AIBU to think that we will never have equality while..

[iamruth]

We continue to treat men and/or allow them to behave like the inferior/ less responsible parent?

I’m not suggesting all men should start taking unpaid leave all the time etc but if they’re not treated as having nothing the same rights and responsibilities as mothers (clearly I’m excluding DV perpetrators of both secession actually here etc) then how will anything change? We can’t really expect them to have the same responsibilities without having the same rights.

Re. Parental leave - there has to be some recognition of the biological facts involved. Women have spent a hell of a long time with their body being subjected to ever increasing stresses, gone through an often traumatic (physically and psychologically) experience - often with lasting effects and ongoing medical issues

But that's precisely why men should also be given parental leave of their own (not some shared parental leave bullshit). So that women don't have to face the hardest job (looking after a newborn) on their own. Why do you think PND is so frequent? It's not just "hormones"... Isolation, lack of sleep. Much better for everyone (Mum, Dad, baby...) to share the burden (many people do not have friends or family to help, it's just Mum and Dad. Or just Mum, once Dad is back to work...)

I think in Sweden or Norway, they have a system where you can get extra leave, but both parents must take it, or it is lost. Much better outcome in term of family life, yet weirdly, men kind of had to be "forced" (enticed) to take the leave (if the leave was just free to take with no string attached, they wouldn't!)

Can I ask a question?

What do we think is stopping men from stepping up, if they don't get more than two weeks' paternity leave?

What happens that means we're blaming the lack of 'equality' in childcare on the lack of leave in those early weeks of a child's life?

Oh, and "surprisingly", men who take parental leave form much stronger bonds with their kids (who would have thunk...)

Whereas those who don't get involved with their babies typically don't get involved with their kids much (they don't know how anything "works", where the clothes are, what food they like, etc. And Mum knows best, so Mum does it all time... And it's a vicious circle of lack of experience and resulting incompetence...)

@iamruth

We continue to treat men and/or allow them to behave like the inferior/ less responsible parent?

I’m not suggesting all men should start taking unpaid leave all the time etc but if they’re not treated as having nothing the same rights and responsibilities as mothers (clearly I’m excluding DV perpetrators of both secession actually here etc) then how will anything change? We can’t really expect them to have the same responsibilities without having the same rights.

What rights don’t I have that mums do?!

Tbh if I'm going to be pregnant for nine months and squeeze a baby out of my body, there's no way I'm sharing parental leave!
It exists because women need to physically recover from birth, establish feeding, bond. Babies need that time. Men, not so much.
I am very close to my dad and that hasn't been negatively affected by him not getting much parental leave.
I think it would be massively unfair to ask women to give up that tiny bit of time they get with the baby they have carried and birthed, until men (as a class) take on more responsibility voluntarily.

I took full maternity leave as shared parental leave hadn’t been introduced when I was pregnant. But that doesn’t then mean by default the mum has to make the career sacrifices beyond that. I think it’s all too easy to fall into that trap of then not going back to work etc but it doesn’t have to be like that.

I think this discussion is also inherently linked to the fact that all too often the man is the breadwinner - if I had a pound for every time I read on here oh it wasn’t worth going to back to work, childcare cost more than my salary, I could retire!! There a wider issues around ensuring our girls of the future aspire to earn as much/more as men. And also affordable but comprehensive childcare - again the Nordics springs to mind.

Well said @Kaiserin

@SarahAndQuack (love the user name btw)

I just thing it’s not the done thing still, it’s still normal for them to go back to work and us to go to playgroups isn’t it? Their dads likely did the same. Yes men now seem to be often more “hands on” than previous generations but we still have language and culture where we ask them to just hoover for us or we forward the school newsletter to them (which they ignore) and not vice versa.

Because from the very start women look after the baby and they work, we all ‘learn’ that the baby is the woman’s job that the man helps with when he’s home.

@Kaiserin yes! If men had a separate entitlement that could be taken simultaneously that would be so much better, and would acknowledge that in the week's immediately after birth it's not only the baby who needs looking after.

I do think that many many people, both men and some women, think that maternity leave is some kind of holiday, and truly have no clue how gruelling, lonely, scary and difficult it can be - even if there are no medical issues ongoing for the mum.

@MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously why should we give it up, why should we “share” they’re just as responsible they should get their own

I still think that women naturally have a desire to be the one looking after the baby much more than men do.

The gender pay gap is part of the problem here. We could, just about, afford to lose my salary after my maternity pay came an end, but there is no way we could afford to live on my money only, and lose DH’s income for a few months. I know so many people for whom this is the case.

Separate entitlement would be lovely. If a couple can afford to take it.

@Pumpkinnose massively agree around girls aspirations. I work so hard on this with my girls yet already my 8 year old thinks the boys are better at maths than her because they are more confident (they’re not). I don’t know the answer but I wish I did! I keep searching for it.

YY, absolutely it's the normal thing.

But how do we change that?

I am not convinced that mandating shared parental leave would do it - not even if we suddenly decided every couple should be entitled to a year's leave for both parents, or something similarly radical.

It seems to me that when these debates focus on parental leave, we end up with women feeling guilty they didn't 'share' (when, as people point out on this thread, it's not an equal playing field to 'share' on). We also end up with a situation where men don't actually want to take the leave. And it may be that's partly to do with financial expectations, but that can't be all of it.

If we could be reasonably sure that all childcare inequality could be solved by making it mandatory for men to have parental leave with newborns, I'd be right behind it. But I just don't see we have any evidence to suggest that's the case. And I find it quite insulting when people use the lack of parental leave as an excuse for men not getting involved, too.

@HelloDulling agree re gender pay gap. Our problem also. Although there is research which indicates that better paternity leave would help to address the gender pay gap (both sexes equally susceptible to taking leave means women aren’t the worse option in summary)

@SarahAndQuack

I think we’ve got stuck into parental leave (I don’t agree it should be shared but that paternity should be extended) but ultimately men do need to be expected to take equal overall responsibilities and most of the time still they don’t.

and us to go to playgroups isn’t it?

I think you mean "mother and baby groups". Which all happen on week days.
Whereas the "father and baby groups" all happen at the weekend.

It is deeply ingrained sexist expectations embedded in language. A bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, really. The few main-carer Dads often report that they stick out like sore thumbs in week-time playgroups.

Flexible working being available to all (not hearing stories like this thread of “can’t your husband take it”) is an equally large factor. Again comes largely down to gender pay gap

@Kaiserin ah yes.. “who let the dads out?” Happens near us on a Saturday 🙄

@SimonJT - in law? 12
Months leave with your job protected for your return?

[quote iamruth]@SimonJT - in law? 12
Months leave with your job protected for your return?[/quote]
Had that option, took 6 months leave and then slowly starting going back to transition my son to nursery. Few weeks at one day a week, then two etc.

Yes, we’ve always done it 50/50 from birth (yes i was on mat leave only because his work place would not allow spl, but he took over when he got home and we took turns at bedtime / weekend etc) and quite honestly I’m astounded by the lack of support DH gets from his workplace around childcare issues. They think it should all fall on me. I actually heard A WOMAN boss say to him on the phone that it was my responsibility. I work as well, in fact I earn more than he does. It upsets him because it’s always a battle to look after his own child and it shouldn’t be that way. He had to phone in sick to help during a 14 day isolation period that DS just had to have. It’s fucking ridiculous. Two parents, equally responsible.

I needed to go back to work ft when dd2 was just under 6 months old ( I was the main earner, that was when I would have gone down to SMP, which we couldn't afford). I asked dh to request shared parental leave so dd2 would be with a parent while I worked. He wasn't interested at all. He didn't want to be at home with the baby.

My dh isn't actually a bad dad, he's quite a good dad, does a lot of the housework, we share child related time off, etc. But he wasn't interested in doing that shared parental leave. And he's not unusual. He had the right to take it, he just chose not to.

@SimonJT you are the exception as opposed to the rule, it’s not a right in law. Still, a good example for others Who might want that.

[quote iamruth]@SimonJT you are the exception as opposed to the rule, it’s not a right in law. Still, a good example for others Who might want that.[/quote]
It is actually a legal right for parents like me. We can also take an additional three months of unpaid leave giving a total of 15 months.