Dad on paternity leave? Some have suggested that’s not very manly.

I can see the playground from my window. Not a single father before 3:00 p.m.

If they took time off for childcare, you’d probably see them. But I’ve never met a man who’d use it. That’s why, it wasn’t easy for me after I decided on my own parental leave. Out of thirty-two weeks that both parents are entitled to, I used twelve. And I quickly felt alone among guys.

For example, my wife was already pregnant and signed up for forums for future mothers. She met women with similar due dates. Thanks to this, she was able to go out with our son and friends to children’s workshops, parks, and cafés. For me, however, it was impossible. Firstly, I couldn’t find a single forum for dads. Secondly, none of them took a leave of absence for childcare. Of course, I still had college buddies who became parents at the same time. But I never suggested that we take the kids and go out. It would make me feel... awkward.

Why?

Because some men still think they can only meet for beer, not to walk with their kids in the zoo. ‘Then maybe you should talk to some mothers?’, my wife once suggested. Yes, I talked to them. But it’s not the same. Even though we were all parents, we had different experiences with children. I felt there was a connection between these women. After all, they had similar experiences – difficult births, traumas after them, sore breasts. It didn’t concern me directly. And so it seemed to me that some mothers preferred to have contact with my son rather than his father.

So when was the first time you thought about parental leave?

Before my wife’s pregnancy, somewhere in the middle of 2019. That’s when I told her: ‘I’d like to share your leave’. She said yes without a problem. Perhaps because we’ve always shared our responsibilities.

For the record, we didn’t decide to have a baby because it was the right thing to do. We had already settled down. We had our own flat in Warsaw. When my wife got pregnant, she was twenty-eight. She worked in sales. I, on the other hand, was a thirty-year-old holding a managerial position in the IT industry. We treated maternity and parental leave like a showstopper, something that will allow us to stop for a while. But not too long so as we don’t screw up our careers. That is why I took the initiative of my own leave, thanks to which my wife could return to work sooner.

We found out about the pregnancy a few months later. The moment was perfect – 2019 was coming to an end, and soon we switched to remote work due to the coronavirus. Then my wife and I enrolled in childbirth school. That’s where we divided our basic responsibilities around the baby. For example, we agreed that I would be responsible for the baths and she would be responsible for putting the baby to sleep because she wanted to breastfeed our son.

So very conscious parenting.

Yeah, that approach made me realise that life wasn’t gonna be the same any more. For example, I quickly accepted the interruption in doing sports. I practised various disciplines – football, running, triathlon – for twenty years. In high school, I would get out of a party before midnight to be able to play with my football team in the morning. My friends used to call me a bore and a loser. When I went to work, I trained a little less – about ten hours a week. That’s why, before the birth of my son, I decided to participate in the longest run in my life. After running 60 kilometres, I easily suspended my sports career so that I could take care of my son on an equal footing with my wife. And it wouldn’t have been possible if it hadn’t been for parental leave.

Some people wondered why you were taking it.

I decided on it because I met some fathers who had no contact with their own children. They treated them like energy leeches. I even heard from one guy: ‘I love my dog more than my child. Because if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have to help my wife, who doesn’t want to have sex any more’. For him, his daughter was an unpleasant duty.

On the other hand, I heard other fathers praising their contact with the child. They said they were taking them for bike rides or ice cream. However, when the little one wanted something from them, they were sent to the mother. I didn’t want to repeat that scenario in my own family. And that’s why I took the parental leave. It created a balance between me and my wife. And in this equilibrium, it wasn’t enough to take the child to the yard. I had to be able to change his nappy.

However, I would like to point out that I have no objection to men. Not all of them – for various reasons – can afford a paternal or parental leave.

How did your employer react to your leave?

I decided to take time off when my son was to be nine months. But I informed the company the first day after his birth. It was nothing brave because I knew my employer. He came from Scandinavia, where men often take time off to take care of their children. In addition, he repeated many times at company meetings that he had a pro-family attitude. Nevertheless, the Swedish boss reacted with considerable surprise to my leave. Because for the first time in a 500-person company, a Polish man planned to go on parental leave. However, the supervisor did not cause me any problems because of this. I just had to train someone to cover for me.

