To think it's sad that take-up of Shared Parental Leave is just 2 per cent?

[AHedgehogCanNeverBeBuggered]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43026312

DH and I are sharing parental leave between us, 9 months for me and 3 months for him. Whenever he tells anyone the response has been universally positive, generally praising him for doing this. When I've told other women they've often reacted with shock, saying they'd never give up some of 'their' leave to their DH/DP. We know another couple who have had huge rows over this - they'd initially planned to share leave 9/3 like us but at 6 months the DW backed out and said she was keeping it all to herself.

I think if women are ever going to achieve equality in the workplace then more men should be encouraged to take up this scheme, but what if women don't want them to? I feel very strongly that a man should be entitled to time off to bond with his child, but our friends' situation has made me wonder whether it's right to allow the mother to make the decision unilaterally (although as she has to carry the child and give birth it kind of makes sense to have first dibs, although fathers do seem to be pushed out here).

Thoughts? Should we be encouraging more men to take this up or something different?

It's such a personal thing - I can't imagine sharing my leave with my DH, but it might be generational too. My DDs are now over 18!

I don't think a man needs to have time off to bond with his baby. Many mothers go to work soon after birth and are still able to be a parent.

DH has managed to wrangle 2 weeks paternity and 2 weeks annual leave in the same block so he will be home with me during the early days. He is already a very involved father with our first two and said he would not want to take from my time off when I have carried this baby and worked full time during pregnancy.

For me, I would rather have him home during the first bit, so we can get to grips with the new baby together at the sane time than at the end when I have already pretty much done the baby stuff.

I think SPL is a great option, but just because it exists doesn't mean that everyone should feel obliged to use it for fear of being labelled a poor father or overbearing wife

Give it a generation and way more dads will take time to be at home with their dc's.

I'd like to think that too, but I don't see much evidence of it. People used to say that it was because there was no paid parental leave for men - so shared parental leave comes in, and 2% of men use it. If it became more generously paid then I suspect new excuses would be used to explain why men just can't do it. I think the only system that might work is a Swedish style 'use it or lose it' system (a proportion of parental leave can only be used by the man), and there would be a lot of objection to that, as this thread shows.

The unmumsy mum is doing shared parental leave now so will be interesting to understand how she finds it, I think it's great that someone with a strong sm following is doing something different, and she will be v honest about how it works for them I'm sure!

Of four friends I have with babies, two of the dads didn't even take their two weeks paternity. Men still think child rearing is women's work.

I also think a lot of women wouldn't trust their partner to be alone with the baby even at nine months. How many threads do you read on here with people recommending the mother leave the father alone with the baby for a day and they can't?

I find a lot of the views here very hypocritical. Several people have said:
(paraphrasing)

'why does a man need SPL to bond. He can just come home earlier for bedtimes and it's lifelong parenting that counts, no just the first few months.'

And

'I wanted to be able to take the leave myself and learn how to be a mum and bond with my child'

Either those first months are important (and they are for both parents) or they aren't (for either parent).

We did SPL, with my husband having more time off than me (though much was simultaneous). He valued it greatly, and has an amazing bond with our child. Most dad's seem to assume a secondary role, but I feel we are parenting as equals. He has done 50% of her feeding and 50% of all nights. Now we are both back at work, we continue to be equal.

Loads of people now say they parent as equals, and the man has equal care, but when you dig down to it, it's often equal save for feeding, nights, when child is ill, grumpy etc, and equates more to him 'helping' shudder. I think SPL is great at redressing the balance.

Saying that, going to work whilst he dozes in with a baby, plays and goes for lunches was quite difficult from a jealousy perspective.

Men dont need 3-6 months off work to bond with their children. They have been doing perfectly fine for centuries.

It doesn’t necessarily follow that if you take the full maternity leave then you will be left to shoulder all the parenting from that point. DH and I both work shifts. From the day I went back to work with DS1 we shared parenting 50/50. If he’s off work he does the school runs, swimming lessons, taking to nursery, making dinners etc that I would do if I was at home. I trust him 100% with the children.

I think sounds great in theory, but not everyone is in a situation where it would benefit them. I work in a field where it's quite normal to take time out and where employment frankly is a bit precarious, even though I'm highly educated and well paid. It's just much easier to take time off or work part-time, not because I'm a woman, just because of my particular profession. My dh is self-employed. It would be a real pain for him to close his business for 3 months and start up again. We would lose income and clients. It's not because he's a dad. He is taking 2 weeks off (unpaid, not eligible for SPP) and then working part-time for a further 2 weeks to do the school run. But he is his business so our long term prospects would take a big hit if he closed to take parental leave. Whereas my income and career success won't really be affected much by taking a year off or even going back part-time. I think it really depends on what industry you're in and how you manage household life already. We already have a lot of flexibility. My dh often does the school runs. He takes on the bulk of the parenting when I have my busy times at work or when I travel (which can be internationally for a week or more at a time). I'd rather have him earning well and having a flexible schedule, so that I can focus on my career when I'm back to work than sharing parental leave. It's ultimately more beneficial to my career and works better for us. But I think it would be great if more dads who are employed especially took up their options for flexible working, worked part-time, etc. in addition to things like shared leave.

