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)?

It is her right. In order for him to share her maternity leave she has to sign a form confirming that her maternity leave has ended.

How he reacts to her change of heart is entirely a matter for him, obviously.

olgaga, I agree with it being the mother's right when she is ready to go back.

And we want equality... only when it suits it would seem

They made an agreement and she hasn't stuck to it for selfish reasons. There is no equality in this at all. The woman is trumping the man and has railroaded his feelings, and I think will cause damage throughout the relationship.

It's like when you agree to try for a baby. You work out if you can afford to live on maternity leave. Father carries on working. Imagine if father backed out of the deal and decided 'oops no, I'm not willing to work now'. That would be his 'right'. Doesn't mean it's morally right though. And he'd be an arse.

The purpose of leave from work following the birth of a baby is whatever parents want it to be, but I think there is a huge societal benefit in having fathers who also get a chance to learn what it is like to be primarily responsible for a child. The opportunity to develop that caring, nurturing relationship without the man constantly looking to his partner for approval that he is doing it right or deferring to her sounds fantastic.

Olgaga - if his company let him take unpaid leave to stay with his baby then that would be his right too. I bet you think he'd be a bit of a shit though if he decided to exercise that right unilaterally and without regard to the family finances or the wishes of his partner!

Why are you assuming she has changed her mind for "selfish" reasons?

She may have very good reasons we don't know about. We have only heard his point of view.

You could just as easily say it is selfish of him to want to force her to go back to work before she is ready.

I agree with you too jelly.

Blue, it's not up to him or his company. He only qualufies if her maternity leave has ended, and signs a declaration to confirm that is the case.

It is her leave to share if she agrees - that's the law.

*qualifies

Well since we only have his point of view to go off that's what we're supposed to do, funny how this only ever gets brought up if it's a woman being shown in a negative light.

The only two good reasons I could see is 1. if she were breastfeeding or 2. if she had a physical or mental condition that impedes here from returning to work. I am almost 100% sure this isn't the latter, and we already know she isn't breastfeeding.

Oh so he'd be forcing her now would he. She's the one forcing him actually.

olgaga - bluegrass is talking about the husband taking unpaid leave. Not paternity.

I would love this to happen. My DH at home looking after baby and the home while I go back to work, it would have been an awful lot easier leaving baby with him than returning to work full time and using childcare.

As a compromise could the DW give him six weeks? i.e. meet him halfway?

That's up to him. As a couple they would have to deal with the consequences.

I think Penguin's idea that he should offer a compromise - 4 or 6 weeks - is a good one.

Yes- technically it is her right because she needs to sign over that part of the leave to him

But using technical rights is a piss poor excuse for this woman's treatment of her DH. She made an agreement which she is now unilaterally overturning- and yes, the reasons do seem fundamentally selfish. The OP has not said anything to suggest the DH is incapable or uninterested in looking after his child...quite the opposite, he's very upset at the possibility of losing the arrangement which has been agreed (and which presumably his workplace has acted on too)

The purpose of ML is first and foremost to allow the woman time to physically recover from childbirth, though It can of course be many other things too, according to how a couple want to make it. However, ML is not a universal thing... Many countries have very different ML rights and indeed it's only very recent that its been a year long in the UK, so discussing bonding, bf, Etc is not fundamental to this case. Thousands of women return to work earlier anyway because paid leave isn't a year long. The issue here is that the mother sees the father as playing second fiddle.

No, men are not the exactly the same biologically as women, that's pretty obvious. But when we're talking about parenting - caring, nurturing, performing the daily tasks of looking after a child and running a home, neither are they that different. Many of us have DHs who are just as competent at those things as we are.

If the woman in this scenario wanted a father for her child who would just put up and shut up, go to work even though he might be longing for some time at home with his child, and basically finance her desire to take the whole year off, then she should have made that clear in the first place, and given him the choice of whether he wants to be a father on these terms

I'm always wary when I hear shared leave being wholeheartedly endorsed with an emphasis on 50:50 simply because I wouldn't want breastfeeding to be jeopardized. However, I was able to go back to work at nine months and maintain breastfeeding - fortunately, because we couldn't afford the unpaid part of ML. Yes, it was agonising leaving the baby but it would have been at a year as well. Dh took two weeks leave and did sole care and I wouldn't have denied him that for the world - it was a fantastic experience for him and the baby. In no way did I worry that he was incompetent or incapable because, aside from feeding, he fulfilled a completely equal role up until then anyway.

From the information in the OP, the woman sounds completely unreasonable and I think she is treating her husband very badly - this adamant refusal to explain, discuss or compromise is not fair. I feel very sorry for him to have such a wonderful opportunity snatched away - he must be so disappointed and I can't see how he could avoid resentment building up over this.

