Shared Parental Leave: share your views and you could win £300! NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

Parents with children due or adopted from 5 April will be among the first to take advantage of Shared Parental Leave. To coincide with its introduction Shared Parental Leave, we have been asked by the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills to find out what you think about this new policy for parents.

The team there say "From April 2015, parents will have greater choice and flexibility over how they share the care of their child in the first year of their life. Shared Parental Leave allows working couples share up to 50 weeks of leave and 37 weeks of pay in a way that suits their work and family needs. For example, parents can take time off together or they can tag team, stopping and starting leave and returning to work in between if they wish.
Check your eligibility and how much pay you can get here. We'd love to know what you think about this and how you'd use it for your family."

So, please have a look at the information provided here and let us know on this thread what you think. If you or your partner is pregnant and your baby is due from 5 April do you think you'll use it? Would you have used it when you had your last child if it had been an option? Do you think you will share leave with your partner if you have children in the future? How would it work in your family?

Have a look at the video:

Add your comment by 30 March 2015 at 9am and you'll be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher for the store of your choice (from a list). Insight T&Cs apply

Thanks and good luck
MNHQ

I love the idea of splitting the leave.

It would have made my return to work less galling.

I have only ever qualified for SMP but we had saved like mad so that I could take the entire year off.

I don't feel particularly valued in my workplace so I didn't feel guilty about taking the extended time.

Sadly. I am too old to take advantage of this. I think it will be a great help to parents and might start to break down barriers and assumptions with employers about parental roles. However, I can see that it might cause some problems for smaller businesses. It was interesting to read about the German example and how it works in practice (willnotbetamed) and reading that has made me feel more positive about the initiative and what it may bring in terms of equality and fairness.

I don't like it but I am trying to articulate why, parking pearl clutching says it well.
I worked for a very large employer who was very in your face about giving a male colleague part-time hours when he had 1 child for family reasons.
Honestly they were nauseatingly OTT about how wonderful and family friendly they were wheeling him out as an example all the time. He of course was equally jolly hockey sticks about the whole thing. His wife was also part-time and for various reason they were onto a pretty good thing.

The reality was my employer was a bastard to pregnant women and mothers, mean, nasty, difficult, illegally withheld pay, threatened career progression if you complained, the whole works, they knew every trick in the book and they used them. There were multiple occasions/people to whom they did this. In fact they had history of just getting rid of pregnant women who are at the top of the pay scale. They were confident enough that they didn't 'invent' redundancy or try to hide it in any other way they just got rid of you.
It happened to me obviously.

So whilst there are (what I would take to be small numbers) of people this will help I see it as regressive for the rest of us.

To answer the other questions no it wouldn't help us as a family and I wouldn't use it.

I too think the German example was interesting reading but I just can't see it going down the same way in the UK, will be interesting to see what happens.

About time. We would have used it. I'm not sure that too many will use it. However people are different and have different circumstances and for some it will be invaluable. The equality and flexibility are both overdue.

We would have used it, but probably not fully. It wpuld have been a delicious luxury. We could only afford to have a SAHP be ause of dh's salary, so sacrificing some of it in order for him to stay home would have meant less SAHP for the dd overall.

Not relevant for us as DH is SAHD but if he had worked FT I think we would have used it and shared the joy/ burden a bit more!

We seriously considered it for our last DD as our workplace was already very flexible with parental leave and we're equal-ish earners. I already know of a few couples that shared parental leave (although it will be more flexible with this new legislation). I'd certainly consider it if we have a third as I really struggled at times, and I think its good for my DH to spend that time with DC.

I think it's a great idea as long as men are not shamed by their employers for taking it.

We would definitely have considered this but my ds was born in January so we don't qualify.

I can see this really benefiting families where the mother has to go back to work sooner than they'd like and don't want to use a nursery/childminder when their babies are young.

In some ways though having paid paternity leave after my maternity leave finishes would work better for us. I'm lucky enough to be able to take a year off, so if my DH was a to take time after that it would be lovely. In Norway (I think this is still accurate), fathers must take 14 weeks paid paternity before their children are 3. My DH would love that! Not sure whether it should be statutory though, but an available option instead.

Is DS was my first it looks like we would have qualified for a sure start grant which would have been nice too!

I think enabling some leave to be taken concurrently would be the best option. I would support increasing paternity leave, but not at the detriment to maternity leave. So therefore 13 months to be shared between the two, but with one month of that only available to the non birth parent.

