September 24, 2025 • 42 mins
In this episode of Big Careers, Small Children, part of our brand-new Series 16, Verena Hefti MBE speaks with Jess and Darryl Abelscroft about how they navigated shared parental leave and what they learned along the way.
Jessica Abelscroft, Director, Abelscroft Consulting, and Darryl Abelscroft, Future Safety and Innovation, Civil Aviation Authority, both former Leaders Plus Fellows, share their reflections on splitting leave, balancing careers, and parenting equally.
Together, they explore:
✔️ The practicalities of navigating HR systems and dividing time off
✔️ The emotional challenges of handing over leave and adjusting roles
✔️ The lasting benefits for their children, who see both parents as equal caregivers
✔️ Why shared parental leave strengthened their careers as well as their family life
✔️ The changes needed in policy to make shared leave more accessible
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
- Equity at home creates equity at work: Shared leave builds confidence and balance in both parenting and careers.
- Expect complexity: HR processes are not straightforward — early planning makes a big difference.
- The emotional side matters: Handing over leave can be tough, but it sets the stage for long-term equality.
- Children gain too: Equal involvement of both parents shapes healthier expectations of family roles.
- Policy reform is essential: Better pay and simpler systems would make shared leave viable for more families.
Show Notes:
- Connect with Jess Abelscroft on LinkedIn
- Connect with Darryl Abelscroft on LinkedIn
- Learn more about the Leaders Plus: Big Careers, Small Children podcast and explore additional resources at leadersplus.org.
- Follow Leaders Plus on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Bluesky.
- Connect with our CEO, Verena Hefti MBE on LinkedIn.
- Find out more about the work of Leaders Plus by signing up to our Newsletter.
Our multi-award-winning Leaders Plus Fellowships support parents committed to career growth while enjoying family life. Expertly designed to keep parents on the leadership path, our programme tackles gender pay gap issues and empowers parents to thrive. Learn more here: Leaders Plus Fellowship.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to the Big CareersSmall Children Podcast. My name is
Verena Hefti. I believe thatno one should have to choose between
becoming a CEO and enjoyingtheir young children for much too
long. Amazingpeople like I'msure you listening right now have
found themselves stuck on thecareer ladder when they have children
and that leads to genderinequality in senior leadership because
because those people don'tprogress to senior leadership and
the same stale, often malemiddle class people leading our organizations.
Wemust change this togetherand I hope that many of you listening
right now will progress to themost senior leadership roles that
you like where you can makethe decisions that make our world
a better place. Outside of thepodcast. I am the CEO and founder
of the Social enterpriseLeaders Plus. Weexist to help working
parents progress their careersto senior leadership in a way that
works for you and for yourfamilies. Wehave free events and
resources on leadersplus.orgwhere you can download helpful toolkits
such as on returning frommaternity leave, share parental leave,
securing a promotion, dealingwith workload challenges, or managing
as a dual career couple. Wealso have an award winning fellowship
community which is global forworking parents who have big dreams
for their careers but don'twant to sacrifice their family. You'll
join an absolutely wonderfulgroup of people, a very tight knit,
supportive group of parentswho have your back together. You'llexplore
what your career aspirationsare and you'll get advice from senior
leaders who are also workingparents about how to achieve those
aspirations. You'llget newideas to combine your hopes for your
careers with your hope foryour family and you are supported
by people who are experiencingwhat you're experiencing yourself.
I'mreally delighted that alarger majority of our fellows have
made tangible changesfollowing the program, be that becoming
more senior in their roles,working shorter hours, having better
flexible working arrangement.Theyalways impress me so much with
the courage that they instillin each other to do what is right
for them without apologizingfor having a family or apologizing
for wanting that top job.Detailsare on leadersplus.org/Fellowship.
(02:23):
In today's episode I'mchattirngto Jess and DarylAbelscroftabouttheirexperienceofshared
parentalleave,whatthey'vedonedifferently secondtimeroundwhenthey
didforthesecondtime,theimpactontheirfamilylifeandcareerandanytipsthattheyhavetoshare.Theyarebothfantastic andvery
generouspodcastguestsandsureif you'reinterestedinSharePointleave,thiswillbe
(02:49):
anextremelyuseful in Share dparental leave, this will be an verywarmwelcometothepodcast.
Jess,let'sstartwithintroducingyouifyouwanttosharewhoyouare,what youdo
forworkandwho'sinyourfamily.
Yeah. Thanks, Verena. And so,hi, I'm Jess Abelscroft. I am a senior
director in the UK charitysector. Currently I'm director of
(03:11):
my own independent consultingbusiness. In my family I have Daryl,
my brilliant partner, who ison this podcast today. And we have
Isabel, who's five and a half.And we have Theo, who is going to
be two in one month.
Lovely. Wow. I didn't realizehe was already school age and properly
grown up. But it's gone veryquickly. How about you, Daryl? Do
(03:33):
you want to share who you are,what you do for work? And I'm assuming
you have the same family?
Yeah, yeah, it's gone crazyquickly, Verena. I'm Daryl. I have
been a civil servant for manyyears, most recently working in dft,
Department of Transport as asenior civil servant. But I'm currently
seconded to the Civil AviationAuthority where I work on regulation
of new innovative aviationtechnologies. Yeah. Very fortunate
(03:56):
to have Jess, Izzy and Theo inmy life.
We probably should tell thelisteners the reason why the three
of us know each other isbecause you both joined the Leaders
plus Fellowship program whichI set up. And I think you must have
been one of the first couplesboth joined. You did different groups,
so you didn't do it together,but you had the same experience and
you both, you did sharedparental leave. Would you mind just,
(04:18):
just for our listeners who arenot UK based, just to explain what
share parental leave means.
Yeah, absolutely. So sharedparental leave is the concept that
each parent can share theamount of leave available to them
throughout the leave period.So in the uk, and I hope I don't
(04:38):
get the specifics of thiswrong, so I'm going to stay at the
specifics mostly. But in theUK that essentially means that the
mother or the birthing parentcan give up part of their leave period
for the father or the nonbirthing parent. If you're in a same
sex couple or a non binarytrans couple. And that means that
(05:00):
in the UK you get 52 weeks, sothe full year and you can decide
between you how you would liketo split up that leave period. That
sounds wonderful. It's muchmore complicated than that in practice,
which I'm sure we'll talkabout, but that's how it works in
principle.
And Daryl, was it always clearto you that this was something you
(05:22):
were going to try to do?
Yeah, it was. And it's justKind of outlined. It's not straightforward.
And yeah, we will talk aboutthat. I think like from this early
in our relationship, right,Jess, I'd say we always had the intention
that we wanted to be both veryinvolved in parenting and it not
be that one of us was the kindof full time parent and the other
would be at work with. Alwaystalks about kind of having balance
(05:44):
in our parenting before we cansay, probably before we had said
it, before we had kids. So itwas a logical next step to then take
share parental leave though,as Jess Eliz do. It's not straightforward.
So obviously I'm a bigproponent of it and my partner and
I, we also share childcare. Hehas time where he looks after them
on his own and I have the sameand it's the same amount of time
(06:05):
which is working out reallywell for us. But I just want to throw
a challenge at you that maybeis in the back of the minds of some
of the people thinking aboutit, which is, yeah, I do want to
be an equal partner, of courseI do, but why? Like you just said,
it's complicated. You have totell your boss. Why do that? Rather
(06:25):
than just after the woman in aheterocouple goes back, why not just
share the care then?
Really good question. I'llstart. Jess, you chip in. I think
for us it was a bit aboutvalues. As I say, we were both really
keen on having that balancedrelationship from the start. And
I remember when I first goingon shared parental leave with Izzy
(06:45):
after about she must have beeneight months old and Jess had done
such a brilliant job for thefirst eight months. But it felt a
bit like she was handing methe kind of keys to a brand new Bentley.
