Jess & Darryl Abelscroft - How to Navigate Shared Parental Leave

Welcome to the Big Careers Small Children Podcast. My name is Verena Hefti. I believe that no one should have to choose between becoming a CEO and enjoying their young children for much too long. Amazingpeople like I'm sure you listening right now have found themselves stuck on the career ladder when they have children and that leads to gender inequality in senior leadership because because those people don't progress to senior leadership and the same stale, often male middle class people leading our organizations.

Wemust change this together and I hope that many of you listening right now will progress to the most senior leadership roles that you like where you can make the decisions that make our world a better place. Outside of the podcast. I am the CEO and founder of the Social enterprise Leaders Plus. Weexist to help working parents progress their careers to senior leadership in a way that works for you and for your families.

Wehave free events and resources on leadersplus.org where you can download helpful toolkits such as on returning from maternity leave, share parental leave, securing a promotion, dealing with workload challenges, or managing as a dual career couple. We also have an award winning fellowship community which is global for working parents who have big dreams for their careers but don't want to sacrifice their family. You'll join an absolutely wonderful group of people, a very tight knit, supportive group of parents who have your back together.

You'llexplore what your career aspirations are and you'll get advice from senior leaders who are also working parents about how to achieve those aspirations. You'llget new ideas to combine your hopes for your careers with your hope for your family and you are supported by people who are experiencing what you're experiencing yourself. I'mreally delighted that a larger majority of our fellows have made tangible changes following the program, be that becoming more senior in their roles, working shorter hours, having better flexible working arrangement.

Theyalways impress me so much with the courage that they instill in each other to do what is right for them without apologizing for having a family or apologizing for wanting that top job. Detailsare on leadersplus.org/Fellowship. In today's episode I'm chattirngto Jess and DarylAbelscroftabouttheirexperienceofshared parentalleave,whatthey'vedonedifferently secondtimeroundwhenthey didforthesecond time,theimpactontheirfamilylifeandcareerandanytipsthattheyhavetoshare.

Theyarebothfantastic andvery generouspodcastguests andsureif you'reinterestedinSharePointleave,thiswillbe anextremelyuseful in Share d parental leave, this will be an verywarmwelcometothepodcast. Jess,let's startwithintroducingyouifyouwanttosharewhoyouare,what youdo forworkandwho'sinyourfamily. Yeah. Thanks, Verena.

And so, hi, I'm Jess Abelscroft. I am a senior director in the UK charity sector. Currently I'm director of my own independent consulting business. In my family I have Daryl, my brilliant partner, who is on this podcast today.

And we have Isabel, who's five and a half. And we have Theo, who is going to be two in one month. Lovely. Wow.

I didn't realize he was already school age and properly grown up. But it's gone very quickly. How about you, Daryl? Do you want to share who you are, what you do for work?

And I'm assuming you have the same family? Yeah, yeah, it's gone crazy quickly, Verena. I'm Daryl. I have been a civil servant for many years, most recently working in dft, Department of Transport as a senior civil servant.

But I'm currently seconded to the Civil Aviation Authority where I work on regulation of new innovative aviation technologies. Yeah. Very fortunate to have Jess, Izzy and Theo in my life. We probably should tell the listeners the reason why the three of us know each other is because you both joined the Leaders plus Fellowship program which I set up.

And I think you must have been one of the first couples both joined. You did different groups, so you didn't do it together, but you had the same experience and you both, you did shared parental leave. Would you mind just, just for our listeners who are not UK based, just to explain what share parental leave means. Yeah, absolutely.

So shared parental leave is the concept that each parent can share the amount of leave available to them throughout the leave period. So in the uk, and I hope I don't get the specifics of this wrong, so I'm going to stay at the specifics mostly. But in the UK that essentially means that the mother or the birthing parent can give up part of their leave period for the father or the non birthing parent. If you're in a same sex couple or a non binary trans couple.

