Maternity vs paternity

@Tillow4ever has summarised the issues perfectly (come on, my son!) and @edwinbear adds to the picture well. Ideally, the dad times his baby leave to be helpful to the family but ...

I think companies are probably increasing 'paternity' leave to cover themselves for how their employees might identify: if two men adopt or have a surrogate baby what happens about 'maternity' leave... There will be a push for men's leave to be equal to women's even though that's not really the point b/c as mentioned, women's bodies really go through the wringer .. Just another instance of men looking around and going, 'why can't WE have ... ' and other men giving it to them ...

I don't think there's any real meaningful comparison between a father with a 12 week old and a mother with a nearly 6 month old. You can argue that their mat leave policy is stingy, but I don't see the impact of the policies on each other.

My company has just increased paternity to 16 weeks - which seems a lot! DH got 2 weeks when our DC were born and I was in hospital for the first week so we only had a week at home before he went back to work. I would have really liked to have him at home supporting me for a bit longer (difficult birth) as I felt completely overwhelmed and anxious when I was at home, alone. So from the perspective of being at home longer to support mum, look after the baby (or older siblings) whilst mum sleeps etc, it’s a good thing really.

Three reasons -

to support their partners
to bond with their new baby
to be given time to adapt to being a father

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that

6 months full pay is way above industry standard. Where I work we have a big fat zero - stat pay only. Your company sounds great. Not really sure of the issue?

I believe at our work place it’s interchangeable. So if the mum takes 9 months off, the dad can take 3 months. It can be at the same time or separate. If you both work there, you can decide who’s gave the full pay and who’s having the statutory leave (so if the man is the higher earner you’re better off making him have the first 6 months then the woman the second assuming shared finances). I’m past that stage these days so I don’t know how it works with working in different companies etc.

We had one guy at work planning to take 6 months pat leave. But at the same time as his wife. And all he kept going on about was how it was perfect timing as the euros or World Cup was starting about 2 weeks after her due date so he could watch all the matches. I wish I was joking. She basically gave up 6 months of her maternity leave to spend time bonding their her baby) and save god knows how much in childcare) so he could have a 6 month holiday. Because he didn’t even consider taking it separately so he had to do some childcare. This then contrasts to another guy in the team who took 6 months off AFTER his wife’s mat leave and you could see when he came back how much he truly treasured that time off to bond with his child.

sadly I think there is more blokes like number 1, and so I hate that this right is basically taking away the mums mat leave and being framed as a good thing.

I can’t understand why men are being given so much time off compared with women who are literally giving up their bodies to make the baby!

Companies don’t set their mat/pay leave policies according to the amount of work men and women need to do during pregnancy, labour and with a newborn. They set them to remain competitive and retain staff.