David O'Mahony: Missing out on decent paternity leave is something I will never get back

The campaign to increase paternity leave from two to eight weeks is welcome but having had so little time with my newborn children, I'm not sure even eight weeks is enough

Your kids mightn’t remember you not being around or busy while they were babies, but you will. And it will bother you, the way it’ll bother you that you couldn’t be around to help your wife more.

There are some things you can’t get back.

Your kids mightn’t remember you not being around or busy while they were babies, but you will. And it will bother you, the way it’ll bother you that you couldn’t be around to help your wife more.

Maybe not all the time. But it will.

This week, we published an article by Emer Harrington about a campaign to increase paternity leave from two to eight weeks. 

One of the men she spoke to, Eoin Leahy, was going back to work after two weeks. His wife had given birth by Caesarean, which requires about six weeks to recover from: “She can’t drive a car, can’t bend over, can’t pick up heavy things. It’s very limited what you can do within the six weeks. So it’s just crazy then with two weeks [leave] for men.” 

Another, James Costelloe, said it was “horrendous” to be leaving his wife and newborn. I know how he feels.

The article brought a lot back to me, even if I’ve had different experiences with our three kids.

There was no statutory paternity leave when our twin boys were born in August 2013. Beloved Wife had been admitted about two weeks beforehand with back and pregnancy-related issues, so I’d been in and out to her with a mix of working (at that stage I worked nights) and days off.

I had been holding on to my annual leave allowance so I could take two weeks after my wife came out of hospital with all the joys of post-emergency Caesarean and two screaming little boys, one of whom was so small he managed to wriggle out of the ankle bracelet CUMH puts on babies.

There’s a clarity that comes with fatherhood. I mean, there’s also the immediate “Jesus Christ, how are they letting me home with two small people”, but mostly there was the clarity, at least in my case, that something I didn’t know was missing had clicked.

But the time available just wasn’t enough. Other countries either allow for higher rates of paternity pay or allow both parents to divide parental leave between them. And that’s as it should be. You feel like you’re hitting something of a groove and then you’re somewhat derailed.

James Costello told this newspaper it was 'horrendous' to be leaving his wife and newborn. I know how he feels.

As Ryan Reynolds once put it, your wife has done the hard part because she’s literally ejected a tiny (or sometimes not so tiny) person from herself. Changing nappies, bottle feeds, and all the other essentials are small things in comparison. Get on with them.

And then the leave runs out, and you’re back in the throes of whatever counts for regular life in this day and age.

Twin 2, because of his size, needed to be fed more regularly than his brother, who to this day is far bigger than him. That meant the boys only lined up for bottle feeds twice a day. I took as many as I could, but then the leave was done. Just straight up done. I was normally home before midnight, so took the nighttime feeds, which sometimes had such a short window between each other that it wasn’t worth going back to sleep.

If we hadn’t had family a few minutes away, we probably both would have melted into a puddle.

Would I have taken more time with them if I could? Absolutely. Do I still sometimes beat myself up for not being able to do it, even though it was completely out of my hands? Absolutely. As it was, I ended up going back to an enormously difficult project that absorbed even more of the time I would have preferred to spend with my wife and babies.

At one point a female colleague said getting out to work must be a break from the twins but, frankly, I’ve never thought like that about my kids at all. And my wife was the one shouldering more of it, anyway, with me stretched across early mornings and late nights at work.

When Daughter was born in 2018 — emerging into the hands of a doctor so suddenly she made the woman yelp — paternity leave existed and was welcome, but if you blinked you missed it. I was fortunate to have a sympathetic employer (this one — hello, HR!) who let me add annual leave on to that paternity time. 

That, though, was mostly possible because it was at the very end of November, so there was less competition for holiday time among staff. I recall coming back for a few days around Christmas in a sort of bewildered haze.

I gladly took the hit in my pay packet for the sake of more time with my wife and the children; by that stage, Twin 1’s autism had become clear, and life was stressful — the stress never really stops in families experiencing disabilities — but we couldn’t have afforded to have us both on leave for an extended period. If the possibility had been there, I would have taken it.

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Even if, as I write this, Daughter is slouching through the house like a moody teenager because she’s been told to do her homework.

I’m not sure even eight weeks is enough for paternity leave, at the rates it’s paid. Maternity leave isn’t paid enough either, and the cost of childcare after it are insane.

At one point, one of my sons said he’d like to be a husband when he grew up, which was quite lovely and makes me think we’ve done a good job there. He wants to be a programmer now. I’m not sure if that means we’ve slipped or not. I guess we’ll see.

I just hope that by the time he gets to experience fatherhood, if he wants to, that he’ll have more time to spend on the things that matter most and not feeling like he’s missed out on something he can’t get back.