"Women have got greedy with maternity leave"

[Bleh]

What do you guys think?
I do kind of feel sorry for male friends, because they don't really have as much of a choice as women do when it comes to leave after having children, as men are only allowed up to two weeks, whereas women can be away for a year. It's really imbalanced. Also, this is a very difficult law for small businesses to fulfill, and discourages them from hiring women of a child-bearing age.

If I was in charge, I would make it so that you can choose to use some of your NI contributions to take extra maternity leave (rather than the employer footing the whole bill), and would have the government give more financial support/tax breaks to small companies that need the assistance.

Don't all get too hung up on how good things are in Germany.

I used to work for a German bank. When I visted the headquarters in Germany it was very noticeable how there were just no women in the office above a certain age and all the senior managers were men. Really no different from the office back in London.

Duellingfango - yes, that's good.

Hobnobs - what a ridiculous post. Fully agree with Vulpasina. Perhaps you didn't notice the dozens of other children also in fulltime childcare who you weren't holding in a full body lock?

"the self-employed get zero benefits of any kind relating to children and family."

Not quite true surely? They get maternity allowance (same as SMP only without the 6 weeks at 90%) and tax credits. I agree maternity allowance isn't quite as generous as SMP but it's not "zero".

I am very, very lucky with my mat leave. I have taken a year but will most likely return after 9. I also took my years annual leave for 2009 in June before DD was born (mid July, but due on 1st)

I get 6 MONTHS full pay
3 months SMP
3 months unpaid, hence why 9 months might well be my magic number.

I also have the option of taking up to a 5 year long career break, although of course this is negotiable.
I am lucky, but I dont see why this shouldnt be the norm. Why should I be lucky and why shouldnt this apply to more mothers and fathers?

My DH works for a small business but they still gave him 2 weeks leave; it had to be holiday but it was still 2 weeks at full pay. In fact my waters broke on Thursday evening and DD was born noon on Friday and they graciously gave him that day for free, so to speak!

I'm all for parents getting more leave. We pay our taxes and NI for years and years, I dont see why we shouldnt get well paid time off to raise our children? As one PP mentioned, children eventually give back to society.

Ahem, 'return after 9 MONTHs'.

Greenmonkies it was me who said about BFing, in response to ABDs idea that women would have 6 months and then men would have 6 months.

Most women stop work a couple of weeks before they are due, and many babies come after the due date. Thus with 6 months leave they are actually returning to work sooner than 6 months which is not compatible with exclusively BFing to 6 months for most women.

Even after that, if you wean at 6 months, then it is usually a little while before the child gets most of their calories from their food - some children are just playing really for some time before the get the hang of it all - and are still dependent on milk for the majority of their calories.

Yes of course it is possible to work full time and pump enough to feed a 5/6 month old - but not many women would be that determined and I am sure it would lead to women moving to formula at the point they returned.

I also find it interesting that many people haev come on the thread who "only get" something which is more than SMP.

So most people feel hard done by even if their benefits are being enhaced by the employer.

What sort of recoup on wages would be considered fair (or even generous) by most people? And would it be the same for men if they were sharing the leave, or would they demand/expect/need even more in order to take the time off?

self employed get maternity allowance

It doesn't matter how long maternity leave is. All that matters from an equality point of view is how it compares to paternity leave, and what the actual uptake of each is. If the cost of leave (and I mean actual cost as in inconvenience, pay, recruitment etc.) is equal, and take-up is equal, then there will no longer be (what is after all, perfectly logical) discrimination against women of childbearing age.
So equalise rights and wait a decade or so.
As to how long it should be, that depends on how we want the social contract between society and business to work.

Good post oojimaflip, you have hit the nail on the head.

Littlewhitewerewolf - I think we may work for the same company. If so i did the magical 9 months, plus 1 month unpaid then most of my annual leave for that year, which made it up to 51 weeks on leave. Don't forget you can claim back Bank Holidays too.

I'm technically self employed (as a partner in a professional services firm) and had to object to the existing maternity terms when I was moving to a self employed basis. It previously stated that you got 3 months and if you didn't come back after 3 months you were deemed to have retired. I said it should be the same as employee terms (ie a year) but they amended it to 6 months with a further 6 months at the discretion of the managing partner. Lovely.

The first three months are at full profit share and after that unpaid as no SMP (not sure if I'd get Maternity Allowance, is it linked to earnings?).

I'd just love to know that I could take a year off, as someone pointed out 6 months in total isn't really long enough to get 6 months of breast feeding and weaning done with a few weeks off before the birth. Ho hum.

timmyinatizzy I work for the prison service if that helps!

I live in Luxembourg. Here, you get 2 months off before giving birth, two months off after (and an extra one month if you confirm you are breastfeeding) all on full pay. After that, you can either take 6 months off full time from work, or 12 months at part time. For a full timer, you get about eur 1800 pr month. This is paid for by the govt. You also get 500 on giving birth, and 500 a few months later, and then another 500 when the child has completed all their innoculations (at two years of age). Guess why I am on my third baby... And taking a year off to be with your baby is fab,utterly brill. And my DC have never had any issues at going to creche, I think it is much much more depending on the childrens temprament TBH. It's actually shite inGermany, I'm not sure what benefits you get, but it is utterly impossible to get childcare or kindergarten places for children under 2, thus every single German woman in my office (around 20 women) all only have one child, and all these children are looked after by close relations. So it's not great at all there. But it beats the USA..

