Shocked at government proposul to cut maternity leave to 4 months!

[AvocdoMuncher]

I didn't vote for this government but then sgain who did? They have now reached what I consider to be a new low.

They are reducing Maternity Leave to just 18 weeks. Since best practice is supposed to be to breastfeed for 6 months (from what I read) mothers won't have the choice to do this.

Hopefully my sprog will arrive long before this heinous legislation is passed.

I hate this government. grumble grumble

Have a look at the queen's speech if you don't believe me.

That is shocking! It is only 12 weeks here in the US and me and most of my mates managed to work and pump milk, but it is bloody hard.

Mothers shouldn't have to that.

Sorry you've misunderstood. The proposal is just to extend the option of sharing the maternity leave with fathers. So if parents want to share the 12 months leave between them, the mother must take at least 18 weeks of it before transferring the rest to the father. She can still take the full 12 months and not transfer any to the father is she wants.

Hi. Can you send through the link to the Queens speech you mention? I've searched for "maternity" in the text listed in the Guardian and it's not there.
www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/may/09/full-list-queens-speech-measures

Used to be 12 weeks here. Paid mat leave I mean.

Hang on i'll post a link when i get home tonight but a childrens organisation website was talking about it. It's the children and family bill. I've only seen it referenced in a couple of places. It's like they don't want to make it obvious or something.

Here's a link:
Mothers and employers slam plans to reduce maternity leave

www.nurseryworld.co.uk/News/MostRead/1130463/Mothers-employers-slam-plans-reduce-maternity-leave/

See what squishy said.

You'd got the wrong end of the stick I think. www.moneywise.co.uk/news/2012-05-10/maternity-leave-could-be-split-between-parents

Mums still get 5 months and then there is a further 7 months (so taking it to a year) that can be split between mum OR dad. So mum can take the whole 12 months if she wishes.

In Singapore it's a maximum of 3 months - I think all the maternity benefits in the UK are actually incredibly generous!

Generous... yet having a baby is still barely affordable, particularly in London where the stat maternity pay does not even cover half of rent for a small flat.

This is unclear. I have read information that states that either the mother or father may take the extended part of the maternity leave and I have also read information that contradicts that and states that the extended leave can only be taken by the other partner which basically means that maternity leave is shortened for the mother.

hmm, I was reading reports about this and there was definitely talk of reduction before the Queens speech. The Queens speech is full of fluff though. I tried to find the actual bill and was going around in circles. There doesn't appera to be a copy of the bill available to read yet. So I will reserve judgement to see what it actually says.

My feeling is that they will try to reduce leave by the back door. The government has already said they want to reduce costs for business and this could be a way to do it.

I just don't trust them. They don't have a good track record!

well you are right not to trust them but this is actually a good idea.

My only caveat would be that I would make the maximum leave 9 months unless the father takes at least 3 of them in which case you would get the whole 12 months. Otherwise it's women in the childcare ghetto and men's careers being subsidised by the taxpayer.

Employers (of which I am one) wil complain but actually it levels the playing field and in the long run I think would have huge social benefits.

Treefu how does 3 months more make women be in a childcare ghetto, if nine months doesn't? I'd wonder then about single mothers too, they wouldn't have the extra months available if it had to be the other parent.
I don't think that's what's being proposed though. Actually hasn't this gone through already, my maternity pack had stuff in it about men taking part of the 12 month leave if we wanted.

I'm a single mum - there is no way on earth DD's dad would have taken part of the paternity/maternity leave on so I hope any new proposals don't just reduce the mum's allowance

They are not proposing to cut it to 18 weeks. They are proposing to make leave after that point shareable between either parent. If you do not wish to share, you still take the full entitlement.

The article linked by OP makes it clear there is not reduction in the total, just an option to share (a good thing IMO):

"The proposal put forward in the Government's Modern Workplaces consultation, published last year, would give mothers 18 weeks of maternity leave, and four weeks of reserved paid parental leave, followed by 17 weeks of paid parental leave and 13 weeks of unpaid parental leave, which could be shared between mothers and fathers".

The Modern Workplaces consultation BTW opened in May 2011, and has now closed, but its site is here.

no reduction in leave is being proposed. they want to bring it in line with other european countries where the father can take part of the leave.

in most european countries, the mother still takes all of it in the huge majority of cases anyway...

igggi in my ideal world it would be 50:50. 3 months initially is my stalking horse.

Women are in a childcare ghetto because the longer maternity leave gets, the longer it's something they do and the longer families don't have to worry about the first year of childcare because women do it rather than because parents do it.

I'm a single parent too and there wasn't a father around to take his share so not relevant for me. But I think if there is a father around, the expectation should increasingly be that he does his share. In my vision of it, if he doesn't then the family as a whole will miss out on a possible benefit. Although there are already some leave sharing arrangements they don't come with very generous benefits. I'd be happy for the state to use taxpayers' money to encourage a more shared approach to childcare whereas using taxpayers' money to encourage marriage itself is just annoying. In this case the taxpayer would be funding a socially useful outcome for families.

As for single parents, if there is only one resident parent then they should get the full whack.

personally i couldn't wait for DH to go back to work!(though it was 2.5 years after birth of DC2 as fate would have it until he did)

if maternity pay doesn't cover the rent on a flat then surely if you're in financial need housing benefit will pick up the rest?? I currently work part-time, and DP is unemployed at the moment so housing benefit pay the remaining amount . If it didn't then we'd be homeless, as would countless others.

This isn't (for once) a new way to shaft people. All it is is a proposal that maternity leave be parental leave and claim able by either parent after the initial 18 weeks.

It's based on European models and quite a good idea IMO. Women are the higher earners in many households now and also, true equality will remain out of reach while child care remains legally at least the sole concern of the Mother.

ooh, I've had the chance to look at this properly. Sharing leave like this is brilliant, IMO. DH's work would have coped well without him for six months, and I would have been so happy leaving him with DS instead of putting DS into nursery when he was so tiny.

Personally I don't think this goes far enough.

Men can already take 6 months of parental leave but not until the child is 20 weeks old so unless I'm mistaken this is a difference of 2 weeks - what's the point?

Im 7 months pregnant with our first child. As the main breadwinner I have to return to work as soon as I am physically able - sometime around the 3-4 week mark. My husband will be the child carer and we will get no maternity or paternity pay at all. How is that fair?

Women who have opposed this are doing so to defend their own position without realising that it doesn't actually affect them!