To publicise parental leave

[Isntshelovely2024]

I have found a lot of parents at my work are unaware of parental leave and how it can be used. The premise is 18 weeks per child under the age of 18 - you can take a maximum of 4 weeks per year per child.
This leave is unpaid and your employer does not have to say yes to the date you choose but must allow you to take it within 6 months.
I think more awareness about this type of leave is needed, it’s vastly under used.

they can say no but if rejected, they must offer an alternative date within a certain time frame (cannot remember the details).

@Idontlikeyou doesn’t sound like you need it then. What do you do for such a generous leave entitlement .

i know, but it is unfair

HE manager. I have opted in to the AL purchase scheme so get a bit extra but the standard entitlement is 28 days leave, 5 closure days plus bank hols.

DH is in financial services and his is almost as much as mine, structured differently as they don’t get bank hols off automatically but it works out to about 7 weeks.

This is incorrect. I took some in 2016 when my DC were all school aged. I think it was originally up to age 14 (18 if disabled child) but now is up to 18.

@Schoolchoicesucks yes, we'd reduce the annual leave allowance for those days. So if we can usually have 5 people off, I'd reduce that if I'd approved parental leave so still the same maximum amount of people off.

Thanks for highlighting OP. We didn't know about it until earlier this year but it was incredibly useful as DH was able to take 2 weeks off whilst DD was starting school (with the inevitable 'in for an hour on Monday, in for half a day on Tuesday' etc etc timings).

I appreciate it's unpaid and therefore not appropriate for everyone, but it's good to raise awareness of it regardless. We are fortunate enough that we can afford the drop in income, and will no doubt use it again for more holiday cover in 2025.

@Hoardasauruskaren yes your right, looking it up it increased in April 2015 for children up to 18 years of age.
Ive never been made aware of it by any employer and only first found out about the increase on here!

I'm public sector and it's used every year by the parents in my team, to get the summer off. It does mean none left for anyone without kids. I haven't had time off in July or August for years!

i imagine most parents like myself dont want the school holidays off work once their offspring are no longer at school.

The school holidays are the whole of July and half of August, so yes, a lot of people without children do want those dates also for their own reasons.

I don’t think this is only relevant to younger children, though I can see how it would be useful of course.

I used it for the first time this year for back to school time. I had one off to uni, one starting Sixth Form but from a place they weren’t massively happy with and one 13 who is not a school fan. That week that I had to just help everyone get settled, deal with my own emotions as a parent, help with any hiccups, get us into a routine was so valuable.

This was the first time in my career I could actually afford it. I’ve always found that first week or so back to school hard work l, even without the big milestones and wish I had tried budgeting for it earlier.

i am well aware of when the school holidays are
tend to start round 24th July where i am, obviously not where you are
back to school 2nd september.
so, i take my leave may june july september. preferably not august

i have found parental leave invaluable as a single mum while my son was out of school and then later when I was home educating through his gcses. I had got used to those extra days and will miss it now he is 18!

I used to save to cover it but also if I picked a week spanning two months that was always helpful.

i agree it isn’t well enough publicised and lots of people don’t know about it.

It's not been paid anywhere I've worked so we just couldn't afford to make use of it. It's cheaper for us to pay for childcare.

Also I have targets which wouldn't be met if I took extra leave. The targets aren't adjusted unfortunately.

I really recommend parental leave. I have used it during the summer holidays to have an additional 2 weeks off with the children. The loss of salary was offset to a great extent by not needing to pay for childcare for multiple children and the benefit of not having juggle everything was huge! It has had no negative impact on my career at all although that may be due to the sector I work in (higher education). I doubt most colleagues even noticed as we all work quite independently over the summer.

It is a statutory right for all parents, both mums and dads, and it would be great if more people realised it is an option. I understand that for anyone living month-to-month it may not be possible, but if you have any flexibility at all then it is a real benefit.

Does anyone know how this works with a zero hours contact?

I had never heard of parental leave until mumsnet. Im not a parent

I've taken a week every summer since DC started primary. We budget across the year for it. As I'm just an average earner after you adjust for reduced tax/NI/pension contributions AND deduct the cost of holiday camps that I'm not having to use that week I only lose a couple of hundred pounds in my wage. About £30 a month across the year.

I know it impacts on my pension and not everyone can afford to save out of their wages, but having that time at home with them has been precious for me

This is great but my manager only allows me to be off when my opposite is at work. We both have a school aged children so it practical terms it doesn't work to cover work load

I have asked my manager last week, he’s told me that it’s something that’s part of my holiday hours that I accrue and not similar to maternity leave.

its very frustrating especially as we only get given our rotas a week or two ahead so we can’t really plan.

Not being goady but for the people who get a week of it paid, how is this fair to non-parents?! Surely it’s just extra annual
leave in that case and non-parents should get it too?!

Never used any in 16 years as I couldn't afford it. Always known about it though.

I see what you mean.

Its also not fair as only those who can afford to take it can use it, but it would be more unfair to child free people if it was paid.

I’ve applied for 2 weeks this summer, the first time I used it was last year when I took 1 week off. Even though it’s been approved, my manager’s reaction to it has been shocking. He’s already made a few comments of how my parental leave is going to increase the workload of my colleagues as they’ll have to pick up extra work, and clearly wants me to feel bad about it and is riling up my colleagues, making out that I don’t think much of them if I’d put them in that position for my own benefit. Thankfully my colleagues know me better than that, the increased workload won’t be significant and they know I’d be more than happy to pick up some extra work if they want to take some parental leave too. Oh and I’ve had a really important training day refused on the basis that I already will be out of the office more than usual this year, even though we are entitled to 3 training days annually and I haven’t used any this year!

We should not be made to feel guilty about using our statutory right to take parental leave, nor should we denied training opportunities because of it, but unfortunately this is the attitude many of us have to deal with.