My surroundings reacted differently to the news of the leave. I come from a small village in Mazovia. And there, and in the whole neighbourhood, I became a sensation. Interestingly, my parents, even when I was on my leave, didn’t ask me any specific questions about my son. They always asked my wife. The others did the same – they only asked my wife how she felt as a parent, what the child likes to eat or whether he sleeps well. I had the impression that society assigned us to stereotypical gender roles. That a woman is responsible for upbringing, and a man for his job.

Wait, is this the first time you’re talking about your fatherhood?

If you don’t count my wife, yes.

I could really know everything about our child, and yet I felt like an incompetent parent in the eyes of many people. This may be specific to Poland, but most of us assume that parenting is a mother and her child. See how few people talk about postpartum depression in men. And they also experience it, although less often, of course.

Were you the object of jokes because of your leave?

Not directly. Some, however, suggested that it was not manly enough. Some also asked: ‘Why should your wife go back to work because of you? If you’re in IT, you must make a lot of money. Can’t you afford to support your family?’. I admit, I was very surprised to hear that. Firstly, no one asked my wife’s opinion, telling her what she should do. Secondly, no one thought either: maybe the guy wants to be with his own child and relieve the burden on his wife?

Paradoxically, the pandemic helped me get closer to my son. When he was born, my wife took maternity leave, and I was already working remotely. I didn’t waste my time on commuting. At 4:01 p.m., I closed my laptop and never worked extra hours. Among other things, so that my wife could finally rest, get some air. When she was taking care of the baby, I wasn’t just observing, I was participating in everything. A month after childbirth, it was no problem for me to stay with my son longer. I already knew how to calm him down, how to massage his tummy. It’s not so obvious to all fathers. Because I had a friend who didn’t spend all day with his five-year-old daughter. And this was because the little girl cried with him.

But remote work also had its dark sides. When I talked to my clients on the webcam, my son often started to cry. My wife felt the pressure to calm him down. He would scream even more then. Well, it wasn’t easy mentally. Our fatigue was exacerbated by our son’s problems with sleep. He slept at most forty minutes in one sitting. At night he kept waking up, and during the day he was almost always awake. For nine months. Of course, we went to all the doctors with him. We even had a sleep coach visit. Nothing worked. After 4 or 5 a.m., my son did not want to sleep. Then I took care of him for two or three hours, so that my wife, tired of waking up and feeding, could sleep. She took over the baby around 7:00. I looked at her with admiration and compassion – not only was she exhausted by pregnancy and childbirth, but now she couldn’t even rest.

And it wasn’t easy for me either. Everyone warned me: ‘The hardest thing for you to do is to survive the first three months of your child’s life’. I put that in my head. And unfortunately, I was very disappointed – after that time, my son’s colic didn’t pass. The fourth month turned out to be harder than the third, and the fifth even worse than the fourth.

What changed when you switched to parental leave?

My wife returned to work, although she still performed it remotely. I, on the other hand, abandoned all the stress associated with my position. It was just me and my son. No phone calls from the company, no client calls, no training. I finally felt like I was getting as much knowledge about the child as I needed. ‘Cause I kind of missed it from the beginning. I thought fathers and mothers started parenting on different levels. When a woman gets pregnant, she can go on sick leave. Then she has time to take a break from work, read books about children, be with herself, and prepare mentally to be a mother. And a father? He was at work yesterday, and today he has to go to the hospital to pick up his wife and child. Then you can see right away how far behind he was. And if after three months he still doesn’t enter into the modes of taking care of his daughter or son, then it will be even more difficult for him.

