Shared Parental Leave (ShPL) gives you more choice in how you care for your child during their first year. If you’re a working parent, you can opt to share up to 50 weeks leave, and up to 37 weeks of statutory shared parental pay with your partner.
There are several ways you can use ShPL – having time off together or at different times, depending on your own circumstances.
Jon, who is serving in the REME and his wife Wendy, an NHS dentist, decided to take full advantage of their ShPL time together. Jon tells us how it all started…
We have two girls, Leah and Heidi, who were aged two and three months respectively when we started our ShPL experience.
Wendy shared five months of her maternity leave with me, which meant I could take five months ShPL and some annual leave at the same time Wendy was off work.
We did a smaller trip after Leah was born, so we had a good idea of what we could achieve. Wendy’s first words on discovering she was pregnant were, “I’m pregnant! Where shall we go travelling?”, and that’s where it all started.
After much deliberation we decided on central Europe for three months in our caravan, followed by Australia for two months via Thailand and Abu Dhabi. We tried our best to think big, ignored the naysayers and started to plan our adventure.
FIRST STAGE
Wendy planned our route through Europe from Dunkirk to the edge of the Alps and back. We went through Belgium, Holland, Germany, along the Austrian border, then to France and Luxembourg.
We passed wine regions and followed the Romantic Road in Germany where we visited Rothenberg, the most stunning town I have ever seen.
Our halfway point was Oberstdorf, just in the Alps. Here we took cable cars up mountains, tobogganed down hillsides and watched ski jumpers doing their summer training.
Our return journey went via Lake Constance and the Black Forest where we enjoyed a toddler theme park where adults acted as the ride operators. We enjoyed live music, a community-run circus and various swimming pools. We visited Strasbourg, Luxembourg and Lille and marvelled at their beautiful architecture and ancient monuments.
From France we returned to Bristol for a quick pitstop, had some family catch-ups and then packed our bags for part two of our adventure.
SECOND STAGE
Our journey started in Bangkok where we caught up with an old friend, Pun, who I trained with at Sandhurst. He took us to see ancient temples and elephants. We saw as much of Bangkok as we could before departing for Australia.
By now Leah enjoyed flying, she loved learning about take-off and landings, when to pull back on her imaginary control stick and when to hit the brakes. Making the experience fun made flying with a toddler much easier, although it didn’t help with the 3am jet lag!
In Australia we discovered wildlife everywhere, fantastic play parks and pristine beaches with showers and barbecues for all to use.
The beach soon became our playground, and the kids loved it. They grew in confidence as they played in the surf and enjoyed being pulled along on a bodyboard.
We visited theme parks, went swimming in a shark enclosure and stroked the slimy wings of rays. We sat with kangaroos and watched sleeping koalas, all to the girls’ delight.
To explore more of Australia, Wendy planned a road trip to Sydney. Along the way we visited rainforest parks, great canyons and the Blue Mountains, as well as an old hideout of the infamous highway man, Captain Thunderbolt. It was here that Leah asked if Captain Morgan would be there! (No prizes for guessing what we were drinking in the evenings.)
We saw many animals in the wild, and on one occasion Leah was the first to see a wallaby as we walked through a wood – the experience made her day.
At Sydney we surfed and played on Bondi Beach, walked along the most spectacular coastline and visited the maritime museum, where Leah loved going through the Second World War submarine and playing pirates on the deck of a tall ship.
On our return journey we visited a lighthouse on a protruding headland where we saw 20-30 migrating whales. One breached every time it came up for air and others had calves by their side. We sat in awe for nearly two hours, amazed at the sea life in front of us.
Australia was a great place to travel with children. Wildlife was abundant and the ocean teemed with life.
LAST LEG
Lastly, we flew to Abu Dhabi; a land of wealth and a mixing pot of world cultures. We visited the incredibly exquisite Presidential Palace and Grand Mosque, we went driving in the sand dunes, rode a camel and watched the sunset from the desert. It was truly amazing and a world so different to any other we had visited.
After four days in Abu Dhabi we flew back to the UK, and it didn’t take long before our minds started to think about our next adventure.
When Wendy first mentioned taking ShPL, I thought “I can’t leave work for several months”. But Wendy responded with “it’s no different to women taking maternity leave” – she had a point.
I had some mental blocks to taking ShPL, but having spent every day for six months with my family, it has been the most fantastic experience and as a result I have developed a closer bond with my children.
To be part of all the fun we had, as well as the hard times, and all the lifelessons we learnt, is something I will be forever thankful for. I know it will pay dividends in the future development of our children, whilst giving us memories for a lifetime.
Our advice is to take ShPL, if you can. Take as much and do as much as you can, think big and be bold. Ignore the naysayers and seek to create an experience that will stay with you all forever.
For more information about the Armed Forces Occupational Shared Parental Leave Scheme, see Chapter 27 of JSP 760 and check your personal eligibility on the ShPL page on Discover My Benefits or by speaking to your unit admin team.