And that means that in the UK you get 52 weeks, so the full year and you can decide between you how you would like to split up that leave period. That sounds wonderful. It's much more complicated than that in practice, which I'm sure we'll talk about, but that's how it works in principle. And Daryl, was it always clear to you that this was something you were going to try to do?

Yeah, it was. And it's just Kind of outlined. It's not straightforward. And yeah, we will talk about that.

I think like from this early in our relationship, right, Jess, I'd say we always had the intention that we wanted to be both very involved in parenting and it not be that one of us was the kind of full time parent and the other would be at work with. Always talks about kind of having balance in our parenting before we can say, probably before we had said it, before we had kids. So it was a logical next step to then take share parental leave though, as Jess Eliz do. It's not straightforward.

So obviously I'm a big proponent of it and my partner and I, we also share childcare. He has time where he looks after them on his own and I have the same and it's the same amount of time which is working out really well for us. But I just want to throw a challenge at you that maybe is in the back of the minds of some of the people thinking about it, which is, yeah, I do want to be an equal partner, of course I do, but why? Like you just said, it's complicated.

You have to tell your boss. Why do that? Rather than just after the woman in a heterocouple goes back, why not just share the care then? Really good question.

I'll start. Jess, you chip in. I think for us it was a bit about values. As I say, we were both really keen on having that balanced relationship from the start.

And I remember when I first going on shared parental leave with Izzy after about she must have been eight months old and Jess had done such a brilliant job for the first eight months. But it felt a bit like she was handing me the kind of keys to a brand new Bentley. But I didn't really know how to drive. I reflect on this a bit this this morning I was definitely there.

I was present as a parent, but I was very much the support artist to Jess's kind of lead role. I think what shared parental leave did was kind of force me to really understand where every single thing in the changing bag was and what every sort of cry or whimper or delightful noise that Isabel made meant in a far more engaged way and become more not that kind of support artist, but the kind of proper co parent and partner in that. So in a way that I think if Jess had just been doing nine months and then we'd just kind of carried on, I would never have had that time.

I think it's probably also meant that when Jess and I both did go back to work full time, we both negotiated Compressed hours with still to this day have a day, a week with Izzy then and now Theo, Each of us, which, again, maybe, as a dad, wouldn't have felt confident doing that if I hadn't had that experience. And it's interesting how you described it at the beginning, Jess. It's almost like you giving up, some people may call it privilege, some people may not, but, you know, it is a right that you have of having that year off.

And you have to actively, in the uk, actively say, yes, I will give that to my partner so they can take four months. Did you have any hesitations around that? Yes. And I was just thinking back, and Darryl's right.

I can remember us discussing, maybe even before we got married, the fact that if we had children, we really wanted to have an equitable relationship in our approach to that. And we had always been so confident that if we could take shared parental leave, we would each take six months, because on paper, that's the most equitable thing and equal thing to do. And then when I got pregnant, my feelings really changed and I. And I just.

My sort of. I mean, I was going to say argument. It's not as if we argued about this, but we did have discussions about how we were going to divide it up. And I actually, by the time I got pregnant, felt like I'm carrying this baby for nine months and, you know, going through all the kind of physical changes that that entails.

And I was breastfeeding with both children, like, that worked for us. So there was a lot of kind of physical transformation that I was going through. There was a lot of emotional transformation that I'm sure Darryl had as well. But we went from six months, six months to.

Then we. My sort of opening gambit was nine, three, and then we came back to eight, four. So I took eight months, Daryl took four. We were both really fortunate that we also had pretty generous annual leave policies on top of that.

So we actually did. I had eight months of leave, Daryl had four months, but then we had a month of overlap in the middle when I was taking annual leave, which was also incredibly helpful because it's basically the same as if you were going on mat leave. You'd want a month's handover with your mat cover if you possibly could. And we did the same with the baby.

So, you know, we had a month of transition period where I was kind of literally handing over everything that I had learned to Daryl. But it felt really emotive for me in a way that is probably obvious, but I have found quite Surprising. By the time we got to that point. I told it to sound as if we spent a month with Jess Intensity coach and we were in Thailand.

