Why don't men get 1 year paternity leave?

[Catinthetwat]

I was just wondering what people's thoughts were on this?

I think it's hard to defend unequal access to parental leave. This is important for men, women and for children. The only argument against is an economic one. Is that a good enough reason?

The government are currently looking into extending the 2 weeks paternity leave to around 12 weeks I think - which would be a start.

So, men should be given 1 years paternity leave with pay and benefits equal to women - aibu?

It's not a vote winner in this country. I would not vote for a party where taxes had to rise / more borrowing was needed / taxes were redeployed from elsewhere to subsidise two parents being off at the same time to look after a baby. It's ridiculous, it's not a two person job.

We have two weeks paternity which is plenty, that is enough for the mother to recover from birth and have some extra help (the cynic in me says that paternity leave as enabled hospitals to discharge mothers before they're physically ready).

Then we have a system where either / or the mother or father can take the rest of the 'maternity' leave off. It's fair already, anyone who wants to have both parents off at the same time can save up and fund it themselves, but the state shouldn't have to.

Hersymphony- true. Breastfeeding rates have far more to do with other factors, principally the socio economic status of the mother, than whether she’s working or not.

Your post reminded me of when i has dc1. Dh and I went to NCT classes to prepare, and I also went along to the free classes offered at the local maternity unit. Out of the NCT class, all of us bf and all but one of us returned to work (and this was in the days when return to work was when the baby was 3 months old- and yes, we bf long term.) Out of the NHS class, a very significant proportion of mums didn’t bf and didn’t return to work either.

No judgements here about bf/ff or WOH/SAH. I’m just responding to the issue of bf which has been raised a number of times. The fact is that professional women are more likely to bf and more likely to return to work- so you don’t need to be at home full time to bf a child. And anyway, now that ML can extend well beyond a child is weaned, it’s even less of an issue. Children can be and are bf long term whether the mum works or not

We have two weeks paternity which is plenty, that is enough for the mother to recover from birth

Depends on what birth...

Considering you can’t drive for 6 weeks after a c-section, I’m not sure 2 weeks is always enough to recover from birth. Some women have third or fourth degree tears, other birth traumas... and that’s just physical. There is also the mental recovery.
I’ve had 3 very straightforward births. With my first DH had 2 weeks paternity leave, which was fine (apart from being very daunted about caring for a baby when he went back to work).
2 weeks again for the second but on day 8 I developed sepsis and spent a week in intensive care. Luckily his employer gave him a weeks paid compassionate leave.
This time he had 6 weeks at full pay. It made everything so much easier and my mental health is much better this time round as a result. It meant he could deal with school runs/cooking/cleaning etc while I rested and fed the baby. He also had more chance to bond with the baby as he’d have him between feeds while I napped. It’s been great.

It’s all about creating a balanced system which works for employers as well as employees. Personally I think up to a year, the vast majority of which is transferable if the parents wish, plus 2 weeks for the father, is very reasonable and in fact better than many countries. This is the kind of thing my generation were fighting for when we were returning to work after 12 weeks, and when our husbands were back at work a day or two after the birth. And we’re only talking 25-30 years ago so things have progressed massively.

You have to look at all sides of the issue. Eg where I work (a school) we had one teacher who took three 12 month maternity leaves in quick succession, so was barely in work for years. And she was entitled to do that, but it was a complete headache for management, being unable to recruit permanently to cover her for that whole period, which meant a smaller pool of applicants to choose from and for the pupils it meant a succession of stand-in staff. And quite a lot of women have taken two long ML quite close together- again, completely their right, but you can’t deny it has an impact in the workplace. Imagine if this situation were replicated with fathers too.... And personally I wouldn’t be prepared to pay even more tax than I already do to fund both parents having a year each off. I’m at the tipping point where any further tax increases and I’ll think fuck it, I’ll get a lower paid, fewer hours, easier job and keep a greater proportion of my gross income.

It’s all very well living in some fluffy cloud cuckoo land saying wouldn’t it be lovely if mums and dads could all stop working for ages each time they have a child - but that’s got to be paid for somehow.

@SoyDora You can drive much sooner than six weeks after a c-section, that's a myth. If you look up any insurance company's FAQs, you'll find the info. My poor SIL didn't drive for 6 weeks after her third child, and I haven't the heart to tell her it was self-imposed! I was driving within a week after my section.

Ah ok, I’ve never had one so was just going by what I read on here.
I’ve got many friends who had c-sections though and none of them were recovered after 2 weeks.

I could barely stand up straight for 9 weeks after my crash section with dc2. This wasn’t actually too problematic because DH was made redundant when he returned to work (2 weeks paternity and 2 weeks annual leave), so he was able to help.. My mobility was the least of our problems at that stage tbh.

It took me 5 months to fully recover after an emergency section. I didn't drive for about 8 weeks and even then it was a struggle. Some births need a long time to recover from.

