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.

We did SPL - I'm self-employed and was back doing bits from about 6 weeks, then maybe 2 days a week part-time from 3 months. My husband took the full first 6 months off. So some of the week we were off together, some of it he was in sole charge.

He is the most involved of any dads I know. It has set us up for no one being the default of parent, for each of us having patience with the other when parenting is hard, and the principle that the nights are to be shared as equally as possible irrespective of work.

I also chuckle at the idea that when you have a 10 or 11 month old the hard bit is over and you're on to the easy bit.

I had a chuckle too! Newborn has been by far the easiest stage of parenting for me personally, and sleep had been about at is worst at 10-11 months. Both my children slept worse at that age than as newborns. My second was up hourly.

Whatever the views on shared leave, I hope you are listening to everyone telling you how wrong his approach is. Telling you what's happening, springing it on you rather than discussing it, then slamming doors and not talking is a really shitty way of communicating, attempting to bully a pregnant woman into agreeing. Aggression and silent treatment are examples of abusive behaviour. It would be worth working on this as much as you can before the baby comes, for example couples counselling. Communication becomes much harder when everyone's knackered and stressed with a small baby

We get parental leave like men.

Which is wild when you consider we are bringing a vulnerable child into our homes and need extra time to make them feel safe and loved.

Ds has developmental trauma. In terms of leave though adoptive parents are given less, rather than more time with our children despite how desperately we all need it.

Was that the main reason you went back at 12 weeks? Because if so, it seems quite an extreme length to have to go to just to make sure your husband steps up to the plate and parents equally?

Maybe you had other reasons for going back that soon and I get that long maternity leave doesn’t suit everyone.

But if that was what I needed to do in order to get my husband to be an active parent I would think he was a bit hopeless, frankly.

I don’t know, if I got all my information about men from Mumsnet I could well believe that most of them really are this useless. However, as it hasn’t been my experience I prefer to have an optimistic view of them!

Oh no, definitely not the main reason. A long maternity leave just isn't for me.

I do think it's a reason I often can't relate to so many threads on here when it comes to default parent, mental load etc and the only difference I can think of is that I didn't have a standard 9-12 month maternity leave.

He's not speaking to you and slamming doors?!?
That's not OK. It should be a discussion between you but at the end of the day it's down to you as you are actually giving birth to the baby.
It sounds like he has a decent paternity leave of 5 weeks. I hope he's more supportive to you once the baby is born.

I appreciate your H may not have the right reasons at heart, and he’s behaving pretty badly

But I honestly think in the long run it will work out so much better for you if he has had the experience of a month of sole charge.

Will it be as tough as the newborn bit? Nope. Will you miss one of the better months? Yep. But what’s the alternative- you go back to work with him never having had sole charge for more than say a few hours at a time. This is a slippery slope to you becoming “default parent”: you have to settle baby for naps because you’re better at it, you have to buy the baby new clothes because he doesn’t know what they need, you do all the cooking because he doesn’t know what they eat, you’re handed the baby when they cry because you know what’s wrong.

Believe me, him having a period of sole charge is in your favour.

My company gives the same (generous) amount of leave to birth mums and adoptive mums - which is how it should be IMO.

It shouldn’t be a race to the bottom - both birth mums and adoptive mums need good leave provision for different reasons.

Just because adoptive parents don’t have a good deal doesn’t mean that birth mums shouldn’t have time off in order to breastfeed if they choose to do so.

The OP never mentioned adoptive mums - your situation is unfair and needs to change but that isn’t the fault of women like the OP.

If this is the way he "resolves" disputes, you are in for a very rocky road ahead. What a selfish, childish baby he is. Sulking and not speaking are just terrible. Don't let him wear you down. You are already questioning whether it is you who is being unreasonable. He definitely is,by refusing to engage. No way would I put up with that. After your difficult pregnancy, then with a newborn, he should be doing everything to support you,. not undermine you.

I can’t really relate either! I guess it’s that truism that people who are getting on fine and don’t have issues aren’t likely to post on the internet about it! I don’t know if I’ve ever heard anyone mention the mental load or being a default parent in RL. 🤷‍♀️

Maybe things do work well for you because you didn’t have a standard mat leave. Or maybe you and your OH just have a good relationship. Who knows!

I didn't say it was Op's fault? Or that moms should have less time than they do?

I do think adoptive parents should be given more though. Our kids are more likely to commit suicide, become drug addicts, alcoholics, commit crimes. A child who has experienced trauma needs more time to adjust.

I wouldn't reduce maternity leave though. I never said I would.

Wow that’s pretty shocking. Sorry to hear that. Hope that changes one day.

A former co-worker adopted a kid when she was about three, and 6 years later that child had a lot of developmental issues and still has issues with bonding and feeling like she fits in.

I don’t know her that well so I don’t know if she was working at the time she adopted her kid and if so and she had to rush back to work, that could’ve made a difference if she had got a years maternity leave instead .

And yeah more generally I can imagine the lack of maternity leave for adoptive mothers could impact children further down the line as well as increase the risk for broken adoptive placements .

