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!).

What ever they tell their wife’s most men do not want it

My sister works in HR at the council less than 1% of the male coucil population have taken it and they have hundreds of employees

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

But feminists also complain that the lions share of childcare is down to women. I think this is a great idea.

The father takes a month off to facilitate the mother’s return to work.

I'm not arguing that properly paid maternity, paternity and parental leave isn't a good thing. And certainly anything additional to what we have is going to be better.

I just found it amusing that someone was surprised feminists were concerned that the Icelandic model, if used in the uk, could mean a lot of women returning to work before they'd really recovered from pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding. It sounded like 6 months was the maximum a woman could take and for many women 1 month of that would be before the baby arrived as many a woman cant work until full term.

Some pregnancies and births go really well and people feel fit for work 2 weeks later. But for many of us it takes 9 months for the body to make a baby and 9 months to fully recover!

@OP

Interesting idea. Unfortunately it'll show how many mothers want their cake and eat it. They want taking extended breaks from work to have no impact on their careers, they want perfect equality when it suits but not if it means them giving anything up.

@NationalShiteDay

So much anger. Men are 'he', perhaps 'they'. "It" is showing your true feelings but pretty insulting.

Fishgut - but presumably the 1%, your sister is talking about relates to the current model of shared parental leave, which doesn't work, not least because it requires the mother to give up some entitlement. Even with paternity leave proper, many men won't take beyond a week as they can't afford to - only the first week is paid. It's complete rot to imply that somehow men don't want this; and even if that were true making paternity leave more normal would help change attitudes to childcare.

Very surprised at some of the PPs on this thread. This IS a feminist issue as much as an issue for men.

I agree that an increase in parental leave is very important in increasing a father 's role

Shared parental leave is an entitlement which sadly very few parents take up. It requires the mother to transfer some of her leave.

I completely agree with the OPs point that it’s in the interests of the child to have a father who is hands-on from the get go

Having had our 3 babies back in the day when there wasn’t even any 2 week paternity leave, and only 3 months maternity leave for mum, non-transferable, I’m not convinced the system needs changing though. Maternity and paternity legislation is now quite favourable in the U.K. compared to many countries and I think is a good balance for employee and employer. I just think it’s a shame so few couples avail themselves of shared leave which would enable more dads to have that 1:1 time

I understand what you’re saying OP.

Based on personal experience of people I know I definitely think that men taking ‘on their own’ paternity leave helps them bond with the baby. More, though, it teaches them how to look after the baby completely - what they need when going out, what to eat, when to sleep etc.

However, despite this I still didn’t give any of my leave up to my husband! Firstly, it wasn’t really the ‘done thing’ at his work. Secondly, I felt that I had done the difficult parts (tiny baby feeding through the night and crying all the time) during the winter months that I wasn’t going to give up the summer months with a more fun older baby!

I don’t think that my attitude / experience is uncommon so think the ‘use it or lose it’ idea for paternity leave in addition to maternity is great in theory. As PPs point out though - it’s just paying for it that would
be the issue.

When I had my fist, paid maternity leave was 18 weeks, and there was no paternity leave.

The idea that a year which can be shared is anything other than a generous amount is completely strange to me

But if the aim is to increase the amount of paid leave per birth, at what rate would be paid, how many births are there per year and so what is estimated new cost. Given that no Government budget is awash with cash, what wouid you de-prioritise to pay for this?

Or are you planning to raise taxes to pay for it? Because I think that wouid be quite a tough policy to ain support for.

I wouldn’t even see shared leave as ‘giving something up.’ I would see it as transferring some of the year long entitlement to the other (equal) parent of the child. Mind you, it’s hard To get your head round a whole year off anyway when you had babies 20 plus years ago, because that in itself seems incredible. Honest to god, parental rights are really pretty darn good now in the UK

Actually Momo27, I think you're right and it was 12 weeks for my first. 18 was for DC2. Funny how something that loomed so large back then is not etched on the memoryso enduringly.

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?

I think it would be better too. I know three couples where the father has said he’d like to take a few months of paternity leave, but the mother has said- no way, I’ve earnt it, I get the full 12 months. Of course women need to get the first portion off while they recover, but six months seems plenty for this (of course there will be exceptions but the majority of women are physically able to return to work at six months). To have three months that’s protected as the father’s right to take would, I think, make the rate of uptake higher. And longer term I completely agree with others this is likely to benefit so many things- how women are treated at work, the division of labour in the home etc. The ideal for me would be six months for women, 3 months for men, and then 3 months for whoever wants it.

OP, I'm in agreement with you - with most parents having to put their babies into paid childcare after maternity leave and then having to take a million days off when the baby gets ill I'm sure there's a cost effective way of making it work. It would be much more family friendly if, after the mothers' maternity leave ends, the father can then have the option of taking a chunk of time out to look after the baby. Maybe it could be done on a work now/time off later basis and bank the hours if it was too expensive to implement. It would be a good arrangement though within reason.

Posters keep saying that shared maternity leave has been in place for a while, yes it has but that's not what the OP is saying. She's pointing out that for the father to take time out the parents have to share the 12 months, so if the mother has had a particularly tough recovery then the father wouldn't be able to take any time.

Seriously, unless the mother has had some highly unusual set of circumstances they do not need a year off to recover! How do you think mums managed in the past?

