Shared Parental Leave. Am I being selfish?

[TheUndoing]

My DH gets 5 weeks paid paternity leave and also now wants to take a month’s Shared Parental Leave at the end of my maternity leave. I am finding the idea of having to go back to work sooner than anticipated really hard. AIBU?

Last month he was looking at changing job which would have meant he got no paternity leave at all (although he was hoping to negotiate for 2 weeks). He didn’t get the job, but his sudden enthusiasm for more time with the baby after being prepared to have very little seems to have come out of the blue. He will continue to look for a new role and I’m also worried about having to change plans at short notice and mess my employer around if he does change job.

SPL will be financially advantageous but we’re fortunate enough to be able to afford it either way.

I also admit I feel resentful about having to do all the shit bits of having a baby - I haven’t enjoyed pregnancy, I’m scared of birth and he hasn’t been particularly sympathetic - and now he wants to swan in and demand “my” leave. I know that’s an awful, selfish way of feeling though. I think the timing of his leave will also mean he gets to look after a baby that’s weaned, sleeping better etc. after I do all the graft of the newborn stage.

We discussed it last night and he’s now not speaking to me and slamming doors. I feel like just agreeing to him having the leave for the sake of ending the argument, but the idea really upsets me.

I know a guy who took a month’s SPL and spent it on the golf course or cycling while his Mum looked after the baby !

No. Not missing them, but how will taking paternity leave or not change the red flags? We're just saying that if you want to stay this may be a way to change the status quo of op being default parent and her contribution taken for granted. If nothing changes then nothing will change. It might be worth a go, or she can leave, or carry on as is.

More fool her.

This is not how married partnerships work. Obviously.

We did 3 months of SPL, a lot of my friends couldn’t believe I would ‘give up’ three months of my mat leave for my husband to bond with the baby. My husband was the primary caregiver for the baby both times and it was good for him to have the opportunity to do so. I’ve had so many friends saying their husband doesn’t know what to do with the baby or can’t take care of the baby ‘properly’. I think SPL was crucial to establish my husband as a confident father so that I’m not the default parent. You should really consider it to give him a chance to become a confident/ useful/ involved father

Babies - sorry grammar is not my forte. Two separate sets of 3 months SPL for two separate kids

Agree. The responses on this post are utterly bizarre. There is no evidence whatsoever that his man plans to misuse his leave or will be a shit dad. It’s gross.

Fuck that!! 5 weeks paternity is good and presumably he will have holidays to take throughout the year too?
It took me TWO years to feel back to 'normal' after having my son. The leave is yours and should only be shared IF YOU decide to share it!

The father demanding op curtail her maternity leave and already assuming its a done deal by arranging his work to contact her (cheeky bastard 🤣) you mean? Agreed, obviously.

Or are you referring to the legislation? Legislation has nothing to do with married partnerships and how they work. I was just correcting the above statement. Factually and lawfully it is her leave as it is maternity leave. Obviously.

This.

I dunno we never did SPL and my husband is an excellent and very involved father. Always has been. Every bit as involved and hands on as I am. I never felt like the “default” parent. He worked 5 days per week and was home at 6pm and he took over. He did half the night feeds, he did baths, nappy changes etc when he was here. We split the weekends. I went back to work at 9 months and we split everything in half.

Now the kids are older and he cooks for them, picks them up from school, takes them to clubs.

It’s a choice. You can hide behind work and say “oh my wife (or whatever) is the primary caregiver” or you can get your hands dirty and get involved. You don’t need a period of SPL to do that.

It is maternity leave.
Have it.

That being said, week got seven days.
Your DH can care for a baby full time from Friday afternoon untill Monday morning. It is 1/3 of the time so much more than 1/12 a month of your maternity would provide.
And he can start as soon as baby arrives.
Also, he will get annual leave in a new job.
He can use all of it to care for a baby 24/7.

There is more than enough time for him to create strong bond with his child if he wants to.

It is. You have to complete forms to say you are happy to give the leave to your partner.

YANBU X

What will be best for your baby? It's obviously hard to know how everyone will feel before the child is even born but the "woman as default parent and home-maker" posts on MN greatly outweigh the "my partner shares childcare equally " ones. In families with babies up to teenagers, mothers feel undervalued and burnt out.