But I didn't really know howto drive. I reflect on this a bit
this this morning I wasdefinitely there. I was present as
a parent, but I was very muchthe support artist to Jess's kind
(07:06):
of lead role. I think whatshared parental leave did was kind
of force me to reallyunderstand where every single thing
in the changing bag was andwhat every sort of cry or whimper
or delightful noise thatIsabel made meant in a far more engaged
way and become more not thatkind of support artist, but the kind
of proper co parent andpartner in that. So in a way that
(07:29):
I think if Jess had just beendoing nine months and then we'd just
kind of carried on, I wouldnever have had that time. I think
it's probably also meant thatwhen Jess and I both did go back
to work full time, we bothnegotiated Compressed hours with
still to this day have a day,a week with Izzy then and now Theo,
Each of us, which, again,maybe, as a dad, wouldn't have felt
(07:50):
confident doing that if Ihadn't had that experience.
And it's interesting how youdescribed it at the beginning, Jess.
It's almost like you givingup, some people may call it privilege,
some people may not, but, youknow, it is a right that you have
of having that year off. Andyou have to actively, in the uk,
actively say, yes, I will givethat to my partner so they can take
(08:10):
four months. Did you have anyhesitations around that?
Yes. And I was just thinkingback, and Darryl's right. I can remember
us discussing, maybe evenbefore we got married, the fact that
if we had children, we reallywanted to have an equitable relationship
in our approach to that. Andwe had always been so confident that
(08:35):
if we could take sharedparental leave, we would each take
six months, because on paper,that's the most equitable thing and
equal thing to do. And thenwhen I got pregnant, my feelings
really changed and I. And Ijust. My sort of. I mean, I was going
to say argument. It's not asif we argued about this, but we did
have discussions about how wewere going to divide it up. And I
(08:57):
actually, by the time I gotpregnant, felt like I'm carrying
this baby for nine months and,you know, going through all the kind
of physical changes that thatentails. And I was breastfeeding
with both children, like, thatworked for us. So there was a lot
of kind of physicaltransformation that I was going through.
There was a lot of emotionaltransformation that I'm sure Darryl
(09:17):
had as well. But we went fromsix months, six months to. Then we.
My sort of opening gambit wasnine, three, and then we came back
to eight, four. So I tookeight months, Daryl took four. We
were both really fortunatethat we also had pretty generous
annual leave policies on topof that. So we actually did. I had
(09:39):
eight months of leave, Darylhad four months, but then we had
a month of overlap in themiddle when I was taking annual leave,
which was also incrediblyhelpful because it's basically the
same as if you were going onmat leave. You'd want a month's handover
with your mat cover if youpossibly could. And we did the same
with the baby. So, you know,we had a month of transition period
where I was kind of literallyhanding over everything that I had
(10:03):
learned to Daryl. But it feltreally emotive for me in a way that
is probably obvious, but Ihave found quite Surprising. By the
time we got to that point.
I told it to sound as if wespent a month with Jess Intensity
coach and we were in Thailand.We were fortunate enough to go. So
it wasn't just a month oflessons, but I think, yeah, it just
(10:23):
says we had generous annualaid policy. I think the other thing
that really was important inus doing it, not everyone has. In
fact very few have. But itwas, it was actually better financially
for us to do shared parentalleave. The terms were from each of
our employers meant that wewould be remunerated more handsomely
if we were to take 8 and 4rather than just take the full 12
(10:45):
months. So it's definitely notthe driver, but a lot of people don't
have that. And it wassomething that was really Helpful
for us.
Of course, and with the costof living crisis. And that's an important
consideration. And sadlythat's also a reason why you often,
especially in heterorelationships, men don't feel they
can take it because thematernity policies are more enhanced
than the paternity politics.Jess, in hindsight, what's been the
(11:07):
impact on your career and alsoI guess your happiness to be cheesy,
like, do you regret givingthat time that you can never get
back, as some of the. I'm suremy aunties would say, or are you
glad that you did it?
I 100% glad that I did it andthat's obviously not because I don't
love spending time with mychildren and I absolutely found it
(11:30):
hard when it was my time to goback. But I just do not think that
we can overstate howfoundational those periods were for
the kind of parenting setup wehave now. And I mean, Darryl's right.
If you are able to take sharedparental leave, that period where
(11:50):
Daryl had to like really bethe lead parent in a lot of situations
I think has meant like for ourkids. For example, I don't think
they have ever seen either ofus as the lead parent, like their
experience is equitable andthat they can go to either of us
for various things, eventhings like I'm still a lot of the
(12:10):
time the parent who gets themessages about doctor's appointments
or school stuff or things likethat. But I would say that Daryl
gets more than most dads ornon birthing parents probably do.
And I just think, I don'tthink I'll ever be able to fully
comprehend the impact thatthat will likely have on my career
in the future and our homesetup and the expectations that our
(12:34):
kids have of me as a mom andof him as a dad and that kind of
thing. So I just. I honestlythink it was one of the. The best
things that we ever did.
(15:59):
I think it's interesting alsoabout the return to work, because
it's quite different to returnto work when you know there's someone
at home looking after thatchild versus you have to also deal
with the child screaming theirheads off every morning because they
don't want to go to nursery.If that's your setup.
Yeah, absolutely. And we were.I don't think lucky is the right
word for this, but I went backto work with our first during COVID
(16:24):
So I just went back to workat. To the shed at the end of the
garden. And, you know, I knewDaryl had Izzy in the house so that
I still got to see her a lot.And actually, by the time we had
Theo, our youngest, it wasvery similar. Like, we both had jobs
that were much more flexiblein terms of working from home. So
it did. The transition wasmuch easier than I think other people
(16:46):
might have.
And if you did it again, Idon't know if you're planning to
expand your family further,but if you did it again, is there
anything that you know nowabout shared parental leave that
you would definitely,definitely rely on again?
I just think we were muchbetter at it the second time around
for a couple of reasons. Oneis, especially for people listening
(17:08):
in the uk, like, if you cantake shared parental leave, I cannot.
Again, I cannot encourage itenough. But also appreciate how likely
it is that you're going tohave to be very proactive, even if
you have a supportive employerto help navigate the complexity of
the process. So for anyonewho's done it, I'm sure you will
recognize that, like, thelegislation is there, the practicalities
(17:32):
of working it out between yourtwo HR teams and who comes off when
and how you get paid and allof that kind of stuff is, you know,
I think we're two fairly smartpeople, and it's not. It's not the
most straightforward process.And I can remember I printed out
a physical calendar of theyear and highlighted day by day,
(17:52):
who was going to be where andwho was getting paid what. And I
took that into our HRdepartment and sat down with my HR
business partner and said,this is what I think it looks like.
Is that right? And we had tohave, like two or three meetings
like that where we were allmaking sure we were on the same page.
And Darryl had to do the samething with his employer. And these
were very supportive, like,very willing employers. So I think
(18:14):
there Is like, I would justget very literal and practical early
on about how it's going towork. And I guess the other thing
I was thinking about was ourhandover period. And again, Darrell's
right. It wasn't like a jobhandover, but it. For me, it absolutely
kind of was because I feltlike I had transferred a lot of my,
like, managerial skills into,like running the house for eight
(18:36):
months full time. And Darrellwas absolutely helping loads. But
for me and my personality,type of my energy, I kind of needed
to funnel all of that intosomething. And so I took what I would
say was a quite organizedmanagerial approach to my first parenting
experience, which, you know,had lots of ups and downs within
it. But I just, I think thesecond time around I would like to
(18:59):
hope that I was much morerelaxed about somebody doing it differently
to me. And I think I took alot of pride and I used to talk about
it was like my expertise inthe baby. Like, I spent eight months
becoming an expert in what ourdaughter needed and I took a lot
of pride in it. And I foundthat first handover period the first
time around really difficult,I think because of that and the like,
(19:21):
context switching of that andthen going back into work and that
kind of thing. But the secondtime around, I think I had, like,
hopefully learned the lessonto be more sort of open to the different
approaches that Darryl had andto kind of let go of that a bit more
easily.
