Disagreement over Maternity Leave vs. Extended Paternity Leave

[SybilRamkin]

A friend of mine, let's call him A, is having a disagreement with his DW, and I offered to canvas opinions for him on AIBU. Please be gentle with him, he's a sensitive soul!

Before the birth of their first DC, A and his DW had planned for DW to return to work after 9 months and for A to take 3 months' EPL to allow him to have some lovely bonding time with their DC. However, last week, 7 months into ML, DW announced that she would not be returning to work at 9 months after all, and that she intended to take the full 12 months herself before returning to work. A was very upset, as he'd already arranged with his work to take the time off, and was really looking forward to having 3 months as primary carer to his PFB. He attempted to reason with his DW, but she refused to agree to him taking any EPL at all - her view is that she gave birth to their DC, and so she should be allowed as much time as she wants to spend at home.

Pertinent information:

1. A and his DW earn roughly the same salary give or take c.£20 a month, and DW is intending to return to work FT.

1. A cannot afford to take 3 months of unpaid parental leave in addition to the 3 months of unpaid ML his DW plans to take. They had only budgeted for one of them not to be earning.

1. DW is not breastfeeding (hasn't since DC was 3 months old).

So MNers - does A have a moral right to be the primary carer for his DC for a few months' bonding time or is his DW right that since she gave birth to their DC her claim trumps his? And, perhaps more importantly, what should A do about this (if anything)?

I think that we'd need some information on what A is like with the baby. Perhaps the DW sees him being utterly useless as hell on a daily basis for 9 months, and is now feeling sort of, 'holy shit, I'm leaving the baby with THAT!'. It's easy to feel that the DW just fancies a bit more time at home, but people aren't usually utterly batshit irrational for no reason whatsoever - I'd bet she feels she has a valid reason, but A is presenting it to YOU as 'she's totally unreasonable'. (She may be batshit unreasonable, too, I accept that as a possibility).

I'd even wonder what the relationship is like that he's running to another woman to tell about how unreasonable she is. Unless you are A's sister, I'm kind of feeling that this his yikky undertones of getting involved in someone else's marriage stuff (hope that's not offending you to say that). It seems pretty disloyal of him to be talking to you about her in this way.

She may also have been influenced by friends. I got quite a lot of looks when I said I was going back at 6 months and dh was having time off.

Also a lot of people saying "ooh, I couldn't do that. you're being very generous to dh" and a wee bit of subtext from a couple of numpties that I didn't care enough about ds2 to stay at home as long as I could with him.

However, most of the "ooh I couldn't" people were SAHMs so it wasn't relevant to their situation anyway, and dh was the lower earner so I probably would have had to have gone back to work and ds2 go into childcare earlier if dh had to take time off.

I'd counsel against continuing to try to "negotiate" if all ground has been covered already tbh. If she's due back in 2 months time and hasn't told her employer then it's technically too late now anyway (although I think the employer can accept shorter notice of intention to return early at their discretion).

He also needs to make sure his employer is kept informed as there are potentially implications around him giving them less than 8 weeks notice of his intention to now not take the leave (I don't know how much of a problem this will be in practice).

I think all he can do is communicate to his dw how hurt and disappointed he is and maybe see if they can plan for him to take some unpaid leave in future to make up for it. He might want to investigate future flexible working opportunites that might lessen their childcare bill or allow him a better work/life balance, eg Dh is returning to work on a different shift pattern and working a slightly shorter week to allow him to collect ds1 from school and ds2 from nursery on the days I work. Childrearing is a long game.

I agree with TeaAndANatter. The temptation when taking this thread on face value is to see the DW as very unreasonable and unfair.

However, there are so many other variables to be taken into account. What was the labour like? How quickly did she recover? Was the baby an easy/difficult baby?

The DW may feel, for example, that she spent most of her maternity leave recovering physically and dealing with no sleep and is only now starting to enjoy it now that baby is sleeping through and they have a happy, working routine. It may be the case that she feels why should she have done all the hard work only for him to reap the golden period?

Or she may feel that her DH simply doesn't pull his weight in various ways. Is she doing all the housework and childcare at the moment so that DH can enjoy being with the baby when he returns from work. Does she worry that when her DH is on PL he will do childcare only, so she'll have to come home to do lots of domestic chores instead of enjoying the baby?

There may be lots of reasons this is going on. Personally, I think it would be fairer on parents and the state to reduce the amount of parental leave available but create a situation where both parents can take it simultaneously.

I had a lot of ooo I couldn't have left my baby too from the witches in purchase ledger when I went back to work. It is horrid and doesn't make your return easier. It is really hard to leave them but clearly she has got to go back at some point.

Agree with everything edamsavestheday says.

I would side with the Mother here because she didn't know how she'd feel about the baby when she made the decision. However, the agreement was made. And if there was no option then the Mum would have to return. But now she thinks she does have an option to change her mind. But I think the DH is quite within his rights to be annoyed as he has already made arrangements with his workplace.

Could they split the three months?

It's really difficult, isn't it?

www.gov.uk/parental-leave/entitlement

Have to say, babies are much more fun at this age, so I have sympathy for the DW.

I'm just not above financial blackmail in a marriage

The negative comments are irrelevant really, none of the disapproval is going to change her mind. And I'm not sure it's fair - leaving your child and going back to work is a huge deal. One thing to think about it in the abstract, another thing to do it.

this ^^

Morally she is being unfair. But I wonder honestly, how many other women would feel the same.

I don't think that any of these decisions can be made before the event, especially with your first.

