‘I was failing at work and at home': how UK paternity leave is leaving fathers struggling

Telegraph

22-05-2025

After the birth of his youngest son in 2018, the Prince of Wales took two weeks' paternity leave – the UK's statutory allowance for fathers, which remains the worst in Europe. But this could be set to change.
Thanks to ardent campaigning from the Princess of Wales, an increasing number of Britain's businesses are coming round to the need for equal parental leave. As a direct result of her efforts, Deloitte now offers dads six months off work at full pay – a move it is hoped other companies will emulate.
For many fathers, these changes can't come soon enough.
Last week, figures from parent campaign group The Dad Shift and men's health charity Movember showed that 45pc of fathers experience at least two symptoms of clinical anxiety or depression in the first year of their child's life – more than four times higher than previous estimates.
The poll also found that almost one in 15 new dads had felt suicidal during their inaugural year of fatherhood, while one in 12 had experienced frightening thoughts of deliberately harming their child.
Campaigners say that there is an obvious solution: improving paternity leave. This, they say, would help fathers to assuage the emotional, physical and financial turmoil that often follows the birth of a child.
Better paternity leave would have made all the difference to Dan Brown, an engineer who spent just three days of his two weeks' leave at home with his newborn.
After his partner spent 48 hours in labour, she underwent an emergency C-section, leaving her 'in an enormous amount of pain and not able to move by herself,' he says. It also meant spending several more nights in hospital.
The family were sent home, only to be readmitted days later because their daughter was not putting on enough weight. 'It was crazy,' Brown, 37, says of that period. He had saved up annual leave with the idea of using a week or two once his statutory fortnight had ended. But when he raised this with the manager of the firm he'd been with for five years, he was told: 'You need to come back to work.'
Instead of revelling in the joy of becoming a first-time father, caring for his partner and a newborn while running on one or two hours' sleep a night resulted in 'a horrible period of my life and my partner's life, to be honest'. She developed postnatal depression from the strain. Brown ultimately developed it too.
'This huge thing's happened and you want to be there to support [your loved ones], but the reality is your employer drags you back… I don't think it was in the best interest of me or my employer,' he says.
'I would hate to think of the quality of the work they got out of me during that time.'
The tug of war left him feeling completely run down. 'I was failing at work, I was failing at home. When I look back now, all I can think is that the whole thing was utterly pointless.'
The Dad Shift's campaign highlights both the emotional and financial impact of statutory leave, which is paid at a maximum of £187.18 per week – less than half of minimum wage.
Fathers on the average UK wage typically lose more than £1,000 in pay during the designated fortnight – a significant hit given the cost of raising a child is now around £12,400 per year.
This financial hardship is increasingly harming parents' health. PwC analysis suggests that better leave policies could prevent half a million cases of perinatal depression over the next two decades, and save the NHS £1.4bn.
Last month, the Government launched a call for evidence for England's first ever men's health strategy.
Notoriously reticent in seeking help, the concern is that men will continue to suffer in silence as paternity pressures mount. According to The Dad Shift and Movember poll, just 6pc of new fathers experiencing multiple symptoms of depression sought or received treatment from the NHS.
'A financial black hole'
Tom Windle was among the many fathers who felt unable to seek help.
'I became a shell of myself,' says the 30-year-old when looking back at the time of the birth of his first son, who arrived five weeks early in 2018. As a self-employed landscaper, he had planned to take two weeks out of work to look after his child.
But his wife's recovery from an emergency C-section – a procedure now undergone by more than one in 10 mothers in England – required him to spend two months at home, not earning.
She developed postnatal depression, as did he.
'We suffered massively financially because we were not prepared for any of that time off'.
His boss allowed him two weeks of unpaid leave, during which time he began falling behind on bills and payments, and racking up debt on credit. 'It's almost like a black hole that started when our first child was born, that then sucked everything into it.' Eighteen months ago, with almost £50,000 of repayment costs feeling insurmountable, he tried to take his life.
'It was a hard burden to carry, to be honest.'
The constant anxiety over money and pressure to return to earning as soon as possible also affected his relationship with his seven-year-old and second child, now three, Windle says.
To his mind, working meant that 'every day I'd wake up and I'd abandon them. And then it's all the little things as a parent that you appreciate, like the cuddles and the kisses and the empathy and the emotions that children show towards you – I was lacking all of that because I was never really there.
'I was practically a stranger in my own house, just because of this constant fight to try and get back on top of finances.'
'It's just wrong'
It is only in the past couple of months that he has finally got out of the debt that has plagued his family for the past seven years – and Windle is angry that, without fundamental changes to the system, other fathers will end up falling into the same dark hole.
'If minimum wage is deemed to be the minimum you can live off, how are you expected to live with less than half that for two weeks while trying to look after a newborn? Where's the sense in it?' he asks.
Brown, too, laments the shortsightedness of companies with stringent paternity leave policies. He says he 'switched off' from the moment his employers were unsupportive in his time of need, and ultimately left the firm.
Given that a single salary is often no longer enough to cover the costs of raising a family – the UK is the third most expensive country to do so, according to the OECD – both private and public policies have failed to keep up with modern families' needs.
While a series of governments in the UK have repeatedly called for a revocation of our falling birth rates, those who have started a family remain perturbed by the lack of support – and potential damage – this may now wreak.
'There's no two ways about it; it's just wrong,' Windle says of the UK's paltry financial offering for new fathers.
'As far as I'm concerned, the more people who realise it's wrong, hopefully the more likely we are to drive some sort of change, and help other people from falling into the same situation I did.'