‘I went back to work the day after my child was born. Paternity leave is a nightmare for dads like me’

About six weeks before the birth of Theo Webster’s daughter Sophia, his ex-wife suddenly fell ill, and when she was hospitalized, the couple learned she had a kidney infection.

Mr Webster said that day quickly turned into a life-or-death situation and he had to undergo an emergency caesarean section.

The 32-year-old from Devon, who runs an electrical services business, thought he had six more weeks to save until his daughters’ arrival.

However, because she could not afford to leave work, she had to return to work the next day, a few hours after the birth of her premature child.

For the first two weeks after Sophia’s birth, she and her mother had to stay in the hospital, cared for separately.

Mr. Webster went to the hospital every evening after long days of manual labor and spent only an hour with his wife and baby.

“It was really worrying because I didn’t know if we were going to lose either of them. It was really stressful not being able to have any contact with them during the day and having to go there late at night to keep track of what was going on,” he said.

Last Monday tradespeople traveled to Westminster to campaign for paternity leave for self-employed fathers. Alongside paternity leave campaign group The Dad Shift, they handed out condoms to MPs saying “this lasts longer than our paternity leave”.

Currently, self-employed fathers do not have the right to take paternity leave, while self-employed mothers can receive maternity benefit for up to 39 weeks.

But the government is currently conducting an 18-month review into parental leave and pay, which started last July. The review aims to examine all types of leave, including paternity, to make the system fairer and easier to use.

“The first few weeks are really important for bonding with your child,” Mr. Webster said. “That’s a huge problem. At the end of the day, as a father, you can’t get those moments back, it’s something you can’t quite replicate. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.”

“We’re not doing this for ourselves. We’re doing this for other fathers… We’ve been there and didn’t have that opportunity, but we want others to have that opportunity, too.”

Josh Newbury is one of many MPs who support their call.

The Labor MP for Cannock Chase said the estimated cost of introducing the changes would be between £13 million and £38 million, which was “peanuts for the government”.

“We want equality with everyone in the first place and we want self-employed fathers to have the option of receiving two weeks’ salary,” he said.

“I think this will make a huge difference for a lot of families, especially the people that the government is trying to reach, people who are really struggling and making choices out of financial necessity and not out of desire.”

Mr Newbury, a father himself, said there had always been a perception that self-employed people were doing things on their own, but in reality many were unable to look after their children.

“When you can’t handle the financial hit, you don’t really have a choice, and I think we want dads to at least have that option.”

Among those calling on the government is Norfolk cabler Tony Skilbeck, who had to travel 360 miles away for work on the Monday after the birth of his son Ned.

With a mortgage, bills and a newborn baby to support, Mr Skilbeck had no choice but to leave his wife Lisa to care for their baby alone all day and night.

“They don’t share the workload. They do 100 percent of it. I was lucky, I was able to come home for a weekend, but she still has four or five days to herself to raise the baby.”

Mr Skilbeck, who was unable to take more than a few days off work when his daughter Kitty, now 19, was born, said he missed the worst part of the job.

Now he’s calling on the government to make changes in the hope that future fathers, like him, don’t miss out on this opportunity.

Alice Lester, who is four months pregnant with her first baby, already knows she will have limited help from her self-employed partner Andy, who works in the carpentry business.

The Oxfordshire couple haven’t had much money for their children and Andy will have to go back to work immediately.

Miss Lester, whose family lives far away, is terrified at the thought of being herself after giving birth.

“I’ll basically be on my own with the baby. This will be my first child, so everything will be very new,” she said.

“I’m going to have a lot to take care of, and if there’s something wrong with me or my baby, or I’m struggling to get better, then I don’t have that support system around me, and there’s the worry that at that point I’m going to feel like I need it more than ever, on my own, without support.

“Knowing that I may not end up getting the support I want makes this a worrying prospect rather than an exciting one.”

He knows it’s also stressful for his partner; he is caught between wanting to be there himself and needing to support his family financially.

“If you pay into the system… I would like to have at least two weeks of state-supported paternity leave, so that not only the father can spend time with his child, but the child’s mother is also supported and the baby is supported.

Jordan Hook, a heating engineer at Oxford, had a boy born five months ago with health problems affecting his bowels.

He needed surgery within 12 hours of being born and Mr Hook had to take three weeks off work to help care for his son.

“It was obviously quite difficult for the family and there was no support for myself,” he said.

“I wasn’t getting any money, and you kept looking at the bank and saying, ‘Do I have enough money? My mortgage is due. Can I pay it off?’ you think. And then it’s putting food on the table at night.

He said the lack of paternity leave was a big problem that needed to be changed for the sake of future fathers.

“If my son went into business or became self-employed, would I want the same for him? If he had kids and something went wrong, would I want him to stress about it? The answer is no.”

George Gabriel, co-founder of The Dad Shift, said: “This is the most active generation of dads the UK has ever seen and this is true across all social groups and across the country.

“The people most disappointed by the least generous paternity offer in Europe are working-class men who work for two weeks for less than half the minimum wage and have absolutely nothing if you are self-employed.”

Responding to Mr Newbury’s calls to review paternity leave for self-employed fathers as part of the ongoing parental leave review, Business Secretary Kate Dearden said: We know the parental leave system needs to improve and recognize that the current system is not adequate to support the many fathers and partners who want to be actively involved and hands-on in the care of their children.

“That’s why the review is so important. All current and future parental leave and pay entitlements will be taken into account and options to improve support for British working families will be examined.”