In general I think the option to share leave is good, and will work for some. It might help improve equality in the workplace, as it can no longer be assumed women will do the majority of the maternity leave.

In practice, the for us I would not have taken less than around 8 months due to breastfeeding. I did continue once back at work, but doing that earlier on I would have found v v hard.

When my daughter was born I would have killed for my partner to be able to have time with us. My partner had 1 week off as that is all he could afford as he was self employed and it was unpaid leave. As at this point we were living in the middle of no where with no family around us I was rather isolated. We got through though. This new system is definitely a great idea :)

I think it's great, although I don't understand the "taking it in blocks" piece - does that mean you can come in and out of your job 3 times in a year? Horribly disruptive to business if that's the case.

The rest is all fantastic

Looking at families in their baby's first year is very important but it isn't the only thing.

Yes fathers should be more involved.

In my view their best involvement (this is very personal of course) in the first 6 months is in supporting the mother. Not grandstanding about with a bugaboo, and suggesting that he have time "off" while she go back to the office, but supporting the woman recovering from pregnancy and childbirth, and possibly lactating, and maybe in that case having very broken sleep. So yes time off for a father can help him to do all that but I worry about it being instead of the mother.

For fathers, and both parents after the very initial period, more flexible work patterns can be as important as actual leave. children don't suddenly become independent when they are 1. I suppose a father who did some parental leave for a baby may be more inclined to stay at home with him / her when (s)he has chicken pox, and may be more inclined to take a couple of hours off to take him / her for jabs, but really we should as a society be looking more thoroughly about how families with children are supported through the entire childhood time. How workplaces can support parents, particularly supporting mothers' careers by normalising fathers doing some hands on parenting.

In my view in the first year (definitely 6 months) the mother absolutely has to take priority and I worry about any changes that could be abused by men getting their grabby hands on rights that were traditionally maternity rights

After that - go for it, guys, pitch in

We were really lucky as other halfs work was flexible and he had some holiday to take at the end of paternity leave with both of our boys. I think shared parental leave is a good idea :) I think employers should be flexible to an extent too :)

My husband's work offered this with our last baby and he took 2.5 months off to look after our daughter after I went back to work. It was great because at the time I earned more, so it made more financial sense for him to take the time off and we were happier doing that than putting her in full time chd care so early on.
He absolutely loved it and it was great for him to have the opportunity to have that special time with our daughter. It also allowed us to see the 'other side'. We could both appreciate the challenges of being a stay at home parent and of being a working parent and we were better able to support one another and understand what the other was experiencing.
I'm on maternity leave again but now hubby is the main wage earner and it won't make sense for him to take the time off. He's devastated as he said they were the best months of his life.

Not an option for us , as both self employed and if we don't work we don't get paid

It's a bit late for us, but we might have considered sharing parental leave as DH and my salaries are approximately the same. The only issue would have been that I BF for 6 months each time around and probably wouldn't have done so if I'd been working, as expressing is a PITA in the office.

DH could have taken the 6-9 month segment, but I may have begrudged it a bit as both times I found that's the point where maternity leave was starting to get easier and more enjoyable - rather than being a hard slog!

It's about time this happened. Even if some couples will not take advantage of this (for whatever reason), and even if industries take time getting used to the idea (which undoubtedly will happen), at least it provides another option for parents.

It would not have worked for us but it would have for others. It's good move in the right direction in my opinion. I agree with others who commented on the importance of employers supporting this and being rather understanding.

I think it is a fabulous initiative and for some families will make a huge difference. It's not appropriate for us as my Husband is the main earner and his job doesn't suit for a long period of time off but for those self employed mums or households with different circumstances I welcome the change.

really good idea and about time it came into force it is really important for both mother and father

I wish it was available when my twins were born. I needed help with my older 2. My husband was off for a week and went back It was very tough. I am so happy to see that the role a father plays is important to lawmakers.

"his job doesn't suit for a long period of time off "

What do women in his job do, shar?

So here's the thing.

In a 40-odd year long working career, any given employee will become a new parent 1-3 times, most likely, though a few will be more. They will need 6-12 months each time.

This is the norm. Just as it's the norm for 3% of the workforce or whatever to be sick on any given day and 8% of the workforce to be on vacation on any given day. Anything that makes this necessary leave more universal and integral to employer planning like sick leave and vacation is a good thing