Why can't two parents have maternity leave at same time

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If they work for different companies why is the set up only one parent at a time take it.
I think would really help with discrimination in the job market as well. Men taking it at same time as women would imo dilute the situation where it’s majority women who take it for imo pretty fair reasons and jobs avoiding employing women of a certain age due to concerns around them taking it (I have actually been asked in an interview whether I have any plans for the near future as we really need someone here after the current girl went and got pregnant. Sure I didn’t take the job but I’m not alone in that experience.
I also think it would just be bloody great if you could both have it off at same time if there’s two of you.

As others say, for most people it makes no sense for both parents to be off together for long because it's rarely full pay for long and only one parent needs to do childcare!

However parental / paternity leave can be taken in parallel with maternity leave and sometimes that is necessary for several weeks following a less than perfect caesarean section or a birth resulting in injuries or illness to the mother.

I do think that in the rush to make everything equal the mother's recovery from pregnancy and birth and the importance of breastfeeding and the fourth trimester get shoved under the bus.

If a person has major surgery - equivalent to a caesarean (which 25% of births are) they're signed off for 6 weeks just to recover from surgery . I really do believe that 6 weeks medical (not maternity) leave should be ring fenced in steel absolutely specifically and only for the woman giving birth and separate to leave primarily for being with the baby. After that the remaining parental leave should be available to split 50/50 or however.

Additionally a father not living with the child should have to prove they're actually spending paternity leave caring for their child - I knew of one specimen who left his wife in the third trimester and took paternity leave but then used it to go on holiday with his new girlfriend/ OW (without the baby obviously)!

If the couple want to use the leave together for whatever reason, it should be fine as long as they're actually with the baby! It rarely makes financial sense except immediately after the birth though.

They can both be off at once

Yes using shared parental leave you can both be off simultaneously - and it is worth scrutinising your employers’ policies as in some cases you can do this with little financial disadvantage. DH took a total of 6 weeks on full pay when DC2 was born (2 weeks paternity + 4 weeks SPL) - i replaced the 4 weeks of time on SMP i “lost” at the end with 4 weeks unpaid parental leave. So I still got 12 months off, DH got an extra 4 weeks paid time off and the only cost was 4 weeks SMP. Obviously not all policies will work like this but I strongly recommend reading carefully.

Oh that’s great I didn’t know it was possible. I also didn’t really consider some people like their dh at work will have to do a bit more research!