Earlier this week, the Bristows Families and Carers Network hosted an informal Father’s Day lunch – one I was so pleased to attend (and not just for the delicious pizza). Huge thanks to Jonathan Ross for organising it and to everyone on the Bristows Families and Carers Network for making it such a welcoming space for everyone at Bristows.

The lunch gave us a chance to hear directly from two colleagues – Marc Linsner and Matthew Hunt – who have each taken advantage of Bristows’ Universal Parental Leave (UPL) policy. We are enormously proud of this policy, which offers six months of parental leave at full pay to all parents at the firm, regardless of gender. It was a significant commitment when we launched it, and hearing from Marc and Matthew about how they used that time – and what it meant for them and their families – was a powerful reminder of why policies like this matter.

It is one thing to have a policy on paper. It is quite another for people to actually use it – that requires a culture in which taking the leave is genuinely encouraged, particularly for men. Hearing colleagues talk about their experience really helps to normalise all new parents taking time to adjust to their new role and bond with their baby.

The timing of our lunch felt particularly apt. This week, new research – widely covered in the media – has drawn attention to the neurological impact of active fatherhood. The studies, discussed by Washington Post journalist Richard Sima, confirm that fatherhood triggers significant structural and functional changes in the brain, with regions involved in empathy, motivation, and emotional regulation all affected. Critically, the extent of those changes appears to be linked to the level of involvement in early child care: as the research puts it, the experience of being an active parent is quite literally ‘sculpting the brain’.

This is striking science, but it also carries a clear practical message. Policies that create genuine space for fathers to be present in those early months are not perks; they are an investment in children’s development, in fathers’ wellbeing, and, it turns out, in the very architecture of the parental brain.

Further powerful arguments for father’s playing an equal role in early parenting are explored in Richard V. Reeves’ book Of Boys and Men (which I would highly recommend). One of Reeves’ many well-made points is that the ‘traditional’ model of fatherhood – provider, but largely absent from day-to-day caregiving – is outdated and urgently needs to evolve. He makes a compelling, evidence-based case for why fathers’ active involvement in their children’s lives matters enormously for outcomes across education, emotional development, and long-term wellbeing. And he is direct about the role that policy can play: generous, genuinely gender-neutral parental leave is one of the most effective tools we have for reshaping norms around caregiving and enabling a more equal experience of parenthood. There’s an obvious upside for all women in the workplace too – the challenges of stepping out and back into a career become a shared experience of men and women alike. I strongly believe shared leave is the only way to make the ‘motherhood penalty’ a thing of the past.

Bristows’ UPL policy reflects exactly that thinking. And the fact that colleagues like Marc and Matthew have taken it up – and were willing to share their experiences over lunch — is something to be genuinely proud of.

Read more about Life at Bristows here.