My friends and I (having kids in late 80s/early 90s) were back at work after 3 months. Many of us continued bf too.

This is about a mindset. If you value the father being involved, it’s not hard to transfer months 9-12 to him, even if it means taking a bit of a financial hit in the short term, for the long term benefits of his relationship with his child.

If a woman wants to guard the whole 12 months as ‘hers’ then at least be honest about that- don’t dress it up as needing ‘recovery time.’

I have 2 younger colleagues currently on ML and both have said they will take the whole year off for themself because they want it. On a personal level I think it’s a shame because I’m their shoes I’d jump at being able to transfer a few months to my dh. But at least they’re being honest about it, and saying they want the whole lot for themselves

i can't help but feel that society doesn't really value a father's role enough which leads to a more unequal society overall.

But fathers/the other parent CAN have leave: shared parental leave. I see other posters saying that the mum needs all the maternity leave to recover from / as a reward for the physical effort of pregnancy and birth. But seriously, unless you have been very unlucky, 6 months is more than enough for that.

Shared parental leave gives couples the flexibility to apportion their family leave as best suits them. If the dad/other parent wants to take some, they can. If it works best for that family for the mum to take it all, she can. Maybe neither of them wants to take it all. It's a personal choice which everyone already has.

I think expecting the employers of this country to fund more than 12 months off between parents after a birth is unworkable for the economy unless people would like to pay considerably higher taxes (as they do in Sweden) to fund it.

Anecdotally, a lot of mothers managed very badly going back at 12 weeks. My own mother tells me she was still bleeding, and cried every day for months.

Surely more compressed and flexible working hours for both parents would be better, where possible?

I think maternity leave is extremely good in the UK these days. Let's not forget, for the majority of people, pregnancy is a choice and as such parents should try to ensure that they can afford their baby well before they actually get pregnant. That includes planning and saving for adequate leave, either maternity or paternity.
I've worked with women who plan to work until the week they are due, have a year off and return part time. Suddenly at 8 months they can't physically work anymore but still expect to come in, do nothing all day and get paid then get angry if it's suggested they start their mat leave. They often return earlier than planned as their paid leave has finished. They are then angry that they didn't get enough paid leave. However, it was their choice to have a child. With parenthood comes financial choices.
In an ideal world, both parents would get their own entitlement to paid and unpaid leave to have in whatever combination they choose. A single parent would be able to have the combined leave of a couple. Nurseries would be free for lower income earners. But it's isn't an ideal world.
Not very long ago, I had to start mat leave at 34 weeks because I wasn't physically able to continue working, had a traumatic birth with PPH and had to return at 6 weeks because that's when the mat pay ran out. We had planned for DH to take 2 weeks off when I returned to work, plus have a further 2 weeks holiday leave but as I was so ill he took this straight after I came home from hospital. It was shit, and it took me much longer to recover than it would if I could have had longer off. But that was how it was! Thankfully things are much better for women now.

Not all men would want to though, sadly.
I think my husband would rather have hacked his legs off than looked after the baby on his own.
But he’s a prick.

Only a small percentage of women bf after 9 months but as it's still beneficial it's still good policy to support it.

I would much sooner see the entitlement for women be raised to a reasonable amount. £595 a month is nothing, I am used to earning double that.

Completely agree. I shared parental leave with DH and was in the minority. If it’s use it or lose it men have to engage. And if they’d rather go back to work than spend time with their child, that tells me an awful lot.

Ultimately it helps women as it facilitates men stepping up to the plate. If it’s a) legal and b) use it or lose it, men have no excuse and if they don’t engage are complicit in a culture which continues to hamper women.

We were lucky enough that we could afford for DP and I to swap who was working and who was SAHP, but I had to quit my (zero hours contract) job when I got pregnant due to HG so I wasn't entitled to any maternity pay. I was at home for the first 18 months, then we swapped and DP became the SAHP. He previously finished work at 3pm and had the time to be very hands on with DD before he was a SAHP, but it is clear that they have a much stronger bond after him having so much more time with her and being sole carer. I do think the government should fund fathers having more than two weeks at home with a new baby, but I think the mothers right to maternity leave should be protected and not diminished, as it is the women who have recovery from pregnancy and birth to deal with.

With you 100% OP.

There won't be equality for women in the workplace (or anything even approaching equality) until more men step up to the childcare plate. Out of the women I met before I gave birth quite a few of them were horrified that I planned to share parental leave 50/50 and said they would never consider doing it themselves due to having to give up their own leave.

Yes it would be expensive, but so is maternity leave.

Helping men is helping women in this case.

When my friend's dd was born (she is now 20) you could have 14 week maternity leave. Since then entitlements have hugely increased to everyone's benefit.

With shared parental leave you have flexibility to split it to suit your family. You can even have time off, go back to work & have more time off if you structure your shpl that way.

Also everyone has the right to ask for flexible working after 6 months' service with an employer.

There is also an entirely separate right to 13 weeks unpaid parental leave per child.

How is this now not enough?

It's not enough because it's done nothing to change the culture that for magic alpha males with their Important Lives, childcare is still opt in,at the expense of their relationships with their children and the expense of women's equality, both at home and at the workplace.

I do think some mother's gatekeep access to their children as some sort of consolation prize. You see it here with the "oh no, I could never go back to work before 9 months/a year" and sod the father and their wishes.