"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.

"the woman needs to ... form a bond with the baby" and men don't?!

How long do you need to bond?! 9 months? A year? 18 months?

WHy shouldn;t men have the same opportunity to focus on bonding.

Yes the sexes are differnt but what men can contribute to raising a child should not be dismissed so lightly.

And I speak as a single parent with no father in sight.

I agree with mojolost and believe, on the whole, it is usually the mother who wants to stay home. Many women don't want to simply copy mens work patterns but are happy at home. Some men choose this too which is great.

Both parents are equally important but usually there is a special bond with the mother in the first year or so IMO so a years maternity leave is great I think.

Right, according to this article the equal working arrangements have led to a smaller pay gap.
Fathers who take up to 2 years leave in Sweden after the birth of their children are 30% less likely to divorce.

but jelly, just because most women want to stay at home, is that a reason to penalise the minority who either don't want to, or can't for practical reasons?

At the moment if the woman is the main breadwinner and has to return to work early then nobody gets to stay home with the baby. I don't think that's ideal.

Equal working arrangements in Sweden that is.

ooojimaflip - very good post. I totally agree. Indeed, I have said before that men should be 'forced' to take time off for health and safety reasons after a baby is born. Then that would reduce the 'perceived' benefit of employng a man over a woman.

I stopped working about a decade ago to share childcare with DW and my boss at the time told me to my face that staying at home would ruin my marriage. Indeed, he told her as well and asked her to get me to reconsider.

While this is cleary an issue that affects women the most - having the experience of being a man who openly gave up work to look after children and can tell you the attitude to me was no different to that women experience. It is actually a discrimination against 'parenthood'.

Truth is most men earn a lot more and their DW/DP and it just makes economic sense to not annoy your employer by asking for paternity if you are the man and the main and only breadwinner. Men often say they feel under great presure after their baby is born because they feel they are in a vulnerable position at work and also cut off from their DW and baby.

Employers take a dim view and assume a man is not commited if he asks for paternity leave. In very high paid jobs like the City it is just an absolute no-no and the risk of having a bonus cut as a result is huge. No bloke I ever knew took paternity leave in a top City job.

Likewise, women in high paid City jobs usually go back after a few months or even weeks after the birth and most stay in touch with the office and clients while on maternity leave. The financial and career penalty to doing anything like taking 6 months maternity leave is huge.

It is all very fine having the 'right' to take parental leave but economically it is just not open to most men or high paid women who are the main or only breadwinner.

I agree abetadad that there should be a period of (ideally) compulsory paternity leave. But in practice, do you think it would solve situations like city workers?

I have a strong suspicion that most top jobs would grant paternity leave in name only, and in practice the dad would end up going in for meetings and working from home (as indeed happens for a lot of high-flying women).

To misquote an old aphorism, you can legislate that water must be provided for the horse, but you can't make him drink.

Well, see what happened with Rachida Dati. If someone wants to return to work, for whatever reasons (afraid they'll lose their job, incredibly driven, miss work terribly), they will do so.

Jellybean! Methinks you need to get yourself to Sweden sharpish - shake some of those cultural prejudices out of you!

Fact is that, under the current law, men don't get to choose in the UK. They get two weeks or they have to give up their job ... which they are highly unlikely to do due to the said cultural norms of our society.

I suspect that (sweeping generalisation coming up) it is true that a mother is more likely to want to stay at home in the early months to recover from childbirth or to breastfeed or whatever but don't think we should exaggerate this "special bond" stuff. Fathers are just as capable as having a "special bond" with their children. The sooner society realises this and acknowledges a father's role in his DC's lives the better imo.

Oooh, my thread has made discussion of the day!

As you were.

Agree that it is not enough merely to legislate for men having the right to PL - it has to become the cultural norm, like in Sweden. Have no idea how you change that. Only way I can see is to give men the right, legislate against discrimination and gradually, very slowly hope like hell it will change.

I don't think it is greedy to take a year maternity leave - if you have the intention of returning. After all, it is hard work having a baby and it is nice to have that time with your child.

However, I do think it is unfair on the employer to hold the person's job open for a year (which they are now required to do) only to be told that the person isn't coming back at the end of it. I think that is unfair on the employer.

Aren't there some discussions going on at the moment which will enable men to take any maternity leave that the women doesn't want to take? That seems fair - but I am sure it would be unlikely to happen.

greedy is a pejorative term.people chose according to circumstance and preference.

i took 6months,which for me wqas just right.i wanted to return to work.but everyone is different and it is a very personal choice

and mat leave time chosen does not confer special abilities.you don't get to be a better mum or bigger halo if you off long long time.

Interestingly, there is a higher proportion of women in very senior posts in the US than there is in Sweden--I listened to something about it on Radio 4 today.