When I was on my leave, however, I had a slightly easier situation than my wife. After all, I was already taking care of an older and slightly more organised child. Plus, my time off fell in June. This allowed me to go out with my son for longer walks. My wife and I decided to enrol him in a nursery in mid-August. First for two hours, then for four. And it was really hard for me. When I was driving the kid to the facility, I felt useless. I was coming home, looking at my working wife, and I had the impression that I was like Al Bundy. The feeling was even stronger, because before my schedule was filled to the brim. And now I didn’t know what to do.

Get some rest!

Exactly. And I behaved completely differently – I went back to training for the triathlon. Among other things, because I gained ten kilos during the pandemic. Then I started working during this break as well. I set up meetings with clients and passed the knowledge on to my deputies.

What challenges did you face during your leave?

A sense of alienation and loneliness that bothered me right after I left the house. I attended a music class for kids. Nine mothers and I participated in them. Playground, café, grocery store? It was the same. I felt like a stranger from an alien planet there or... a paedophile. Women whispered about me, and I thought, ‘Dude, what are you doing here?!’.

When I took my son for a walk in the afternoon or at weekends, no one was surprised to see me. It was even worse when I walked with a stroller in the morning on a weekday. That’s when I felt people’s eyes on me. And the contempt in their eyes that said, ‘Oh, he must be unemployed!’ or ‘I wonder where the child’s mother is’. Any other situations? I had to change my son’s nappy at the mall. Unfortunately, the only changing table was available in the ladies’ room. When I went to the diner, it was the same thing. I asked the waiter if I could quickly change my son in the room. They refused. Have you ever noticed what happens in a public space when a child cries? If his mother is with him or her, people often say: ‘Oh dear, poor thing’. And when the child is with their father: ‘Yeah, he took a baby once and (s)he’s screaming’.

But it’s not just people who are surprised at fathers on parental leaves. Their partners and wives also do this.

Indeed, research by the Polish Share The Care Foundation has shown that mothers are reluctant to share their leave with fathers.

I understand them. They feel a bond with the child and they don’t want to leave them. But some of them do not give fathers a chance to stay with the child on their own. And when men get it, they often hear, ‘Don’t play with the baby like that!’, ‘Be careful, or you’ll hurt him/her’, ‘(S)he doesn’t fall asleep like that. Wait, I’ll do it’. I also noticed that some mothers consult the child’s upbringing mainly with their parents and in-laws, not with their husband. No wonder the guy’s afraid to take care of his son or daughter.

What would you have lost if it wasn’t for this leave?

A bond with my son. It can’t be bought or replaced. And just as importantly, I would also lose my wife’s trust. If she wanted to go away for a week today, I would do just as well as she would.

Yes, I learned many things in the first nine months of our child’s life. But it wasn’t until after my leave that I noticed his attitude change towards me. It’s like he felt like he had two parents. Good, ‘cause I never wanted him to just see me as the guy who takes him away from his beloved mum for ten minutes of play. Thanks to my leave, I proved to myself that a father can be as good a parent as a mother. Besides, I have always hated gender stereotypes assigned to these roles. That mum is associated with tenderness, and dad sets the limits. A parent is a parent.

This view of paternity came from my childhood. My dad died when I was 18 months old. I don’t remember him. I grew up with a stepfather. And he and my mum were telling me from the beginning that after high school they won’t have money for private school, to support me. That’s why if I wanted to study, I had to get into a state college. I felt the pressure of it. The day of my final exam, I moved to the capital. I qualified for the Warsaw University of Technology. I had to take care of myself, which is why I never expected anyone to wash my clothes, cook or clean up for me. Then I studied in Japan and the United States. I wish for my son not to feel the pressure I feel. That’s why my wife and I are preparing him for the road ahead. And he has to take it on his own.

 

 

Michał Bardadyn – manager at an IT company. For several years he taught at the Children’s University (in 2013 he was chosen as the best lecturer). He recently took three months of parental leave. 

Author:  Łukasz Pilip

Photo:  Dawid Żuchowicz / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

The text was published in „Wysokie Obcasy” a magazine of „Gazeta Wyborcza” on 4 December 2021