The husband has the right to decide what he does with his wages, that money is officially his. Sure he has agreed to pay the mortgage, bills and buy food for the family but he's entitled to change his kind and spend his wages on a 2 month golfing holiday if he so wishes.

Would that be reasonable just because he is entitled to do so?

Surely it's up to couples to negotiate these things jellyandcake, covering all bases, including issues like bf

I am very pro bf, and would never want this to be jeopardised but to put it bluntly, there are very many factors, mainly socio economic, which influence whether/ how long a mum will bf.

Interestingly, I returned to work when dd was 3 months old, and continued exclusively bf, and in fact then bf for another year or so after. Whereas a lot of the mums who attended the NHS ante natal classes with me, weren't returning to work at all, and didn't bf either.

Just stating this to show that bf isn't necessarily an issue at all, and shouldn't be used as some kind of 'trump card' unless it really is a factor (which it isn't in the OPs scenario as the mum formula feeds)

If for the three months only one of them can afford to be off, perhaps the only way is to split it?

olgaga

If the family are reliant on the woman's income I don't think she has a unilateral right to decide on when she goes back to work or if she goes back to work. I earn multiples of DH's previous income and our current lifestyle is built around my earning potential. If I had decided to give up work we would have had to make significant lifestyle changes. Do I really have a unilateral right to impose that on the family?

I am astounded that people are so supportive of the DW here. I really hadn't seen how utterly sexist MN can be before.

If the DH had suddenly demanded more time off and told the DW she had to go back to work at 6 months in stead of 9, would everybody be all hand wringy and poor thing he just wants to be with his child?

disgusting sexism on here.

To be fair Icebeing I think the majority view is that sibu!

And we want equality... only when it suits it would seem There never really can be true equality when it comes to having children though can there as men can't carry a child, give birth or breastfeed. They also don't suffer PND or birth complications as do women. This is where the problem lies. Maybe the OP doesn't know the whole backstory as she seems to be hearing only one point of view here. Maybe the first six months were hell with a collicy baby or the DW suffered PND etc. There may be a good reason that she wants to enjoy or needs to have these last few month off with her baby.

My husband started looking after my dd2 from 7 months when I went back to work, so this decision seems very unreasonable to me. In our case, my husband also needed time to get to know dd2, as well as be a primary carer for both children, and although I have to say I found it hard emotionally the first day I drove to work, involving him from the start has been the best thing we ever did as a family. None of this- I can't take the kids, plonking them in front of the telly, too afraid to take both children places stuff that both my RL friends have to put up with and I read about on here. This time with a 7 month old and a two and a half year old meant he knows he's a great dad that can take both children and now they are older, and he's working a lot, they continue to have that bond established early on.

Perhaps some dads develop this anyway without the leave or primary care, but reading posts on here has convinced me that whether it be at weekends or in paternity leave, there are massive benefits all round to dads getting exposure to full on care (including the messy, difficult, tiring, boring) early on and getting their confidence high, if only because then there are two confident parents in the couple, so there are choices later down the line (I can visit friends, go to conferences, have a week off and rest if I choose).

I don't agree that she's done all the hard work at 9 months, he's getting the easy time, there are tonnes of posts on here about how boring and difficult it is at home with this age child, mysteriously it becomes 'easy' if a man is asked to do it.

Whoever said this is utterly sexist is right, I would hate to be a dad in this country compared with say Scandinavian countries where parental roles are much more equal (except for that early breastfeeding period).

kelly of course there can't, but we can try to ensure it's as equal as we can make it. This isn't what this woman is doing, and nor some of the people on this thread are suggesting either. We wanted to get away from this stereotype of women staying at home and rearing children but then you get people - or should I say WOMEN - enforcing that attitude by coming out with things like it's her 'right' and he might be incompetent with the baby...

We can only go off what is being said in the OP, and I don't think it's fair to doubt that on second guessing just because people seem desperate to try and make excuses for this woman. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that this was a bad pregnancy, or birth.

At the end of the day here in the UK are very fortunate in the fact we get so long off, I think many women take this for granted. We're not the only country limited to birth complications and PND but a high percentage of countries limit mothers to 16 weeks. 'Giving' him 3 months of this time would be priceless to him and the baby.

Chaz, there may be 101 reasons why this woman may want to take all her available leave. We just don't know. All we know is she has changed her mind.

I think people are making big assumptions about this being controlling or unreasonable behaviour.

We only have half the story and in those circumstances I think the condemnation heaped on this mum is pretty depressing.

I have only ever referred to her "rights" as in statutory rights - because that us the legal position.