When it comes to mixing kids and careers, mothers are still more likely than fathers to take extended periods of time off work.

Love it or hate it, that norm remains strong: Only one in 20 fathers take primary parental leave, according to the ABS, and 85 per cent of fathers and partners surveyed by the Human Rights Commission took fewer than four weeks of leave.

So what happens when fathers try to shake up the status quo?

It depends.

We spoke to three men who took parental leave from work to find out more.

The good: Parental leave and a promotion

Seamus McCartney is an executive at a multinational property development company, as well as the proud father of three girls, aged 11, 8 and 4.

His company has a relatively generous parental leave policy, offering 18 weeks’ paid leave, plus 34 weeks’ unpaid leave for employees who are primary carers (male or female). For employees who are partners, they offer two weeks’ paid, plus six weeks’ unpaid leave.

Despite his company’s policies, Seamus initially worried about the effect taking parental leave might have on his career.

“It is not an easy conversation [to raise] … I found it difficult because of the way, I guess, we’ve been programmed … there’s still a stigma that can be attached to it.”

But Seamus says he has a generally “commercial” view of about such matters.

“If it’s an allowance that’s delivered by the company, which therefore is part of your pay packet, it’s kind of illogical not to take it … by not taking up that benefit, you’re losing something that has commercial value,” he says.

For his first two daughters, he took six weeks of leave. In 2015, he was preparing to take four months off to care for his third daughter, when a new, more senior role opened at his company. It was a big opportunity.

“I remember having a chat with our HR person around going for it and whether it would work or not,” Seamus says.

“You can only try,” he was told.

Seamus applied and ended up getting the promotion – just two weeks before starting his parental leave.

“It was a little bit fluid in terms of fitting in this new role. [There were] a couple of meetings I had to go to and that sort of stuff … but that flexibility was important to be able to continue career growth whilst having that time with [our youngest daughter] and the other kids.”

Seamus says he’d like to think his experience has been a bit of a ‘myth buster’ at his organisation – that “[going on parental leave] doesn’t limit your career in any sense”.

“It is statistically becoming far more normal for men to do it. It is becoming normal to hear the conversation from a manager, asking ‘When are you taking your parental leave?’, not ‘Are you going to?’ ”

“That’s a simple thing I try to bring to all my conversations … because that’s an enabling statement.”

Seamus knows his situation is unusual, though.

He says a government-wide approach is necessary to ensure blue-collar workers can access similarly generous parental leave policies, so “it’s a right, as such – not just [for workers at] a fabulous business that has fabulous policies”.

The bad: ‘This is just for chicks’

Not all workplace cultures are accommodating to fathers. Photo: Unsplash

David’s* experience culminated with lawyers, attempts to withhold his pay, and being told parental leave was “just for chicks”.

But let’s take a few steps back.

In 2009, he was working in finance at one of the major banks, when he and his now ex-wife had their daughter.

His organisation had a gender-neutral parental leave policy, allowing up to six months off for primary carers, with the first three months paid as normal, and the second three months paid in arrears “upon returning to work”, he explains.

When his daughter was three months old, his wife went back to work, and he spent the next six months being the “primary” carer – an experience he says he loved.

But things got messy once he returned to the office.

An HR manager told him he wouldn’t be paid for the latter three months of his leave.

The reason?

He had been spotted on holiday with his wife and daughter in Fiji, leading the HR manager to conclude that David was not in fact acting as his daughter’s primary carer.

“I said, ‘Hang on, I think it’s OK for my wife to take a week’s annual leave and go on holiday’.”

The HR manager wasn’t buying it.

David offered a concession: To have the week of his family holiday docked from his parental leave pay.

That was also refused.

Then the HR manager told him, “Come on, mate … you know this is just for chicks, don’t you?’ ”

David says the comment came after weeks of tense discussions and he knew in that moment that he’d won the argument.

“I immediately went to an employment lawyer, drafted a pretty clear letter … [saying] they were discriminating on the basis of gender on the application for the policy,” he says.

The offending “just for chicks” remark was included.

“My [direct] boss was a former lawyer and he recognised the legal jeopardy immediately and promptly resolved the issue,” he said.

David says he doesn’t feel the incident was held against him, as that particular HR manager had a reputation for being unpleasant.

And his immediate colleagues had always been more supportive about his leave.

“Upon reflection it was kind of an aggressive culture, so if anything, not being a pushover was regarded favourably,” he says.

The ugly: Pushed out of a role

For gay fathers, there is no female partner to assume the usually gendered role of “primary” carer.

But Mark’s experience started off positively enough. He was working as a sales director in the magazine industry when he and his partner Nick were expecting their first child nine years ago.

“I was a kind of a never-seen-before case in the organisation,” he laughs.

“Initially it took my line manager by surprise. But they were not unreasonable. It was more a case of, in an unprecedented scenario, I flummoxed them.”

After some back and forth with HR, Mark managed to get 10 weeks’ leave approved.

Colleagues were supportive and excited, even sending him off with a baby shower.

Then, a week into his leave he was told someone else had been appointed to his role full time.

“Someone who, interestingly, had presented themselves as an ally. They used the opportunity to secure that role for themselves,” he says.

Mark was livid.

When he pushed back, he was told that under current legislation, the business wasn’t required to give him back his exact position, simply “one that was equivalent in terms of status and pay”.

It’s a scenario that would be familiar to many women.

Mark decided to wait until all his leave had been paid off, after which he wrote a “stiff resignation letter” and began looking for work elsewhere.

“I went and got myself another job and never went back.”

Well, at least not for a few years.

He was eventually asked to re-join the company after it was restructured and a new management team had been installed, “because the person they’d given my role to had completely screwed it up”.

With a hefty pay rise secured, Mark returned.