Yeah, coming on those.Firstly, we're definitely not doing
this again. If I was to put myhat on, as if I could redo it again
(19:44):
for the first time. Completelyagree with Jess. The bureaucracy
around share parental leaveand the forms you have to fill out
is really off putting. So dopersist with it, do really understand
it. To Jess's point about youneeding to know more than your HR
teams often I got up on thesecond time around when I felt like
I knew what I was doing. Ithink several months into my shared
parental leave got a messagefrom my HR contacts suggesting that
(20:08):
I shouldn't be paid for all ofthe months I had been paid. Which
was the sort of slightlyalarming message that you receive
sometimes. And actually I wasfortunately was right. But don't
expect that HR teamsunderstand it because it is really
complicated on the handoverpoints. I guess your question, Verena,
about was it anythingdifficult or different with Jess
(20:30):
going back to work earlier? Ithink a reflection on as a dad taking
shared parental leave, youdon't have the kind of obvious sign
that you do as a mum about toGo on maternity leave. I've not been
carrying around a nine poundbaby or kind of having the obvious
kind of the pains of having todo that. I'm not kind of. There's
a little bit about kind ofhaving to justify that feeling like
(20:51):
I had to justify that a littlebit more. I didn't have that kind
of obvious reason to. To go onleave. It wasn't kind of the normal
gender role. Yeah. Feelinglike I was walking away a little
bit. I guess it's somethingthat I was determined to do. But
I did feel a little bit. Ihave a bit of anxiety of how that
would. Perception I guess atthat Andover Point.
I think that's a reallyinteresting point about the perception
(21:13):
of people and alsomasculinity. It's not the fashionable
thing to walk around with ababy for a lot of men. How did you
overcome those assumptions ordid you respond if people said something
odd to you or did you justget. In the end did you just get
really positive responsessaying oh how wonderful that you
look after the baby?
I got almost universallypositive responses. Really. I can't
(21:37):
think of once where anybodysaid anything that made me think
that's a bit strange. I did. Idefinitely experienced. I've applied
for jobs between Isabel andTheo where as I've been offered job.
I was offered one job and madeit clear that I want to continue
working compressed hours andwant to take share parental leave
(21:57):
once he was here and had thejob offer rescinded. So I've definitely
experienced people or reactingin a way that I don't think they
would for mothers now.
Definitely. I think it'sreally surprising what you get told
and I obviously lucky enoughto listen to lots of working parents
conversations behind closeddoors and the things that dads tell
me about how people say whatpeople say to them and stuff that
(22:20):
no employer would officiallyallow their managers to do with women.
They do sometimes do withthat. So I'm really sorry you went
through that.
Nothing compared to what Ithink mums have had to go through
for many years. It's justinteresting how it's not straightforward.
It's something that we need asa society. I can only get to adjusting
that if more people are takingshared parental leave and more dads
(22:40):
are taking more parental leave.
Definitely. And you alluded acouple of times to the absolute complexity
of arranging it all. Do youhave any tips on how to get started?
It sounds like there's no easyway out here. But also I don't want
the listeners to go away andthink I'M not going to touch this
with a barge poll because itsounds so horrendously challenging.
(23:01):
No would be answer other than,as Jess says, you can share 52 weeks
leave and you can share 39weeks statuary pay. That's the thing
that just needs to be kind ofbold and in everyone's heads because
the difference between theleave and the pay and how you track
it was in my experience a bitthat was quite difficult to get to
the bottom of.
Yeah, well, and I know thatthis is hyper granular, but I basically
(23:24):
color coded everything betweenmy parental leave was one color.
Darrell's parental leave wasone color each of our annual leave,
the bank holidays. And then wejust sat down together and went through
it. And I would suggestthinking of it in days, not even
weeks and months because thenit's easier to work through the division
(23:45):
of all of it. And I reallyhope nobody does listen to this and
think I don't want to do itbecause I think we're more expressing
annoyance about this ratherthan a kind of, you know, any sort
of regret or anything likethat. Because it is, it definitely
is complicated. And I think ifanyone listening to this is in a
decision making position, Ithink a lot of people know it needs
(24:07):
to be made easier. Butactually it's the, the annoying bits
of organizing it is absolutelynothing compared to the lasting benefits
of what you get.
Yeah, and not even annoyancefor us, but annoyance because so
I know so many dads I speak todon't end up doing it. It's kind
of so close to doing it. Andthis might not be the thing that
tips them into not, but whenit's a difficult choice, I mean,
(24:29):
Jess and I were deterred, asshe said, we're determined to do
it and then still ended upkind of haggling slightly about,
about the length. I just wishit was easier for people.
And we did a small survey withdads who's gone share parental leave
and one topic that has comeout is the topic of, of loneliness.
Just because all the babyclasses are so full of women who
sometimes let people intotheir groups but sometimes don't.
(24:51):
Do you have any tips of how tobe connected during shared parental
leave if you are the caregiver?
I experienced some of this,particularly with Theo. Actually,
I think we both had slightlydifferent, I'd say kind of broad
mental health experienceduring the kind of first and second
times. And with Izzy, I wasactually during lockdown. So I think
we were all kind of, we wereall a bit lonely. But also the inability
(25:14):
to leave the house meant wehad kind of very clear routines and
there was some sunny weatherthat sort of April, May, May, June.
With Theo, it was kind of overwinter and I did experience a bit
more of that kind ofloneliness. I didn't have any. I
think there was one groupwhich was explicitly for mums, which
I didn't enjoy, but everythingelse was very clearly for parents.
(25:35):
I was almost always the onlydad, but everyone's very welcoming.
Seeking out your local dadsgroup. I think most places, particularly
urban places in the uk, havekind of increasing dad's networks
trying to find a local one,trying to find those people who are
off the same days as you. So Idon't work Thursdays, I'm off with
Theo on Thursdays and I tryand find the dads locally who are
(25:56):
around them. I joined groupsthat are predominantly mums too,
but it's nice sometimes tojust meet a few dads who are doing
something similar.
I'm interested in thedifference. So obviously Covid shared
parental leave versus NonCovid will have been quite different.
But is there anything elsethat you've changed second time round
when you did sharepointerleafthat you'd tell a good friend if
(26:17):
they were thinking about doing it?
Yeah, if you were doing thesecond time around, I found, as I
say, much harder. I think inpart of that was, you've got another
one. We had Isabelle who waskind of starting school and by the
time you kind of dropped herat school and then done a small activity
with Theo in the morning,taking him back for his nap, it's
time to pick Isabelle up fromschool again. It felt. Whereas with
Izzy, I felt we could be a bitfreer and perhaps do a bit more fun
(26:41):
stuff. It was a bit. Thelogistics just meant it a bit more
limited with Theo, but I thinkthat's just a factor of having two
little ones rather than one.What I did second time around. The
first time. First time, I hadnaively expected that I'd have all
this free time while Theo wasnapping to. I don't need to do a
load of DIY around the house.That definitely didn't happen. I
very, very quickly realized Ineeded to re my expectations about
(27:04):
what could be achieved.
That is so funny. Now,hopefully by the time of this going
out, I will have shared thatI'm also pregnant and I'm smiling
because I definitely am nowthinking, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna
do lots of writing, all thosewriting tasks that I wanted to do.
And I'm like, but Verena youknow that this is never gonna happen
and you've done it a fewtimes, so you should know what's
going to going on. But yeah,it's funny how we always have these
(27:27):
illusions.
Yeah.
It does not equal free time.And really, I think second time around
I might have had a bit of thatat the back of my mind. Try not to
have any expectations aboutachieving anything other than keeping
this little one happy and healthy.
Jess, is there anything elsethat hasn't been mentioned yet that
you would tell a good friendwho's thinking about SharePoint Leave,
about how to set it up well,how to make it a positive experience
(27:49):
for everyone involved?
I think there's somethingabout, from my perspective, it's
really interesting becauseDaryl and I, I think, had slightly
opposite experiences where Ithink he found second time around
a bit trickier for the reasonshe's described. I found second time
around much easier. And Ithink some of that as well was because
(28:09):
when Theo, our second, camealong, because Daryl had done shared
parental leave the first timearound, he was already a very, very
involved, involved dad and areally involved father. And I found
my maternity leave with Theomuch easier. I think also because
a lot of people, I thinkmyself included, find the second
(28:30):
maternity leave easier anyway,because you already had a baby and
you don't spend every 10minutes Googling, you know, whether
your baby's sick or whetherthis is normal or, you know, any
of that kind of thing. Butalso, I do think Del was absolutely
so present when Izzy waslittle and I was on my bit of parental
leave. But the second timearound, we were just already in a
(28:50):
groove with sharingresponsibilities more equitably.
