So what do we think about these parental leave proposals?

Oh are they still saying this only works after six months? I thought they'd abandoned that?

Bah then. Even I went back to work at 5.5 months, we couldn't have afforded for either of us to be out of work longer. How utterly stupid, parading as equality when it's anything but.

Past the time needed to physically recover from childbirth, which parent stays off should be the choice of the couple, no one else. It's simply nobody else's business.

"In countries where paternity leave is extended it is often used more as a sabatical to further the fathers career by studying or networking, whilst babies go into childcare or mothers are expected to continue to care for the babies at that time."

Evidence? (Btw I used my maternity leave to study and further my career whilst looking after my daughter - why should my lack of penis mean that I'm more entitled to do that than my husband?)

In countries where paternity leave is extended it is often used more as a sabatical to further the fathers career by studying or networking, whilst babies go into childcare or mothers are expected to continue to care for the babies at that time.

I would worry about periods of leave that men are not used to will be used in a competive way rather than direct input into the family unit.

As I said, I don't have a problem with increased choice but I DO have a problem with the potential further devaluing of the roles for which women are biologically predetermined to undertake.

As for the iron levels/recovery from the birth arguments, I don't really see the relevance - if someone is too ill to go to work, aren't they likely to be too ill to have sole care of a small child as well? So seems like that's a problem whether you go back to work or not. We often argue on this forum that parenting is a 'job' and as difficult and demanding a one as a lot of paid employment! I still feel that if you're still too ill to go to work 6 months after giving birth, that should be considered as any other sick leave, not maternity leave.

As for women being 'forced' to give up part of their leave, would argue that it's only recently that any women had such long periods of maternity leave anyway, and that it's not really any worse than the situation for fathers who are 'forced' to go back to work after 2 weeks.

It's interesting though to think about what would happen where there was a dispute between the parents about who would take the leave - how on earth would that be resolved? I guess a lot of these teething issues (sorry) will have to be ironed out once the new rules are in place.

"It takes 18 months or so for a mother's iron levels to replenish. Mothers who need to recover, or indeed want to spend time with the baby they carried inside them for 9 months may be obliged to give up their leave to the father."

Where's the evidence for the iron levels claim?

And what about fathers who want to spend time with their baby?

As for the time to get breastfeeding established - the current proposal is that only the AML can be transferred to the father, the OML stays with the mothers, and by 26 weeks it really shouldn't be an issue anymore. If someone hasn't established breast feeding by then, they most likely will have long given up anyway.

Society must recognize the intrinsic value of birth, and of women's contribution to society, and understand that this is somethign that women do . They are not rewarded economically for this work under our patriarchal-capitalist system and therefore it is assumed that the work has no value: it is merely a hindrance

Paternity leave will help women in an economic sense, but I'm not sure how it will address the basic tenet of radical feminism, which is to liberate women from the capitalist system that oppresses them.

StartingAfresh I utterly agree with you:
"I think it is terrible for feminism and further reduces the value of childbirth and breastfeeding to society.

It also undermines women who do not share their leave because it suggests it is their CHOICE to scupper their career, not because it is in the best interest of their health, their children and society."

It takes 18 months or so for a mother's iron levels to replenish. Mothers who need to recover, or indeed want to spend time with the baby they carried inside them for 9 months may be obliged to give up their leave to the father.
It also suggests that the father and mother both have an equal stake in the pregancy, birth and post partum period...

I absolutely think men will use this to their advantage, possibly to the detriment of the mother. WHen has this never happened????? Men have always turned legislation made for women to their advantage. I remember Greer writing that more men complain to the equal rights comission for unfair treatment than do women.

So I agree with HB'S suggestion that paternity leave should not be at the expense of maternity leave. I think that is the answer.

(With regard to breastfeeding; I went back to work when DS was 5.5 months, and he was breastfed until he was 15 months)

I wish it had been in place when DS was born. At the time, I earned more than DH so we were financially worse off for it being me that was off. In addition, I hated maternity leave and missed the job that I loved, while DH was in a poorly-paid job that he detested, hating that he was missing out on time with his newborn.

Also, my job had much more family-friendly hours than DH's, so if we could have done this, DS would have seen more of both of us!

Maternity leave was the first time in my life that I've been told we had to organise things a certain way because I was the female. I'm still angry about that.

And exclusive breastfeeding whilst working in the first 6 months is a goal quite out of reach for the majority of women. Hell, it's hard enough for the majority to do it when they aren't working.

