Hazel, my granddaughter was one year old recently- where did that year fly to?!
I’ve carefully watched Brendan and Ayla looking after this little treasure and it definitely seems to be quite a different scenario for parents today compared to when I was a young dad.
With the nature of their work (and some COVID thrown into the bargain) both Brendan and Ayla have been able to spend equal time with Hazel, enjoying every little change in her, and why not ?!
If you ignore their particular set of circumstances and imagine life as a “normal” working couple, things would have been quite different.
Ayla would have taken her 26 weeks paid maternity leave and then had to make a decision to extend that by another 16 weeks and then possibly another few weeks. All in all she could spend a year at home with Hazel unless she decided to stop working for a while.
Watching Ayla, I can only imagine how hard it would be for any mother to return to work after spending all of that exclusive time with their baby.
As for Brendan, he would have been able to take his two weeks leave at the beginning and that would be that – his daddy time would be when he gets home from work and weekends.
I can see how he has treasured the last year with Hazel and how amazing is that, but in truth he was one of the very lucky dads.
If you bring “work” into the equation in that normal situation, there would have been huge career disruption for Ayla, and not so much for Brendan.
On one side of the coin there is precious time with the new baby, but with that comes career disruption and on the other side there is little baby bonding time and no career disruption.
What’s the alternative, is there a better way, or is this the only practical solution to bringing our precious children into this world of ours?
Watching Brendan and Ayla with Hazel I think it’s only fair that society creates an equal opportunity for both to be parents and for both to share that precious first year.
Except for the obvious “biological” leave at the beginning, there should be an equal / sharing of the leave, allowing both to enjoy parenting and maintain their careers at the same time
While this might seem like a radical idea to us in Ireland, it is the norm in the Scandinavian countries, and you can understand why.
So, for all the Brendan and Ayla’s out there, maybe some day it could be like that for new parents in Ireland!
Greg
Greg is a partner at Fuzion Communications, a full service Marketing and PR agency with offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland
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