I used to work with kids in care and it was heartbreaking and startling the amount who were from adoptive families - so effectively they had been put into care twice.

Also I’m thinking if a woman adopts a newborn do they still only get the short adoptive leave? 😵‍💫 That is crazy!

It doesn't matter the child's age newborn or not. It's really quite ridiculous.

Thank you for listening to me rant about this. 💝

DH is now home from being out at his hobby all day
and what are his plans for this when the baby comes?

and still isn’t speaking to me
This is a real concern.

I do think it should be for the mother to decide too. Does he realise he will be doing housework and getting the dinner ready and looking after a baby all day isn’t easy? To be honest I’d have been glad to go back at 9 months and let babies dad take 3 months as I felt ready to return to work then (and did) as it would have been easier than settling into nursery at same time. But I get it, and he can’t just change his mind when he see’s it’s not just sitting on the sofa all day

Adoption leave and pay looks to be the same as maternity leave and pay although there seems to be some exceptions e.g. if its a private adoption.

https://www.gov.uk/adoption-pay-leave/leave

@Revelatio
SPL is the best thing I ever did. Your baby with be with their father and it will be great bonding time. It’s a gentle return to work as you know your child will be cared for by their father.

Just look at all the women on here who moan that their husbands can’t pack a bag, feed the child, sort out everyday stuff. It’s because they have never had sole care of the child. Women aren’t born with this skill, everyone learns through experience. He needs to learn how to do things in his own otherwise you will forever be the primary carer who takes the mental load and does all the boring stuff.

Christ why do they need parental leave to learn to pack a bag and feed their child?!
DH had six weeks paternity leave while I was off, he didn't expect me to be default parent just because I was on mat leave, and consolidated his hours from when DS was born, he also made sure to give me time to myself which he therefore spent with DS alone. It's not a woman's fault that a man can't do this if she didn't give up her leave.
I nearly died during labour, had to have a blood transfusion, a large amount of stitches, I then got Reynaud's syndrome in my nipples. I was finally back to 100% by 5/6 months, having also had a horrendous pregnancy that left me on crutches and barely able to walk, should I have toddled off back to work and let DH have the fun bit? Women don't have to martyr themselves in the pursuit of mock fairness. The time isn't just for bonding it's for recovery.

My DH will be using his remaining 2 weeks of paternity leave at the end of my paid maternity leave. We can’t afford for me not to be paid at all so I will go back once I’ve used my accrued annual leave. The way I see it is that DS gets to be at home with a parent a bit longer.

However, this is different from your situation. My DH isn’t taking away from my leave and is already a completely equal parent to our other two children. Your H sounds like a selfish knob!

I would have loved this. I don’t agree with his attitude but him taking responsibility to the baby for the last month is a great idea. How wonderful for you to return to work knowing that the baby is with their dad.

This is why we will never have equality. Women get possessive about babies and want to do it all at the start and then seem surprised over the next 10 to 20 years that they are the ones doing it all.

Start as you mean to go on and share it all. He needs to be less immature though when discussing it.

“Possessive”. Goodness me. I wonder why so many people are so keen to minimise the importance of the maternal role in the early months of a child’s life? Real men who don’t have fragile egos acknowledge this and it doesn’t stop them being fully-engaged parents.

If SPL works for your family, great. Of course dads have an equally important role in a child’s life but I was our child’s sole source of nutrition for the first six months of their life and primary source of nutrition for another 3-4 months after that. My DH parented in numerous other ways but I needed to be home with our child in order to do that. So we couldn’t “share everything” and we weren’t interchangeable.

Thankfully my husband wasn’t as insecure as some of the men described on this thread seem to be! As soon as I went back to work we both took on an equal share of childcare. For the past 10 years he has been a wonderful dad, and his bond with his child is just great.

I will say it again - men have 18 years to be a good dad and step up to the plate. If they aren’t then that is on them. Stop blaming women for men’s shortcomings.

This. He owes you a massive apology and a serious commitment to stop this abusive behaviour OP.

@BlackCatsForever While I agree with your post and can see why SPL would work well for some families and not others, I do feel some women have an attitude of 'they do it better' than their partner, and when the woman constantly takes over changing nappies/whatever the man will back off in time. Now you could argue the man shouldn't back off and that is their shortcoming for doing so - but I see this a lot with my friends, and it inevitably ends up in a cycle where the woman is the primary carer. So I do think there is some truth in it, for some families - although I don't disagree the man should step up and not be pushed away in these circumstances (provided he wants to, of course!)

You do realise that maternity leave was 16 weeks and there was no paternity leave at all when I had my eldest. TBH all this year off with each kid and sharing Leave etc doesn't seem to do people much good looking at these threads

I'm Canadian. We are granted paternity leave. Or at least we were 12 years ago.

Could he look into parental leave @TheUndoing? Not the same as shared parental leave. It is unpaid, but you can take upto 18 weeks of unpaid leave in the first 18 years of your child's life. Perhaps you or he could take a couple of weeks at the end of your maternity leave?

https://www.gov.uk/parental-leave