We were fortunate enough to go. So it wasn't just a month of lessons, but I think, yeah, it just says we had generous annual aid policy. I think the other thing that really was important in us doing it, not everyone has. In fact very few have.

But it was, it was actually better financially for us to do shared parental leave. The terms were from each of our employers meant that we would be remunerated more handsomely if we were to take 8 and 4 rather than just take the full 12 months. So it's definitely not the driver, but a lot of people don't have that. And it was something that was really Helpful for us.

Of course, and with the cost of living crisis. And that's an important consideration. And sadly that's also a reason why you often, especially in hetero relationships, men don't feel they can take it because the maternity policies are more enhanced than the paternity politics. Jess, in hindsight, what's been the impact on your career and also I guess your happiness to be cheesy, like, do you regret giving that time that you can never get back, as some of the.

I'm sure my aunties would say, or are you glad that you did it? I 100% glad that I did it and that's obviously not because I don't love spending time with my children and I absolutely found it hard when it was my time to go back. But I just do not think that we can overstate how foundational those periods were for the kind of parenting setup we have now. And I mean, Darryl's right.

If you are able to take shared parental leave, that period where Daryl had to like really be the lead parent in a lot of situations I think has meant like for our kids. For example, I don't think they have ever seen either of us as the lead parent, like their experience is equitable and that they can go to either of us for various things, even things like I'm still a lot of the time the parent who gets the messages about doctor's appointments or school stuff or things like that.

But I would say that Daryl gets more than most dads or non birthing parents probably do. And I just think, I don't think I'll ever be able to fully comprehend the impact that that will likely have on my career in the future and our home setup and the expectations that our kids have of me as a mom and of him as a dad and that kind of thing. So I just. I honestly think it was one of the.

The best things that we ever did. I think it's interesting also about the return to work, because it's quite different to return to work when you know there's someone at home looking after that child versus you have to also deal with the child screaming their heads off every morning because they don't want to go to nursery. If that's your setup. Yeah, absolutely.

And we were. I don't think lucky is the right word for this, but I went back to work with our first during COVID So I just went back to work at. To the shed at the end of the garden. And, you know, I knew Daryl had Izzy in the house so that I still got to see her a lot.

And actually, by the time we had Theo, our youngest, it was very similar. Like, we both had jobs that were much more flexible in terms of working from home. So it did. The transition was much easier than I think other people might have.

And if you did it again, I don't know if you're planning to expand your family further, but if you did it again, is there anything that you know now about shared parental leave that you would definitely, definitely rely on again? I just think we were much better at it the second time around for a couple of reasons. One is, especially for people listening in the uk, like, if you can take shared parental leave, I cannot. Again, I cannot encourage it enough.

But also appreciate how likely it is that you're going to have to be very proactive, even if you have a supportive employer to help navigate the complexity of the process. So for anyone who's done it, I'm sure you will recognize that, like, the legislation is there, the practicalities of working it out between your two HR teams and who comes off when and how you get paid and all of that kind of stuff is, you know, I think we're two fairly smart people, and it's not. It's not the most straightforward process.

And I can remember I printed out a physical calendar of the year and highlighted day by day, who was going to be where and who was getting paid what. And I took that into our HR department and sat down with my HR business partner and said, this is what I think it looks like. Is that right? And we had to have, like two or three meetings like that where we were all making sure we were on the same page.

And Darryl had to do the same thing with his employer. And these were very supportive, like, very willing employers. So I think there Is like, I would just get very literal and practical early on about how it's going to work. And I guess the other thing I was thinking about was our handover period.

And again, Darrell's right. It wasn't like a job handover, but it. For me, it absolutely kind of was because I felt like I had transferred a lot of my, like, managerial skills into, like running the house for eight months full time. And Darrell was absolutely helping loads.

