Moderating a panel discussion on new parents returning to work, Sophie Maunder, parental transition coach, said it was about thriving, not just surviving.
Maunder said: “Clearly, parenthood is a forever game and it doesn’t get any easier [as children get older]… but from the work and research I’ve done, I know that we lose 27% of women [at work] over that phase where they just feel like it’s just too hard.”
Maunder said wrapped in that was the emotional, financial, physical, logistical chaos of going from a working person to a working parent, adding: “A lot of them don’t make it through that.”
She said dedicated support at work for new parents improved retention, “and yet, the workplace often expects you to come back unchanged and work like you’re not a parent and mums feel huge pressure to parent like they haven’t got a job”, adding that this set people up for failure.
Maunder said there was a difference between organisations that tolerated parents and those that supported them.
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Changing tack as a second-time parent
Daniel Hobbs, CEO of New Leaf Distribution, said the path to parenthood had been challenging, as he and his partner had back-to-back pregnancy losses and were told by doctors that they could never have children, so, when they did get pregnant, it was a “miracle”.
He said: “I think, looking back at the time we had our first child, I hadn’t accepted it. I was so scarred by the first two losses and as a man, I suppose, I felt like I had to be really strong and pick up the pieces of our life. I was so worried and feared that it wouldn’t happen, so when it did happen, I hadn’t accepted the reality.
“Then we went back to work again, and there were so many events on, and I just carried on as normal. I took two weeks off. My wife had a C-section, and I didn’t understand what that meant.”
Hobbs added: “We really had a tough time, my wife resented me, and I just was going on this treadmill, just carrying on like normal, and I missed a lot of stuff with my first child.”
When he had his second child last year, Hobbs had a “completely different outlook”, and his partner had another C-section.
“I knew this time how to prepare for what she would be going through, and it really was an easy decision to make. I’m taking this time off, and my work now is to be your partner. You tell me what to do, I work for you now, and that’s what we did, and it made a massive change,” Hobbs added.
He took three months off work, and his workplace was “really supportive”, especially when he decided to extend from one month to two and then to three.
Putting family life first
Hobbs said: “I realised that I didn’t need to have this ego of thinking that if I’m off work, everything will stop. I had to let go of that and realise the team was fine and they didn’t need me.”
He made a “really conscious effort” not to fall back into old work patterns when he went back full-time.
He added: “If I look back, I really was able to compare two different people. This person who felt like he had to go to every event, or the industry wouldn’t like me, or I’m not going to get respect for my peers. The person I am now is like: ‘What was he thinking?’
“You don’t need to become that to be respected. It’s more important that you take care of your home, take care of the kids, and then your business will thrive because of those decisions.”
Hobbs now does nursery drop-off and pick-up every day and he takes his child to swimming lessons every Tuesday, which is baked into the diary and “sacrosanct”.
He noted that it was important to be a role model and show that it was okay to take time out for your family, rather than hide it.
“You don’t want your staff to resent you as a leader, thinking you can do it because you’re in charge. That’s not a good way to run a business,” Hobbs said.
Balancing parenthood with self-employment
Jodi Spreadbury, senior mortgage and protection adviser at The Mortgage Broker, said that as a self-employed broker, it was crucial to plan her return to work, and the “financial planning involved was wild”.
“I booked my unborn child into the nursery before I told my mum I was pregnant, because being able to plan and have that place for my child and know that I could go back to work was really important for the amount of time that I took off,” she said.
Spreadbury’s daughter was born in January. She went back to work part-time in April, and by July, she was working full-time.
She said: “In this market, the time between taking on a client, advising them, them finding a house, and the whole process completing means that it can take 3-10 months for commissions to come through, meaning there were times where my childcare outweighed what I was earning.
“I could have said, ‘no, I’m not going to go back to work’, but in reality, I really enjoy my job and the mindset of going back to work. I fully understand why people have postnatal depression, because once the novelty is worn off, and everyone’s come to visit you in the first two or three weeks and my husband’s gone back to work, it’s an incredibly isolating time.”
During her first week back at work, Spreadbury’s husband noticed a change in her and told her it was as if she had come back to herself.
She said: “I knew that I needed to go back to work, not just for my own sanity, but I feel like when people said to me, ‘you’re going back to work quite soon’, it doesn’t mean I love my child any less. It just means I need some me time.”
Spreadbury said it was crucial to be able to be honest about how you are feeling as a parent.
In her workplace, she felt able to say if she had a bad night’s sleep and ask for certain tasks to be delayed, or admit she was having a bad day.
Spreadbury said this was important as it gave other people permission to be equally honest and upfront.