So it may be great for you as a mother but less good if you have very serious work ambitions. I mean, after being absent for a year in some businesses you'd have fallen off the radar.

theyoungvisitor - to be honest I think the enforcement of employment rights in general is dreadful in this contry and particularly bad the higher up the income scale one goes. It pretty much boils down to employers paying a salary and telling the employee 'like it or lump it because we own you'. The City is especially bad at that and has huge influence on Govt.

Most high paiD City employees are on call 24/7 for 365 days a year and expected to work far more housrS than the Working Time Directive and put their employer first and family second. Dare to disagree with that and you are out.

I don't think employees need more rights. What we need is rigorius and fair enforcement of the ones we have. The fact is that Govt does not really want to enforce the laws we have. When push comes to shove employers and especially in the City will threaten to leave the UK if Govt threatens to really enforce the rights that we have already in law.

I can't help thinking it is unfair to hold a job open for a year.

Also, every women gets 9 months SMP now ( I know the money is rubbish but it is something) which means at the end of the ordinary mat leave there is no incentive for them to be honest about whether they are returning to work. I am sure it does put a strain on employers - particularly smaller companies.

I felt bad about doing it to my last employer when I went on mat leave. They thought I was coming back but I never had any intention of doing so. After 6 months I handed my notice in.

The question I would like to ask is should I have been able to do that?

"The question I would like to ask is should I have been able to do that?"

Yes! An employee can always tell their employer to lump it at short notice. Arguably an employer with an employee off on maternity leave is in a better position because they have already recruited someone competent to do the job short term (or ascertained that cover is not needed temporarily) and can therefore choose to either hire that person permanantly or use them as a bench mark in recruitment.

I agree with Sprogger, it's pretty much a win-win situation for the employer. Added to which, most senior employees have some kind of golden handcuffs deal where you have to pay back a proportion of the discretionary maternity package if you don't return.

Employment rights in this country are moving far too far in the direction of the employer, IMO. Already for many younger workers short-term contracts are the norm, with all the benefits accruing to the employer and all the risk to the employee. Maternity leave is one of the few protected areas left. It's hardly that much to ask to be able to take a few months to decide whether to return or not.

Besides which, in practical terms what are you going to do about if someone doesn't tell you she wants to leave? Force them to return and have an unwilling, disgruntled employee in floods of tears around the office.

There's so much empathising for other people on this thread - the men, the employees, the people who have to cover, the people who might theoretically might not get a job because of discrimination.

But what about the children? And really none of these "victims" have it harder than a woman with a child under 1!

Children will work and provide the pensions and NHS in our old age. You could see producing a child is an act of economic altruism, a social good. I do think most employers can see beyond the narrow self interest of "who's going to answer the phones next year and how much is going to cost me?"

We are given a crumb and you're all so keen to give it back!

cauliflower - I don't think everyone's so keen to give it back? I'm not! Nor are most people on the thread.

I think granting some transferable parental leave is arguably more likely to advantage your "victim under 1".

I know several bread-earning women who were forced to go back to work earlier than they wanted, and whose husbands would have taken leave if it was available to them so that the child could have spent longer out of childcare.

Parental/paternal leave doesn't necessarily disadvantage the baby. Quite the reverse in some cases.

what a load of twaddle from Eleanor Mills -

it rests on the premise that it is worse for an employer to hire a young dad than a young mum. this is not so.

the average time spent in new job is 2 years. Let us imagine our young dad is career-driven - he is likely to change emplyers after two years or sooner. Th enew mum OTOH, will be best off staying with the same company, thus saving them money in the longer term. Recruitment is a very expensive exercise lest we forget - -

so in my case, i was hired with a bunch of nine others. By the time i took my first mat leave, 4 of the others had already left and new recruits were in their seats. I came back part time....(and actually, it was noted i did as much work as some full timers..>own trumpet emoticon< ) and then went off again...now of then ten that started, only 1 is doing the same job, another is still with the company in different roles...

no-one is more tied to their job than the expectant mother, or the mother who finds an employer willing to give her times that suit. She is likely to stay far longer, and give her employer the benefit of her experience in the same role than a male in the same job.

the ruth is that women with small children are so discriminated against in the workplace they take their breaks where they find them, so make good loyal employees.

is there not a government proposal to allow men to take up to six months off i.e have the woman give some of her maternity leave to her partner? I thinks it's due to kick in in the next financial year but am unsure of the details TBH.

benjysmum - there was a proposal to this effect from the thinktank reform which generated quite a bit of press, but afaik it has not been accepted.

Might have missed some vital headline though!

In Canada the leave is one year and can be split between partners; I know one family who did this and it was great, a real wake-up for the dad to look after a 2 year old and a 6 month old full time for six months!