And I just do think,especially if you end up having multiple
kids, it just pays backdividends more and more every single
time because you just havethat kind of setup within your household
that means that the mom or thebirthing partner isn't the sort of
automatic default for a lot ofthe. The thinking and decision making
(29:13):
and organizing.
I mean, I'm really struck byIzzy's five and a half and that you
say things in your life aredifferent now, two years on since
last time you took sharedparental leave, you described the
practicalities and that you'reboth owning things. You're both managing
the multitude of requests thatcome from school. We're just recording
this before World Book Day.I'm sure in your house somewhere
(29:36):
there's a World Book Daycostume being prepared or at least
last minute ordered. What'sthe impact?
Yeah, I mean, for me, as thekind of woman who would normally
probably take on a lot of thelead parent responsibilities. Like
I do find. I mean, we're inconstant communication with each
other about whether thebalance feels right for both of us,
whether we feel likesomebody's taking on too much in
(29:58):
a certain area and that kindof thing. But I do feel like we just
automatically start from aplace where it's not assumed that
I'm going to take a lot ofthis stuff on. And I'd be really
interested to hear Darryl'sreflections, but I just feel like,
and I'm sure this is the casefor people who don't take shared
parental leave, but I'd beinterested in whether it feels as
(30:19):
natural. Like I think Daryljust feels quite confident taking
things on end to end. Youknow, the kind of, you know, you
hear couples talk a lot aboutthe mental load and the fact that
like sometimes when men or nonbirthing partners are taking on responsibilities,
it's still the womanorganizing the setup of everything.
(30:40):
And then the dad comes in andsays, I'm happy to go to the supermarket
but can you give me a list?And stuff like that, you know. And
I do feel like compared toother couples we know who weren't
fortunate enough to be able totake shared parental leave, like
Daryl does just own stuff likekind of end to end. And I talked
earlier about the kidsexpectations. Like I think they come
to both of us equal when theyneed help. And you know, seeing that
(31:03):
relationship that Darryl haswith them is really amazing because
they see a dad, you know, witha really active role in their lives
who is just as important tothem as the mom. And I just think
that's really amazing and Ifeel really lucky that we were able
to do it because I just thinkthat will continue for years to come
(31:23):
and that really opens up myprofessional life. I have more head
space to think about creativepursuits, professional pursuits,
that kind of thing.
It's not been easy. I don'tthink there's anything naturally
about Jess and I that meansit's come naturally to us. There's
definitely been times whenJess has felt that she has been carrying
(31:44):
a lot of the load. And there'stimes when I felt like that. And
it's something we've vocalizedand sorted out. And in fact there's
a brilliant exercise in theLeaders plus Fellowship, one of the
partners exercises where youkind of write down all the things
you do, all of the kind ofmental load, all the things around
the house, and just share kindof who's doing what. And I Think
(32:05):
that's a really helpful way ofjust reminding. Remind each other
quite how much you're doingthat might not always be. Always
be visible. One of thereflections in terms of there are
still some things that arequite gendered and Jess is doing
a bit more around some of thekids parties. Some of that comes
because other mums tend tomessage Jess and they've gone and
use the kind of mum's WhatsAppnetworks and some of that I feel
(32:27):
that's right and that's fine.But it does feel. Oh, hang on, why
is. Why is this all falling toJess? And it's because I don't really
know it's happening.
Sometimes there's a certaintype of personality who needs. Maybe
you both enjoy kids birthdayparties. But in my household there's
certainly one person who quiteenjoys a birthday party if it's outside
especially. And my partner isreally not pretty. Like he will help
(32:48):
but he hates it and so whynot? Like I quite enjoy it. I really
love having kids runningaround in the park and seeing them
play with their friends. SoI'm happy to do it. I think that
there's also something aboutpersonal strengths and interests
there. But saying that one ofour children has a birthday adventure
and I have delegated that tomy partner. He's done a brilliant
job. But I hate soft plays andI would have never done the whole
(33:10):
soft play birthday partyorganizing. I'm very glad he did
it and did it very well. Justcoming to the bigger picture then,
if you were in charge, whatare your hopes for society? How do
you think this parental leavemodel should evolve?
I can't say anything thatservice wouldn't probably agree with.
I think there's. We need tomainstream dads taking more parental
(33:31):
leave if we're going toconquer things like the gender pay
gap and gender expectationsaround mums. So I mean I really like
the Pregnant and Screwedcampaign for six weeks fully paid
parental leave. I think thatwould be a bit of A bit of a game,
game changer. So kind ofbetter pay around parental leave,
paternity leave, simplifyingthe process, run through it. It's
(33:53):
way too complicated. I thinkpeople need to really try to make
it simpler. I know somecountries and some employers are
just offering equivalentpaternity and maternity pay and periods
and if we can move in thatdirection, so much the better. And
then, yeah, encourageemployers to go on that. On that
direction. Feels like sinceearly January or mid January we've
(34:15):
been in a world where thereisn't so much desire to push on Encouraging
diversity and encouraginginclusivity. But I really do think
even from an economic growthperspective, the more we can do to
encourage women at the kind ofpeak of their careers to be kind
of co parenting and not feellike all the parenting pressure is
(34:36):
on on them, allow them tobuild their careers, continue to
build their careers, whilstalso being brilliant parents. I think
everything we can do there iseconomically brilliant, not just
good for families. So Ireally, really think it's not just
an inclusivity thing thoughthat's important, but it's sort of,
it's something that can reallyhelp the UK as a, as a brilliant
place to live.
(34:56):
Absolutely. I'm sure many ofour American listeners would be quite
envious to hear some of thosethings. Jess, did you want to add
anything Daryl hasn't said yet?
I mean, I do think there'ssomething really positive about both
parents being able to takeleave independent of each other as
well. Like, I think thePremise of sharing 52 weeks is a
(35:16):
positive step forward fromwhere we were before. But if, particularly
in those early weeks andmonths, if both parents have more
time off, like you know,Darrell said, massive shout out to
pregnant, then screwed and thedad shift, and Elliot Ray and others
who are really pushing forthis, like, I think if moms and dads
could have those reallycritical early weeks together without
(35:37):
that affecting the overallquantity of leave that people can
take, I think that would beincredibly positive. And then it
is just the financials. Imean, we are, I think we alluded
to it earlier, but we werevery lucky in that in both circumstances,
Daryl and I were on similarsalaries, so there isn't a gender
pay gap in our house per se.And that made shared parental leave
(35:59):
possible for us and even moreeconomically viable than it is for
a lot of people. But I wouldreally love to see shared parental
leave be something that isavailable to people on different
incomes. And all the researchsuggests that the wealthier your
household is, the more likelyyou can take shared parental leave.
And I think that's a reallyunfair class advantage that is built
(36:24):
into the system. I don't thinkthere should be a kind of class premium
on spending time with your kids.
So yeah, I think it wasinteresting because I was part of
this advisory board for auniversity who did a study into shared
parental leave. And it'sexactly that. So few people use it.
And what we need to change isto have protected leave just for
that. And that is paid wellexactly to this point of making sure
(36:46):
everyone has access to it. Soif someone is listening to this podcast
and perhaps because they wereinterested in SharePoint leave didn't
quite know how to go about itand they haven't even talked about
it to their partner yet. Whatwould be one or two things they could
do this week to get the ball rolling?
I'd speak to find out abouttheir HR policies on their intranet.
(37:08):
Depending on the organizationthey work for, there'll be should
be something published whichsets out what the terms of share
parental leave will be inthere organization and then yeah
a bit of a bit of googlingaround how it works and always happy
to chat to any dads out therewho are interested in experiences.
I'm sure Rain, you'll shareour LinkedIn details. I think a bit
(37:28):
of, just a bit of digging toreally understand what it means for
you and then what your rightsmight be.
I would say try and find someother parents who have done it and
talk to them and totally agreewith Daryl. Like if people want,
we're really passionate aboutthis so if people want to find us
on LinkedIn, we're really,really happy to have a conversation.
If you don't know anybody inyour life who has done it and because
(37:49):
it is the take up is so lowsometimes it is hard to find other
people's experiences of it.But I think that's a really good
place to start because I thinkeveryone's experience with it is
quite unique. So you'll kindof pick up on the nuance of what
might be similar for you or different.
