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

Any father who managed to find a way to be more present in the family before this new measure - despite taking a personal, social, or financial hit - tells us nothing about what the other fathers would do

We wouldn't have used it as we had decided I would be a SAHM and in any case my DH was in a job where I doubt he could have taken it even if he had wanted to.

I think it will work well for some families but many will not be able to use it depending on the nature of the other partner's work - and the actual or implied disapproval of their employer.

One place where it may be useful is to allow the woman to return for sufficient time not to repay any enhanced Pay but leave once her DP's APL is up.

This might then lead to changes in enhanced pay policies.

Both parents are important so even though we probably wouldn't use it, I think it's a great idea.

We will definitely take this up if/when I get pregnant after several years trying to conceive. We will want to spend some time off together and then my partner will take the last 3 months on his own, that's the plan anyway. I earn nearly double what my partner does so it makes financial sense for me to go back to work after 9 months maternity leave. We're also a very equal partnership so i know this will work very well. Fingers crossed we get to put our plans into action.

I think these changes are great and a real step forward for women's equality in the workplace.
Unfortunately we will not be able to use these changes for my current pregnancy, as my partner is about to move jobs. If he hadn't, we would certainly be considering it.

I hope that this move starts to change the culture within the workplace, that childcare is predominantly the woman's responsibility. However, looking at the parental leave policy at both my employer and my partner's, they both have generous company maternity pay for women (eg 90% pay for 6 months), but for men taking SPL they only get statutory pay. I hope DBIS can encourage companies to make their parental leave policies more balanced for women/men, to really achieve the equality and flexibility that this new policy is intended to promote.

We think it is a great idea and are making use of it for our second child due late April. I am not making full use of the maternity leave as I run my own business. DH is taking the first 6 weeks off which makes the practicalities of looking after a toddler after a planned caesarean much easier, as well as giving him time to enjoy our baby. I found the 3rd week very tough last time - the baby got colic and DH went back to work and my emotions/hormones were still all over the place.

However, I do think it could be difficult for some small employers trying to find cover for varying amounts of time - most women take 9 months or more which is a more practical period of time to employ a substitute. In DH's case, he is booked to short-term projects and they have just booked them around the parental leave. They have also decided to give him 50% pay rather than the statutory minimum we expected so they seem to agree that Dads being able to devote some time to their families is a good thing. We are fortunate that we could afford to do it even on the minimum pay but sadly others may not be able to take advantage of the new rules for financial reasons.

It sounds fabulous. Too late for us, although not sure if we would have used it as DH earns so much more than me, it wouldn't have made sense to have me working full time and him at home rather than the other way round. But for families where the two partners earn similar amounts or woman earns more, it would be very useful.

Apart from anything else, it would be a good 'easing' back into work and leaving your baby if the first time you go back to work, it's not a childcare professional that you are leaving them with but the other parent must be easier.

We used the first version for DS, born in late 2011. I took the first five months and DP the next four. It worked perfectly for us, as I am the main wage earner, so needed to return, and the five months took me to the end of my (vaguely) enhanced maternity pay.

I am glad this time round it's more flexible, as DP and I had to do some juggling around the 20 week mark; next time round it'll probably be a 50/50 split at the 4.5 month mark.

Additionally, it was wonderful for DP; he describes that time as the best months of his life, and it definitely enhanced his relationship with DS. I also felt it did wonders for us as a couple, as the child care was totally shared, so there was no resentment at DP not pulling his weight.

I think it is a great idea however in our work place and I expect many others (teaching is ours) this would be impractical for the employer and us, for several reasons. One being, the continuity and consistently for the children we teach would be impacted. My other half and i work in the same place so it would be almost impossible for us to share the leave in this way.

Rachel

Right now, a woman can take anywhere between 2 weeks after the birth and a full year off.

I don't see how this is different?

Also, currently, I imagine many schools have two mothers off simultaneously - again, why would it be different?

I think there will be abuse. I think we can't ignore most men's contributions to "wife work". I think there will be a lot of men who say "it's my turn". But also I don't know if it's right to take away the opportunity from men who do want to do the job, it seems that the normalizing it will lead to men doing "wife work" in the long run which is a good thing- but might mean the near future will be harder for some women?

I think it might be better if they couldn't take it before 6 months though...to stop those who might force a woman back to work before she felt able. Not that a woman couldn't go back to work when she wanted, but that parental leave couldn't be taken until after 6 months. (obviously the 2 weeks paternity they get now could stay!)

Hamsters, I see what you are getting at, but if we are to get to a society where as many couples have the woman as higher earner than the man, that would be an onerous requirement.

