Sharing maternity leave with fathers

sayanything I'm nervous about bfing as well at work :S I have had to raise issues at work about their treatment of pg workers so making demands for breaks for bfing breaks etc is a bit intimidating atm.

OP- This totally frustrates me. Why is it costly to let a woman have ML but not a man! She's so young to have such old-fashioned opinions

and men are looked down on by their peers if they don't... in late and eating dinner at the same time.

It makes me want to weep when females have such views, I often wonder if it is because they are insecure and feel that, they need that role all for themselves.

I run a small business - 90% of my staff are female, I have no concerns about maternity leave. Some females are loosing the excuse `but he earns more than me' and are in need of other reasons to not let the man in. Men are running out of excuses to not take the/any time off. I look forward to the future when things continue to evolve and females realises it is better for everyone to share care.

My male line manager has recently taken the last three months of his wife's maternity leave. I am so proud of him!

sayanything I completely know how you feel - it's a really difficult stage at the moment but it will get better (as I hope you experienced with DS1).

Don't dismiss the idea out of hand solely due to breastfeeding - obviously it's not practical right now but for an older baby it will be perfectly feasible for you to go back to work, and express some BM at work each day for DS to drink next day - so if there aren't other barriers then DH could perhaps take over for the last 2 or 3 months of your planned Leave period. It made a huge difference to us that DH did this, he really got to appreciate quite how difficult being a SAHP is and our family is much stronger because of the experience.

I think it's crazy that in 2012 there is still this idea that mothers can stay home for 9 months and fathers for 2 weeks. I mean seriously!

I have however seen female small business owners here on MN say outright they do not hire women specifically because they can't cope with maternity leaves. It's shameful and I think the best reason for introducing parental leave, so people can't discriminate so much.

I completely agree OP, I'd love it if my DH could share my maternity leave entitlement. DS2 is only 5 weeks but I'm already climbing the walls with boredom and green with envy at DH going to the office every day. Yes, I'm BF so the mechanics of that would be difficult, but I don't get the assumption that it is the mother who absolutely has to stay at home with the baby and I resent the sexist pigeon-holing that this inevitably leads to.

I think it's a fantastic idea and highly sensible. Not allowing the couple to split the roles within their relationship as they see fit is blatantly sexist.

Agree, I think everything that encourages men to take equal responsibility for their children is great.

And I guess at least it would level the playing field if employers started rejecting men of 'childbearing' age as well as women . . .

It's ridiculous.

Anything that encourages men to take a more wholesome part in their kids upbringing, and doesn't relegate childcare to "something for women" is to be applauded.

In this day and age we should be encouraging family flexibility, and if it lets women who want to to get back to work, while allowing early care from the family for the kids it has to be good surely?

Sad that it's a woman who thinks employers should discriminate against women who might have kids... this might also make them focus their minds on the fact that men have kids too.

I'm right with you OP, and I agree with you that it's both shocking and depressing to hear someone in that situation thinking that sexual discrimination is OK.

I think it's brilliant that mat leave can be shared. I'm the main "breadwinner" in my family, we couldn't survive on just DH's pay (though it's significant enough that it would be pretty tough without it) so I once said to my dad that if he wanted grandchildren the best thing he could do was lobby his MP for equal-access-to-parental-leave-for-fathers. Bless him, he did too. The change was too-slow-coming and the end of my thirties was looming but we managed a similar arrangement with DH's emloyers letting him have a six month sabbatical off work and our parents clubbing together to help with the equivalent of mat-pay. Now it can happen more automatically that's great - don't know if I'll still be fertile by the time I ramp up the courage to think about a DC2, but it's great to know the option is there for future people in our situation.