Very well said. Thank you bothso much for giving up your very pressurized
(38:10):
time to share your experiencewith others and I'm sure would have
been very useful for thelisteners. So a big thank you on
behalf of everyone listening.
Thank you for having us.
Yeah, thanks Verena.
I really appreciate youlistening. Thank you so much and
I always love to hear from ourlisteners. If you want to connect
with me on LinkedIn, just callto Ferina Hefti and I'll be delighted
(38:32):
to hear your feedback and yoursuggestions or just have you say
hi. Likewise, if you, if youdo feel passionately about gender
equality and you want tosupport a female led podcast, then
please do leave a review andshare it with a friend. Just because
at the moment podcasting isstill a very, very male dominated
(38:53):
environment. Most of the topcharting podcasts are led by men.
I really love all the peoplewho've joined from the podcast, our
fellowship program and if youwant to do the same then please head
over toleadersclass.org/Fellowship in order
to get access to a communityof support to help you combine an
(39:15):
ambitious career with youngchildren, together with people who
have your back. See you next week.
Welcome to the Big CareersSmall Children Podcast. My name is
Verena Hefti. I believe thatno one should have to choose between
becoming a CEO and enjoyingtheir young children for much too
long. Amazingpeople like I'msure you listening right now have
found themselves stuck on thecareer ladder when they have children
and that leads to genderinequality in senior leadership because
because those people don'tprogress to senior leadership and
the same stale, often malemiddle class people leading our organizations.
Wemust change this togetherand I hope that many of you listening
right now will progress to themost senior leadership roles that
you like where you can makethe decisions that make our world
a better place. Outside of thepodcast. I am the CEO and founder
of the Social enterpriseLeaders Plus. Weexist to help working
parents progress their careersto senior leadership in a way that
works for you and for yourfamilies. Wehave free events and
resources on leadersplus.orgwhere you can download helpful toolkits
such as on returning frommaternity leave, share parental leave,
securing a promotion, dealingwith workload challenges, or managing
as a dual career couple. Wealso have an award winning fellowship
community which is global forworking parents who have big dreams
for their careers but don'twant to sacrifice their family. You'll
join an absolutely wonderfulgroup of people, a very tight knit,
supportive group of parentswho have your back together. You'llexplore
what your career aspirationsare and you'll get advice from senior
leaders who are also workingparents about how to achieve those
aspirations. You'llget newideas to combine your hopes for your
careers with your hope foryour family and you are supported
by people who are experiencingwhat you're experiencing yourself.
I'mreally delighted that alarger majority of our fellows have
made tangible changesfollowing the program, be that becoming
more senior in their roles,working shorter hours, having better
flexible working arrangement.Theyalways impress me so much with
the courage that they instillin each other to do what is right
for them without apologizingfor having a family or apologizing
for wanting that top job.Detailsare on leadersplus.org/Fellowship.
(02:23):
In today's episode I'mchattirngto Jess and DarylAbelscroftabouttheirexperienceofshared
parentalleave,whatthey'vedonedifferently secondtimeroundwhenthey
didforthesecondtime,theimpactontheirfamilylifeandcareerandanytipsthattheyhavetoshare.Theyarebothfantastic andvery
generouspodcastguestsandsureif you'reinterestedinSharePointleave,thiswillbe
(02:49):
anextremelyuseful in Share dparental leave, this will be an verywarmwelcometothepodcast.
Jess,let'sstartwithintroducingyouifyouwanttosharewhoyouare,what youdo
forworkandwho'sinyourfamily.
Yeah. Thanks, Verena. And so,hi, I'm Jess Abelscroft. I am a senior
director in the UK charitysector. Currently I'm director of
(03:11):
my own independent consultingbusiness. In my family I have Daryl,
my brilliant partner, who ison this podcast today. And we have
Isabel, who's five and a half.And we have Theo, who is going to
be two in one month.
Lovely. Wow. I didn't realizehe was already school age and properly
grown up. But it's gone veryquickly. How about you, Daryl? Do
(03:33):
you want to share who you are,what you do for work? And I'm assuming
you have the same family?
Yeah, yeah, it's gone crazyquickly, Verena. I'm Daryl. I have
been a civil servant for manyyears, most recently working in dft,
Department of Transport as asenior civil servant. But I'm currently
seconded to the Civil AviationAuthority where I work on regulation
of new innovative aviationtechnologies. Yeah. Very fortunate
(03:56):
to have Jess, Izzy and Theo inmy life.
We probably should tell thelisteners the reason why the three
of us know each other isbecause you both joined the Leaders
plus Fellowship program whichI set up. And I think you must have
been one of the first couplesboth joined. You did different groups,
so you didn't do it together,but you had the same experience and
you both, you did sharedparental leave. Would you mind just,
(04:18):
just for our listeners who arenot UK based, just to explain what
share parental leave means.
Yeah, absolutely. So sharedparental leave is the concept that
each parent can share theamount of leave available to them
throughout the leave period.So in the uk, and I hope I don't
(04:38):
get the specifics of thiswrong, so I'm going to stay at the
specifics mostly. But in theUK that essentially means that the
mother or the birthing parentcan give up part of their leave period
for the father or the nonbirthing parent. If you're in a same
sex couple or a non binarytrans couple. And that means that
(05:00):
in the UK you get 52 weeks, sothe full year and you can decide
between you how you would liketo split up that leave period. That
sounds wonderful. It's muchmore complicated than that in practice,
which I'm sure we'll talkabout, but that's how it works in
principle.
And Daryl, was it always clearto you that this was something you
(05:22):
were going to try to do?
Yeah, it was. And it's justKind of outlined. It's not straightforward.
And yeah, we will talk aboutthat. I think like from this early
in our relationship, right,Jess, I'd say we always had the intention
that we wanted to be both veryinvolved in parenting and it not
be that one of us was the kindof full time parent and the other
would be at work with. Alwaystalks about kind of having balance
(05:44):
in our parenting before we cansay, probably before we had said
it, before we had kids. So itwas a logical next step to then take
share parental leave though,as Jess Eliz do. It's not straightforward.
So obviously I'm a bigproponent of it and my partner and
I, we also share childcare. Hehas time where he looks after them
on his own and I have the sameand it's the same amount of time
(06:05):
which is working out reallywell for us. But I just want to throw
a challenge at you that maybeis in the back of the minds of some
of the people thinking aboutit, which is, yeah, I do want to
be an equal partner, of courseI do, but why? Like you just said,
it's complicated. You have totell your boss. Why do that? Rather
(06:25):
than just after the woman in aheterocouple goes back, why not just
share the care then?
Really good question. I'llstart. Jess, you chip in. I think
for us it was a bit aboutvalues. As I say, we were both really
keen on having that balancedrelationship from the start. And
I remember when I first goingon shared parental leave with Izzy
(06:45):
after about she must have beeneight months old and Jess had done
such a brilliant job for thefirst eight months. But it felt a
bit like she was handing methe kind of keys to a brand new Bentley.
But I didn't really know howto drive. I reflect on this a bit
this this morning I wasdefinitely there. I was present as
a parent, but I was very muchthe support artist to Jess's kind
(07:06):
of lead role. I think whatshared parental leave did was kind
of force me to reallyunderstand where every single thing
in the changing bag was andwhat every sort of cry or whimper
or delightful noise thatIsabel made meant in a far more engaged
way and become more not thatkind of support artist, but the kind
of proper co parent andpartner in that. So in a way that
(07:29):
I think if Jess had just beendoing nine months and then we'd just
kind of carried on, I wouldnever have had that time. I think
it's probably also meant thatwhen Jess and I both did go back
to work full time, we bothnegotiated Compressed hours with
still to this day have a day,a week with Izzy then and now Theo,
Each of us, which, again,maybe, as a dad, wouldn't have felt
(07:50):
confident doing that if Ihadn't had that experience.
And it's interesting how youdescribed it at the beginning, Jess.
It's almost like you givingup, some people may call it privilege,
some people may not, but, youknow, it is a right that you have
of having that year off. Andyou have to actively, in the uk,
actively say, yes, I will givethat to my partner so they can take
(08:10):
four months. Did you have anyhesitations around that?
