Please don't give my husband more paternity leave.

[Hedgehogbrown]

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/please-dont-give-my-husband-longer-paternity-leave/#comments-container

Till Macdonald wrote this is the Spectator. Is she mad?! Who is this woman? Just because she procreated with a massive dickhead doesn't mean the rest of us should have absent husbands. Anyone who has a 'pile of ironing' in 2025 is just asking to be a wifey martyr. Ridiculous.

I used to think I couldn't cope either but when chronic illness comes along you have to just let some things slide. And tbh if stuff is hung up as soon as the washing machine finishes it doesn't need ironing. My work tunics look the same whether ironed or not tbh!

And if I have a hankering for crisply ironed sheets I book into a hotel

If I hung every item if clothing washed in my house on an airer, pretty much every inch of floor space would need to be dedicated to it!

Is that you husband-of-Tilly? Nice bit of misogyny there!

Does any woman really think their DP having a massive cock is a great thing? I genuinely thought only men would think such a thing. It’s what you do with your whole body (including using it to balance the household workload) that’s more important than the size of your appendage.

My partner gets 4 months that can be taken anytime in the first year. Last time he took half at the beginning and the rest right before our daughter turned 1. I did need him home for those first 2 months because I'd had a C-section and needed him to do the heavy lifting, housework, etc.

I don't understand the non-ironers at all. I don't have and can't have a dryer (no space) so T shirts, cotton trousers, shirts, get ironed or I'd look even more unkempt.

Granted there's only 2 of us, but I just have 2x airers and dump them under the lean-To in the garden

Are you running a laundry service?

We do five loads a week (whites, lights, brights, darks and towels) and never use our dryer. We have two floor airers and a pulley airer - each can take a full load to dry. By the time three washes have been done, enough is dry to make space for the next wash.

If it’s good enough weather, we obviously would use the washing line in the garden but we get by all winter with those three airers with no issue.

And, yes, tumble drying means you’ll need to iron. Give any item a hard shake and dry work/school shirts on the hanger and you’ll never iron again.

Tumble drying is a red herring. I don't tumble dry any of my clothes, it's washing line or airer here, shaken before hanging up and it's rare that anything is visibly creased.

I defy anyone to distinguish ironed and none ironed clothes once the wearer has had them on for long enough to be out in public.

I have a couple of dresses I like the collar bit ironed so my husband does that if I ask. He irons all his shirts but if my clothes need ironing after washing I normally just don't wear them again. Life is too short.

"I sort of agree. For me the first 6 months was learning to be a mother, learning a new rhythm after years of working, making friends and connections - some that stayed with me for years, having new mums over etc etc etcI didnneed a husband in the mix."

Imagine if men got this chance too, an extended period to learn to be a father, all the new rhythms and establish a solid network of dads and other parents for support and friendship....

Unironed clothes honestly don’t look great.

I don’t care if anyone irons or doesn’t. The point is that ironing isn’t the sole responsibility of women - it’s the responsibility of whoever actually cares about stuff being ironed (be it parent 1, parent 2 or joint).

Using mounting ironing piles as a reason why men shouldn’t have longer paternity leave is stupid. Especially when if both parents are home one could watch the baby and the other could iron if it’s that important.

Plus anyone judging new parents for having creased clothes is a bit of a twat.

Would be interesting to know what he says about her. Either way her marital troubles are nothing to do with paternity leave.

Hideous misogynistic article, written by a woman who should know better. Treating a man like a guest, and rather than confronting why society seems to think that's OK, asking for less interaction in the home. Sigh. But anyway on the ironing thing, I am a rare ironer. Like others hanging up clothes is the key, use dryer only for clothes that wont wrinkle (like sweatshirts etc) and dont leave them in the dryer for long if you can help it. Chose clothes you know wont wrinkle, and linen only for rare occasions. I also refuse to iron for DH, if he wants to iron that's up to him. We only chose clothes for DD that dont iron. We iron her School Uniform skirt as that always seems to wrinkle. Shes going into secondary and I ahve made sure to find a none iron skirt!

