A 6:00am on Tuesday 3rd January the alarm went off to herald a start to the spring term. I would normally be rolling out of bed, showering, hoping the festive period hasn’t had too bad an impact on the fit of my suit and heading out into the gloom on my way to school. But, instead, I was at the start of my six-week chunk of shared parental leave. When Alex, my wife, left for school at 6:50, I was acutely aware that now, for the first time, I was going to be the one solely responsible for caring for our twin daughters Florence and Felicity. Flash forward to 6:00am on Monday 20th February and I was heading back to work, reflecting on one of the greatest experiences of my life. I have discussed my thoughts before I started SPL here, but it exceeded every expectation.
The routine of each day and week was the first thing to get used to. I had spent the 10 months since the end of my two weeks of paternity leave only having a sense of being a parent when my wife and I were parenting together during the school holidays. Looking after twins is tough. Every mealtime is for two, there’s twice the clean-up, double the washing, twofold chance of a night feed and the nappies, oh the nappies. It took me a week before I was really in the swing of things. I was not keen to be stuck to a regimented timetable but there is a benefit to the finding the rhythm of a routine. It was nice to know that some days were taken care of because we had a class or group to go to and other parents to chat with. Baby gymnastics was a chance to really have some fun with the girls in acres of space whilst twins club, run by the amazing Wendy, gave the opportunity to have the kind of conversations that only twin parents can empathise with. The routine was there but I was never afraid to break it when the opportunity arose.
Very early on I decided that six weeks was too short a space of time not to try and seize the opportunity to have experiences with the girls. I tested out my confidence with a trip to the local shopping centre to see how we coped as a trio. Just getting the girls out of the car and into the buggy was an experience. Once you’ve changed a baby’s nappy in the boot in a busy car park it is difficult to be phased by things, which came in hand weeks later when Florence had an almighty “poo-splosion” in the middle of Borough Market. We navigated the various errands and returned in one piece. With this newfound confidence I endeavoured to try something new at least once a week. With a fully stocked nappy bag, plenty of water and snacks (and lunch if you’re out for a long time) and their busy boards I felt confident we could take on any challenge. The mantra was that we would try things and, if something went wrong, we could just head home if need be; but this way we could make some special memories together.
Traditional roles in parenthood in the UK mean that the father is very quickly ripped from the newly formed family and sent back out into the workplace to keep things afloat. Whilst there is some nobility in being the ‘breadwinner’, there is also the pain of returning home and finding out what you missed that day. Parental leave meant I did not miss these moments. In fact, I was in control of them. Every morning, breakfast began with a banana. We developed quite the routine of the girls getting more excited and jumping in their highchairs as I got closer to the fruit bowl, giggling and calling as I peeled, halved and separated it into segments (which, incidentally, it will naturally do if you run your finger down the middle of it). It was this simple joy in relishing food and my part in bringing it about that fortified me for whatever challenges lay ahead in the day. I saw Felicity pull herself up, Florence discover what cats were and when they smiled at each other for the first time. It’s obviously an indictment of our childcare issues as teachers that we couldn’t both be there to see these things. But I at least had some mementos for my mental scrapbook. As I return to work, it’s made me even more conscious of how precious Friday night to Monday morning is and why every Saturday and Sunday starts with a banana, split and shared.
These moments have given us our own bond. The kind that I would never have been able to forge if I had not been able to spend six weeks as their primary care giver as my wife and I came to call it. I was the one they smiled at every morning as I came into their bedroom, who played with them and shared mealtimes. Whilst it is easy to reflect on all the smiles and moments of joy that bond was also forged in the tough moments. Being there for bumps on the head when the confidence to crawl was greater than the technical ability. Being there when the tears flowed and they screamed the house down. Being there when Felicity was violently sick all over herself in bed and I only realised after I had picked her up for a cuddle to comfort her, leading to me holding her in the shower while we cleaned up. It was hard to be on call all day and night, but then this is the exact expectation society places on mothers on maternity leave and sharing a brief half term glimpse of it has helped me understand parenthood better.
Shared parental leave is an exciting opportunity for couples to divide, but also swap responsibilities. Our household has always had some clear divides between responsibilities. I have always done the majority of the cooking and Alex the washing. With leave added to the mix, the responsibilities have fallen more on the person who was with the babies. This presented some initial challenges when I began my portion of leave as I was now having to match the standards that Alex had set. I was never going to achieve this. There were some tense moments at the start, due to my misinterpretation of some key washing instructions, but, the longer I was off school and Alex was the one returning home at the end of a long day, the more we came to understand and appreciate what it is like to be the worker and the domestic in our relationship. As we are now both back at work, this greater ability to work as a team will help our family routine immensely, without any preconceptions or clichéd “roles”.
Any father taking shared parental leave needs to be ready for some unsolicited comments or advice. On my first trip out with the girls on the first day of leave I was asked “giving your wife the day off, are you?” I soon realised that these preconceptions and antiquated views would be shared freely and frequently and that that my response was always to inform them that I was, in fact, the one on leave. There is also the issue of being the only man at a baby group. The mood changes and some mums do struggle to engage or even welcome you to the conversation. But these are minor warnings, the vast majority of people I met were kind, generous and impressed that I had managed to secure this time with the girls. If anything, most lament not having been able to share it themselves.
Any parent with twins needs to be ready for some clichés. No journey out of the house is without one of the three stages of stranger twin recognition. There is the obvious “oh, twins!”, “you’ve got your hands full” and “my (insert varying distances of relative) is/has/knows a twin”. There is the latecomer, who will only declare the previous statements after and they have walked passed you and think you can no longer hear them. Finally, there are the empathisers who are often twin parents themselves and want to tell you how great it is to be a twin parent and to reassure you. The best example of this was while I was feeding Florence and Felicity in the British Museum café and a twin mum came over to me with one of her own twins in a headlock to show me that the strawberry birth mark that Florence has would disappear in time, while showing me the trapped son’s scalp to prove so. These clichés and sense of being ‘on show’ can lead to wonderful moments. Every tube journey was spent in delightful conversation with lovely people who wanted to know more and engage with the smiling twins who were in my care. A particular mention goes to Alan, whom I met at Chorleywood train station and spent an hour with whilst he journeyed to lunch at the Reform Club and I went to the Tate Britain.
As Tom Allen’s blog makes clear, shared parental leave is also a fantastic opportunity to engage in CPD. I seized every available opportunity. The girls visited the British Museum and cried in the Parthenon gallery, which I took to be their commentary on their ownership. We marvelled at the sites on offer at the Science Museum. I took them back to my university days and we really tested the double buggy’s manoeuvrability in the Pitt Rivers Museum. We braved a bitter wind and visited the Museum of London Docklands. Visiting these heritage sites has really enhanced my understanding of how this sector is challenging the colonial past and how it is curated. I was also able to read a lot more than I expected. A combination of hard copy, kindle and audible saw me manage to get through 6 books. I devoured the two History Teacher Book Club reads, finally read Band of Brothers, the superb House of Dudley, and the spellbinding Golden Thread. The highlight of it all was that I met the latter book’s author for a baby date and a new friendship has been forged. I was even able to present at the Practical Histories conference during this time. In many ways I feel this time has super charged my enthusiasm for History and how I want to teach it.
In closing, I hope this has convinced you to give shared parental leave a go. It was a hugely rewarding experience. I have nourished my bonds with my daughters and my wife, fortified my subject knowledge and I feel that I understand myself better. The only downside is the feeling of knowing acutely what I am missing when they are dropped off at the childminder. But that’s a price worth paying for the best six weeks of my life.
History is Everystory 