Pip & Nut boss: My partner took nine months off to look after our baby. I want to normalise it
When Pip & Nut CEO Pippa Murray had a baby, it was her husband who took nine months off. She says it’s time to rebalance parental leave
As a founder-CEO, I make the high-stakes decisions that transformed my company Pip & Nut from a market stall in London to a £40m+ brand stocked in every major supermarket.
But as soon as I told people I was pregnant, the assumption was the same: how long are you taking off work? No one asked my partner what his plan was. They figured he’d be back at work in 2-4 weeks, whereas my career would be put on hold. After all, how could I manage leading a high-growth business while caring full-time for a newborn?
That’s why we decided to do something different.
When our daughter was born, my partner took nine months of parental leave as the primary carer. He was there to look after our daughter in her earliest moments, while I phased back into work.
This decision allowed me to support my business during a critical growth period, without having to worry about whether my daughter was being cared for. But the underlying comments, no matter how well intentioned, were constant. People asked who was looking after the baby. They were shocked or felt sorry for me that I went back to work. It was impossible to forget that ‘swapping roles’ still wasn’t seen as normal – even though most fathers go back to work faster than I did.
That’s because the culture around parental leave in the UK, plus the policies that shape it, make sharing leave nearly impossible for most families. The consequences are predictable and long-term.
Policy still does not support shared parental leave
Childcare still determines who can participate fully in the workforce, who is able to sustain leadership over time, and who can take on the risks required to grow a business or accept a demanding promotion.
We ask why fewer women scale high-growth businesses, why we step back from leadership roles in our thirties and forties, why we continue to earn so much less than our partners, even years after maternity leave.
We talk about confidence, imposter syndrome, resilience and “leaning in”. But we ignore a truth that is far more practical, and far less flattering for our country. Who is doing the nursery run when a meeting overruns? Who is on call when a child is ill? Who is juggling the packed bags, the appointments, the birthday presents and the emergency childcare plan? In most cases, it still falls to women.
Shared parental leave was introduced to rebalance the scale, but for many families, it is neither financially nor culturally viable.
Even when a company offers enhanced parental leave policies, these standards typically only apply to maternity leave. Families sharing leave are stuck on statutory pay, which is often far too low for extended leave to be a realistic choice, especially when fathers are the higher earners.
As a result, long periods of leave are still seen as unusual for men, and consequently a material career and financial risk. It’s a self-reinforcing cycle, where women become the de facto caretakers. But the government’s parental leave review presents an opportunity to build a new system.
Britain lags Europe
Right now, British paternity policies are the worst in Europe, with only two weeks paid leave. By enhancing paternity leave – ideally to match maternity leave – we could lay the groundwork to lift women up in the workplace, enable men to be more present in their children’s lives and create a system where care is equal.
Organisations like The Dad Shift are doing critical work campaigning for these changes. But until then, it’s on us, the people who run companies, to start building the culture that will create this change. It’s why Pip & Nut has an equal parental leave policy, protecting mothers’ right to take their full period of leave while also empowering fathers to take more.
None of this implies shared leave is easy. Juggling the demands of returning to work with the logistics of breastfeeding and bedtime was as challenging as it sounds.
But shared leave meant I could become a parent without feeling like I’d lost myself in the process. My partner got to build an incredible bond with our daughter that many dads are still denied, and I continued to be both a CEO and a new mum, paving the way for a balanced approach to childcare as she’s gotten older.
We forged a path that worked for us. Becoming a parent is always hard, but the challenge now is building a parental leave system where all parents are empowered to make whatever choice works best for their family – instead of assuming women will always be the ones left holding the baby.
Pippa Murray is the founder and CEO of Pip & Nut