Shared Parental Leave — lessons, thoughts and questions

I am a human climbing frame

“I’m really glad we did this”, my husband said to me recently, gesturing in our baby’s direction. Which I felt was just as well, given the permanency of the situation. He further clarified “I mean the shared leave thing”. Ahhh!

My husband is in, the estimated, 1–3% of non-birth partners who take up the option to have Shared Parental Leave time off. I took off 9 months, he took 3. So he’s become our baby’s primary carer. And our baby has become his primary role.

I wanted to explore more about this, and to share what we learned, as well as some insight from others, in the hope that it’s useful to someone else either discussing whether it’s right for them, or figuring out how the f**k to do it… (tip, if you are just looking to find out how the f**k we did it, it’s right at the end. You’re welcome)

Deciding to do it

We were never in any doubt that sharing the leave was right for us. The idea of taking a huge chunk of time out from work didn’t sit well with me. And I wanted my partner to have time with his baby. Our baby. We’re a very equal couple and always have been. We’ve taken turns at being the higher earner, we’ve always been very independent and lived our own lives, as well as our shared one, and my partner has always done (more than) his fair share at home and never placed gender based expectations on me. No, I don’t know where you can find yourself one like that.

I wanted my partner to have time with his baby. Our baby.

I initially planned to take four months off work, but was encouraged by my boss to take six. I ended up being off for nearly nine. Because I had no concept of how tiring having a baby is. Or indeed that I’d actually want more time with the baby. One thing that I learned during my leave was that you just don’t know how you’ll feel. At any given time. In 5 minutes time.

What we now know though is that we made the right decision. My partner has had solid time with our baby. They’ve gotten to know each other better and had more time to bond. He’s enjoyed seeing changes in the baby, some daily — things he’d otherwise have missed. He feels he can better help and understand him, adapting to his needs, and that he’s more patient as a result. Truthfully, he’s enjoyed the break from work too. It’s as he said: “I’m glad we did this”

Sentiments echoed by Fiona’s partner who said “I thought [shared leave] sounded like fun. I discovered it was also hard work! In retrospect, I’m super glad I did it. It helped me bond in a closer way with my daughter, helped me better understand her and I felt more involved. And gave me more appreciation for what my partner had done for the last 9 months! I feel it brought us closer together and gave us a deeper shared understanding”

Planning the leave

I mentioned that estimates suggest that around 1–3% of partners take Shared Parental Leave. A Health Visitor told me she couldn’t remember when she’d last had someone on her caseload who planned to do Shared Leave. I’ve always wondered why it’s SO low. When the law changed to make it a legal entitlement, I assumed loads of dads would want the opportunity to have time with their new child. The first barrier we came up against was actually figuring out how to apply to take the leave.

Maternity is straight forward. You get your Mat B1 form from your midwife. You take it to work and give them your intended dates. Job’s a good ‘un.

Finding out how shared leave worked was less straightforward. My work had never had anyone off on Maternity Leave before, so we knew we’d be figuring it out together and I was fine with that. We’d hoped that we’d be able to lean somewhat on my partner’s workplace, as they’re a huge company with a proper HR function — we figured they’d know the drill. But not only did they not have a clue, they actually gave him incorrect information. So far, so hopeless.

While he’d been attempting to get some insight from them, I’d been off doing my own research. But, having trawled the DWP site, I still couldn’t answer some basic questions, including whether doing leave in the way we intended to (me being off, us having an overlap, then him staying off when I went back to work) was as straightforward as ending maternity and starting shared leave (spoiler — it pretty much is). I gave up and called DWP. And they didn’t know. The lad I spoke to said he’d never been asked about it and, after checking with colleagues he couldn’t get an answer. The best he could do was point me to employer guides, where I finally got more information.

DWP said they’d never been asked about [Shared Parental Leave]

In the end, it was speaking to a friend who works in HR that finally got me exactly what I needed. Answers and the relevant forms.

Off-putting, much? We persevered because we were set that we wanted to share the leave. But others that are on the fence are sometimes reluctant to deal with it. I’ve spoken to a few people about writing this. Terese commented “To be honest, the amount of HR stuff can feel overwhelming”

It got me wondering what else puts people off. I’ve come across a few things:

• The birth parent wants to take the full entitlement
• Ineligibility due to time served with employers
• Reluctance broaching it with employers
• Financial viability
• Workplace flexibility (in a positive way!)