I like the suggestion of a year's leave linked to the baby to be taken by either parent, it sounds like an excellent solution to me.

As an employer (very small business, only one in house employee apart from me & DH - and said employee is currently pregnant, so planning for her leave at the moment) I don't understand why 6 months maternity leave would be 'easier' for an employer than a year.

Surely the difficulty is in recruiting and training a replacement - once you have them, the longer they work, the lower proportion of their time employed has been spent learning the job. And like someone said above, its easier to recruit someone for a year than for 6 months. (To be fair, we haven't really found it hard - given the current state of the economy as soon as people round here knew that X was pregnant we had people asking for her job!)

From the other side of the fence, I notice in larger (ie 10 employees plus) businesses that I have worked for or have friends who work in, it is extremely common for maternity leave cover employees to then be taken on for permanent positions that come up near the end of their contract. Basically the maternity cover gives the employer a chance to check out a potential long term employee over several months, which is really a great opportunity if you're thinking of recruiting someone.

I'm based in France and I'd really like to know exactly what I'm entitled to and what I'll be paid (am 24 weeks pregnant and my English employers can't work out my French contract) but I think I will be taking

4 week pre-due date
10 weeks post due-date

which I believe is entirely standard here in France. I don't actually know anyone who has taken more. I may be wrong though.

BF rates are crap here too, but I am going to do my damnedest to bf and express for as long as possible. I am also going to have a nanny from 10 weeks before putting my LO in a creche at 6 months as luckily we can afford it, and it's heavily subsidised, and we can't get a place in the creche before the school year starts in September.

Having read on other threads I don't think there is a massive problem with seperation anxiety here in France(I think that may be my problem when the time comes, not the babies).

I don't know what is right or wrong, but it does seem silly that if the mother has the greater earning power that the father should be able to take leave instead of her (although obviously mothers need time for physical recuperation).

having read some of the replies i got i realise that it is ok, i must ave got the wrong impression when surfing other threads on MN. it seems like everyone gets more than me TBH. but it is nice to hear different responses

Flyingcloud - I believe (this is only anecdotal from when I lived in France aeons ago) that your employer has to keep your job open or offer you a similar job up to two years after the birth of your child - but I could be wrong. And that's not paid.

I wonder if there are fraud implications for paternity leave and that's partly why it's not implemented in many countries? I mean it's fairly obvious if you are a pregnant woman that you are really pregnant, it's really you, and you're really only claiming one set of allowances. Since it would be the father's employer (presumably) who would administer leave taken by the father. I imagine fraud on maternity leave is quite low, but potentially fraud on paternity leave might be quite a lot higher and cost more to police.

And who would decide who took the leave? I mean, if for eg there was a situation where the parents were separated, and the mother wanted all the leave for herself, but the dad wanted some - how would that be decided?

Or even perhaps if the mother broke up with her baby's father and met a new partner and wanted her new partner to take some leave, to help support her at home, but the biological dad felt the leave more properly belonged to him?

Interesting to wonder how it would work.

My husband was really happy to go back to work after 2 weeks, the woman needs to recover after childbirth and form a bond with the baby, women and men are different why are we trying to change this fact of life?

I did read somewhere that in Nordic countries (like Sweden, Finland etc.), employers are much more willing to grant flexible working arrangements, and doing things like job shares and part-time working are more common (for men and women) and won't necessarily mean that you damage your career if you do. Will try and dig the article up.

There are (quite obviously) differences between women and men, MojoLost. No one is trying to change this fact of life. What people want to change is the inequality. Not just in the work place vis a vis women getting equal rights and not being discriminated against for taking ML but also at home where a lot of dads would also like leave to spend time with their DCs. It is just as important for a man to bond with his baby as it is for a woman.

The Scandinavian countries rock, Bleh. From what I can gather they really do have a genuinely egalitarian society. Sometimes I hear about something that goes on there (such as the parental leave concepts) and am surprised at my own reactions (e.g. wouldn't a man be penalised in his career for taking leave?) and realise how prejudiced I am or, perhaps more fairly, how entrenched my ideas on gender roles are. We could all learn a lot from them.

I wonder how many men really want the time off to spend with a new born though, it's quite boring actually. Personally I'd rather have gone back to work after 6 weeks and bank the time to use between the ages of 1 and 2 when the child is interesting.

Mojo, some men may be very happy to go back to work after 2 weeks, but not all.

Clearly, a mother needs time to physically recover, but to be honest if you do a desk based job it could easily be physically less hard to be at work than at home, especially if you also have other small children. (Have never bought this 'mothers have to recover' argument given that I so very often see women with tiny babies in slings also carrying a 2 year old on one hip plus a load of shopping or lugging a buggy plus a toddler on & off a bus. . .)

And why do fathers not need to 'form a bond with the baby'?

Yes, men and women are different, but there is a continuum in both sexes between those who want to stay home full time with their baby, and those who want minimal involvement in the day to day care - more women I am sure fall at one end of the scale, and more men at the other, but that doesn't mean that you have to force everyone into the 'typical' role for their gender.

stillstanding: I remember working with a Swede who was shocked by British adverts, as any relating to childcare (feeding, clothing etc) had just a mother in the picture, which showed an assumption that child care was only "women's work". Can't find the article. Rubbish.

I remember when DC1 was 2 weeks old and DH went back to work. I was so incredibly jealous and would have done anything to get out of the house! Not my real feelings really but it really did feel like that at the time. Looking after a two week old is not much fun at all.