Yes. And I was just thinkingback, and Darryl's right. I can remember
us discussing, maybe evenbefore we got married, the fact that
if we had children, we reallywanted to have an equitable relationship
in our approach to that. Andwe had always been so confident that
(08:35):
if we could take sharedparental leave, we would each take
six months, because on paper,that's the most equitable thing and
equal thing to do. And thenwhen I got pregnant, my feelings
really changed and I. And Ijust. My sort of. I mean, I was going
to say argument. It's not asif we argued about this, but we did
have discussions about how wewere going to divide it up. And I
(08:57):
actually, by the time I gotpregnant, felt like I'm carrying
this baby for nine months and,you know, going through all the kind
of physical changes that thatentails. And I was breastfeeding
with both children, like, thatworked for us. So there was a lot
of kind of physicaltransformation that I was going through.
There was a lot of emotionaltransformation that I'm sure Darryl
(09:17):
had as well. But we went fromsix months, six months to. Then we.
My sort of opening gambit wasnine, three, and then we came back
to eight, four. So I tookeight months, Daryl took four. We
were both really fortunatethat we also had pretty generous
annual leave policies on topof that. So we actually did. I had
(09:39):
eight months of leave, Darylhad four months, but then we had
a month of overlap in themiddle when I was taking annual leave,
which was also incrediblyhelpful because it's basically the
same as if you were going onmat leave. You'd want a month's handover
with your mat cover if youpossibly could. And we did the same
with the baby. So, you know,we had a month of transition period
where I was kind of literallyhanding over everything that I had
(10:03):
learned to Daryl. But it feltreally emotive for me in a way that
is probably obvious, but Ihave found quite Surprising. By the
time we got to that point.
I told it to sound as if wespent a month with Jess Intensity
coach and we were in Thailand.We were fortunate enough to go. So
it wasn't just a month oflessons, but I think, yeah, it just
(10:23):
says we had generous annualaid policy. I think the other thing
that really was important inus doing it, not everyone has. In
fact very few have. But itwas, it was actually better financially
for us to do shared parentalleave. The terms were from each of
our employers meant that wewould be remunerated more handsomely
if we were to take 8 and 4rather than just take the full 12
(10:45):
months. So it's definitely notthe driver, but a lot of people don't
have that. And it wassomething that was really Helpful
for us.
Of course, and with the costof living crisis. And that's an important
consideration. And sadlythat's also a reason why you often,
especially in heterorelationships, men don't feel they
can take it because thematernity policies are more enhanced
than the paternity politics.Jess, in hindsight, what's been the
(11:07):
impact on your career and alsoI guess your happiness to be cheesy,
like, do you regret givingthat time that you can never get
back, as some of the. I'm suremy aunties would say, or are you
glad that you did it?
I 100% glad that I did it andthat's obviously not because I don't
love spending time with mychildren and I absolutely found it
(11:30):
hard when it was my time to goback. But I just do not think that
we can overstate howfoundational those periods were for
the kind of parenting setup wehave now. And I mean, Darryl's right.
If you are able to take sharedparental leave, that period where
(11:50):
Daryl had to like really bethe lead parent in a lot of situations
I think has meant like for ourkids. For example, I don't think
they have ever seen either ofus as the lead parent, like their
experience is equitable andthat they can go to either of us
for various things, eventhings like I'm still a lot of the
(12:10):
time the parent who gets themessages about doctor's appointments
or school stuff or things likethat. But I would say that Daryl
gets more than most dads ornon birthing parents probably do.
And I just think, I don'tthink I'll ever be able to fully
comprehend the impact thatthat will likely have on my career
in the future and our homesetup and the expectations that our
(12:34):
kids have of me as a mom andof him as a dad and that kind of
thing. So I just. I honestlythink it was one of the. The best
things that we ever did.
(15:59):
I think it's interesting alsoabout the return to work, because
it's quite different to returnto work when you know there's someone
at home looking after thatchild versus you have to also deal
with the child screaming theirheads off every morning because they
don't want to go to nursery.If that's your setup.
Yeah, absolutely. And we were.I don't think lucky is the right
word for this, but I went backto work with our first during COVID
(16:24):
So I just went back to workat. To the shed at the end of the
garden. And, you know, I knewDaryl had Izzy in the house so that
I still got to see her a lot.And actually, by the time we had
Theo, our youngest, it wasvery similar. Like, we both had jobs
that were much more flexiblein terms of working from home. So
it did. The transition wasmuch easier than I think other people
(16:46):
might have.
And if you did it again, Idon't know if you're planning to
expand your family further,but if you did it again, is there
anything that you know nowabout shared parental leave that
you would definitely,definitely rely on again?
I just think we were muchbetter at it the second time around
for a couple of reasons. Oneis, especially for people listening
(17:08):
in the uk, like, if you cantake shared parental leave, I cannot.
Again, I cannot encourage itenough. But also appreciate how likely
it is that you're going tohave to be very proactive, even if
you have a supportive employerto help navigate the complexity of
the process. So for anyonewho's done it, I'm sure you will
recognize that, like, thelegislation is there, the practicalities
(17:32):
of working it out between yourtwo HR teams and who comes off when
and how you get paid and allof that kind of stuff is, you know,
I think we're two fairly smartpeople, and it's not. It's not the
most straightforward process.And I can remember I printed out
a physical calendar of theyear and highlighted day by day,
(17:52):
who was going to be where andwho was getting paid what. And I
took that into our HRdepartment and sat down with my HR
business partner and said,this is what I think it looks like.
Is that right? And we had tohave, like two or three meetings
like that where we were allmaking sure we were on the same page.
And Darryl had to do the samething with his employer. And these
were very supportive, like,very willing employers. So I think
(18:14):
there Is like, I would justget very literal and practical early
on about how it's going towork. And I guess the other thing
I was thinking about was ourhandover period. And again, Darrell's
right. It wasn't like a jobhandover, but it. For me, it absolutely
kind of was because I feltlike I had transferred a lot of my,
like, managerial skills into,like running the house for eight
(18:36):
months full time. And Darrellwas absolutely helping loads. But
for me and my personality,type of my energy, I kind of needed
to funnel all of that intosomething. And so I took what I would
say was a quite organizedmanagerial approach to my first parenting
experience, which, you know,had lots of ups and downs within
it. But I just, I think thesecond time around I would like to
(18:59):
hope that I was much morerelaxed about somebody doing it differently
to me. And I think I took alot of pride and I used to talk about
it was like my expertise inthe baby. Like, I spent eight months
becoming an expert in what ourdaughter needed and I took a lot
of pride in it. And I foundthat first handover period the first
time around really difficult,I think because of that and the like,
(19:21):
context switching of that andthen going back into work and that
kind of thing. But the secondtime around, I think I had, like,
hopefully learned the lessonto be more sort of open to the different
approaches that Darryl had andto kind of let go of that a bit more
easily.
Yeah, coming on those.Firstly, we're definitely not doing
this again. If I was to put myhat on, as if I could redo it again
(19:44):
for the first time. Completelyagree with Jess. The bureaucracy
around share parental leaveand the forms you have to fill out
is really off putting. So dopersist with it, do really understand
it. To Jess's point about youneeding to know more than your HR
teams often I got up on thesecond time around when I felt like
I knew what I was doing. Ithink several months into my shared
parental leave got a messagefrom my HR contacts suggesting that
(20:08):
I shouldn't be paid for all ofthe months I had been paid. Which
was the sort of slightlyalarming message that you receive
sometimes. And actually I wasfortunately was right. But don't
expect that HR teamsunderstand it because it is really
complicated on the handoverpoints. I guess your question, Verena,
about was it anythingdifficult or different with Jess
(20:30):
going back to work earlier? Ithink a reflection on as a dad taking
shared parental leave, youdon't have the kind of obvious sign
that you do as a mum about toGo on maternity leave. I've not been
carrying around a nine poundbaby or kind of having the obvious
kind of the pains of having todo that. I'm not kind of. There's
a little bit about kind ofhaving to justify that feeling like
(20:51):
I had to justify that a littlebit more. I didn't have that kind
of obvious reason to. To go onleave. It wasn't kind of the normal
gender role. Yeah. Feelinglike I was walking away a little
bit. I guess it's somethingthat I was determined to do. But
I did feel a little bit. Ihave a bit of anxiety of how that
would. Perception I guess atthat Andover Point.
