Catherine Muge and Dr Tom Bashford - How to Navigate Shared Parental Leave as a Dual Career Couple

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"Our family is a mutual enterprise, it's a project we manage together, and it has to be given time and resource. We have to really clearly communicate that between us: is everyone happy with the time and resource that is going into that mutual project? "

Joining Verena on the podcast this week are Catherine Muge and Dr Tom Bashford. 

Catherine is Director of Partnership Intelligence at UNICEF UK and Tom is Assistant Professor in Healthcare Systems, University of Cambridge and Consultant Neuroanaesthetist, Addenbrooke’s Hospital. Together, they are also raising two young boys.

Tom and Catherine share their two experiences of Shared Parental Leave, as well as 
their views on the importance of role modelling equality for their sons.

They discuss:

• how having children changed their perspective on the way they work, forcing them to be more strategic with their time and considerate of the family unit as a whole
• the societal bias that still leads to assumptions of Catherine as the default caregiver
• the importance of regular "moments of rebalancing" the caregiving burden.

We hope you enjoy the conversation.

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