Help with childcare is better than extended mat leave

[GiveHerHellFromUs]

Labour are proposing to extend SMP to 12 months.

As a party who insist they 100% support equality, does this not seem a bizarre policy? Surely it'd encourage even less recruitment of women in senior positions due to the extended time off work.

I would much prefer help towards childcare costs earlier than 2 years old.

AIBU?

Many mothers would love more time with their baby

However labour are promising the earth and have no way of paying for it

I'd love more time with my baby too, but I think help with childcare costs would be more beneficial for us as a society than extended mat leave.

Agreed - I read that they'd need to borrow £1.3trillion which is terrifying.

What % of mothers are in senior positions, were this would effect their career, as opposed to women in ordinary jobs, or carers that will recover from the time off?

For the many, not the few, sort of covers this.

Do women in senior roles need subsidised childcare?

What about fathers, do they get the same? If not this is just another way to entrench the gender career/pay gap. Mothers will take leave as they get paid and fathers don’t, they end up the primary carer, etc.

@Confusedbeetle, it's costed out and available. We've had that claptrap from the Torys.

Labour's borrowing will be less than the Conservatives. Because the Conservatives have, once again, grinded us into poverty, it'll take a lot to get us out.

But we can afford it.

@Ponoka7 From a childcare cost perspective, how many women do we read about on here who can't afford to go back to work because childcare is too expensive?

It's not a case of them taking time off from their senior position, it's a case of the career gap potentially impacting the long term prospects

Most women are going to work for 50 years. An extra 13 weeks of SMP should not affect the number of women in senior positions - many women will have as much as 35 yrs of their career left after they have children and most women I know would love longer at home with their baby.

We should value the huge chunk of our working lives after children just as highly as the shorter chunk before.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland but how do we do that if we can't afford to return to work?

My point is it should be easier for us to return after maternity leave. The length of maternity leave is almost irrelevant really if we can't easily return due to the extortionate costs of childcare.

Mothers already get 12 months off. It's just that 3 months at the end are unpaid. This would mean they are paid

I dont see why that's a bad thing really.

Ah ok over just read your latest bit...hmm it's a tricky one. Theres so many conflicting studies out there but a good few suggest it's best for the child to be in parent care until 3 years old.

I reckon this is probably why the universal funding is from that age and is also the age that traditional preschool starts.

On the other hand I know that's not realistic for all modern families. The right to propose flexible or reduced hours must help to an extent especially if both parents use this rather than all the responsibility falling on mum (in most cases, not saying its all)

What about fathers, do they get the same? If not this is just another way to entrench the gender career/pay gap. Mothers will take leave as they get paid and fathers don’t, they end up the primary carer, etc.
Shared parental leave arrangements already exist for parents to split the leave between them so if they want to, mother's and fathers (as long as they meet eligibility requirements same as SMP) can share the time.
The payments are the same and it can be taken in blocks.

Maybe more couples should decide to split leave or have the father take some time off? That would do more to start normalising shared responsibility and attitudes in the workplace than arguing funding the last few weeks leave is somehow setting the world backwards.

The expectation for most employers currently seems to be that women will take the full 12 months off anyway, including the last three unpaid months. I strongly doubt that paying those final three months will dramatically change uk employment culture. In addition it's not compulsory, women can still choose to go back earlier if they wish. I think it's a great move forward, and another step towards joining up maternity paid leave and childcare help. The next step does need to be making childcare more affordable, from the point when maternity leave ends, not from 3 years old as it is now. More flexible childcare, and a bigger push towards more flexible working wherever it's possible would also help. The 12 months maternity pay is progress, not a complete solution.