The birth parent wants to take their full year

Amen sister — if that’s your jam and you’re both happy with it, you enjoy that time off (off! Anyone who’s been ‘off’ to raise a child will tell you that the notion that it’s time off is laughable). But what about parents who would love to have time off, but don’t want that precious time to be taken from the birth parent? “We did discuss shared leave” Terese said, but admitted “my partner didn’t want to encroach on my time off. If he could have had time off too, I think he would have”.

It begs the question — can parental leave ever be truly equal in the current UK model? Would it take a Sweden-esque approach, where each parent has a use-it-or-lose it 3 month parental leave entitlement, within the 480 days of subsidised leave parents are able to split, to really drive up the number of partners taking time off?

Ineligibility

When it comes to maternity, paternity and shared parental leave, you’re ineligible for even Statutory pay when you’ve been with an employer for less than 26 weeks by the end of the 15th week before the due date (even that language! It’s like it’s purposely designed to confuse). So you could have been in gainful employment your entire adult life, paying tax for all that time but, if you move job you render yourself ineligible for parental leave. I understand and appreciate, especially for small businesses that it’s less than ideal if someone goes off on leave. But, given the lack of decent enhanced parental leave, the cost to a business (excluding the inconvenience) really isn’t that much. “My husband had just started a new job, so we didn’t explore shared leave as he wasn’t even eligible for Paternity”, my friend CJ told me.

And if you’re freelance or contract, there’s even less entitlement. It certainly does nothing to encourage Shared Leave.

Reluctance to raise at work

This feels really sad given that the option to take Shared Parental Leave is a legal entitlement. It seems that, where a precedent hasn’t already been set, it can feel harder to go ahead. Until SPL becomes the ‘done’ thing and completely the norm for the non-birth parent to do, how can we encourage more uptake?

Terese said “[because my partner] works for a small company, it can be difficult asking for things that aren’t already common practise. Because it isn’t that common, I also felt I didn’t have other people sharing their experience”

Another friend, Bernadette, told me “We’d hoped my husband would take one day a week SPL when I went back to work. But they’d made an ‘exception’ in allowing him to take paternity leave and holiday [back to back], then letting him work from home after the baby was born. This, combined with the fact nobody had done it before left him feeling he was pushing it and, as a result, he didn’t request the leave”. Bear in mind, that we’re talking about a legal entitlement here. Partners are legally entitled (it bears repeating) to take time off when they ‘have’ a baby. And yet some are afraid to utilise this entitlement, because it isn’t the norm. It’s incredibly sad and deeply unequal on both fronts — the ‘burden’ of care, as it has always been, is upon the birth parent. And the other parent is denied precious time with their tiny baby.

Financial Viability

This one cuts a few ways. Who the bigger earner is has an impact. But the maternity policy of the birth parent, and whether that’s in any way enhanced is a huge factor too. Some couples simply can’t afford for the second parent to take time off too. Some can’t afford for the non-birth partner to take Paternity, having to resort to holidays for any time off.

“We just didn’t think it would be financially viable for him to then take time out too” said Bernadette. “It was really sad we couldn’t do it as he just wanted to spend time with our baby for a short period”.

SPL fails to tackle the very issue it set out to address in the first place — parental equality

In our case, it made financial sense for me to go back to work and for my partner to have some time out, rather than for me to take a full year off. But we did that shortly before my Statutory Maternity Pay ended, so he had minimal pay at the start of his leave, before going into unpaid leave, as one would if continuing maternity leave after the end of SMP. Fiona found herself in a similar situation “we didn’t want to send our daughter to nursery until she turned one. Shared leave made sense based on our earnings”

This sucks. Because SPL fails to tackle the very issue it set out to address in the first place — parental equality:

• Those whose companies offer enhanced maternity can afford to take more leave. And it seems it’s a rarity that a company extends enhanced maternity to SPL, making it even less likely that the non-birth parent can afford time out. Note that statutory leave is the same for both Maternity and Shared Parental Leave
• People who are better off to begin with are more likely to be able to allow for both partners to have time off
• And the proposition is more financially viable where the birth partner earns more. That’s estimated (in heterosexual relationships) to be about a third of couples

Workplace Flexibility

A surprising discovery for me — and one that stands to become more of a talking point with the ongoing pandemic, and the changes that stands to bring to work/life — was the notion that someone might not feel the need to take shared leave, due to the flexibility offered by their workplace.

I spoke to a friend whose partner is in academia. When he’s not teaching, he has complete flexibility over his hours. So, even after their baby was first born, he didn’t take paternity — he simply had the flexibility to do his research at times that suited, and he still got to spend time with his wife and their baby. They were also able to take advantage of the opportunity for him to take a sabbatical, which allowed them to travel to spend time with family, which would be impossible for most.