I returned to work at 7.5 months and my husband gave up working. Well, gave up until DC was 12 months and since then has worked 15hrs a week.
I have always earned more than him, I didn’t enjoy maternity leave and I love my job, and he didnt mind his job and adored parental leave.

Aside from some incredibly bitchy women at a few playgroups, and an awful incident at soft play where a woman tried to accuse him of unsavoury intentions ( she honestly said that men had no place at kids play centres- she got lifetime banned by the centre), it’s been brilliant.

We shared leave with our first and will again.

For us, it’s a matter of finances as well as opportunity. I earn more, and getting my wage back after six months while my husband gets statutory is more sensible for us.

I’m also able to work fairly flexibly, so I can work at home. The first time, my husband gained a good sense of how having days with a baby worked - he knew about naps, feeding etc - and he maintained a pretty equal role, far more than ‘helping’.

However, this time has been less easy than the first (despite the law change). The first time, his private sector work place really helped it to happen even though they weren’t obliged to. This time, in a private company, it seems much more of a hassle and judged more negatively (stupid macho bullshit).

This would have been great for DC1 as at the time I significantly out earned DH and had to go back to work very quickly. He stayed at home but with no income at all. Now he out earns me by a lot and I am staying home.

I think with all these changes, the focus should be on increasing the number and quality of choices women and families have.

Plus, if the gender pay gap was closed, a lot more families would find it financially more viable for dad to take some time off.

Until men and women are equal as parents with the proviso that there are physical requirements to being a mum. We should stop complaint about the gender pay gap and rights at work. What employer in their right mind would treat two people equally who had totally different needs. I'm a working mum and frustration at work is that they know I want to get home for my children. Men don't so guess what they earn more. I'm exaggerating for effect but that's the unspoken obstacle in equality in the workplace.

As someone who works in HR..it's a PITA to process.

The take is low because in spite of what many say...about it, mums prefer to be the parent at home....and the partner is the higher earner.

I wouldn't have wanted to share it with DH.

Me and my husband are doing the shared leave right now but we are doing it a little differently. My ds is 4 mo old and dh has been off work (on full pay) since he was born. In order to qualify for full pay he had to take the leave within the first 18 weeks of the birth.

I was a little unsure at first of having both of us be off together (I had thought we would take time consecutively) as it means ds will need to go to nursery before he is 12 mo old. However I'm now so pleased we did it like this. It has been amazing to have his support for 4 straight months. And for him to see ds develop. He goes back to work in 2 weeks and I'm dreading it!

In our situation, although we don't have kids yet, we would not consider it as we simply couldn't afford to lose his wages for him to be on statutory paternity pay. My wages aren't enough to pay all the bills, they may be if we made stupid cutbacks but neither of us would be happy with that, we would rather do it so I have the leave and he goes to work. He gets full pay for his paternity and has a shift pattern that means he'll be home plenty, it'll be fairly evenly shared anyway.

Men should get more leave but dont take it away from women who need it. Yes the time is to bond with the baby but also for mum to heal after birth. Some women have an easy pregnancy and ping right back. For others the mental and physical stresses last a long time. It is also difficult to know how you will feel or how much time is needed so mums have every right to change their mind.
Women should be treated equally regardless.

I would have loved to have shared it but I’m breastfeeding and I just cannot express anywhere near enough milk and my dh was very reluctant to switch to formula just so he could use the leave.

I think men should get their own separate leave that they can take without it affecting the mothers maternity leave.

It’s something we seriously considered but financially my mat pay was far superior than what was offered under my DH SPL so we didn’t take it up. DH applied for compressed hours and now has one day a week home with the DC and this was a much better solution for us.

My husband and I earn a similar amount but I have taken the full year both times as it seemed hugely counter productive for me to be expressing at work for him to bottle feed when I could just do it myself.

I was a hormonal mess for the first year after my first-I think it would have finished me off going back early.

We also couldn’t have afforded the pay cut as DH earns so much more. That’s the main reason why people aren’t taking this up, I would think. Unless that is addressed, I doubt much will change.

I’ve done it, twice - once under SpL, and once under the older system in place in 2012 (amongst other things that piss me off is the coalition’s ownership of SPL, where as the older (not quite as flexible) system was brought in in the dying days of the labour government).

My husband slightly out earns me, but it’s important for us as a family to do this. I returned to work at about six months with both of them, and husband took another four months afterwards.

I breastfed them til 12 months +, I worked full time on sleepless nights (still so even though youngest is nearly two). I hate hate hate the ‘my Husband is in an industry where you can’t take long periods off’ - wtf so pregnant women do then?

And I agree with all those that equality in the workforce is not going to happen until we have equality at home. The amount of women I have met who don’t want to ‘share’ with their husbands just makes me really sad (and as a consequence, I bet most of them shoulder the mental load as time goes on...).

I would have loved to share with DH and he wanted to as well. Unfortunately the reality was that as his wage is higher than mine we just couldn’t afford it. I think that’s probably the same for a lot of families.

We would have loved to take it up, but DH earns more than twice my income so we couldn't afford to take the hit. Particularly as I went back part time as we didn't want dc in nursery all day every day.