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.

The writers husband is clearly a pig and the writer herself sounds a bit off

We're 11 months into shared parental leave. I've taken a total of 14 months and my husband may go back PT between then or 24 months.

It's not been quite the silver bullet we both naively thought. We've both still been sleep deprived and exhausted a lot of the time, had bouts of PND and PNA, and had cycles of arguments mostly over the same stuff most couples with a new baby do. But we've consistently had the happiest jolliest baby I've ever known who is as bonded to his Dad as he is me. My DH can do absoultly everything I can equally if not better, he can't breastfeed but he can get him to sleep without it which I can't. Our relationship and understanding of eachother is considerably deeper, and we thought it already was. And all the hard bits have been eclipsed by a tremendous amount of fun and joy.

Where I would agree with the article a bit is having to be "on" and pleasant to eachother while sleep deprived all day most days. And Parkinson's Law that the more time you have the more that fills it.

Coming to this discussion very late but we found the same - we split our leave similarly for economic reasons (it made sense for him to take the unpaid period at the end) so had 7 months with me off, two months off together and then he did the final three months solo. He knows how to look after our child solo, our child views him as an equal caregiver, he did things like first dentist appointment and first haircut which mean these are now on his default parent list as opposed to mine. It set us off on the right foot.

I’m not in the uk anymore. So I don’t know how it works now. and my youngest is 9 so it has been a long time for me.

At least, in this case, I bloody hope it is.

I choose sleep over ironing, post child!

Me too! If I could. I have suffered from terrible insomnia since I can remember so if I get 6 hours sleep I’m winning. 🥴. But if I had that choice I think I would too! 😂

My ironing board is used to help the dog get into the car.😂😂

But everything wrinkles in the wash.

The only thing stopping men from having a proper bond with their kids which is as strong as a Mother's, is society (and some dickhead men, who you could argue are that way because of society)

What??? It’s society’s fault some men don’t bond with their children? It’s society’s fault that some men are dickheads? The article was silly but seems like you are just as guilty of infantilising men! What happened to personal responsibility?!

Why are ironing boards so badly made? Why do they creak? Why do they have to have a separate cover? Why do they feel like they are going to collapse at a moments notice? Why do irons just not quite fit on them right? Why do the cords of irons get so tangled in a really strange way? Why is it so annoying when you have to refill the water bit?

My husband had to go out and buy an iron because he wanted to print a picture for a T-Shirt and needed the iron to press the transfer on with! I haven't been near it once! 😄

Yes - the world hasn’t yet come to an end because of this..

Don´t have a dryer. I hang my clothes to dry and then fold them. Job done.

I do. As long as it's women taking 6-12 months leave and men 2 weeks, women will be penalised in the world of work. I want it to be just as "risky" to recruit a man as a woman, and that will have far-reaching positive consequences way beyond the individual.

All you non ironers, what about kids school stuff?
Anyway I've got wonderful dp who does ours😂
I hate, hate hate ironing, much rather clean 5 toilets to one bloody school shirt.

I hate the bit where she says she likes the “help with bath and bedtime”. It’s not help when it’s the dad, it’s called parenting. Perhaps if she saw him more as an equal than just “help” that might make things better.

God these right wingers really are obsessed with us giving all our lives over to employers for some reason. Always seems to be the same people who go on about how no one is working from home and we all need to go back 5 days a week to the offices they have portfolio investments in. Can't imagine why.

Another one without an iron 🤣 We used to have one... For hamma beads 🤣

Our ironing board props up against the back door on a night. If anyone breaks in that way it will go with an almighty bang. No idea what happened to the iron...
I make a point of buying clothes that don't need ironing and can be smoothed out by hand after you put it on 😁

I would not assume this for all women though. Everyone is different and I definitely needed the whole year to recover. I had multiple difficulties and to heal and then recover my stamina to go back to work it took the whole year and beyond. I’m probably not in the ‘average’ zone, more in the ‘weakest’ zone due to my various health issues. There is no way I’d share my Mat leave with my DH, happy for him to have his own though. But my kids are grown up so wasn’t a choice/decision for me anyway.

On the ironing front, Lenor Crease Release spray. Game changer.

I live in one of those countries where men take long periods of paternity leave. You're not suppose to overlap it except at the very beginning 🤦‍♀️What on earth would be the point in that?

Fathers take a couple of weeks after the birth to support mother and newborn in the immediate postpartum recovery period. Then they go back to work. Then when the mother goes back to work, the father goes on proper paternity leave.

This is a system with huge benefits. It stops mothers becoming the default parents as fathers need to learn to do it solo. They have that experience of being the main caregiver. Of course it's not exactly the same as it is frankly easier to look after a weaned 8 month old with an established nap schedule than it is to look after a chaotic newborn, but it helps A LOT.

It's brilliant for babies and fathers - and mothers too.

Sure, but some women needing a whole year to recover to the point they’re able to work (<1%?) isn’t a reason to not support increased, better paid paternity leave for men.

I think if you are determined you don’t want to share your maternity leave at all with your DH, you then can’t really then moan about being the default parent and not having the same career opportunities etc.

Thats your choice, don’t object to policies which allow other women to make their own choices, through more equality in sharing the load of caring for young children.

I have lots of dresses that need ironing. My husband does it all. I put all the laundry through the wash and hang it out, he takes it in, irons and puts it away. I think we're a good team and for that reason, I would really have welcomed more paternity leave. I felt quite lonely on maternity leave and looked forward to the weekends when we could have time as a family. That's why I wanted to have children with him - to be a family.

It's not that way for everyone, but I don't know how we challenge gendered expectations - like women being default childcarers and ironers - without normalising things like extended paternity leave.

Yes - I’m aware…🙄 I was intrigued to see how other people do it! I’m nosey and like to know different things… I wasn’t judging.