What has she also been doing as well as childcare & would he also do that or just wants to play with baby?

This is a really difficult one.

At face value she is being unfair to renege on a previous agreement but I also agree with the comments upthread about the last few months often being the "golden period" of maternity leave and in some ways it is the reward for the hard slog of the earlier months. She may have only just realised this and now is (quite justifiably) unwilling to hand over the golden period having done the slog.

In an ideal world she'd have realised this at the start and never made the agreement in the first place - should she now be held to what may be an unfair bargain just because she has only just realised the downside?

I also notice that the 3 months we are debating happens to be summer (May to July). Which is obviously a much much nicer time to be off work.

This thread really highlights a big problem with the EPL system. It's always going to be the later, easier months that the father does - which many women will (rightly) feel is an unfair bargain. I can't think of an obvious solution though!

Personally I'd suggest that they split the 3 months 50/50. Or even that A's wife does 2 months and A does 1 month. 1 month is still good "bonding" time and still gives A a good picture of what it's like to be in sole charge all day every day (which is very important for fathers to have I think).

I don't see what use it is to speculate on him not pulling his weight or his abilities to do it well, that is entirely unsupported by the information given and just sounds like a knee jerk "he's a man, he's probably crap". In any event surely we all start off a bit crap but that is the beauty of having the opportunity to learn on the job and be wholly responsible for looking after them all day. That experience helps set you up for the future, and it is a long road ahead for them both.

I think it will be hard for him to trust his wife in future.

In the husband s position it would make me question my marriage. It's not her child, it is theirs. She doesn't just get to say I gave birth I get final say. At what point is he allowed to be a parent?

Assuming all the things you have to to respond to a thread like this (like he's a decent father and husband, that she isn't planning on divorce, etc), I can see both sides.

Under the original deal, he did get the golden time. 9 month old over the summer is way better than small baby over the winter! I can also see how difficult it might be for his wife to actually leave when push comes to shove.

But nor do I think she is being fair laying down the law and announcing that things will be changing with her husband having no say. I think they need to find a compromise. I wonder whether both employers might agree to a temporary part time arrangement for the next three months or so? The wife's employer may see it as 'we agree this, or she's off another three months' and his might see it as 'better to have him two/three days a week than not at all'. Since it's outside the SMP period they can be a lot more flexible, it doesn't have to be all or nothing.

It's not clear from what has been said so far, what her reasons are for wanting to extend her ML?

Is it that she can't bear thought of separation and wants to postpone the inevitable wrench of returning to work for three months?

Is it that she is worried about A's ability to cope as primary care giver?

Is she worried about some aspect of the DC's ability to cope with the change?

Or does she simply want an extra three months with PFB at A's expense?

The latter does seem very unfair to me - yes I can understand it might be very, very difficult to give up those 3 months to anyone else, even your own DH, but even so....

But there may be elements of the other three issues at play here which it might be worth them both discussing.

I've not been through this myself yet (just thought about it in relation to planning my own ML) but other people have told me that some children can cope better with separation from mum at 9 months than at 12 as they're often going through a "clingy" phase at 12.

If it's about A's ability or commitment, is there anything he can do to demonstrate this?

Is she mad? Dh is quitting his job to do all my maternity and Im having 2 weeks off. I would love for dh to be able to do this. You get all the fun without the work

This thread typifies the problem with these rights to shared leave. What's actually needed is more time for parents to be off with new children rather than the same amount of time just split between two. If a mother wants to take the year then that's her right and she should take it. It is a completely separate issue that in the situation the OP outlines, unfortunately a commitment is being reneged on and both parties are feeling hurt. If the father had say 2 months paid paternity that he could split then he might have taken 2 weeks around birth and another chunk later on. The family would have choices not sacrifices to make.

The wife is very unreasonable.

What if tge husband had decided that he couldn't possibly go back to work and leave his baby after his 2 weeks paternity leave? We'd all be saying get your act together and go out and support your family like you agreed!

I live in a country with equal parental rights. Each parent "owns" their share of parental leave, they can choose to give the other parent some of their leave but Icant for example take my dp's leave, he has to sign papers to allow me to do that.

Each parent has to take a minimum of 3 months or they loose that time.

I would have slightly more sympathy is the wife breastfed but denying a father paternity leave with a bottle fed baby is selfish.

No wonder many dads are so uninvolved especially when relationships breakdown.

She is being unfair, morally.

I know I wouldn't even entertain the idea myself, never mind agree to it but she did, both. It is unfair to go back on it now.

She's being unfair not to even look for a c

I would have chewed my arm off for the opportunity to have shared leave. I think it's wonderful that fathers can now have an extended period of time off work will sole responsibility for their child.

Lets put the child at the centre of this. Surely something which enables them to have that time with EACH parent is positive?

I would imagine the dad feels extremely sidelined and a second rate parent to be treated like that quite frankly.

Sorry unfair not to look for a compromise. Agree feelings can change but she's cutting her dh out.

We only have one side of the story. I don't think a should be involving other people like this.
Totally agree with northern lurker that the system is the problem and the mum should be entitled to her year off.Nothing to do with method of feeding, more about the fact that she has the primary bond with their dc at this stage and it should be preserved if at all possible for the benefit of the baby's attachment to primary carer.

she has the primary bond with their dc at this stage and it should be preserved if at all possible for the benefit of the baby's attachment to primary carer.

Are babies that start daycare before one less attached to their primary carer?

I think that it is positive if babies have strong bonds with more than one person, especially if the other person is their father.

my dp is ds's primary carer at the moment but I my boobs are still his favorite person