarah Tomczack, not to return to her more lucrative role as deputy editor of Red magazine. She was also keen, in the interests of equality, for him to have a proper handle on the daily slog – as well as the daily joys – of parenting their two children full-time.
So in January, when their youngest daughter was seven months old, James began what was meant to be a four-month stint as a stay-at-home dad to Sylvie and her elder sister, Coco, three. That decision made him one of just 3,000 British fathers said to have taken up shared parental leave (SPL) in the first three months of this year, according to new figures from law firm EMW – a paltry 4 per cent of those eligible.
The new system, introduced in April 2015, entitles working couples to share up to a year off after the birth of a child. Aside from the initial two weeks – which the mother must take in order to recover – they can divide the rest between them.
It was hailed as a breakthrough for equality, giving both parents the chance to bond with their babies and keep their careers on track. So why has there been such a dismal take-up by fathers?
For many couples contemplating SPL, it seems a simple question of cost: in two-parent families where both partners work, men are still the main breadwinners in four out of five cases, meaning families will lose out financially if the father stays at home.
Whichever parent is on leave receives 90 per cent of their normal salary for the first six weeks after the birth, which then drops to a statutory £140 a week for the next 33 weeks, and the last three months of a year are unpaid. Even if couples earn similar amounts, many women receive maternity packages well above the statutory rate, which means that opting for paternal leave can amount to a financial penalty.
Ben Black, director of My Family Care, which helps businesses introduce family-friendly working, believes little will change until companies equalise paternity pay with enhanced maternity packages. “While lots of the UK’s best and most sophisticated employers have done that – think people like Deloitte, Shell and Accenture – most haven’t.
“Another potential drawback may also be that career-focused fathers are thrown in at the deep end, not having had a wealth of experience with the day-to-day care of their children.”
Though the numbers added up for James, his sense of self as a provider took an initial hit. “What’s hard is when I get to the bottom of my bank balance,” he explains. “Then I have to swallow my pride and say to Sarah: ‘I’ve run out of money’.”
But it has given him a keener sense of how undervalued a role full-time parenting can be: “I used
‘There’s this implicit assumption that men don’t do childcare, they do babysitting’
to berate Sarah because I’d come home from work and the house was a tip and I couldn’t figure out why the most basic of chores hadn’t been done. But now I know it’s just so hard and full-on. You just don’t get any time to yourself.
“For me it was a new thing, so there was an awful lot I knew about but hadn’t ever done myself. I didn’t realise it takes two hours to get a child ready to leave the house in the morning. We also happen to have two children who are very cuddly, which is adorable, but at the same time I don’t get anything done and I’m a bit of a clean freak. I’ve learnt you just have to let all of that go.”
Modern folklore might have it that men are hailed as heroes by other mothers for caring for their own children, but James found it difficult to integrate with the ‘mum club’ at baby groups and classes.
“Sarah had a social circle of mums but I didn’t, and was kind of doing it all on my own. I’d take the girls to their swimming and gym classes, and though it was good to have that structure within the week, it was also weird. I was the only guy in the class. Everyone was friendly but, with women, they tend to buddy up with each other, so I was often on my own.”
His male peers were even more bemused. “If I say I’m not working, people make assumptions,” he explains. “There’s a negative connotation about not being at work, and men don’t seem to have a lot to say to me when I say that.”
Steve Marshall, a 34-year-old civil servant, struggled with similar expectations that “the mother is the primary care-giver and the father is an appendage”.
He shared leave with his partner, Anna – having taken three months together, he returned to work for three months, and is now embarking on a final three months alone – because they didn’t want to burden her with the “emotional labour” alone.
Both he and his partner work as software architects for the government on similar salaries, which meant there were no financial issues with both of them taking parental leave – especially as both were fortunate enough to receive 26 weeks on full pay, before dropping to statutory.
But he found that not everyone was as understanding of their decision. “When we go to nurseries and so on, there tends to be an assumption my partner will be doing all the caring – they address everything to her. We have had to explicitly say to staff, ‘No, I’ll be doing it.’
“I felt like a kind of afterthought, or like I’m an intruder. But it also makes me incredibly frustrated. I think there’s still very much this perception that looking after children is women’s work. But I think that’s a very old-fashioned idea.”
Even when Marshall took his son Elijah to baby yoga classes – where he was surrounded by women – stereotypes persisted. “The women tried to be friendly but there’s always an air of ‘You’re a man, you’re probably not here for the long haul. You’ve got no understanding and perception of what we’ve been through.’
“That’s true when it comes to labour, but the rest of looking after a young child? There’s this implicit assumption that men don’t really do childcare, and when they do they’re ‘ babysitting’.”
For Marshall’s part, returning to the office after his first stint of SPL opened his eyes to the struggle of making up for lost time. “They were things any woman would experience with maternity leave. When I came back after three months, they were all talking about things I know about, but don’t have background knowledge on. I felt a bit out of the loop and off to one side.”
For James, the return to work never came: he has decided to continue being a full-time dad to his two girls for the indefinite future, with no regrets.
“It’s been great to spend so much time with the girls, and often, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. I look at job websites every day but that’s more from fear of missing out on a perfect job than desperation to get back to work,” he explains. “In truth, I’m dreading it.”