Embarking on Fatherhood through Paternity Resignation
5 reasons why I resigned from my first job after earning an MBA
Upon hearing about my decision to leave Accenture, my friend typed, “You resigned? That’s so brave of you!” I had recently left the professional services company to focus on raising Seon, a beautiful baby boy who joined our family this January. Instead of taking long-term parental leave, I decided to resign from the company to spend six months after my child’s birth taking care of him and supporting my wife’s recovery. With no workplace to return to, I’m referring to this period as ‘paternity resignation’ and would like to share the reasons behind this decision.
My tenure at Accenture lasted a little over a year before I made the choice to resign. This decision did not come easily. It was my first job after graduating from an MBA program at INSEAD, where I tirelessly attempted to jump-start a new career after leaving a nonprofit organization. When I enrolled at INSEAD with campuses in both Singapore and Fontainebleau, France, my goal was ambitious: to change my career’s industry, function, and geography. Despite countless setbacks and discouragement from counselors who deemed my aspirations impossible, I persevered. After endless networking efforts, rejections, and interviews, I achieved my goal by joining Accenture’s Life Sciences practice in London.
Choosing a career in strategy consulting included numerous considerations. The debt incurred to pursue my costly Master’s program meant I could not afford roles that did not offer sufficient compensation. Transitioning from communications and content production meant I could not apply for positions requiring specialized knowledge. My wife and I hoped to settle down together after enduring years of a long-distance relationship while continuing our careers, which limited our options for potential cities.
The resignation process mirrored these considerations. While my career transition to consulting had been successful, my circumstances remained unchanged. Instead of contemplating my future in the Fontainebleau campus library, I found myself shivering in my poorly insulated flat in London. Although my debt had decreased after a year, it remained substantial. As I prepared to depart from Accenture, a consulting giant with over 730,000 employees, I felt like I was back in school, navigating through options while balancing family and career.
When my wife and I found out we were expecting Seon, who is sleeping by my side with a smirk on his face as I write this, I felt paranoid. Although we had planned for this miracle and hoped to hear this incredible news soon, my heart pounded quickly when reality struck. After graduating from INSEAD my wife and I found stable jobs in the UN in Geneva and consulting in London, respectively. Although we were still apart, the distance between us was much closer than the Geneva-New York & Cairo-Singapore combinations we endured. After leaving my 9-year life and friendships in the US, I moved through 7 different addresses in the past year and having a lease to my name felt comforting. It finally seemed like our life was getting to a stable state, and the thought of becoming a parent put an exciting yet nerve-wracking jolt on our journey.
As a new consultant, my immediate response to this ambiguous yet exciting ‘project’ was to organize my thoughts into ‘buckets.’ Using a project management tool, I created timelines, milestones, actions, risks, stakeholder lists, and communication plans, which included when and how to inform our parents and friends. If you are reading this, you might be rolling your eyes and thinking ‘That’s no way to plan for a baby.’ You would be 100% correct and my wife would agree with you.
Nevertheless, putting structure into my chaotic and nervous thoughts before becoming a parent and leaving my job soothed my worries, like a swaddle containing a baby’s reflexes. Going through the buckets, each filled with concerns about financial, career, parenting, and other topics, I landed with 5 key considerations. These reasons summarize key conversations my wife and I had before deciding on having a baby and after finding out about Seon. Based on these reasons, I decided to take a career break lasting at least 6 months. I believe parents worldwide may share similar concerns as they desperately try to balance family with their careers. While not all reasons may resonate with every reader, I hope they serve as a starting point for expectant parents contemplating a career break.
1. There’s never a right time to have a baby.
Growing up in South Korea, I have been immersed in societal expectations that dictated the specific requirements for parenthood. To be a parent, one needs to own an apartment in Seoul, have enough savings for the future child’s education, be stable in their career with sufficient income, and fit all the other requirements that satisfy family members and friends. Looking back at my circumstances, I didn’t check any boxes.
As my wife and I talked through our ‘readiness’ as parents, I realized that none of the above factors mattered. There would always be financial issues and other factors considered unideal for parents. Furthermore, we’ll never be able to be perfectly ready to be parents. Leading up to Seon’s birth, I created elaborate checklists, birth protocols, and post-birth action items to prepare myself. When he was born, I didn’t feel ready at all. No matter how hard you prepare, you can’t be fully ready to be a parent, you become one as you spend sleepless nights trying to learn from your baby. As my wife and I agreed on this simple fact, we decided to start our journey as parents.
2. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to support your partner.
I’m ashamed to admit that my knowledge of pregnancy was very limited until I delved into research last year. The images of pregnancy in my mind are purely based on ridiculous scenes from movies and TV shows summarizing the entire process into a 30-second hospital scene. A gush of water drops to the floor as a woman screams in agony, she is carried to an emergency room, and the baby comes out within seconds as a nervous-looking father passes out. The reality was quite different. I was unaware of the arduous process a woman has to go through for 40 weeks of pregnancy, seemingly endless hours of labor, painful delivery, and a slow post-partum recovery.