But for me and my personality, type of my energy, I kind of needed to funnel all of that into something. And so I took what I would say was a quite organized managerial approach to my first parenting experience, which, you know, had lots of ups and downs within it. But I just, I think the second time around I would like to hope that I was much more relaxed about somebody doing it differently to me. And I think I took a lot of pride and I used to talk about it was like my expertise in the baby.

Like, I spent eight months becoming an expert in what our daughter needed and I took a lot of pride in it. And I found that first handover period the first time around really difficult, I think because of that and the like, context switching of that and then going back into work and that kind of thing. But the second time around, I think I had, like, hopefully learned the lesson to be more sort of open to the different approaches that Darryl had and to kind of let go of that a bit more easily.

Yeah, coming on those. Firstly, we're definitely not doing this again. If I was to put my hat on, as if I could redo it again for the first time. Completely agree with Jess.

The bureaucracy around share parental leave and the forms you have to fill out is really off putting. So do persist with it, do really understand it. To Jess's point about you needing to know more than your HR teams often I got up on the second time around when I felt like I knew what I was doing. I think several months into my shared parental leave got a message from my HR contacts suggesting that I shouldn't be paid for all of the months I had been paid.

Which was the sort of slightly alarming message that you receive sometimes. And actually I was fortunately was right. But don't expect that HR teams understand it because it is really complicated on the handover points. I guess your question, Verena, about was it anything difficult or different with Jess going back to work earlier?

I think a reflection on as a dad taking shared parental leave, you don't have the kind of obvious sign that you do as a mum about to Go on maternity leave. I've not been carrying around a nine pound baby or kind of having the obvious kind of the pains of having to do that. I'm not kind of. There's a little bit about kind of having to justify that feeling like I had to justify that a little bit more.

I didn't have that kind of obvious reason to. To go on leave. It wasn't kind of the normal gender role. Yeah.

Feeling like I was walking away a little bit. I guess it's something that I was determined to do. But I did feel a little bit. I have a bit of anxiety of how that would.

Perception I guess at that Andover Point. I think that's a really interesting point about the perception of people and also masculinity. It's not the fashionable thing to walk around with a baby for a lot of men. How did you overcome those assumptions or did you respond if people said something odd to you or did you just get.

In the end did you just get really positive responses saying oh how wonderful that you look after the baby? I got almost universally positive responses. Really. I can't think of once where anybody said anything that made me think that's a bit strange.

I did. I definitely experienced. I've applied for jobs between Isabel and Theo where as I've been offered job. I was offered one job and made it clear that I want to continue working compressed hours and want to take share parental leave once he was here and had the job offer rescinded.

So I've definitely experienced people or reacting in a way that I don't think they would for mothers now. Definitely. I think it's really surprising what you get told and I obviously lucky enough to listen to lots of working parents conversations behind closed doors and the things that dads tell me about how people say what people say to them and stuff that no employer would officially allow their managers to do with women. They do sometimes do with that.

So I'm really sorry you went through that. Nothing compared to what I think mums have had to go through for many years. It's just interesting how it's not straightforward. It's something that we need as a society.

I can only get to adjusting that if more people are taking shared parental leave and more dads are taking more parental leave. Definitely. And you alluded a couple of times to the absolute complexity of arranging it all. Do you have any tips on how to get started?

It sounds like there's no easy way out here. But also I don't want the listeners to go away and think I'M not going to touch this with a barge poll because it sounds so horrendously challenging. No would be answer other than, as Jess says, you can share 52 weeks leave and you can share 39 weeks statuary pay. That's the thing that just needs to be kind of bold and in everyone's heads because the difference between the leave and the pay and how you track it was in my experience a bit that was quite difficult to get to the bottom of.

Yeah, well, and I know that this is hyper granular, but I basically color coded everything between my parental leave was one color. Darrell's parental leave was one color each of our annual leave, the bank holidays. And then we just sat down together and went through it. And I would suggest thinking of it in days, not even weeks and months because then it's easier to work through the division of all of it.

