Paternity leave is too short- will it ever change?

[pisces5891]

I'm really interested in people's views on paternity leave and extending it the UK like they have in the nordic countries.

For context im 3 months post partum and my husband wfh. It's made a huge difference to my mental health to have another adult around during the day, and he's super hands on. For example, he will hold her while i use bathroom, do a call, pop to the shops, make lunch etc, so i really have the feeling of having a lot of help. Of course he focuses on work for the majority of the day. But I think if he wasnt there, id feel so lonely and occasionally really overwhelmed. I feel really lucky to have that support. I read an article about how in sweden they linked longer paternity leave with a huge decrease in post natal depression in women.

It got me thinking about the fact that in the UK, the majority of tiny baby care is done by a mum who likely spends quite a bit of the day alone (i.e. no close family to help out everyday, husband out at work etc). Thats certainly true of my nct class. You might see people at baby classes etc, but generally it's a lone task. Grandparents might help ocasionally, but its not the norm to get help daily.

To me, that's such an unhappy state of affairs. Children used to be raised in villages, and my experience with my own daughter is that id be so lonely if dh wasnt around. It makes me want to join the campaign to extend paternity leave. However, that campaign seems a but under supported in the UK compared to nordic countries? I saw a picture of a protest and there were about 20 people there🙄. Some of the women i know kind of accept that it's there job to watch baby, and that there's some biological and economic sense in men going back to work quite soon, and they can cope alone. But i don't want to just cope! I think looking after a baby as a couple is just much much nicer.

Really curious to hear peoples thoughts on this. Do we think there's a culture in the UK of accepting paternity leave as it is? What kind of paternity leave would you have wanted your dh to have? What would have been the ideal?

I know sometimes people say that if your bresdtfeeding , it makes sense for mum to be main carer..i disagree with this. I breastfeed, and i still want the help and the company!

Completely agree with the flexibility element, absolutely that should be enshrined within policy to be encouraged as it has so many benefits for mothers, fathers and families. The flexibility mine and DH employers offer us is absolutely key to us both being able to do the jobs we do with having a family, not to mention putting a roof over our kids heads. Funnily enough neither DH nor my father needed an extended paternity leave in order to be willing or able to confidently look after their own children 🤦🏻‍♀️

Predicted by those lobbying for such a change and with no comparison to alternative ways the money could be spent which would also improve maternal mental health?
Evidence for significant benefits of increasing the paternity leave above 2 weeks for all fathers compared to increasing it in particular cases (baby in NICU, CS with care of older children etc) just isn’t reliably there, lobbyists cherry picked research has been to have so many confounding variables it really isn’t worth the ink used to promote it. I defiantly think there is a case for extending the eligibility for extended paternity leave in cases where mothers genuinely need it but then it shouldn’t just be fathers eligible but anyone who is fulfilling that support role for the mother

No one is saying no paternity leave though. The discussion is about more of it. Taxing everyone more is not producing jobs. It’s just being punitive and virtue signalling for the sake of it. What we need is bouyant employment and people in work. The in work policies are good enough and punishing companies further really won’t help anyone.

The company my husband works for give all employees 6weeks paternity leave, full pay! We joked it would be worth having another baby! He’s worked there over 20 years, when we had our two he got 2 week the first 4 weeks with our second.

Would there being a limit on how many times father's could take paternity leave in a year?

Are you ready to pay more tax op?
Unfortunately tax is seen as a vote winnner and no one in uk wants to pay more tax to fund this kind of thing

A comparison of the UK and Danish personal tax system - Sheltons Group https://share.google/l76dMshdKYEHOAkfd

I don't think it's realistic in the current climate to expect both parents to be off on paid leave at the same time, for an extended period.
Small businesses would crumble.
Planning ahead and having savings to fund unpaid leave is an option, along with using annual leave.
I don't think feeling lonely is the default position for new mums. Many do have additional family around and also get themselves out and about with friends/ other mums. Plus it's nice to have baby/ dc all to yourself sometimes.

