Reading Ilyas Nagdee’s article (14 January) about taking eight months of paternity leave and the profound difference it has made to his family struck a deep chord with me and my partner. The piece beautifully captures the joy, closeness and rebalancing that meaningful paternity leave can bring, and it makes a compelling case for why this time matters so deeply.
But as we read it, we were also struck by what was missing. The article does not mention self-employed or freelance parents at all, and that absence reflects a wider pattern in the current conversation about paternity leave reform. For families like ours, it is impossible to read about extended paid leave without also feeling the sharp edge of exclusion.
My partner is self-employed. Like many freelancers, he already lives with significant stress and instability in his working life. Under the current system, he would not even be entitled to the two weeks of statutory paternity leave that employed fathers can access, let alone any form of extended leave. Taking meaningful time with a newborn would mean taking unpaid leave, losing income entirely, or attempting to juggle work and care at the most intense moment of family life.
As a result, my partner and I find ourselves in a painful limbo. We very much want a child and to start our family, yet we feel paralysed by anxiety about how we would cope in those early months without any form of paternity support. We are even considering whether to delay starting a family in the hope that this might change as part of the government’s review, despite knowing that I have limited years left in which to make that choice. The fact that people are weighing up such deeply personal decisions based on employment status alone feels profoundly wrong.
Extended paternity leave has the potential to transform family life, support partners, and challenge entrenched inequalities around care. But unless reform explicitly includes self-employed parents, it risks reinforcing the idea that shared parenting and early bonding are privileges reserved for those in secure, salaried work.
If we are serious about valuing care and family life, then self-employed parents cannot continue to be overlooked. Any meaningful reform must recognise the realities of modern work and ensure that all families have the chance to be together at the very beginning.
Ruby Bayley
Edinburgh
