dads to take time off work<\/a>. But we had discussed it during my pregnancy and my husband wanted an opportunity to also spend some time at home with our baby.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt wasn\u2019t easy. It meant that I had to sacrifice some of my parental leave because our employers only offered leave policies to the primary parent within the first 12 months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That I meant I had to shorten my leave to eight months (with 12 weeks pay) and my husband took four months leave (with two weeks pay). Financially it was tough \u2013 but we saved our money to make sure that we could accommodate time off work for both of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What we didn\u2019t expect though, was push back from his employer \u2013 an organisation which largely employed women and focused on women\u2019s education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When he applied for parental leave, the response from human resources was that the parental leave policy was for women. We couldn\u2019t see any reference to gender in the policy \u2013 and they had changed the name from \u2018maternity leave\u2019 to \u2018parental leave\u2019 so we challenged the response and he was able to take the leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My husband was the first male in that organisation to take parental leave but what followed was interesting: more men took up parental leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He spent those four months at home, taking Ethan to my \u201cmother\u2019s group\u201d, having play dates and doing the lion\u2019s share of housework. I would come home to a (mostly) clean house and dinner on the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes he would get funny looks or cynical comments when he told other men he was a stay at home dad like \u201cAren\u2019t you bored?\u201d and \u201cHow\u2019s the golf handicap going?\u201d.
After those first 12 months, we both worked part-time so that we could minimise childcare in the first two years of our son\u2019s life. We shared the parenting and the domestic workload.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What transpired is a wonderful relationship between my husband and son, and a stronger marriage that respects both partners have careers and want to be parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We still share the domestic and parenting workload today. It includes using flexible work arrangements to do school drop off and pick up and to accommodate extracurricular activities like guitar lessons and basketball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When we\u2019ve changes jobs, flexibility has been the top of our priority list. It\u2019s meant that I\u2019ve been able to build a career and be a mum. Is it perfect? Certainly not. But it\u2019s worked for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At YWCA Australia, we advocate for change that leads to gender equality for everyone. This includes challenging the taboos around men taking parental leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s my three tips for couples who are making plans for a family:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1. Have a conversation<\/strong>. Before you even start thinking about having a family, make sure you\u2019re both on the same page about your family and your career goals. If there are competing expectations, it\u2019s best to have this sorted before you have a child, not after!
2. Make a budget and stick to it!<\/strong> Having a child is expensive \u2013 not just in direct costs, but also indirect costs in time off work. Make sure you\u2019ve planned and budgeted enough to take time off.
3. Don\u2019t be afraid to do things differently.<\/strong> Maybe you\u2019ll be the first man in your small workplace to take parental leave as the primary caregiver \u2013 be that trailblazer! You can be the one to pave the way for others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When my husband and I recently had an open conversation about happiest times in our lives, his response blew me away. \u201cWhen was the time in your life that you remember being the happiest?\u201d I asked on a rare date night we shared. For me, it was always family holidays […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1068,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-publications"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialimpactagenda.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialimpactagenda.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialimpactagenda.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialimpactagenda.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialimpactagenda.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/socialimpactagenda.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":712,"href":"https:\/\/socialimpactagenda.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701\/revisions\/712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialimpactagenda.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialimpactagenda.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialimpactagenda.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialimpactagenda.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}