To think fathers should get use-it-or-lose-it paternity leave once the mother is back at work?

[HavelockVetinari]

It seems so unfair that mums get to have time off to look after their DC but dads get 2 weeks unless the mum is willing to give up some of her own leave. Why can't the government acknowledge the importance of a father in a child's life and give them their own entitlement?

Benefits:

• Improved bonding from 1:1 sole care responsibility day in, day out;
• Less discrimination against women of childbearing age in the workplace;
• Hopefully more equal split of parenting duties.

Should this be a MN campaign? I truly think the benefits to women would actually even outweigh the benefits to men (although that's clearly not the way to sell it!).

And I should add that having both of us off work was absolutely brilliant, I'd have really struggled on my own! Thoroughly recommend it!

As someone who is a mum, but in the situation of the "father" as the non-birthing parent in a same sex relationship, I complete agree with the OP. I took 3 months shared parental leave because it made financial sense (as a civil servant they match maternity pay so full) and it hugely benefited my relationship with DS. Yes, I'm sure that bond would have developed over time but DS has never yet shown a preference between us and I can't help but wonder if things would be different for the amount of OPs that post about fathers who do very little if they actually spent some one on one time with their children in their first year

I'm self employed so gave my husband some of my leave. I can work from home so we had the best of both worlds but his bond with our baby is incredible and I know that if I fell under a bus tomorrow she'd be left with someone who loves her and knows her as much as I do.

For those asking for research, there's a good summary here - www.fatherhoodinstitute.org/2014/fi-research-summary-paternity-leave/

This claims that paternity leave is positively associated with the father's bond with the child, their mental health, the mother's physical and mental health, and a more equitable distribution of household tasks.

@GoJetterGirl

But if your husband was entitled to 2 months paid leave rather than 2 weeks, wouldn't that have made things much easier for you as a family?

I don't understand why you say that the 2 weeks was needed, but you think men havnt earned and dont need more paternity leave.

@darceybussell you said "This was initially the plan for the uk but feminist groups objected to any leave entitlement being taken from women." Would you mind expanding on which feminist groups objected to this idea?

The multinational that my DH works for offers fathers 6 months paternity leave at full pay which I think is amazing. Shame more companies don't offer that.

It's not about leave being taken from women - what I'm arguing for is paternity leave IN ADDITION TO but not simultaneously taken to maternity leave. It would do a lot of fathers a world of good to see how tough it is to look after a baby day in, day out, and employers would soon have to offer the same kind of package to fathers as mothers or face sex discrimination lawsuits.

Over here (Germany) parents get 12 months if one parent takes it all and 14 months if they share. It can be divided up any way the parents choose - the mother 'has' to take the first eight weeks (at least if she's employed, as there is an absolute ban on employing a post-partum mother for the first eight eeks after birth, twelve weeks with prem or multiple births) but the father could be off at the same time, or they could each have seven months together or consecutively - however they want. You get 67% of your previous net salary or earnings (self-employed mothers get it too) and can opt to have it paid out at half rate over twice as long a period. What frequently happens in practice is that the mother takes a year and then the father takes two months and does the settling in to nursery while the mother goes back to work, but I've heard of all sorts of combinations. Works well IMO and E.

FFS, I should have said 'self-employed parents'.

@AssassinatedBeauty I'm not entirely sure which ones but this is the article that I got my information from:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/mar/27/shared-parental-leave-johnny-davis

I’d be in favour of some “use it or lose it” allocation for fathers but not after 12 whole for mothers.
Maybe after nine months? Lots of mothers go back after 9 mo anyway as that’s when the money runs out.
Maybe the father could get some pay for those months if they swap or unpaid if the mother says off?

When dad squeezes a bowling ball out of a smartie tube, he can have a year off.

This ^

If the Dad wants more time (outside of non working hours, weekends, evenings etc) then - in many roles - he can use annual leave to extend the 2 weeks he is already entitled to, or can share some of the leave as the law stands now.
Yes, IMO, YABU.

I think of all the problems this country has, throwing money at male parents is the least of them. The money would be better spent on those that actually need it.

darceybussell I can see why feminist groups, and many others, might have not agreed with reducing women's maternity leave from 12 months down to 6 months, in order to get any additional leave for fathers. Why would anyone think that 3 months per parent and an extra 3 to use how they choose would be better than the system of maternity/paternity that we have?

Increasing leave for fathers doesn't and shouldn't come at the expense of reducing leave for women.

The scandinavian model of leave is also paid for by much higher taxes. Are you willing to pay 10 % more income tax?

Those naughty feminists putting women at the centre of leave partly based around pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding.

Couples can share the maternity leave.

Surely campaigning for more paternity leave should be down to, you know, men. The same men who actually don't think that having babies directly affects them enough to save money to have the two weeks off they currently get.

@AssassinatedBeauty I'm someone who thinks that would be better, but as I said before, I appreciate I'm in the minority, hardly anyone else I know would be willing to share their leave but I shared mine equally with my partner.