Furthermore, when their child goes to nursery, they’re able to flex their hours so that he only goes in four days, rather than five. This flexibility, he feels, has given him the opportunity to spend time with his child, and to be of support to his partner.

The Surprise Covid Effect

Workplace flexibility is an issue that’s been forced by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. All of a sudden, people have to work from home, unless they physically cannot. Proving to many employers that this is, in fact, a thing that people can do. Who knew!?

Anna Whitehouse has been running the Flex Appeal campaign for flexible working since 2015. Their goal is for all job roles to be flexible by default. And now many people are stumbling and fumbling through that, as the new norm. Attempting to work full time jobs, while homeschooling on the side. I hope very much that one positive upside of this pandemic is that it demonstrates to resistant employers that people can work from home and that they can be trusted to work from home. I’m fortunate to work for a company that already allowed for flexible working in both hours and location. I hope others are afforded that opportunity in future. Personally, I’ve actually found that I’ve been able to be far more productive at home than I thought I would or could be.

I hope that one positive upside of this pandemic is that resistant employers see that people can and can be trusted to work from home.

One benefit of all this home-working is people seeing more of their babies and children. Had I been back at the office, I’d have seen my baby briefly in the morning while getting ready to get out. Then, based on his bedtime, I’d likely have scraped back in time to get half an hour with him before bed. Not exactly quality time. Now, I get to hang out with him for a bit in the morning, see him at lunch, say hello while making a cup of tea, and get down in time to give him his tea some days and have a good hangout before bed.

Others (predominantly the partners of birth-parents) are enjoying this unexpected upside too. For some, it’s gone a step further, when furlough has come into play. Bernadette, whose partner had been reluctant to ask for time off, has now gone back to work, while he’s furloughed and caring for their child four days a week. “Funnily, he might actually now end up with more time off with the baby than I had! And compared to parental leave, he’s got far more time and more money”, she says when talking of the positive upside. Of course, this is tempered by the worry of future job security, particularly as nurseries begin to open back up and charge those with, or hoping to hold, spaces.

I wonder what potential positive upsides we could come away with. Better flexibility, allowing parents to work when and where it fits in with their family (with this extended to anyone who wants or needs flexibility). And, just maybe, non-birth partners who’ve experienced extended time with their child will share those experiences with others in future, helping normalise the non-birth parent taking time off.

Our Tips & Insight

So, with all those reasons why people don’t do it, if you do decide to, how do you go about it?

One document I found helpful was the Employers’ Technical Guide to Shared Parental Leave and Pay. The simple question I’d been unable to get answered until I got hold of that was “Do I just hand in my Mat B1 and take my maternity, then we do something and Shared kicks in?”. The simple answer to that was, YES.

The other was confirmation that you need to give 8 weeks notice of your intent to share leave. That’s 8 weeks before starting the shared leave, NOT 8 weeks before you start maternity, have the baby, conceive, nor 8 weeks before the 15th week of a pregnancy, based on best guess as to when you actually got pregnant. 8 weeks before the SPL starts. Assuming you have a nice open relationship with your employer (which we did — we’d been clear about our plans from as soon as we told them I was pregnant), you can of course submit the forms as soon as you know your plans.

You can find all the Shared Parental Leave forms on the ACAS site. Top tip if you’re going on Maternity, then switching to SPL (even with an overlap, which is what we did), you’ll need the “Shared Parental Leave forms (after maternity leave)” (there are forms for adoption and surrogacy too — I haven’t covered this, because I am NOT an expert and haven’t been through those experiences), then you’ll need to use forms 1, 3 and 4 to curtail your leave and have your partner start SPL.

The parts you’ll need to complete will vary slightly if you plan to chop and change who’s off. Which you can also do. So if you both want time off for longer when the baby’s first born, you can do that. If the non-birth parent wants to take a chunk later down the line, they can.

Gov.uk have somewhat improved their guides and information since we applied for leave. It’s still like reading riddles in some parts, but they’ve at least got the ACAS form online now.

And as for employers? I encourage you to talk to expectant parents about their wishes when you find out they’re having a baby. And to let them know that Shared Parental Leave is ok — they are allowed to do it! And be upfront — if you don’t know much about it, explore it together. Don’t palm it off or give inaccurate information. It helps nobody, and you’re doing nothing to help gender equality.

Good luck! Enjoy. To re quote my husband: “I’m glad we did this”.

All names have been changed