According to the National Health Institute, 6.5% to 20% of women suffer from postpartum depression (PPD), and it may have long-lasting effects on their lives. How a mother spends the time after birth recovering is crucial for her physical and mental health. Having realized this, I decided to take 6 months off from my career to match my wife’s maternity leave and support her recovery in every way I could.
3. It’s a full-time job.
Interacting with colleagues who are parents throughout my career offered insight into the demanding nature of parenting. Whether it was picking up their kids from school, preparing lunch in the morning, or talking about sleepless nights with a newborn, they commonly mentioned the lack of time available. I did not understand exactly how occupied they were, but now I have a better grasp. Feeding a newborn every 2–3 hours, changing diapers whenever needed, sanitizing/cleaning the baby, playing with him, and constantly being terrified about his health and wellbeing, there is not a moment of rest for the first several weeks.
Every day, our schedules are full while we complete the above tasks. Even during our lunch and dinner breaks, we are juggling between cleaning up his face, keeping him entertained, and making sure he doesn’t cry our ears out, leaving a loud echo in our brains. The amount of time required to keep the baby healthy, coupled with the endless mental stress of doubting ourselves make being a parent more than a full-time job. As I sit in awe of all my former colleagues who balanced parenting and work, I don’t think we could have taken care of our baby without taking the 6-month leave, especially without having access to family support in Switzerland.
4. You get what you put in.
The first few weeks of a baby's life are extremely important for bonding with parents. Netflix’s Babies discusses research conducted on the benefits of skin-to-skin contact between parents and newborns. Having direct skin-to-skin interaction between mothers and babies has long been known to help breastfeeding and soothing babies, and the show discusses additional research that suggests even non-birthing parents can form strong physical and psychological bonds with their babies through the release of oxytocin.
Aside from the scientific evidence on the importance of spending time with your child, I have seen firsthand how many parents struggle to bond with their kids after they grow up. In Korea and Japan, many fathers find it difficult to communicate with their offspring due to the lack of time spent together. Many countries offer bare minimum paternity leave and new parents return to work in less than 2 weeks instead of fully immersing themselves in the parenting experience and building a connection with babies. I wanted to make sure I could put 100% focus on my child and form a strong connection. 2 months in, I couldn’t be happier with my decision. The way my baby looks at me and engages with me through his eyes and smiles melts my heart. Indeed, my bond with Seon would depend on future efforts throughout his life, but we are off to a good start.
5. Parenting can be a growth opportunity.
In many TedX events, award show speeches, and memoirs, respected individual echoes the same phrase “I learned so much from my child.” It may seem odd that you could look up to a tiny, powerless being that only weighs 5kgs and needs constant attention. But looking at my child and interacting with his many expressions make me reflect on myself as an individual, and how I could improve.
For example, I tend to get distracted and not prioritize tasks. Throughout my life, I have coped with this issue by becoming an obsessive scheduler, putting every event of the day on my calendar in vibrant color codes and putting deadlines on all tasks. Little did I know that being a parent would solve this immediately. When there is a poop leak through a baby’s diaper, nothing else takes priority. There is no time to get distracted with many other tasks, put the next action on my calendar, or have time to consider alternative options. Immediate action is required to keep the baby sanitized and my mind sane. Considering all the emergencies babies put parents through, you can’t help but become more efficient and get better at prioritizing.
Looking back
60 days have passed since we brought Seon back from the hospital to our home in Geneva, and each day has been stressful. Some nights are filled with our baby’s cry that blasts into our ears like an iPhone alarm before an early morning flight. Our personal space and time got completely reshuffled and it’ll take some time before it feels ‘normal’ again. I find myself looking for new job opportunities in a tumultuous economy without the certainty of restarting my career. Each night after my baby falls asleep, I open my laptop in a dark room, looking jealously as my connections post their promotions on LinkedIn. Despite all this, I couldn’t be happier about my ‘paternity resignation.’ The time I have been able to spend with my family has been the most precious period of my life, and I wouldn’t change anything about it.
There’s never the ‘right’ time to have a baby and there are many reasons why families may choose to have children or decide against it. Although the decision to take a career break may seem daunting, I believe the benefits massively outweigh the challenges. The strong bond you can create with your baby and your partner, the individual growth opportunity, and the emotional satisfaction of being a parent all make me reaffirm my decision. I sincerely believe it is worth taking time off and focusing on the precious time you can enjoy with your newborn.
P.S. The images generated by DALL-E above definitely do not reflect my haircut or my looks. Artificial Intelligence seems to think all Korean men have the same haircut.