No, we wouldn’t have space for three airers out and loaded with clothes at all times - it’s bad enough as it is air drying about half of our stuff.

And in the winter items can take days to dry.

The idea of having dryers everywhere is annoying - I may feel differently if I had spare rooms (I don’t). It just creates more visible mess in the house.

I tumble dry all pants / socks / kids clothes / towels / sheets etc. Hang things like shirts, trousers, dresses where I don’t want to risk shrinkage.

I disagree that air drying means no ironing! To look smart enough for a professional job I think being ironed makes a big difference (but I do outsource this).

DH could have taken six months but took 2 and is now doing 4 days a week (he loves his job and was worried about losing clients). Tbh I was a bit ready for him to go back to work by the end as it did feel like lockdown. But the two months were great and I'd have massively struggled with only 2 weeks as I was still recovering post section and couldn't drive etc. He drove me to appointments, helped on the preschool run and with DS after, held DD a lot and did the nights when she'd only sleep on someone.
Some families might want/ need more time. I wish we could have put some of it at the end so DH could have DD from 9-12 months but his work don't offer that.

I wish I still had the laughing emoji for this post....

The owner of the Spectator also owns GB News and the Reform Party.

They want rich people to hold on to their wealth (ideally stealing more from the working class) and they want old rich men to hold on to power.

For old rich men to keep power, they need the patriarchy to survive. Therefore they have their paid shills and interested parties constantly peddling various forms of crap about how men should be out working, being the breadwinner, and women should do traditional 'wife' roles. (See also "get back to work in the office" as it affects the land/building owners' profits).

They use all those crap old clichés from wartime, romanticise men "working down t'pits doing men's' jobs" digging coal and how the country was "better in them days when there were no bloody foreigners" to rile up stupid people to vote for them.

And (in England at least) it seems to be working.

Tilly desperately needs to join MN, learn reality, and get some good advice. Which should probably include LTB.

I bet you wouldn't even notice that my clothes are unironed.

Why do so many people think men need all this time off in order to be a good father or for the mum not to become the “default parent?” My husband had 2 weeks off - 4 weeks might have been good as I was in a lot of pain but only so much “bonding” he could do as DC fed almost constantly in the early days.

After that I was happy doing my own thing - DH had always done most of the cooking because I worked long hours in a demanding job so I loved having the time and space to cook and plan meals for us. I developed a rhythm and a routine with DC which would have been harder to do if I had to factor in somebody else.

It affected DH and DC’s relationship not a jot. DH worked shifts and so was home every day around 5pm and so would help with baths etc and we had whole weekends together. When I went back to work we both went part time so DC had equal time with each of us and 10 years later DH and DC have a great relationship and spend loads 1-to-1 time together.

Dads have 18 years to develop a bond with their child - we can value the role of fathers without minimising the mother’s role in the early days. Fathers and mothers aren’t interchangeable and I don’t see who benefits from pretending they are.

Adequate paternity leave does not minimise the role of a mother.

Can you explain why you think that would be the case?

Possibly not if they are synthetic. But cotton or linen, yes I definitely would.

Nope, no dryer. Straight out the washing machine, good, sharp shake, maybe straighten the sleeves, straight on to a hanger, and hung up on the drying rack. Once dry, straight into the cupboard. If it's nice weather, the drying rack goes outside.

I’m a man and a Dad and I’m currently 3.5 months into 6 months paternity leave.

We keep saying prolonging my paternity by a mix of shared parental, holidays and unpaid leave is the best decision we’ve ever taken. I like to think I’m not completely useless. I’m more likely to cook than my wife. I think I’m 50:50 on just about everything except the breastfeeding. Trying to do more nappies to somehow even that out.

More importantly though, we are all bonding. I’ve gone from knowing only what I had researched in books and online about babies to being able to do just about everything with my daughter.

I happen to miss work a little bit, more because I like to get out the house and chat to people, but on balance this is still much better.