I think that's a reallyinteresting point about the perception
(21:13):
of people and alsomasculinity. It's not the fashionable
thing to walk around with ababy for a lot of men. How did you
overcome those assumptions ordid you respond if people said something
odd to you or did you justget. In the end did you just get
really positive responsessaying oh how wonderful that you
look after the baby?
I got almost universallypositive responses. Really. I can't
(21:37):
think of once where anybodysaid anything that made me think
that's a bit strange. I did. Idefinitely experienced. I've applied
for jobs between Isabel andTheo where as I've been offered job.
I was offered one job and madeit clear that I want to continue
working compressed hours andwant to take share parental leave
(21:57):
once he was here and had thejob offer rescinded. So I've definitely
experienced people or reactingin a way that I don't think they
would for mothers now.
Definitely. I think it'sreally surprising what you get told
and I obviously lucky enoughto listen to lots of working parents
conversations behind closeddoors and the things that dads tell
me about how people say whatpeople say to them and stuff that
(22:20):
no employer would officiallyallow their managers to do with women.
They do sometimes do withthat. So I'm really sorry you went
through that.
Nothing compared to what Ithink mums have had to go through
for many years. It's justinteresting how it's not straightforward.
It's something that we need asa society. I can only get to adjusting
that if more people are takingshared parental leave and more dads
(22:40):
are taking more parental leave.
Definitely. And you alluded acouple of times to the absolute complexity
of arranging it all. Do youhave any tips on how to get started?
It sounds like there's no easyway out here. But also I don't want
the listeners to go away andthink I'M not going to touch this
with a barge poll because itsounds so horrendously challenging.
(23:01):
No would be answer other than,as Jess says, you can share 52 weeks
leave and you can share 39weeks statuary pay. That's the thing
that just needs to be kind ofbold and in everyone's heads because
the difference between theleave and the pay and how you track
it was in my experience a bitthat was quite difficult to get to
the bottom of.
Yeah, well, and I know thatthis is hyper granular, but I basically
(23:24):
color coded everything betweenmy parental leave was one color.
Darrell's parental leave wasone color each of our annual leave,
the bank holidays. And then wejust sat down together and went through
it. And I would suggestthinking of it in days, not even
weeks and months because thenit's easier to work through the division
(23:45):
of all of it. And I reallyhope nobody does listen to this and
think I don't want to do itbecause I think we're more expressing
annoyance about this ratherthan a kind of, you know, any sort
of regret or anything likethat. Because it is, it definitely
is complicated. And I think ifanyone listening to this is in a
decision making position, Ithink a lot of people know it needs
(24:07):
to be made easier. Butactually it's the, the annoying bits
of organizing it is absolutelynothing compared to the lasting benefits
of what you get.
Yeah, and not even annoyancefor us, but annoyance because so
I know so many dads I speak todon't end up doing it. It's kind
of so close to doing it. Andthis might not be the thing that
tips them into not, but whenit's a difficult choice, I mean,
(24:29):
Jess and I were deterred, asshe said, we're determined to do
it and then still ended upkind of haggling slightly about,
about the length. I just wishit was easier for people.
And we did a small survey withdads who's gone share parental leave
and one topic that has comeout is the topic of, of loneliness.
Just because all the babyclasses are so full of women who
sometimes let people intotheir groups but sometimes don't.
(24:51):
Do you have any tips of how tobe connected during shared parental
leave if you are the caregiver?
I experienced some of this,particularly with Theo. Actually,
I think we both had slightlydifferent, I'd say kind of broad
mental health experienceduring the kind of first and second
times. And with Izzy, I wasactually during lockdown. So I think
we were all kind of, we wereall a bit lonely. But also the inability
(25:14):
to leave the house meant wehad kind of very clear routines and
there was some sunny weatherthat sort of April, May, May, June.
With Theo, it was kind of overwinter and I did experience a bit
more of that kind ofloneliness. I didn't have any. I
think there was one groupwhich was explicitly for mums, which
I didn't enjoy, but everythingelse was very clearly for parents.
(25:35):
I was almost always the onlydad, but everyone's very welcoming.
Seeking out your local dadsgroup. I think most places, particularly
urban places in the uk, havekind of increasing dad's networks
trying to find a local one,trying to find those people who are
off the same days as you. So Idon't work Thursdays, I'm off with
Theo on Thursdays and I tryand find the dads locally who are
(25:56):
around them. I joined groupsthat are predominantly mums too,
but it's nice sometimes tojust meet a few dads who are doing
something similar.
I'm interested in thedifference. So obviously Covid shared
parental leave versus NonCovid will have been quite different.
But is there anything elsethat you've changed second time round
when you did sharepointerleafthat you'd tell a good friend if
(26:17):
they were thinking about doing it?
Yeah, if you were doing thesecond time around, I found, as I
say, much harder. I think inpart of that was, you've got another
one. We had Isabelle who waskind of starting school and by the
time you kind of dropped herat school and then done a small activity
with Theo in the morning,taking him back for his nap, it's
time to pick Isabelle up fromschool again. It felt. Whereas with
Izzy, I felt we could be a bitfreer and perhaps do a bit more fun
(26:41):
stuff. It was a bit. Thelogistics just meant it a bit more
limited with Theo, but I thinkthat's just a factor of having two
little ones rather than one.What I did second time around. The
first time. First time, I hadnaively expected that I'd have all
this free time while Theo wasnapping to. I don't need to do a
load of DIY around the house.That definitely didn't happen. I
very, very quickly realized Ineeded to re my expectations about
(27:04):
what could be achieved.
That is so funny. Now,hopefully by the time of this going
out, I will have shared thatI'm also pregnant and I'm smiling
because I definitely am nowthinking, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna
do lots of writing, all thosewriting tasks that I wanted to do.
And I'm like, but Verena youknow that this is never gonna happen
and you've done it a fewtimes, so you should know what's
going to going on. But yeah,it's funny how we always have these
(27:27):
illusions.
Yeah.
It does not equal free time.And really, I think second time around
I might have had a bit of thatat the back of my mind. Try not to
have any expectations aboutachieving anything other than keeping
this little one happy and healthy.
Jess, is there anything elsethat hasn't been mentioned yet that
you would tell a good friendwho's thinking about SharePoint Leave,
about how to set it up well,how to make it a positive experience
(27:49):
for everyone involved?
I think there's somethingabout, from my perspective, it's
really interesting becauseDaryl and I, I think, had slightly
opposite experiences where Ithink he found second time around
a bit trickier for the reasonshe's described. I found second time
around much easier. And Ithink some of that as well was because
(28:09):
when Theo, our second, camealong, because Daryl had done shared
parental leave the first timearound, he was already a very, very
involved, involved dad and areally involved father. And I found
my maternity leave with Theomuch easier. I think also because
a lot of people, I thinkmyself included, find the second
(28:30):
maternity leave easier anyway,because you already had a baby and
you don't spend every 10minutes Googling, you know, whether
your baby's sick or whetherthis is normal or, you know, any
of that kind of thing. Butalso, I do think Del was absolutely
so present when Izzy waslittle and I was on my bit of parental
leave. But the second timearound, we were just already in a
(28:50):
groove with sharingresponsibilities more equitably.
And I just do think,especially if you end up having multiple
kids, it just pays backdividends more and more every single
time because you just havethat kind of setup within your household
that means that the mom or thebirthing partner isn't the sort of
automatic default for a lot ofthe. The thinking and decision making
(29:13):
and organizing.
I mean, I'm really struck byIzzy's five and a half and that you
say things in your life aredifferent now, two years on since
last time you took sharedparental leave, you described the
practicalities and that you'reboth owning things. You're both managing
the multitude of requests thatcome from school. We're just recording
this before World Book Day.I'm sure in your house somewhere
(29:36):
there's a World Book Daycostume being prepared or at least
last minute ordered. What'sthe impact?
