# The stigma of men asking for parental leave

- **Episode:** [191](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/191.md) (2025-04-24)
- **Type:** interview
- **Tags:** parental-leave, stigma, men
- **Time:** 16:24–18:19 (start 984s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/191?t=984](https://truthliesandwork.com/191?t=984)

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[16:24] Al Elliott: If a man wants to go and ask for time off so they can— some parental leave. I wonder if there's a stigma attached to that for a man going to a boss and saying, I want some time off compared to a woman. And the second question, the second part of that question is, if it's a smaller business, are we not just, are we not just then putting more and more pressure on the business that now 100% of all our employees get parental leave?
[16:50] Amit Singh Kalley: So in answer to your first question, I think yes, I think there is still a stigma associated with men asking for parental leave. I think in the work that I do and the people that I sort of work with, I think the thought around parenting is still very much that it is mom's job and dad should be the breadwinner. I think from a cultural point of view, certainly in my Sikh and South Asian and Indian kind of culture, I think it's very much the case that Mums should be looking after the children and dads should be out working. Yes, it's changing. It's changing slowly, but it is changing. So I think that stigma probably still does exist. I think some men probably feel that they're gonna, you know, be made to look like an idiot if they go into the boss and say, I need some parental leave. But that does need to change, of course. And the second question, yeah, of course it puts pressure on businesses. Of course it does. But a business has got to work out whether they are willing to take up that pressure and say, okay, we're going to give shared parental leave and we're going to allow people to take the time off they need on the basis that those people are going to come back and be incredibly productive and loyal to the company that's given them so much, or whether they feel they're happy for this father, let's say, to leave the company based on poor parental leave. And I've then got to pay for recruitment costs. I've then got to pay for training costs and all of those things. to bring somebody new in. You've got to weigh that up as a business as to what you think works best for you, I guess