REAL BRITAIN 'I tried to kill myself after son's birth sparked debt - paternity rules must change'

When Tom and Kayleigh Windle’s son Charlie was born five weeks early, it had a devastating financial effect on their family.

Kayleigh, 29, needed an emergency Caesarean, and Tom, a self-employed landscaper, had to stop work immediately to take care of his wife and child. He so they maxed out their borrowing to get by.

"As a man you really feel it when you can’t provide financially – you feel like you should be able to provide for your wife and child," Tom, 30, from Wiltshire, says. "My wife had post-natal depression after Charlie was born and I . The financial uncertainty was awful. Because the baby came early, we were caught out.

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"Last year, I actually tried to take my own life. I’m in a much better place now but the financial pressure was a part of it. It’s been really hard."

Tom’s baby son is now seven years old – but the couple only finally paid off the debt earlier this year. And it left him wondering why the UK doesn’t do more to support dads.

"We’re so behind other European countries where men are entitled to paternity pay and can take shared leave – up to a year off," he says. "It’s embarrassing how little the UK is doing. We don’t want to live like kings – but they don’t seem to want to invest in families."

A national conversation about fatherhood and masculinity sparked by the series, ‘Adolescence’ and Gareth Southgate's comments about "toxic influencers" regularly decries absent dads – and warns how other male role models are using the vacuum to define masculinity. Yet the UK’s paternity leave provision is one of the worst in Europe.

Today to mark the 22nd anniversary of ’s introduction of Statutory Paternity Leave, 35 Labour MPs will host meet ups with working dads in constituencies from Stirling in to St Austell in Cornwall.

A landmark achievement of the previous Labour government, new research from campaign group The Dad Shift shows the policy radically transformed our social fabric – benefiting four million babies, fathers and families since its introduction in April 2003.

Back then, Prime Minister described paid paternity leave as the “new frontier” of the welfare state, saying he regretted missing some of his youngest son Leo's early life.

But, while groundbreaking when introduced, the UK's paternity leave has not been improved since – offering just two weeks at less than half the minimum wage, and no entitlement for self-employed people.

When his son Frank was born, Kurtis Simon, an education administrator, found out he was too new to his job to be eligible for statutory or employer-funded paternity pay.

"I just missed the threshold to qualify for any pay by a week," says the 39-year-old, from West London. “It’s hard because you can’t always plan when you have a baby. Sadly, we suffered two miscarriages before the baby so you just don’t know – or how long the will last, how the birth will go.

"You need to have done 25 weeks in the job before the last 15 weeks of the pregnancy and I just missed that. We had wanted to take a shared parental leave, so we could have a year with our baby, but me not qualifying meant we couldn’t do that.

"It’s not just dads affected, it’s the whole family. My wife had to go back to work when the baby was five months old."

Kurtis took a week’s holiday, then another four weeks unpaid leave – which made an impact on the family’s finances and added to their anxiety as new parents.

He had recently moved jobs so found himself in the same position again when his second child – a little girl called Otti – arrived in March. "I cut my days down to four at first to manage the childcare,” he says. “But it was those first few weeks where we felt the pressure most. Bonding with a new-born, being there for your family – what’s more important? But then there’s the rising cost of living."

A new survey for The Dad Shift and Movember by More In Common, found robust support for active fatherhood across all classes and the political spectrum. In polling, 86% of the public agree "it’s better when both parents have real opportunities to be equally active caregivers to their children" and 75% agree "boys learn more about being a man from how their father cares for and involves themselves in their life” than just from "protecting and providing" alone.

Yet many men experience resistance to taking paternity leave at all.

"I took a week on full pay and less than two weeks unpaid," Matthew, a former police officer told us. "My wife had an emergency C-section, and she couldn’t lift anything for six weeks so needed me to help. It would have been impossible if I hadn’t been there.

"We just had to do without the money. It was a really hard time. I didn’t feel like I was being supported at all. When I went back to work you could tell people weren’t happy about the time I took off.

"That time to be with your baby and to bond is invaluable. We should be empowering men."

This Labour Government has committed to making paternity leave a day-one right of employment and is reviewing parental leave – with father-of-three Justin Madders MP, who will lead the review, among those hosting a meetup today.

Josh Simons, Labour MP for Makersfield, is another who will be listening. "As a dad myself, I want us to start talking openly about supporting dads better, and to push political changes which matter to men," he says.

"There’s a tendency to see men's mental health, masculinity as liberal, urban issues. That's not true. I knock on doors every week and meet young men and dads who don't feel listened to, supported, or represented. That is wrong, and it is dangerous."

Alex Lloyd Hunter, co-founder of The Dad Shift, says reform is now urgent. "The most important thing fathers can provide their families with, and their boys in particular, is their presence," he says.

"We're encouraged to see so many MPs across the country listening to dads' experiences today. The upcoming review is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to both transform support for fathers and help address the growing challenges highlighted by shows like Adolescence.

"Active fathers help protect boys from the message of toxic influencers, and we need to do more to support them - starting with improving the UK's paternity leave.

"We are not going to stand by while men who punch down, disrespect women and play the victim claim to define masculinity - let alone teach that to our sons."