Yeah, I mean, for me, as thekind of woman who would normally
probably take on a lot of thelead parent responsibilities. Like
I do find. I mean, we're inconstant communication with each
other about whether thebalance feels right for both of us,
whether we feel likesomebody's taking on too much in
(29:58):
a certain area and that kindof thing. But I do feel like we just
automatically start from aplace where it's not assumed that
I'm going to take a lot ofthis stuff on. And I'd be really
interested to hear Darryl'sreflections, but I just feel like,
and I'm sure this is the casefor people who don't take shared
parental leave, but I'd beinterested in whether it feels as
(30:19):
natural. Like I think Daryljust feels quite confident taking
things on end to end. Youknow, the kind of, you know, you
hear couples talk a lot aboutthe mental load and the fact that
like sometimes when men or nonbirthing partners are taking on responsibilities,
it's still the womanorganizing the setup of everything.
(30:40):
And then the dad comes in andsays, I'm happy to go to the supermarket
but can you give me a list?And stuff like that, you know. And
I do feel like compared toother couples we know who weren't
fortunate enough to be able totake shared parental leave, like
Daryl does just own stuff likekind of end to end. And I talked
earlier about the kidsexpectations. Like I think they come
to both of us equal when theyneed help. And you know, seeing that
(31:03):
relationship that Darryl haswith them is really amazing because
they see a dad, you know, witha really active role in their lives
who is just as important tothem as the mom. And I just think
that's really amazing and Ifeel really lucky that we were able
to do it because I just thinkthat will continue for years to come
(31:23):
and that really opens up myprofessional life. I have more head
space to think about creativepursuits, professional pursuits,
that kind of thing.
It's not been easy. I don'tthink there's anything naturally
about Jess and I that meansit's come naturally to us. There's
definitely been times whenJess has felt that she has been carrying
(31:44):
a lot of the load. And there'stimes when I felt like that. And
it's something we've vocalizedand sorted out. And in fact there's
a brilliant exercise in theLeaders plus Fellowship, one of the
partners exercises where youkind of write down all the things
you do, all of the kind ofmental load, all the things around
the house, and just share kindof who's doing what. And I Think
(32:05):
that's a really helpful way ofjust reminding. Remind each other
quite how much you're doingthat might not always be. Always
be visible. One of thereflections in terms of there are
still some things that arequite gendered and Jess is doing
a bit more around some of thekids parties. Some of that comes
because other mums tend tomessage Jess and they've gone and
use the kind of mum's WhatsAppnetworks and some of that I feel
(32:27):
that's right and that's fine.But it does feel. Oh, hang on, why
is. Why is this all falling toJess? And it's because I don't really
know it's happening.
Sometimes there's a certaintype of personality who needs. Maybe
you both enjoy kids birthdayparties. But in my household there's
certainly one person who quiteenjoys a birthday party if it's outside
especially. And my partner isreally not pretty. Like he will help
(32:48):
but he hates it and so whynot? Like I quite enjoy it. I really
love having kids runningaround in the park and seeing them
play with their friends. SoI'm happy to do it. I think that
there's also something aboutpersonal strengths and interests
there. But saying that one ofour children has a birthday adventure
and I have delegated that tomy partner. He's done a brilliant
job. But I hate soft plays andI would have never done the whole
(33:10):
soft play birthday partyorganizing. I'm very glad he did
it and did it very well. Justcoming to the bigger picture then,
if you were in charge, whatare your hopes for society? How do
you think this parental leavemodel should evolve?
I can't say anything thatservice wouldn't probably agree with.
I think there's. We need tomainstream dads taking more parental
(33:31):
leave if we're going toconquer things like the gender pay
gap and gender expectationsaround mums. So I mean I really like
the Pregnant and Screwedcampaign for six weeks fully paid
parental leave. I think thatwould be a bit of A bit of a game,
game changer. So kind ofbetter pay around parental leave,
paternity leave, simplifyingthe process, run through it. It's
(33:53):
way too complicated. I thinkpeople need to really try to make
it simpler. I know somecountries and some employers are
just offering equivalentpaternity and maternity pay and periods
and if we can move in thatdirection, so much the better. And
then, yeah, encourageemployers to go on that. On that
direction. Feels like sinceearly January or mid January we've
(34:15):
been in a world where thereisn't so much desire to push on Encouraging
diversity and encouraginginclusivity. But I really do think
even from an economic growthperspective, the more we can do to
encourage women at the kind ofpeak of their careers to be kind
of co parenting and not feellike all the parenting pressure is
(34:36):
on on them, allow them tobuild their careers, continue to
build their careers, whilstalso being brilliant parents. I think
everything we can do there iseconomically brilliant, not just
good for families. So Ireally, really think it's not just
an inclusivity thing thoughthat's important, but it's sort of,
it's something that can reallyhelp the UK as a, as a brilliant
place to live.
(34:56):
Absolutely. I'm sure many ofour American listeners would be quite
envious to hear some of thosethings. Jess, did you want to add
anything Daryl hasn't said yet?
I mean, I do think there'ssomething really positive about both
parents being able to takeleave independent of each other as
well. Like, I think thePremise of sharing 52 weeks is a
(35:16):
positive step forward fromwhere we were before. But if, particularly
in those early weeks andmonths, if both parents have more
time off, like you know,Darrell said, massive shout out to
pregnant, then screwed and thedad shift, and Elliot Ray and others
who are really pushing forthis, like, I think if moms and dads
could have those reallycritical early weeks together without
(35:37):
that affecting the overallquantity of leave that people can
take, I think that would beincredibly positive. And then it
is just the financials. Imean, we are, I think we alluded
to it earlier, but we werevery lucky in that in both circumstances,
Daryl and I were on similarsalaries, so there isn't a gender
pay gap in our house per se.And that made shared parental leave
(35:59):
possible for us and even moreeconomically viable than it is for
a lot of people. But I wouldreally love to see shared parental
leave be something that isavailable to people on different
incomes. And all the researchsuggests that the wealthier your
household is, the more likelyyou can take shared parental leave.
And I think that's a reallyunfair class advantage that is built
(36:24):
into the system. I don't thinkthere should be a kind of class premium
on spending time with your kids.
So yeah, I think it wasinteresting because I was part of
this advisory board for auniversity who did a study into shared
parental leave. And it'sexactly that. So few people use it.
And what we need to change isto have protected leave just for
that. And that is paid wellexactly to this point of making sure
(36:46):
everyone has access to it. Soif someone is listening to this podcast
and perhaps because they wereinterested in SharePoint leave didn't
quite know how to go about itand they haven't even talked about
it to their partner yet. Whatwould be one or two things they could
do this week to get the ball rolling?
I'd speak to find out abouttheir HR policies on their intranet.
(37:08):
Depending on the organizationthey work for, there'll be should
be something published whichsets out what the terms of share
parental leave will be inthere organization and then yeah
a bit of a bit of googlingaround how it works and always happy
to chat to any dads out therewho are interested in experiences.
I'm sure Rain, you'll shareour LinkedIn details. I think a bit
(37:28):
of, just a bit of digging toreally understand what it means for
you and then what your rightsmight be.
I would say try and find someother parents who have done it and
talk to them and totally agreewith Daryl. Like if people want,
we're really passionate aboutthis so if people want to find us
on LinkedIn, we're really,really happy to have a conversation.
If you don't know anybody inyour life who has done it and because
(37:49):
it is the take up is so lowsometimes it is hard to find other
people's experiences of it.But I think that's a really good
place to start because I thinkeveryone's experience with it is
quite unique. So you'll kindof pick up on the nuance of what
might be similar for you or different.
Very well said. Thank you bothso much for giving up your very pressurized
(38:10):
time to share your experiencewith others and I'm sure would have
been very useful for thelisteners. So a big thank you on
behalf of everyone listening.
Thank you for having us.
Yeah, thanks Verena.
I really appreciate youlistening. Thank you so much and
I always love to hear from ourlisteners. If you want to connect
with me on LinkedIn, just callto Ferina Hefti and I'll be delighted
(38:32):
to hear your feedback and yoursuggestions or just have you say
hi. Likewise, if you, if youdo feel passionately about gender
equality and you want tosupport a female led podcast, then
please do leave a review andshare it with a friend. Just because
at the moment podcasting isstill a very, very male dominated
(38:53):
environment. Most of the topcharting podcasts are led by men.
I really love all the peoplewho've joined from the podcast, our
fellowship program and if youwant to do the same then please head
over toleadersclass.org/Fellowship in order
to get access to a communityof support to help you combine an
(39:15):
ambitious career with youngchildren, together with people who
have your back. See you next week.
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