You need to discuss this in detail with your DH. What the parent on leave will do and how the parent at work will support them. You may find 'giving up' a month of mat leave worthwhile to have less stress about settling into a new childcare routine. I think if you simply have leave together you won't truly hand over responsibility.

I would feel very strong reservations too.

• he only just decided he wants to do it, having previously planned no leave at all
• he's still looking for jobs, meaning it may not be possible and would jeopardise your relationship with your employer.
• he's responded by slamming doors and having a tantrum.

I don't have any sense from your posts as to why he thinks he wants to do this, and how it'll benefit you and the baby. He may well have good reasons here, but IMO it should just be 'but I want it!'

As a PP says, it is quite possible to be an involved parent without taking parental leave.

As an adoptive mom I'm curious if people think I was entitled to leave?

Given I did not " push a watermelon out of my ass" should I have been allowed to stay home?

You're a woman so it's different.

I think it's just men that are expected to be grateful for only 5 weeks of parental leave. I went back to work at 12 weeks and someone called me 'sick' on here.

The issue is surely his behaviour first and foremost.
This has not been a shared decision - he has come home at midnight, and imposed his decision on you, when his decision has clear implications for your maternity leave and return to work.
When you raise concerns about the decision he has made, and maybe you would not have these concerns if it had been properly discussed, he is sulking and tantrumming.
So regardless of whether he does or does not take leave, I would be concerned about him not seeing you as an equal partner in the marriage and not worthy of consulting.
Then I would try and separate that issue out from whether the shared leave is a good idea for all of you or not, and ask him to discuss it - and any future decisions which effect you both - with you properly.

It’s annoying when OPs are very obviously one sided, so I’ll add - I genuinely don’t know. When we started discussing it, I outlined my reservations and then he stormed off. So I don’t know why he’s seeming changed his mind or how he is viewing SPL.

I think it is genuinely because his work offers a very good policy and he is keen to take advantage of it. Despite being currently quite upset with him, he is a good person who I love very much I think genuinely will be a very hands on father (obviously, or I wouldn’t be having a baby with him). I think part of the reason he is so annoyed is because he perceives my reservations about SPL as doubting that. He is however quite a robust person, and not always hugely sensitive.

This seems to be it.

I have done SPL with my husband for both children. It was the right call for us. But we discussed it at length beforehand. And made the decision together. We also revisited that decision after our children were here to see if it was still the right choice.

Have you looked into options for taking longer off work yourself? You could do SPL and then extend your leave by using annual leave, unpaid parental leave (you can take up to 4 weeks, per child, per year) and career break? You said that financially it's not a huge challenge and your main reservation is having to give up your leave. But there are options and you could still have a year, or more, off.

Also it sounds like his employers policy is really generous, but if he changes jobs he probably won't be entitled to the statutory element of SPL. Most enhanced occupational schemes build on the statutory element so you might find if he's not entitled to the statutory element that he can't take the enhanced element.

Does he want to be involved with the baby? I haven’t read past your comment but there is zero indication of this so far. Hopefully you’re right and he does, and also is keen to take over cooking and cleaning.

We discussed it last night and he’s now not speaking to me and slamming doors. I feel like just agreeing to him having the leave for the sake of ending the argument, but the idea really upsets me.

Does he often act like this when he don't get his own way? That's abusive. It's a way of making you agree with him so he starts to be nice again.

He doesn't sound great.

Tell him that you would like the maternity leave to get over, you know, growing, birthing and feeding a baby. That's what it's for.

Your feelings are not at all selfish. I would say clearly you haven’t been that supportive so far while I struggle through the shit parts of this, so coming home at midnight and dictating to me about parental leave doesn’t inspire me to bow to your supreme will here. Couples support each other and make decisions together, I’d like to see some of that please as I struggle with growing our baby.

if he is going to be great with baby, organising a home and cooking and cleaning then it’s a wonderful thing to go back to work with an at home parent. I did find I needed to point out to Dh that he wasn’t recovering from giving birth nor was he up all night every night, he got more sleep every night than I got any nights , and that meant it was quite reasonable of me to expect some home organisation as well as parenting and cooking. I certainly still did plenty.