Should parents be able to pass on their parental leave entitlement to grandparents?

[HelenMumsnet]

Hello.

There's a bit of a campaign going on to change the law, so that parents can pass on some of their parental leave to grandparents.

So, if grandparents wanted to look after a new grandchild for say the second six months of his or her life, they'd be entitled to take time off from their workplace to do that.

Good idea?

Would you find this useful? And, given that we are all being encouraged to stay in work longer, would it be useful for grandparents?

Do please let us know your thoughts here. And you'd be most welcome to join the Gransnet discussion about it, too!

[Ridersofthestorm]

No way!! An absolutely ridiculous idea

[RubyrooUK]

No I don't think this idea should be a priority for the government to consider at this point in time.

If grandparents have already benefitted from their own parental leave, then have multiple children who have grandchildren, you could have the same person taking lots of instances of this style of "parental leave" unless it was capped in some way.

I am not sure how many grandfathers would take this opportunity up in the near future - without slurring a generation, neither my dad, FIL or step dad ever changed a nappy. So really it means grandmothers. I think then it would possibly just add to the issues that already exist about employing women, as now slightly older women would be seen as potentials for taking this sort of leave and seen as less of a good prospective hire. Perhaps that is cynical but I don't feel it would help much.

I just think it sounds like a very difficult system to administrate and I'm not sure it would benefit enough people to make a massive difference. Assisting parents with childcare or childcare costs would be more important to me.

[FannyFifer]

No

[quoteunquote]

No, it is a terrible idea, and could never work,

any small business would not be able to cope if a grandparent continually, took time off,

one of the guys that works for me has six children, they have only got to a have a couple of children each and we would never see him again,

it would just end up as another reason for the older working generation to get sidelined in selection process, so not a great move for them.

[sleepyhead]

I think it could be considered as an option for some sort of transferable leave to put single parents on the same footing as couples, but otherwise no.

[slightlysoupstained]

Agree with other comments, think it would be a step backwards.

[janey68]

There are some exceptional circumstances- eg death of one parent- where I can see this makes sense. But I would be very wary of seeing it as a panacea for single parents generally for the reasons above: it would backfire and we'd see more feckless dads thinking they can father a child and bugger off in the first year of its life because granny will step in. Remember this isn't about people who have been single parents for years- its about the 12 months following birth. Why shouldn't the father be treated as equal and expected to share some of the parental leave with the mum? Even if the couple decide to split in the early days, it doesn't preclude the father taking responsibility. And surely more dads taking this leave would reduce the number of absent fathers who lose all contact with their kids (because a frightening number do). I feel sure it would be harder for a dad to do that if he's had 6 months of bonding- whereas if the mum and then granny have taken care of the first year of life, the separated father probably feels pretty redundant right from the start

Very bad idea the more I ponder it. It just erodes the parental role. Grandparents should be exactly that: grandparents, not surrogate mums and dads

[annh]

Janey I don't think it matters how many people potentially can take parental leave, if a father is not interested in taking his share of the leave no-one can force him to do so so I don't think restricting it to just the parents is necessarily going to make a father participate. Not that that is a reason for extending it beyond parents!

[janey68]

Oh I agree if a father is determined to not be involved then he won't be. But I think it's important that societal expectations are that he should be. He's the parent. The extended family aren't. And I do think spending 6 months with his child would make it less likely for fathers to lose contact

[milk]

Great idea :)

[MOSagain]

I don't think it will ever happen. Look how long it took for fathers to be allowed paternity leave

[NightmareSpoon]

I think it's a bad idea because biologically there's only so many children a couple can have - and in reality the no of children working parents can have is usually limited by childcare costs. Therefore there's only so much maternity leave they can take.

But grandparents can have endless amounts of grandchildren.

If one set of grandparents had 4 kids and they all went on to have 4 kids - that's 16 grandchildren. Now imagine if the grandmother or grandfather took 6 months leave with each of those grandchildren. It would be chaos for their workplace!

Obvs I'm exaggerating for effect here, but you get my point.

[Helpexcel]

No. It's ridiculous. A grandparent could miss years of work if they have lots of grandchildren.
How can they prove the grandchildren are theirs?
Parental leave is an additional right for those in work with children under 5 (or older under various circumstances). That should be used if needbe by the parents.
Mothers and older people often get a bad press in the workplace and so employers could potentially not employ either for fear of this.
Ridiculous.

That said, just saw a poster who mentioned she was on her own with twins - perhaps in exceptional circumstances, a short time may be feasible but 6 months - no.

[babiesinslingsgetcoveredinfood]

It's daft & not that useful. So what happens if a gp has 4 children who have offspring in quick succession? How would that work for their employers?

If it is limited, isn't it unfair on the gp other DCs who may have children later?

Parents are parents.

[EuroShaggleton]

I'm pretty ambivilent about this as a concept but think the focus should be on making parental leave rights as equal as possible and getting me/employers to accept this. That is far more important than this, IMHO.

[Xiaoxiong]

I think it's a bad idea too. The only way my DH really started to pull his weight was when he took over as a SAHD for three months when I went back to work FT when DS was 6 months old. I think equal parental leave is so important. Grandparents are great but can never replace parents themselves.

I also think there will be parents in certain workplaces who will feel pressured to sign some or all of their leave over to grandparents, either because they feel under threat in their job, feel the need to prove their commitment to their employer, or there's just a workaholic culture. If that leave must be taken or be lost there's more of an incentive to swim against those currents.

[BionicEmu]

I agree with the majority, it's a stupid idea for all the reasons already stated - number of grandchildren, erosion of existing hard-won rights etc.

IMHO the only thing that will help working families is cheaper childcare. Even if my mother took 6 months off when I went back to work, that's only 6 months anyway; the childcare issue is still there, just delayed for 6 months. I would also be worried that my mother felt that because she could then she should. Awful situation for her as it's DH & I who have had the children, my mother had no say in it at all.

I am rather bitter at this issue at the moment though - DH & I have just done the sums as we've just had DC2, & we can't afford for me to go back to work, I would actually be making a net loss of approx £15 a day.

[AmandaPayne]

I'm not in favour TBH.

Parents being able to share their leave is so important I think it has to be made to work.

But I think grandparents is too far. For a lot of reasons, most importantly:

-that the impact on business is potentially so much greater. Few women have four children in four years, but it is more possible at the grandparent level. Statistically a lot of people will have more grandchildren than children;

• it assumes that the relationship of grandparent is important enough to be elevated to quasi-parent status, but not other relationships like aunts, uncles, step parents, etc;
  

• the chain of causation to prove you are the grandparent is extra steps and documents, and the more people leave can be shared between, the greater the potential for people secretly double-claiming (two off at once) or the greater the burden on employers to liaise with lots of different employers as to who is off and back when;
  

• I don't see that it helps single parents that much, what would help them is better mat pay and, if people were able to take time off, a much bigger pool from whom that pool could be taken.

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

I agree with Janey. DH would have loved to share my ML but we had DCs before it was an option. I can just see him going to his employer if we had another DC and them saying "can't your mum do it?" as Tee says, in general men earn more than women even in a marriage (though DH and I earn the same) - I'm sure the difference would be even more pronounced between different generations.

Emu, can you manage that level of loss until DC1 goes to school/gets some free hours at age of 3?