And I really hope nobody does listen to this and think I don't want to do it because I think we're more expressing annoyance about this rather than a kind of, you know, any sort of regret or anything like that. Because it is, it definitely is complicated. And I think if anyone listening to this is in a decision making position, I think a lot of people know it needs to be made easier. But actually it's the, the annoying bits of organizing it is absolutely nothing compared to the lasting benefits of what you get.

Yeah, and not even annoyance for us, but annoyance because so I know so many dads I speak to don't end up doing it. It's kind of so close to doing it. And this might not be the thing that tips them into not, but when it's a difficult choice, I mean, Jess and I were deterred, as she said, we're determined to do it and then still ended up kind of haggling slightly about, about the length. I just wish it was easier for people.

And we did a small survey with dads who's gone share parental leave and one topic that has come out is the topic of, of loneliness. Just because all the baby classes are so full of women who sometimes let people into their groups but sometimes don't. Do you have any tips of how to be connected during shared parental leave if you are the caregiver? I experienced some of this, particularly with Theo.

Actually, I think we both had slightly different, I'd say kind of broad mental health experience during the kind of first and second times. And with Izzy, I was actually during lockdown. So I think we were all kind of, we were all a bit lonely. But also the inability to leave the house meant we had kind of very clear routines and there was some sunny weather that sort of April, May, May, June.

With Theo, it was kind of over winter and I did experience a bit more of that kind of loneliness. I didn't have any. I think there was one group which was explicitly for mums, which I didn't enjoy, but everything else was very clearly for parents. I was almost always the only dad, but everyone's very welcoming.

Seeking out your local dads group. I think most places, particularly urban places in the uk, have kind of increasing dad's networks trying to find a local one, trying to find those people who are off the same days as you. So I don't work Thursdays, I'm off with Theo on Thursdays and I try and find the dads locally who are around them. I joined groups that are predominantly mums too, but it's nice sometimes to just meet a few dads who are doing something similar.

I'm interested in the difference. So obviously Covid shared parental leave versus Non Covid will have been quite different. But is there anything else that you've changed second time round when you did sharepointerleaf that you'd tell a good friend if they were thinking about doing it? Yeah, if you were doing the second time around, I found, as I say, much harder.

I think in part of that was, you've got another one. We had Isabelle who was kind of starting school and by the time you kind of dropped her at school and then done a small activity with Theo in the morning, taking him back for his nap, it's time to pick Isabelle up from school again. It felt. Whereas with Izzy, I felt we could be a bit freer and perhaps do a bit more fun stuff.

It was a bit. The logistics just meant it a bit more limited with Theo, but I think that's just a factor of having two little ones rather than one. What I did second time around. The first time.

First time, I had naively expected that I'd have all this free time while Theo was napping to. I don't need to do a load of DIY around the house. That definitely didn't happen. I very, very quickly realized I needed to re my expectations about what could be achieved.

That is so funny. Now, hopefully by the time of this going out, I will have shared that I'm also pregnant and I'm smiling because I definitely am now thinking, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna do lots of writing, all those writing tasks that I wanted to do. And I'm like, but Verena you know that this is never gonna happen and you've done it a few times, so you should know what's going to going on. But yeah, it's funny how we always have these illusions.

Yeah. It does not equal free time. And really, I think second time around I might have had a bit of that at the back of my mind. Try not to have any expectations about achieving anything other than keeping this little one happy and healthy.

Jess, is there anything else that hasn't been mentioned yet that you would tell a good friend who's thinking about SharePoint Leave, about how to set it up well, how to make it a positive experience for everyone involved? I think there's something about, from my perspective, it's really interesting because Daryl and I, I think, had slightly opposite experiences where I think he found second time around a bit trickier for the reasons he's described. I found second time around much easier.

And I think some of that as well was because when Theo, our second, came along, because Daryl had done shared parental leave the first time around, he was already a very, very involved, involved dad and a really involved father. And I found my maternity leave with Theo much easier. I think also because a lot of people, I think myself included, find the second maternity leave easier anyway, because you already had a baby and you don't spend every 10 minutes Googling, you know, whether your baby's sick or whether this is normal or, you know, any of that kind of thing.