@explodingkitten I don't see how the Icelandic system would be any more expensive than the uk one. in the uk we get 9 months paid to share, in Iceland they get 9 months paid to share. Anyway, it's a moot point because something like that would never take off in the uk.

User12879923378
I'm self employed so gave my husband some of my leave. I can work from home so we had the best of both worlds but his bond with our baby is incredible and I know that if I fell under a bus tomorrow she'd be left with someone who loves her and knows her as much as I do.

Really, and you think this bond is only for those who have parental leave? My DH would throw himself under a bus for our DC, as would many many parents who didnt get parental leave

Can you explain a bit more, darcy, why you would prefer maternity leave to reduce from 12 months to 6 months?

I'm strongly in favour of a use it or lose it leave for fathers which is separate from the current parental leave. I think it could make a massive difference to making society more equal if most dads do a decent stint of being the main parent. Of course, it only works if the statutory pay is a livable amount (I think in Sweden it is 80-90% of their income).

It needs to be tied in with widely available good quality childcare which is affordable though.

I wouldn't necessarily advocate the exact same system as the one they have in Iceland and therefore reduce the total amount available from the 12 months, but i just think that if men were just as likely to take extended leave and women were less likely to have a whole year off there would be less opportunity for employers to discriminate.

I work for a large company with hundreds of diversity policies and targets, and I was flagged up on a resourcing call as a woman of childbearing age who was likely to take maternity leave soon, when I was not pregnant and had no intention of becoming pregnant. Although it's shit that stuff like that happens, we have to accept that it does happen and will continue to do so while society still sees childcare as predominantly a woman's role. I don't see it as solely my role, I see it as a joint role with my partner and that's why I took the exact same amount of leave as him.

I agree OP! We also did shared paternity, baby wouldn't take a bottle so was a bit stressful at first but I really think it was good.

Of course it isn't the only way that fathers can bond with children but being a primary caregiver is different to seeing your baby in evenings and weekends.

I found my husband took more decisions - before that if he looked after the baby for a day he was asking what to feed, when should put down for a nap, any idea why crying etc. After that he just got on with it.

He also did all the settling in at nursery which was great for me, and think it helped my child as well as they were less upset when he dropped them off.

I also found it made it a lot easier settling back into work knowing I had a few months to get back into the swing of things and not worry about pick up and drop off etc

I understand not everyone can do this due to financial reasons etc but I think it's a third of couples now the woman is the main breadwinner and a lot must earn similar so this can't explain the tiny take up (a couple of percent). It's also only feasible probably if the couple are going to take a long maternity leave.

When asking people why they did want to do it most women responded with the 'I carried the baby for 9 months, I deserve it'. Which I think is harsh against the father. As much as they would like to, they can't carry a baby and most of the women I know wouldn't even discuss it and took a whole year. Absolutely they need time to bond with the baby and recover from birth but in the vast majority of cases I don't think it takes a whole year. It seems a bit mean 11 months in to still be using the 'I gave birth' as a trump card and denying men the last 4 weeks off if they want it

You hear so often on here people saying women carry the mental load of caring for the family, men have to be told what to do around the house and with childcare, it's not 50:50, m'en carry on their hobbies while women give them up, men think it's easy to be a stay at home parent etc etc...well surely sharing at least some of the paternity leave would help that? If they are doing something day in day out for a month or so they are going to have a better understanding of it surely. I don't understand how some women won't let their partner take any leave but then berate them for not getting things that the primary carer naturally assumes responsibility for if they are denying their partner the chance to be a primary carer for a period

I think it's difficult to change attitudes so we could start by giving men more than a paltry 2 weeks off ie some use it or lose it paternity cover. It surely can only benefit society

I'm sure I will get flamed for this and lots of people saying they couldn't afford it or had issues meaning they had to stay home - I'm not talking about these cases, I'm talking about those cases where leave could feasibly be shared and the women just flat refuse to 'give up' even a short period of 'their' maternity leave

Also I work for a supposedly very ethical company who promote shared paternity leave. And unofficially still frequently hear of women of childbearing age being turned down for roles if they have recently got married for example as they are more likely to be taking paternity leave. Even though the same logic should now be applied to men (I am being flippant - I realise this thought process shouldn't be applied to anyone. It's a very big company and people being off on maternity shouldn't impact too much as well). People say this as they know in 98pc of cases it's the woman taking the majority of the time off. There needs to be a cultural shift to make it more normal for fathers to take some time caring for their children in their early years. And this is only going to happen though some sort of use it or lose it scheme.

Also interesting to see the numbers of people saying women breastfeed so it's not feasible. Only a very very small percentage of women breastfeed after 6 months. I breastfed until 20 months and still managed to share a few months of paternal leave and so did other people I know

I just don't really understand why some women are arguing against fathers being more involved in their kids lives