Agree, after being up with feeding several times in the night (I never did see the point of DH being up too) I just wanted to snooze in with baby between feeds while DH bought me a cup of coffee in bed before dropping the kids at school & nursery before work (or the gym while he was on paternity leave 😂) nothing more blissful than having house to myself without having to hobble round cleaning up after everyone

What have you personally done to form your ‘village’ if you’ve done fuck all and showed up for no one, that’s why you have no village

What’s helped my DH be more involved as a father is the flexibility and being senior/valued enough by his employer that he feels he can ask for meetings to be after school drop off time/before pick up time, being able to ask for the day off so we can do vaccination appointments together etc. The flexibility of both our employers to allow us to do our weekend/night/away commitments around each other, him to take the day off if the kids are sicks etc. This has had a 1000 fold more impact on his involvement and us working effectively and efficiently economically as a family unit than a token period of extended paternity leave at a time when babies just wanted breastfeeding and to be carried round while they slept. What would help now is DH being able to keep at least half of what he earns then he wouldn’t have to work so many hours and we could have our weekends together as a family. I work with families too and although I think the new first time parents generally appreciate the extra time off they have together and some of the fathers seem to see extended leave as something they should have as a right and are quite happy to do the baby snuggles (who wouldn’t) I don’t find the fathers being around effectively alleviates the stress for the mothers of the housework and caring for the older children while they are trying to recover. If you asked many of the mothers would they prefer to have their toddler given free full time childcare and a cleaner for an extended period or their DH to be leave, the results would be interesting

This is interesting - its so personal, and i do get that some women would prefer help in different forms. And i love the idea of flexible working, so that the day to day past the newborn stage can be shared.

Whats clear from the responses is a significant number of people don't think it's an issue in the first place. I'm not sure how representative this group is, but it might explain why there's so little political drive. I respect everyone's point of view on this, but my lived experience, of myself and the women i know, is that more time for both parents benefits everybody.

Thank you to all pp's who have responded constructively and with a respectful tone, even if disagreeing.

I can’t say enough how much the flexibilty through these recent years of parenting has benefited us, it’s not something we had with our first child as just wasn’t a thing and so meant I had to actually give up my career for a time and when I was able to get a job flexible enough for me to go back, my entire salary went on childcare until my employer started allowing people to do set days allowing me not to have to pay for full time childcare just in case I was rostered that day. With our last baby we’ve been able to benefit from the funded hours from 14 months (not at all 9 months as advertised but better 3 years at least) so our childcare bill is literally a 10th of what it was with our previous child. It still wouldn’t work without my DH employer being flexible also as I have to work some hours not covered by nursery hours. All of us appreciate the flexibilty they give him when possible for him to b there to walk the children to school, pick them up, be there
for school plays etc. It doesn’t cost them anything as it’s a case of as long as he gets his work done overall but makes such a difference to our lives. I do meet many new mothers through my work (as well as through baby groups) so I do see a lot of anxious first time new mothers (even those who have a really supportive family around them) and there is often that trepidation about flying solo once the DP is back at work.
In an ideal world where public spending wasn’t such an issue then it would be lovely to have all sorts of things funded but balanced against the impact of fiscal drag on many families and people dying in awful circumstances for want of an ambulance or in A&E, I do think we need to both cut back the public spend and be more selective about what we are funding and try and offer as much choice and equity as possible where we are funding things for people. For example personally feel the childcare funding should be available as an extra tax allowance to people who have a SAHM, personally I would take the childcare as love my job and want to continue my career but seems ridiculous someone takes up a job in Tesco much needed by a young person and a nursery place wanted by someone else to reluctantly drop their baby off for a job they don’t want to go to for the sake of it