But also, I do think Del was absolutely so present when Izzy was little and I was on my bit of parental leave. But the second time around, we were just already in a groove with sharing responsibilities more equitably. And I just do think, especially if you end up having multiple kids, it just pays back dividends more and more every single time because you just have that kind of setup within your household that means that the mom or the birthing partner isn't the sort of automatic default for a lot of the.

The thinking and decision making and organizing. I mean, I'm really struck by Izzy's five and a half and that you say things in your life are different now, two years on since last time you took shared parental leave, you described the practicalities and that you're both owning things. You're both managing the multitude of requests that come from school. We're just recording this before World Book Day.

I'm sure in your house somewhere there's a World Book Day costume being prepared or at least last minute ordered. What's the impact? Yeah, I mean, for me, as the kind of woman who would normally probably take on a lot of the lead parent responsibilities. Like I do find.

I mean, we're in constant communication with each other about whether the balance feels right for both of us, whether we feel like somebody's taking on too much in a certain area and that kind of thing. But I do feel like we just automatically start from a place where it's not assumed that I'm going to take a lot of this stuff on. And I'd be really interested to hear Darryl's reflections, but I just feel like, and I'm sure this is the case for people who don't take shared parental leave, but I'd be interested in whether it feels as natural.

Like I think Daryl just feels quite confident taking things on end to end. You know, the kind of, you know, you hear couples talk a lot about the mental load and the fact that like sometimes when men or non birthing partners are taking on responsibilities, it's still the woman organizing the setup of everything. And then the dad comes in and says, I'm happy to go to the supermarket but can you give me a list? And stuff like that, you know.

And I do feel like compared to other couples we know who weren't fortunate enough to be able to take shared parental leave, like Daryl does just own stuff like kind of end to end. And I talked earlier about the kids expectations. Like I think they come to both of us equal when they need help. And you know, seeing that relationship that Darryl has with them is really amazing because they see a dad, you know, with a really active role in their lives who is just as important to them as the mom.

And I just think that's really amazing and I feel really lucky that we were able to do it because I just think that will continue for years to come and that really opens up my professional life. I have more head space to think about creative pursuits, professional pursuits, that kind of thing. It's not been easy. I don't think there's anything naturally about Jess and I that means it's come naturally to us.

There's definitely been times when Jess has felt that she has been carrying a lot of the load. And there's times when I felt like that. And it's something we've vocalized and sorted out. And in fact there's a brilliant exercise in the Leaders plus Fellowship, one of the partners exercises where you kind of write down all the things you do, all of the kind of mental load, all the things around the house, and just share kind of who's doing what.

And I Think that's a really helpful way of just reminding. Remind each other quite how much you're doing that might not always be. Always be visible. One of the reflections in terms of there are still some things that are quite gendered and Jess is doing a bit more around some of the kids parties.

Some of that comes because other mums tend to message Jess and they've gone and use the kind of mum's WhatsApp networks and some of that I feel that's right and that's fine. But it does feel. Oh, hang on, why is. Why is this all falling to Jess?

And it's because I don't really know it's happening. Sometimes there's a certain type of personality who needs. Maybe you both enjoy kids birthday parties. But in my household there's certainly one person who quite enjoys a birthday party if it's outside especially.

And my partner is really not pretty. Like he will help but he hates it and so why not? Like I quite enjoy it. I really love having kids running around in the park and seeing them play with their friends.

So I'm happy to do it. I think that there's also something about personal strengths and interests there. But saying that one of our children has a birthday adventure and I have delegated that to my partner. He's done a brilliant job.

But I hate soft plays and I would have never done the whole soft play birthday party organizing. I'm very glad he did it and did it very well. Just coming to the bigger picture then, if you were in charge, what are your hopes for society? How do you think this parental leave model should evolve?

I can't say anything that service wouldn't probably agree with. I think there's. We need to mainstream dads taking more parental leave if we're going to conquer things like the gender pay gap and gender expectations around mums. So I mean I really like the Pregnant and Screwed campaign for six weeks fully paid parental leave.

