Babies barred from house of commons... WTAF

[AdamRyan]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61987339

Unbelievable that MPs who are mums can not take their babies into the HoC and therefore not be able to vote or participate in debates.

MPs don't get maternity leave either.

This seems like its going to be a significant hindrance to getting more female representation and also like we are going backwards in terms of women's participation in public life

That's very disruptive, no least for the mother herself.

Plus the mental load that comes with having a baby that young. When mine were that little I used to be completely preoccupied with worrying about how they were.

Completely agree with the decision!

I don't think babies should be allowed in the HOC. It's not suitable for a baby. The baby could be disruptive or disrupted themselves by the noise. HOC isn't the quietest at times . There is an on site nursery so they should use that.

How do women working shifts manage? Sometimes with day and night shifts and rotas sent just a couple of weeks in advance and having to make last minute changes? It’s very stressful but the solution isn’t bringing children to work. The ML is a separate issue.

Creasy should have taken the leave offered to her. As it is, her job is so flexible and comparatively easy that I feel she's undermining necessary maternity leave for women in normal jobs. As a side issue, I've always thought there should be a minimum age of about 45 for MPs - I suppose there'd be very few having babies at that age anyway.

Jacinda Arden was on Lorraine this morning, talking about how babies were welcome in NZ parliament, they’ve built a playground in front of the building, photos of their speaker bottle feeding a baby during a session. NZ has 48% female MPs. She said having children present improved the atmosphere and tone of debate. Sounded great.

Actually I’d never thought about it like that, but I can see how it would

Creasy's child was 3 months old when she took him into the chamber. She didn't even need to use any leave offered: she could have done what thousands of us have done over the years: paid for childcare. With the added advantage (Unlike many thousands of us) that her childcare is on site, her job is flexible enough to be able to pop to the crèche if she wants, and she earns a basic salary of over £84000 which makes paying for that childcare a tad less painful!

The whole incident was performative. She had perfectly good options which she chose not to use. Not helpful to mums anywhere who wish to be taken seriously in the workplace.

It's parliament, not a soft play centre ffs

She's an attention seeking idiot who will induce eye rolls instead of sympathy

Is this a parody post? Genuinely can’t tell anymore.

No, not a parody. I just don't believe in the patriarchy.

I used to, but I don't anymore.

A bit of an aside, but a pertinent point I feel:
I suspect some (more recent) mums get hooked up on the baby's age, as if 3 months is far too young to let a baby out of your sight.

It's actually really easy to leave a 3 month old, providing of course their needs are met, they're fed, changed, warm enough etc. There is none of the separation anxiety that can occur if you start to leave your child at around 6-12 months.

As someone who returned to work years ago with a 3 month old, I had none of the tears and anxiety which some of my younger colleagues had from their children when they returned to work after year long ML. Physically, it was tough (I was bf so doing morning, evening and night feeds still as well as pumping) and I'm certainly not suggesting longer ML isnt a good thing- because I think women should have the choice.

And as I keep emphasising, Creasy would have had the option to pop in and out to feed her child at the on-site nursery - her job is vastly more flexible than most. This would have made it even easier than the reality for many women the world over who drop their baby off in the morning and are perhaps working miles away for the next 8 or 9 hours.

This was performative behaviour which does a disservice to women.

Why shouldn't a baby in a sling be in the HOC? It's a cosy building with plenty of space to sit and work. It's not a nuclear power station.

For all the reasons mentioned on the thread.
And because there's a perfectly good childcare facility on site.

Btw, I don't work in a nuclear power station but I wouldn't dream of rocking up to work with my kids.

The childcare and mat leave issues obviously need fixing. But no, I don't believe people should bring babies into the HoC any more than I think people in other jobs should bring babies to their work desk.

Apart from anything else, debates get noisy. Surely that's likely to scare a baby, or at the very least wake him/her from sleep?

When you are doing a job which requires attention, which being an MP in the chamber certainly does, it is not appropriate to also be caring for a baby or young child at the same time.

No-one would ever have suggested that people at my workplace (a hospital) bring babies or children to work, and equally plenty of us have had babies and knew that them coming to work with us was just not an option on the table. That would be the case for the vast majority of women in the workplace, I would imagine. There is only a small minority of jobs where you can do the job at full capacity or even adequately while also looking after a baby. Everyone else makes arrangements and gets on with life, having factored this in when they decided to have a baby. This is really a non-issue and I don't know why Creasey is making it one.

Imagine if the OP had said "Unbelievable that surgeons who are mums can not take their babies into the operating theatre and are therefore not be able to progress their careers when they have young children".

Oh my god at the posters agreeing with banning of babies from parliament. Archaic.

Prime Minister of NZ took her baby to UN meetings, the Soeaker of the House fed other MPs babies bottles while he sat.

No one died, and a hell of a lot of people got on with the job.

Archaic? To not have babies in the workplace? There are lots of workplaces where you absolutely can’t have small children, or any under 18s, or any extraneous personnel whatsoever. Taking babies to work with you is not an efficient way to achieve sex equality and it’s not good for work efficiency. What it would do would open up the gulf still further between between those with very favourable working conditions and everybody else.

Im not sure “nobody died” is ever the standard for day to day HR policy anyway.

What is actually archaic is having babies at work.

I’m so sorry that you don’t understand how backward this claim is.

Misogyny is on the rise globally, it’s very sad to see.

Ha. Well there’s not much point discussing it with anybody adopting that faux tone, but I’m actually a staunch feminist (user name is a clue). I also used to be an HR manager, and when you’re trying to combat patriarchal inequality, babies in the workplace are a truly false step.

Maybe it would be okay for a handful of MPs, who have enormous control and autonomy as well as privilege, but it’s not a policy that would work well in most workplaces. The mummy track is still a thing, Really good, subsidised, high quality child care and flexible working are the things that drive equality. Things that stop women being seen primarily as (potential) mothers are what work. Nudge policy to encourage dads to be equal parents in the early years could also be drastically improved.

Babies at work are just a high-visibility distraction that doesn’t actually drive policy forward.

The point is that the babes in arms is at the mother's work because the mother has no maternity leave.

So you expect the new mums MPs to leave their tiny baby at home and touch luck love, you won't be breastfeeding will you.

The female MPs should get a maternity cover. It's a system 200 years out of date.

They can use a proxy for votes for 6 months so they don’t have to go into the debates themselves.

not having maternity leave is far from ideal but because it’s an elected roll it’s not as simple as someone else simply being appointed to stand in. They won’t be the person the constituents have voted in.