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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Why don't men get 1 year paternity leave?

376 replies

Catinthetwat · 02/03/2019 14:41

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?

OP posts:
Meandwinealone · 02/03/2019 14:59

Why’s it a stupid post. It’s good to discuss these things. Shared parental leave is a great thing to encourage.

nanbread · 02/03/2019 15:00

You don't need to get pregnant, give birth and breastfeed to be entitled to maternity leave. My friend adopted and she was entitled to a maternity leave.

That's called adoption leave, and is different and needed for slightly different reasons.

As PP have said, dads CAN share leave so parents take the year's worth between them either concurrently or not. We did it, although the problem is often that a lot of companies don't offer men the same "maternity" packages as women so they only get SMP.

A lot of that is because they need to attract women back to the workforce so offer enhanced packages.

And a lot of families can't afford the main earner - which quiet often is the man especially if the woman has gone PT after having a child previously - to be off for several months.

Which brings me to my next bugbear - it's so much easier for women to get PT roles than men.

GreenTulips · 02/03/2019 15:02

Well it would increase the divorce rate!

Meandwinealone · 02/03/2019 15:03

@GreenTulips
Why?

ASurfeitOfDuncans · 02/03/2019 15:03

They can share leave.

lostelephant · 02/03/2019 15:04

Was having this conversation with DP a couple of days ago. I think it's outdated. How are we meant to move on from "women staying at home to look after the kids whilst the men work" when paternity leave is less time than what some people take for a holiday?

cucumbergin · 02/03/2019 15:04

It's clear from Aviva's example that once you remove the financial barriers and let men take leave w/o it reducing the woman's leave, then the vast majority take it up.

Dermymc · 02/03/2019 15:04

Men can have quite a while off if they take shared parental leave.

stayathomer · 02/03/2019 15:04

I think 1 year is a little bit long tbh? Fair enough with eg a sick child or the mother has complications then I think there should be more paternity leave set aside (I don't know what the current stance on this is) . I know in a lot of european countries they share maternity and paternity but everyone (every woman) I've ever talked to on this said that it wasn't fully needed and the dhs/dps definitely did not share the load (in two cases their other halves used the time to study/increase career prospects!) Also I think companies will suffer as a result

WatchToTheEnd · 02/03/2019 15:07

@trancepants

It takes most women very little time to recover from pregnancy. You listing your difficulties contributes nothing.

"Seriously, what a stupid post."

Yep. So why did you write it?

Hope you've recovered from your thrush.

Inapickle230 · 02/03/2019 15:07

You don’t need 2 people to look after a baby for a full year, but I do agree that 2 weeks isn’t long enough, 6 weeks would be better.

I don’t know why shared leave hasn’t been taken up more but I don’t think that many men actually want to and women don’t want to go back to work that early (in general). I don’t know anyone who has shared the leave.

AssassinatedBeauty · 02/03/2019 15:07

The issue with shared parental leave is it means removing leave from the mother to enable the father to have it.

And as mentioned before, it often isn't financially viable.

BikeRunSki · 02/03/2019 15:10

I am probably seeing a very skewed view of things, because I work for a large Quango, but men taking shared parental leave and working part time is very common.

ASurfeitOfDuncans · 02/03/2019 15:11

The issue with shared parental leave is it means removing leave from the mother to enable the father to have it.

Provided the mother has recovered from the birth, I don't see what is wrong with that, it's shared, they're both parents.

ILoveMaxiBondi · 02/03/2019 15:12

I’m just imagining the relationships board of fathers are given paternity leave at the same pay rate/time frame as mothers. It’s a depressing thought tbh.

Pinkbells · 02/03/2019 15:15

Do you mean in addition to the mother getting a year off? No, I think after the initial stage of needing to support a new mother with possible complications (caesarian etc) then it doesn't take two to look after the baby full time. But I think it would be good for the parents to be able to decide which one would stay home and that person get paid for the year, regardless of whether it is the mother or the father.

AssassinatedBeauty · 02/03/2019 15:16

The issue with sharing the mother's maternity leave is that in order to have a more equitable leave, the woman has to accept less leave than she would otherwise get. Rather than simply increasing the leave available for paternity. It's penalising those women.

So, I disagree with men sharing the woman's leave.

BikeRunSki · 02/03/2019 15:19

So is the OP suggesting that every family gets 2 years subsidised maternity/paternity leave for every child? That does seem somewhat unnecessary. Who would fund it?

PurpleFlower1983 · 02/03/2019 15:19

My DH and I taking shared parental leave. I think 2 weeks is a ridiculously short amount of time for paternity leave.

Meandwinealone · 02/03/2019 15:22

@AssassinatedBeauty
We’ll surely that’s a personal choice, I guess a woman could see it as a really vital and important bonding time for father and child,
And though they might selfishly want to take all the maternity, it might be overall better for the child, the father and the marriage if things were spread more fairly.

So many women come on here and are at their wits end about care/mental load/ housework/ work value/ intimacy/ understanding.

I think that if more men and women were happy to share then lots of those problems would dissipate

ILoveMaxiBondi · 02/03/2019 15:23

Agree 2 weeks is too short. 6-8 would be better.

TitsAndTomatoes · 02/03/2019 15:23

I think 1 year which can be shared should be the option.
Id love to have gone back to work while dh tried to make his tits work like mine Grin.

YouBumder · 02/03/2019 15:24

Women have fought for years for equal treatment and the one thing they might get for themselves over men, people think that men should get the same. When women aren’t disadvantaged in the workplace for having kids, when the gender pay gap is obliterated, then I might start to worry about the men. But the truth is men don’t need to recover physically from childbirth and don’t breastfeed. Anyway, they can take shared parental leave. I don’t know why that doesn’t suffice for those who want to take it.

AssassinatedBeauty · 02/03/2019 15:25

It's not "selfish", it is very often just not financially viable, nor particularly conducive to breastfeeding. And women are entitled to a year of maternity leave. It seems wrong to me to only allow men to have more leave by taking it away from women's entitlement.

And I exactly do think that it's better for everyone that men spend more time with their babies. That's exactly why I want better paternity leave.

Meandwinealone · 02/03/2019 15:26

@YouBumder
Your post is so full of contradictions is crazy.

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