What’s helped my DH be more involved as a father is the flexibility and being senior/valued enough by his employer that he feels he can ask for meetings to be after school drop off time/before pick up time, being able to ask for the day off so we can do vaccination appointments together etc. The flexibility of both our employers to allow us to do our weekend/night/away commitments around each other, him to take the day off if the kids are sicks etc. This has had a 1000 fold more impact on his involvement and us working effectively and efficiently economically as a family unit than a token period of extended paternity leave at a time when babies just wanted breastfeeding and to be carried round while they slept

100% agree with this.
Not all, but many, many new Mums will have help in those first few weeks from the new baby's Grandparents.
Most new Mums don't need someone with them 24/7.
But an employer who is willing to offer some flexibility when it is needed over 5 - 10 years is MUCH more valuable than a few weeks off when the baby is tiny.

I agree - I took a year off with my twins and I would have hated to go back to work when they were 9 months old so that my DH could have 3 months off with them. It was really hard looking after twins of that age and I wouldn’t have wanted to leave them. SPL wasn’t a thing when they were born anyway.

I think the whole thing should be much more flexible, e.g. the mother gets her ML, the father or ideally both parents get some leave to use in the first 5 years for example. There is parental leave of course which either parent can take but that is unpaid.

My partner had 4 weeks, was perfect. I was lucky that I had lots of friends who had babies and NCT club so had plans most days, never felt lonely but know that’s not true for everyone. I wonder how many dads actually would like more time?

i live far from all my family but have a village I’ve created locally with other parents. I have had friends kids last min to help them out, and even though I’ve never needed to, I know they would do the same for me . A village isn’t just family, and doesn’t miraculously appear, you need to curate it

Working with new families and also among friends, it seems alot of dads would like more leave if it’s fully paid, but for the same reason why anyone would like more fully leave and also because many of them seem to see it as if women get it why shouldn’t they. They do say they want it to support their partners too but it’s questionable how much support they are actually giving their partner. Some of the first time mums are quite shellshocked, particularly the older ones and the ones who have been through a difficult birth and they do seem to appreciate just having their partner there especially for the first 2 weeks and for many of them a bit longer. Most men seem to quickly lose interest in the idea of the leave if it’s at SMP level or unpaid

The other big impact of parental leave, and the reasons poorer paid dads don’t take it, it the hit on earnings. The family cannot afford it. The worst off though are the self employed who get no paid leave at all. They argue that something for them should be a priority, because their research shows they have lower savings to cover the gap in earnings too. So it should not be more time for the better off workers with Rolls Royce conditions, it should be about equalizing who gets what. At the moment the most seriously disadvantaged are the self employed and they take the least time off because of the 100% financial hit.

Agree, the priority should be ensuring all fathers get 2 weeks (6 weeks or longer if needed e,g NICU ) leave at a level they can afford, 6 months fully paid paternity leave so a couple can go travelling is just at the ridiculous other end of the spectrum. However people have to remember that self employed mothers have only ever got the MA rate and silly now the rate being too low is only now highlighted given it affects men

Same here.

Personally think parents of twins deserve to get double leave, I would absolutely be on leave from the earliest 29 weeks start date of carrying twins (one baby was tough enough) and they would definitely fit my criteria of exceptional cases deserving a longer paternity leave 4-12 weeks fully paid leave at least and maternity leave/SPL for 2 years. Also seems very unfair if they only get the same number of carers days for sickness as someone with one child

It’s a very personal thing. I didn’t need support when DD was a baby but can see how some would. I loved being home alone with my baby but I appreciate that
some wouldn’t. It really depends on your baby. But as previous posters have said upthread, it’s the dads that need to fight for it if they want it.

I'm not sure what to think, I don't think additional paternity leave avoids women being the default parent. My company gives 3 months paid PL, I don't know any man who has used it to take sole care of the child. It's always used to be off alongside wife, for the man to be at home alone while the child is in childcare, or for a family holiday.

Yes this, and be part of it not just take but give back