"It also undermines women who do not share their leave because it suggests it is their CHOICE to scupper their career, not because it is in the best interest of their health, their children and society"

I don't see how either. Currently women have the choice not to take maternity leave (other than the first 2 weeks after the birth, I think) so either way it's their choice to do so or not. These proposals just means there's a third choice as well as the existing ones of the birth mother solely taking leave or the child being looked after by someone else e.g. a nanny, namely the father or non-birth mother taking part of the leave instead.

Also it's not just about men vs women, is it, presumably this would apply equally where both the parents are women?

It can take a long time to recover from a birth. It can also take a long time to establish and continue breastfeeding.

I do not believe that the mother is the only one capable of caring for and loving a child and don't think that mothers who cannot be there for their child at the beginning are bad mothers if that is what you think I might be saying.

But you might like to read about the 4th trimester. Babies are not born ready for the world and are incredibly clinging at the start, and need quite a bit of attention that the mother is biologically and hormonally programmed to deliver. The breastfeeding relationship is a dance that has been prepared for for the past 9 months. The birth is quite brutal, with minimal opportunity to recover given this 'fourth trimester'.

I am not saying for one second that this is the only way to do things, but I do believe that the current proposals make this harder for women as it seems like a choice, when actually it is biologically drive. Implying that men can and should do it I feel is minimising it's importance.

Having said that, I do think that the promotion of choice is important. I just worry that some choices are disguised anti-woman.

It will help couples where the woman earns more to do what's financially best for them if they choose to. I earn more than my DH and were I to take maternity leave it would be impossible for us to live on his salary plus maternity pay after the first 6 weeks. I'd have to go back to work. This way, it means my DH could take the parental leave.

I don't think it would affect the majority of families where the man earns more, all it does is gives a choice and doesn't make the assumption that the man is the breadwinner when more and more that isnt the case.

Pstartingafresh* "It also undermines women who do not share their leave because it suggests it is their CHOICE to scupper their career, not because it is in the best interest of their health, their children and society"

Why is it in the best interest of society or children that women stay chained to the house and are not given choice? What does it have to do with health (once recovered from birth)?

I agree with StartingAfresh as well.

"It's perfectly possible to work from early on and breastfeed - I have several friends who did this, all you need is a good pump and some determination"

yes of course. I fed all of mine for a long time. First 17, second 3 yrs, 3rd 4 yrs. I couldn't express so they had formula with the CM. But I still carried on bfing them on demand the rest of the time. It's about finding a compromise that works.

Maternity leave is not about breastfeeding, it's about the parent spending the majority of the first year of life with their child(ren).

It's perfectly possible to work from early on and breastfeed - I have several friends who did this, all you need is a good pump and some determination. And anyway, it's an equality question, not an infant nutrition question.

The point about women being bullied back to work because dad wants to have time with the baby too, doesn't stack up. At the moment men are forced to work, without the option of looking after their child full time for an extended period of time. Nobody asks the men whether they'd rather work or stay at home. Nobody asks the women either. So without equal rights to parental leave, both men and women are forced into situations they might not have chosen if given the choice.

In Germany paid parental leave is 12 months if only taken by one parent, but if shared can be extended to 14 month. Women have to take off 8 weeks after birth, but what is done with the rest of it is up to the couple. It's also possible that they take the leave simultaneously, i.e. the father takes the first 2 months off after the birth, and the mother stays at home for a full year (or he stays off a full year and she returns to work after 2 months), and it can also be split 6/8, 7/7 etc, whatever they decide.

I don't see how this government's leave proposal makes anything more difficult for small businesses, as it doesn't matter whether they have recruit cover for a woman or a man going on parental leave, unless they'd admit to not employing women of childbearing age to avoid this "problem".

I think there;s still a long way to go towards equality, but this is a first step, and a positive change for men and women, who don't want to be stereotyped into gender roles.

northerngirl, its not really a matter of paying out first then reclaiming (or at least, you'd have to have a very tiny firm and a very highly paid woman on mat leave). You knock the money paid out for maternity pay off of your PAYE/NICs sent to HMRC each month, so you're not out of pocket & then reclaiming.

If the amount paid out is more than you would owe them, you put in a claim online & they pay very quickly, they don't spend any time checking etc (its all automatic). I've had to do this when we had to pay out a large tax refund, at the same time as one of our five employees was on maternity leave, and the money was in our account within days. If you needed to do that for maternity pay, you could put in the claim before the end of the month so you weren't out of pocket.

Unless you think that women shouldn't work and have babies, I'm not sure that there is any solution other than maternity leave, improved my making it parental leave shared between both parents.

