to think that anything other than total gender equality in the parental leave system is an absolute outrage?

[joanneg20]

Well, am I?

Now that all the political parties are packaging themselves as 'progressive', have to be seen to be shaking hands with black and/or gay people on their leaflets, why is no-one willing to tackle this properly?

Surely any system other than a set period of parental leave to be shared as the two partners see fit is massively sexist and discriminatory and how Labour can be promising 'a future fair for all' whilst refusing to commit to this baffles me.

Imagine a similar discriminatory system applied in any other way. Different holiday entitlements for gay and straight people? Different working hours for Asians and non-Asians? I don't think so. But parental leave is obviously a different matter - why? Why does anyone assume that because I was born female I wish to 'enjoy' (to use the terminology of the Labour manifesto) 9 months' maternity leave, and that my partner only wants 4 weeks - or possibly the ability to share the period after 6 months (which hardly anyone takes anyway).

Why aren't we all out on the street about this? And I include myself in that question. I think it really is the major feminist issue remaining to be tackled in Britain - almost on a par with getting the vote in terms of what it could do for gender equality.

Because men don't give birth, or breastfeed, or stay up all night with teething babies, or take them for their jabs, or their first day at nursery, or do the lion's share of the nappy changing/baby led weaning/helping with homework.

Until there is total equality in the home, there isn't going to be in the workplace. I don't actually think it is discriminatory. I think it's logical.

That said, your idea of a set period of parental leave to be divvied up as the parents themselves see fit, would indeed be a great idea. Just can't see it happening.

Hmm... I'm with you on the giving birth and breastfeeding - but after that, yes women tend to do it, but it doesn't have to be them.

I tend to think until there is equality in the workplace there will never be equality in the home. How can there be?

But Bucharest, I see it as the other way round. There's no way you can have total equality in the home until you have it in the workplace.

Point taken re birth, but this shouldn't affect the parental leave system. Even breastfeeding - unless women breastfeed exclusively for a full nine months (and very few do), it would be perfectly possible for a woman to do the first half of the total leave, and the man the second.

There is absolutely no reason why men can't stay up in the night with teething babies, take them for jabs, take them to nursery and so on. My partner has done all of these, and would have done more if we could have shared parental leave.

I think it should be 9 months leave between a man and woman (or woman and woman/man and man - is adoption leave hte same?). Either 9 months taken by one person, or 7 months by one, 2 by another etc. etc. OR 4 1/2 months each, and be allowed to overlap it - so both can take 4 1/2 months off.

Well, actually I think it should be about 12 months, but that's another thread

... and in any case my only point is that it should be up to the parents to decide how they split the leave, not that parents should be forced to split it. If the woman wants to take a full 9 months/year and breastfeed all that time, great. But I didn't. I breastfed for 3 months, so after that time my partner could (and would) have taken over. For couples not to have that choice amounts to the state deciding that childcare is a woman's role.

Sweden has a generous parental leave for all that can be shared by both parents. They've even made part of it for the dad only unless he gives it over to the mother. You get about 80% of your pay and the leave is all in all just over a year. In spite of this, very few couples share the leave equally. I think it'd be great for mums to have the first 6 months and the dads the next 6 months when breastfeeding is more established. If we want an equal society then we need to take equal responsibility for our families.

Yes Sassyfrassy, was thinking of Sweden as the ideal model. Of course, initially, most men still wouldn't do it, but it would be progress, and more progress would follow from it.

Vive la difference!

I was interviewed by the Times re this about a year ago with a similar viewpoint to yours Joanne.
Even if the majority of leave was still taken by the mother, I want the damn choice to be ours, not a governments.
Our dcs had less time spent with parents at home solely because I couldn't afford to take all the ML, but was not allowed to transfer it to dh, who we could have afforded to take all of it.
Still really pisses me off
Still bfing though - am a stubborn cow and made it fit round work!

like people say the swedish way is good (I live there) 480 days to split between parents 60 of which must be taken by each parent (i.e mum cannot take more than 420 days) but most importantly parents can decide themselves how to do it. If it was law to split it 50-50 we would have had to take 7 days a week and DD would have started nursery already as it is we have managed to stretch it out till she is almost 2.

Perhaps someone should have a word with God, as clearly he is being discriminatory in enabling only women to give birth.

So susssiq, that leaves two months that must be taken by the father using your example? See DH would have hated two months with DD, he'd have gone out of his skull and it would mean presumably that you lose that two months if that parent doesn't use them.

I could see it creating problems in the workplace for those women that have unsympathetic bosses. Say you want to take your full 9 months or whatever, but they, knowing that your DH could do some of it, put pressure on you to return earlier. I know they are not meant to, but the law doesn't stop some bosses behaving appallingly.

ajandjjmum - can't tell if you're serious or joking! It took me about 3 weeks to recover from my birth, not 9 months! So what you say doesn't constitute an argument why couples can't still share parental leave if they want...

Rockbird - many women go out of their skull on maternity leave, and are very ill-suited to it. Again, should be up to the couple. (And I'm a little bit sick of hearing how hard men find childcare - many women find it hard too, they just have to pretend that they don't.)

And of course you're right that unsympathetic employers would create difficulties - but that's also not an argument not to have it in law.

Yeah I'd agree with the policy change OP. I can't remember if implementing a year's ML was a hangover from the 80s or something. I'm glad tbh that it was implemented - rather that than the 12 weeks it used to be, but yes it should be splittable.

So mostly those women don't take very long. Read the posts on here, plenty of women go back sooner rather than later and for a variety of reasons. And if you get off your high horse for a second and read my post properly, I was talking specifically about Sweden and what I was questioning is that assuming you have a mother that does want to take time off, by putting legislation in place to force some of that childcare onto the father, she is losing out by two arguably precious months and has to return sooner than she wants. So your theory doesn't suit everyone. Sorry.

Yes it should be up to the couple but forced leave such as susssiq mentioned has drawbacks. Choice is the key here.

I don't think many people actually want it swapped the other way round 9 months leave for dad and 4 weeks for mum (most men get 2 only not 4 tho?). The mum is recovering from the birth anyway, so sending back to work after 2-4 weeks is not good @ all. Anyway its just the norm and like people said for breastfeeding etc, its natural most people prefer the mum to stay looking after the baby and dad back to work. It's not been made illegal if a dad wants to leave his work and be a sahd and the mum goes into work, so whats the problem?
Yabu it is not an outrage at all to me

I worked for a Swedish company for 8 years and in my experience it was very common for fathers to split the leave, normally with both working part time once the baby was a certain age. With my company and those we worked with it had become expected that this would be how it worked. Same in Norway.

I'm in Holland and due in June, once the maternity leave is up (16 weeks on full pay)and we switch to parental leave (unpaid)we are splitting it, we'll both work 3.5 days a week. Again it's expected - only the testerone charged finance companies still look down on a man who does it. It works, takes a while for some old fart ideas to die but die they will.

What happens if the parents are not in a relationship? That isn't an argument either way - I am just wondering. If parents can't agree on how to split the childcare entitlement, then courts would presumably have to become involved.

Bucharest your post is remarkably sexist, we don't do we? Oh I must have been imagining the first two weeks after birth where I did everything including getting up in the middle of the night, that is until I had to go back to the office and only see DS for an hour each day before his bedtime.

I agree with the OP, in fact all laws should treat men and women equally, zero discrimination.

yeah but you don't have to take it like that my DH takes 2days a week the entire time I am off and I take less so he has 3 day weekends as he works for a family company and would be hard to replace for 2 whole months but for 1 day a week they can cope.