I think the current shared system is fair. However it should be better funded so that both parents can take a total of a year off. Too many people return to work for financial reasons, not because they want to/are ready to.

They can share leave in some cases..,
We couldn't so my husbands unpaid paternity leave was spent during the week our son was in nicu meaning he had no time at home during the day once ds came home .. And I went back to work when ds was 16 weeks old as we couldn't have afforded to live on smp without my wage and dh wasn't entitled to shared leave in his workplace ..
I agree maternity leave / shared parental leave should be better paid like in other Scandinavian countries - my sil is about to have a baby in Denmark she gets one year off work - 6 months at full pay and then 6 months on smp which is about £300 per week as opposed to our £43 per week

Why would they or their partners even want that? Just why?

Why would they or their partners even want that

So the women have support? So the men can take care of their child too?

Why wasn't your dh entitled to shared leave? Looking at the gov website, employers cannot refuse it.

@Smurf123
Taxation in denmark can go up to 52% though. If you want the scandinavian system in the UK, the taxation needs to be higher. Do you want that?

I think it’s strange to ask why people would want it.... looking after a baby is hard work, but it’s even harder combining it with both parents working. And that’s aside from the obvious benefits of 1 on 1 time between baby and each parent.

Like I said though, it’s about balance. Of course there will always be extreme examples- eg the woman who bounces back into work a week after giving birth, and the woman who has such severe birth injuries that she can’t actually manage to care for herself and the baby for months. But those are extremes... if you were plotting all women who give birth on a graph, these would be the extreme outliers. Legislation has to be balanced and work around the majority cases, not the extremes. Therefore it seems that the current situation is very reasonable. Relatively very few women would be completely unable to cope without their partner being home after paternity leave, and very few women would be medically unable to return to work after a year.

I think it’s human nature to perhaps always wish things were slightly better than they are... when ML was 3 months, we’d have all chewed our right arms off for 6 months. When paternity leave didn’t exist, we’d have been delighted to have our partners home for a week. And frankly if someone had told me 28 years ago I could have a year off work, or split that year with my dh I’d have laughed in their face because it would have seemed so far fetched. Yet that’s what the situation is now. It’s really very reasonable especially when compared with other countries and also taking into account impact on the employer

I offered sharing the leave with my DH but he didn't want to (even though I'm the higher earner). Fine by me as I liked the time with my babies while they were young. No way we'd have needed both of us off for a year, and with no enhanced maternity package from my employer we couldn't have lived on 2 x SMP anyway.

I do think paternity leave should be more than 2 weeks though. I had an emcs and DH managed to extend his leave to 3 weeks using some annual leave but it was still tough. Second time round elcs and I ended up back in hospital 18 days pp with an infection. Luckily we had some family around to help with DC1 but it was tough as DH was back at work and I felt awful. They should get 4-6 weeks.

Breastfeeding rates have far more to do with other factors, principally the socio economic status of the mother, than whether she’s working or not

Is this really true??

Anyway - no. Both parents should not be off at the time for a whole year. I do think paternity leave should be longer, though.

Yes it is true.

It's not only income tax that could fund this. Corporation tax is at very low levels at the moment, a small rise on that would be able to fund an increase in paternity leave and probably many other things as well.

Have only read the first 4 pages (sorry), but really surprised at lots of the responses. Personally I think that both parents should be entitled to the leave that women get now - 9 months paid and up to 3 more unpaid.

They should be able to choose when they take it but ideally most of it not concurrently. This would be the best thing for babies as they would be cared for by a family member during the first two years of life, have a roughly equal time with both parents, and it would be an excellent thing for women in the workplace if a man was just as likely to be off as them, reducing discrimination and the gender pay gap.

Shared parental leave isn’t as good because the total time is less and it does impact on breastfeeding.

I would be perfectly happy to pay more taxes as I think it would benefit society as a whole. Just look at Scandinavia.

Shared parental leave doesn’t need to impact on bf. It’s quite possible to bf long term after returning to work much earlier than a year. So tbh if a mum takes, say, 9 months off and then the dad takes 3 months there is absolutely no reason to think that will impact negatively on bf.

It absolutely can impact on bf if your baby doesn’t take a bottle.

Well most babies are eating food and drinking from a cup by 9 months so not sure where bottle feeding comes into it!

My baby won’t take a bottle so it would have been very hard to return before now particularly as until recently he hasn’t eaten much solid food (he is 9mo and I am doing KIT days in advance of returning to work next month). However my point about breast and formula feeding was that the goady posts were not useful to the thread because it was implying that women like me were stupid to breastfeed and deserve to have our careers trashed, or conversely that women who formula feed should be pressurised into returning to work earlier otherwise they also deserve to have their careers trashed. Only a tiny minority of windup merchants are likely to follow this way of thinking and it is not a basis for parental leave policy

Why would they or their partners even want that? Just why?

Are you seriously asking why new parents would wish to take time off work to spend time with their baby? Surely not.