I certainly wouldn't want to see a situation where women had their babies then went back to work 4 or 6 weeks later - not good for them, but also I can't imagine that the average parent would be able to work effectively in such conditions.

Self employment is a very different situation - if you run your own business in general you have dramatically more flexibility about when and how you work, its not at all the same as being an employee.

In general terms I think maternity leave is a bad thing for women's equality because it firmly places the burden of childcare on women, rather than it being a joint responsibility for the parents. This law goes some way to addressing that belief, as it raises the possibility that a man is just as entitled to parental leave as a woman and therefore when hiring, companies have to bear that in mind.

And unfortunately, whilst it would be lovely to say "Have as much time as you would like" businesses need their staff to do their jobs - particularly small businesses. So they think exceedingly hard about hiring women because even if they can claim back the money they pay them (albeit having to pay it out first and then reclaiming it), it's about trying to find someone of the same level of experience and skill to do the job on a temporary contract. No one with up to date skills is going to leave a job for a temp contract. And even if you could get someone, there is still the extra training on company procedures/handover which would be needed. So companies are incredibly wary of hiring women - hopefully this equals the field a bit.

Having said that, it means even fewer people will go into self-employment since you would have to be mad to walk away from the benefits of being an employee - I take my hat off to any female business owner who takes a year out of her business and can still walk back into the same job! It just doesn't happen.

Not sure what the solution is, but maternity leave as a concept isn't doing us any good.

I think the proposals are excellent. Even though they are only a first step, and there is a long way to go in terms of changing attitudes, they definitely are that first step.

DH and I were lucky enough to be able to share childcare because we run our own business together (and weren't in Britain & not eligible for any sort of maternity pay anyway).

Yes, breastfeeding is an issue, but by 6 months many mothers/babies can work out a pattern to feed early/late & combine with ff.

I agree, the message is that fatherhood is as important as motherhood in comparison with going out to work. Which seems like a good thing to me.

I like the idea of separate parental leave in theory, but the biggest barrier to that is going to be the impact on businesses. The current proposal is a very good first step in my opinion.

Maybe there needs to be a distinction between maternity leave and parental leave as currently there seems to be some difference of opinion as to what maternity leave is for - i.e. is it for the mother to recover from the pregnancy/birth (in which case it's obviously only relevant to the (birth) mother), or is it for spending time with the child (in which case it should surely be shared if we have it at all). If it's for recovery from the birth then it probably only needs to be a relatively short period, ongoing complications etc could be dealt with as any other long-term sick leave.

Problem is if we have parental leave as distinct from maternity leave and nothing to do with recovering from birth etc, I can imagine people will start to question why businesses/the government should subsidise that and why parents shouldn't pay for childcare instead. The best answer to that would be 'to encourage breastfeeding'...but then you are struggling to justify including men...

"Once again the government has reiterated its belief that motherhood and bringing up children is not as important as going to work."

No it has stated its beleive that fatherhood and bringing up children is as important as going to work.

Are you really saying it is in women's best interests to be have no option but to take all the available parental leave or use paid childcare? I am more than a walking womb and breasts - I am a mother and a woman with a career. Both are important. Dh is a father and a man with a career. Both are important.

When I heard this on the radio this morning, I was all for it. Guess I've got a bit left to learn as I hadn't even considered some of the important reservations put forward here. I certainly feel it's a step in the right direction though. I think Starting Afresh made a really valid point though I can't think of any solutions. Maybe it will have to happen in stages. Perhaps more fathers need to SAH to realise quite what's involved before the status of childrearing is given the recognition it deserves so that women and men equally can choose to stay with their young children without feel of poverty or marginalisation?

"Also, according to scandinavian research, a family is more likely to have a second kid and less likely to divorce if the father takes paternity leave with first child."

I suspect that this is slightly misleading as I would imagine those families where the father is prepared to take paternity leave are those families where the father is more likely to be involved in their children's lives anyway. Therefore they would already be more likely to have more children and less likely to split up because of any stresses brought on by having children.

Agree with both StayingAfresh and HerBea. Having said that it is, hopefully, a step in the right direction. It would certainly benefit me (being the higher earner).

we're had it for ages in my original country - it's 18 months (first 70 days for the mother, rest to be shared as the parents wish). state will pay you your full previous salary though, so quite different from financial perspective. but still - of course I agree that it was about time in UK too. Nobody will force fathers to take the leave if it's not reasonable for their family, the parents simply have the option to choose. And of course it will help the society to see fathers as equal and capable parents as well.

Also, according to scandinavian research, a family is more likely to have a second kid and less likely to divorce if the father takes paternity leave with first child.