So what do we think about these parental leave proposals?

sigh

I just said to someone who said they could see no downsides that I though this was good, but their were a few things that should be taken into consideration when creating policy and allocating funding (examples being breastfeeding support and the fact that SOME - I even wrote it in caps - relationships are abusive it is may increase risks) and got totally bitched at about all men not being abusers in waiting :(

well said startafresh, I wholly agree with you. Once again the government has reiterated its belief that motherhood and bringing up children is not as important as going to work.

the who recommends bfing for two years.

its extremely exhausting and draining to bf and do a ful time demanding job.

I think as it has been said it will be diffcult to implement this, what will probably happen is that it will become the norm for women to take only 6 months maternity leave and then return to work whilst the father then takes part time days off for childcare etc, then they will scratch those 13 weeks unpaid leave in the first five years that any parent can take.

I don't actually believe anything useful will come out of this, it's Clegg's idea after all. Pshaw.

I think it will be interesting to see what happens to company/employer enhanced maternity schemes. Currently my employer offers maternity pay at a % of salary up to 9 months I think - presumably this will now have to be extended to male employees - making it a bit more attractive.

The linked article spells out the current rules though

Acanthus that makes sense. Will be annoying if there is a lot of knee-jerk reaction to this proposal if people don't understand the current rules.

HB At the moment stat mat pay is 90% for the first 6 weeks, then about £100 a week up til 9 months, then 9 months to 1 year is unpaid.

Some employers enhance this, above is the minimum.

If they leave the pay structure as it is I can't see this being taken up in droves.

How long is it paid for now?

People will be posting as if maternity leave is only six months because it was for them, I imagine. It's changed relatively recently, you know.

I think both partners should be entitled to maternity AND paternity leave and I don't see why paternity leave should be at the expense of maternity leave. I share StartingAfresh's concern that some women could be bullied into going back to work too early for them, becasue their DH's want to be with their babies and I think both parents should have parental leave independent of that of the other parent. To tell a father: you can only have 2 weeks/ 4 weeks/ 3 months/ 6 months dependent on what the mother of your child is having, seems very strange to me - why can't both parents be entitled to parental leave separately?

But in general I'm in favour because I do think that it will even the playing field for women, not in the workplace, because once one cause of sexism is gone employers will simply find another one, but in their domestic lives. I do think that if most men understood what childcare and housework was, they would have a lot more respect for their partners and couples would be happier.

Why are a few people posting as if mat leave is 6 months?

Mat leave is up to a year.

Rhinestone my DH would have been at those comments from toby young too. He sounds like a cock.

I think it's fantastic - I'm only sorry it's come a bit late for our first. We would definitely have made use of it.

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.

Now I'm not suggesting that some woment can't go straight back to work 4 hours after the birth, and breastfeed straight through that, but for the majority that is just not physically or culturally possible because unless you have a huge amount of control over your job you can't get that amount of flexibility, and women can take up to 6 months to fully recover from a birth.

The leave is to protect their health, not to force them to get behind in their careers. Making things equal will mean that their childbearing has no impact on their careers, not that it can potentially stuff up mens too so that women can shoulder the blame for not getting ahead because of this pretend 'choice' they now have in the matter.

The other chap pointed out that perhaps some women didn't want to be left holding a screaming baby either [hmm[ which Tobes managed to sidestep in his response.

Toby Young was being a complete knob and saying that men wouldn't want to take parental leave, and any way women are more 'intuitive' about caring for babies. Men wouldn't want to be left with screaming baby...

DH was driving at the time coming home from work and said he had to turn over as he was so cross.

toby young?

what have i missed?

I think that most women will be able to return to work before their baby is 11/12 months old, and still have an exclusive BF relationship, if they want to.

What I think is that Toby Young is a twat

Nowwearefour - because this is a choice. At the moment, women don't have to stay off for a full 12 months (and many can't afford to), but they don't currently have the option to offer the leave that they are not taking to their DH/DP. I think this legislation sounds like a good start.

I just posted about this elsewhere: my DH was saying to me how he'd love to take 6 months paternity leave - but went a bit pale when I said 'OK then'. . .

I think it is definitely a progressive step - whether or not there is a stampede of uptake for it.

i am always confused re the breastfeeding thing- how can we simultaneously promote exclusive breastfeeding and women going back to work earlier?

What would have been great for us:

Both off for say the first 6 weeks. ie the time it takes to get used to a new baby, baby starts settling down a bit, recovery from CS is usually 6 weeks etc. Both parents get a good crack at the baby, mum has support so less likely to get PND, family doens't immediately become set up as mum does baby and dad does work, all positive stuff.

Then ability for leave later on to be swapped around according to the needs of the family, but they need to do something to teh financial side so that people actually take it. Few will stray from the status quo if there is a financial penalty attached.

This needs to be done very thoughtfully Are you listening nick?

The money thing is a big point though.

At the moment stat mat pay is 90% for the first 6 weeks, then about £100 a week up til 9 months, then 9 months to 1 year is unpaid.

In most couples the man earns more than the woman.

So how likely is it that families are going to be able to afford it / happy to sacrifice the higher earners wages, for a period when 3 months is unpaid and the other 3 is very little? Not many is the answer.

So in practice, sadly, I don't think this will actually make much difference.. Unless stat pay rules are changed somehow, and private companies decide to give generous pat leave pay etc.

neils the suggestion at the moment is that men can take up to 6 months of their partner's 12 months leave. So in your case, your wife could have taken say 7 months and you could have had 5.

Obviously there are questions of people being able to afford the full 12 months.
And obviously a lot of people do FF or mixed feed, and your baby was a very frequnet feeder by the sound of things!

So the option is there and families can use it or not as suits their circumstances.

I can certainly see this being really useful to families where the woman is the higher earner, or is at a point in her career where a year off isn't possible but the preference of the couple is not to use paid childcare until absolutely necessary.

For us it wouldn't have changed anything, DH already earned far more than I did when I started my mat leave with DS. We couldn't have afforded for him to be off work unpaid and me working.

'I realise I'm taking my life in my hands by posting in Feminism but here goes...'

The first thing I would say is that not all babies are like that - some are snackers but others settle down to a much smaller number of feeds quite early, which makes the whole thing easier to manage. (I had one baby like yours and 2 who fed more infrequently.)

If the workplace is near home the mother can literally pop home to feed (I know people who did that when mat leave was 6 weeks, back in the day) or have the baby brought into the workplace. My kids were in a university campus nursery and some of the mothers would pop in to feed during the day.

There's mixed feeding, too - doesn't have to be all or nothing. And some mothers find that when they go back to work the babies start feeding more at night instead of during the day.

It might be that a lot of families will do what I would have done and have the dad do it at the end of the period and the mother at the beginning.