Main Adopter?

[Runner31]

Does anyone know if it matters who goes down as the main adopter? I work part time and my husband and I would like to take shared parental leave and pay when we adopt with him as the main adopter so we don't lose his salary. He will gain some vital bonding time and it really is pointless for me to take it. So, is it ok for him to go down as the main adopter when it will be me doing the main daily duties after the leave?

I don't know.
I guess it is about having a 'primary caregiver' and some consistency, so it might depend on how long your DH was planning to take for leave and the age of the child(ren).

e.g. If your DH was only going to take 3 months and the child is say 3 years old that would mean for the child changing from FC to your DH, and then effectively from your DH to you in quite a short timeframe.

Whereas if he's planning on taking a year and the child is 5 (and thus school age) it might be much less of a worry for SWs.

I can't even remember being asked who the main adopter is going to be. Perhaps because I was already a SAHM?

We we advised that one of us would be accepted to take a year off work post placement. Unfortunately I can't remember what the was actually written on our matching certificate but having googled it, they do not specify which parent is taking the adoption leave and which the paternity. So how you arrange this part of your finances would only be known by you.

A lot of parents adopt and state that they will both be working once the child has been place for a year providing the child has settled. Depending on how part time you actually are, I think you could justify your plan on the basis that if you both worked full time LO would be attending nursery or the equivalent. You'd have to prove that you'd thought through the issues as children attach to one adult to stat with.

Hi, thanks for the responses. We both work in education so have all school holidays off and I only work a couple of hours in the morning. The children we hope to adopt would be school age (5 plus) so there wouldn't be any out of school care needed other than us.
We really wanted my husband to take the leave and pay as we couldn't manage without his wage but want him to have quality bonding time in the early months. But..His HR department are being really difficult about it all. They've said they haven't done many adoption or shared leave entitlements at all and none when it's the man wanting to take the bulk of the entitlements.

Contact your union.

1. There's no 'main adopter'. You would be applying for equal and joint parental rights. You're having a child not taking out car insurance They will be interested in who's going to be caring for the child and taking the adoption leave but so long as it's not horribly inconsistent or involving leaving them with people other than yourselves in the 1st year I don't think they'd have a problem at all with you sharing leave.

2. your husband is legally entitled to take as much of the 1 year leave as he wants. He's entitled to 2 weeks paid paternity leave then it's up to you both how you split the year's entitlement but it is a joint entitlement between you both. Whichever of you is taking that leave is also legally obliged to whatever maternity pay package is offered to biological parents too I believe. There may even be an option for him to work part time on the days that you are working but I guess that'd be something he had to negotiate with his work.

3. There will probably be no monitoring of who is taking adoption leave during your matching panel etc although as part of your overall assessment you can expect to be asked this and to be asked how you're going to manage financially. In theory you could tell them what you want and certainly once you have your adoption order it's none of their business any more. However, bare in mind that following placement with your child you'll have regular visits in which you'll need to satisfy them that you're meeting the child's needs for them to recommend to the judge that AO is granted

4. Have you looked at what maternity packages you'd both be entitled to? It may help you decision make. You can probably expect to be paid zilch for the last 3 months and statatury only for quite a few weeks prior to this however good your package is so expect it to be a slog financially whatever you do. If you're earning less though then what might be best is for hubby to take the first bit of leave when the package is most generous and you to take the rest when it goes down to stat as you'll lose less of your hubby's paycheque if that makes sense

Good luck. All that panel will really want to know is that your child is being cared for by someone who's forming a parental bond with them for the first year and that you can manage financially. Xx

Hi. We did exactly what you are planning on doing. We wanted to take shared parental leave as with a school age child we felt having both of us at home for 6 months would be better than one of us for 12 months. DH has much higher income than me, so we put him down as main adopter. This is just something that employers see, and not anything that social services will look at. Now DH is back at work full time and I have reduced to part time, so I am doing more of the caring than him. I found that with our employers, shared parental leave is still not properly understood. We have found it to be great as it has allowed us both to bond with the child.

Good luck!

My husband took adoption leave as I'm self-employed and didn't get any. Because of that he was put down as the main caregiver, but I was working from home for the first 6 months.

I would just put your husband down.