I think that would be a bit of A bit of a game, game changer. So kind of better pay around parental leave, paternity leave, simplifying the process, run through it. It's way too complicated. I think people need to really try to make it simpler.

I know some countries and some employers are just offering equivalent paternity and maternity pay and periods and if we can move in that direction, so much the better. And then, yeah, encourage employers to go on that. On that direction. Feels like since early January or mid January we've been in a world where there isn't so much desire to push on Encouraging diversity and encouraging inclusivity.

But I really do think even from an economic growth perspective, the more we can do to encourage women at the kind of peak of their careers to be kind of co parenting and not feel like all the parenting pressure is on on them, allow them to build their careers, continue to build their careers, whilst also being brilliant parents. I think everything we can do there is economically brilliant, not just good for families. So I really, really think it's not just an inclusivity thing though that's important, but it's sort of, it's something that can really help the UK as a, as a brilliant place to live.

Absolutely. I'm sure many of our American listeners would be quite envious to hear some of those things. Jess, did you want to add anything Daryl hasn't said yet? I mean, I do think there's something really positive about both parents being able to take leave independent of each other as well.

Like, I think the Premise of sharing 52 weeks is a positive step forward from where we were before. But if, particularly in those early weeks and months, if both parents have more time off, like you know, Darrell said, massive shout out to pregnant, then screwed and the dad shift, and Elliot Ray and others who are really pushing for this, like, I think if moms and dads could have those really critical early weeks together without that affecting the overall quantity of leave that people can take, I think that would be incredibly positive.

And then it is just the financials. I mean, we are, I think we alluded to it earlier, but we were very lucky in that in both circumstances, Daryl and I were on similar salaries, so there isn't a gender pay gap in our house per se. And that made shared parental leave possible for us and even more economically viable than it is for a lot of people. But I would really love to see shared parental leave be something that is available to people on different incomes.

And all the research suggests that the wealthier your household is, the more likely you can take shared parental leave. And I think that's a really unfair class advantage that is built into the system. I don't think there should be a kind of class premium on spending time with your kids. So yeah, I think it was interesting because I was part of this advisory board for a university who did a study into shared parental leave.

And it's exactly that. So few people use it. And what we need to change is to have protected leave just for that. And that is paid well exactly to this point of making sure everyone has access to it.

So if someone is listening to this podcast and perhaps because they were interested in SharePoint leave didn't quite know how to go about it and they haven't even talked about it to their partner yet. What would be one or two things they could do this week to get the ball rolling? I'd speak to find out about their HR policies on their intranet. Depending on the organization they work for, there'll be should be something published which sets out what the terms of share parental leave will be in there organization and then yeah a bit of a bit of googling around how it works and always happy to chat to any dads out there who are interested in experiences.

I'm sure Rain, you'll share our LinkedIn details. I think a bit of, just a bit of digging to really understand what it means for you and then what your rights might be. I would say try and find some other parents who have done it and talk to them and totally agree with Daryl. Like if people want, we're really passionate about this so if people want to find us on LinkedIn, we're really, really happy to have a conversation.

If you don't know anybody in your life who has done it and because it is the take up is so low sometimes it is hard to find other people's experiences of it. But I think that's a really good place to start because I think everyone's experience with it is quite unique. So you'll kind of pick up on the nuance of what might be similar for you or different. Very well said.

Thank you both so much for giving up your very pressurized time to share your experience with others and I'm sure would have been very useful for the listeners. So a big thank you on behalf of everyone listening. Thank you for having us. Yeah, thanks Verena.

I really appreciate you listening. Thank you so much and I always love to hear from our listeners. If you want to connect with me on LinkedIn, just call to Ferina Hefti and I'll be delighted to hear your feedback and your suggestions or just have you say hi. Likewise, if you, if you do feel passionately about gender equality and you want to support a female led podcast, then please do leave a review and share it with a friend.

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