BIS are getting their money's worth on this thread!

frenchfried, I assume you know that was the law (or is, since additional paternity leave won't be abolished until 5 April). My DH took additional paternity leave and I so would have preferred to have shared parental leave. I remember begging him not to go to work from when DD was approx 2-8 weeks (obviously he couldn't grant my wish) and even when things got better sleep-wise, I was bored and wanted to go back to work, but I had to wait until DD reached 20 weeks. I would have been a happier mum sooner if I could have gone back to work early and let DH take over.

I think in today's world, where the work life of men and women is a lot more equal than in the past, it's a great option to have so both parents can assess where they are in their careers and what they want to do. Obviously breastfeeding comes into this but it would allow a woman to more easily resume her career earlier.

Hamsters, appreciate it doesn't protect those in coercive relationships, but it is up to the woman to stop maternity leave so that APL can start.

I hope midwives and health visitors would seek time alone with the mother, as I think they do now, to sound this stuff out.

Much of the debate on this thread mentions economic impact on the family, childcare issues and men taking on more "wife work." But what about maternity leave largely being about the physical effect of motherhood on women's bodies?

Apart from the obvious physical effects of labour itself, there is breast-feeding, hormonal changes etc. Many on here have said that going back to work did not affect their ability to breast-feed which really surprises me. Is that because they stopped breast-feeding after a relatively short time or because they spent a lot of time and energy expressing? Both of those scenarios mask a whole topic that modern life, current work patterns and the effect of capitalsim has on women's bodies. And what about the mental well-being of women and the effect that pregnancy/birth/breast-feeding has on that? It seems that current thinking is that by allowing women the opportunity to go back to work or to be with their partners, loneliness and boredom will be avoided and this will help. I think that's a very simplistic view and one that is very much influenced by our current economic set-up.

I get that this will help modern, diverse family situations in the very short term but I am not really convinced this is the best thing for women's work place or reproductive rights.

I think maternity leave for mothers should be protected. And, separately, working fathers should be empowered in different ways, to spend more time actively parenting, throughout the child's childhood - not just the first year.

I think in this country we talk a lot about how great breastfeeding is, but it is such an anomaly past a few weeks that no one in the public sphere around babies and children really knows what breastfeeding for any reasonable period as norm looks like. (trivial example: when my 8 month old had bronchiolitis, I had to remind the dr I was speaking to several times in a short conversation that she was breastfed: when she advised me to put medicine in her bottle; when she advised me to measure that the baby took a certain amount of liquid; and so on. They just forget that actual real breastfeeding really happens).

If you look at how to really support breast feeding, it is not predicated on expressing at work and that sort of thing. There is nothing wrong with expressing at work but it is NOT the same thing is a breastfeeding AND it is always going to be a "Lean In"-ish sort of anomaly that has nothing to do with supporting every single ordinary basic woman to breastfeed her baby while getting on with every other thing that needs to be done as well, without an office and army of staff and a nanny and so on.

Ordinary women need their jobs protected and an income while they recover from pregnancy and birth, breastfeed their babies, if they want to (which to many is knackering), for as long as it takes, which can be up to a year. If it helps them to have their man around too then let's look at at that separately.

I've gone on a lot about breastfeeding in this post but actually I think maternity leave is crucial for many more reasons than that. Please can fathers who want to be a bit more hands on sort that out and show willing and do something about getting something for themselves instead of taking away our maternity leave.

Also. Without wanting to be Debbie Downer, those on this thread who haven't had children yet and are talking about what they hope to do when they do and how great it will be when their partner can take parental leave: I hope (honestly I am not being sarky) that it all works out for you and you are as well as you are expecting when your baby is a few months old. I know it is fashionable to write about active pregnancy and fit mothers and All! The! Things! You! Can! Do! When! You! Have! A! Baby! but.... it doesn't work like that for everyone and some people take a while to bounce back. It is pretty normal to operate mostly in a radius of about 3 miles when your baby is under 1 and take every possible opportunity to sleep. And that's what maternity leave is physically for.

I know there will be tide of people coming on to tell me how they skiied up the Matterhorn with their baby in an Ergo now, so can I just say in advance, congratulations, I am very happy for you, but I found Box Hill something of a challenge myself and I am not the only one.

Good idea on principle. But I think that it might be better to make it easier for either to take time off by increasing the payments.

I think it's a great idea and I know several families who would have put this scheme to good use had it been available at the time.

Lion, that would cost more.

Yes, maternity leave and paternity leave and parental leave will all cost money if they are paid enough to act as a genuine opportunity not to be at work for a while. So what. Good things cost money. We all work hard. Children are important. There isn't some law of physics that this country is right now spending exactly the optimum amount on these things right now, because it is run by omniscient geniuses. the point of conversations like this is to talk about change. things that might change, things we would like to change.

Things that might change - how mothers and fathers manage care of babies and children
what it would cost, where this would come from
whether this would benefit or disadvantage people, or different groups of people

It's all up for grabs. This is supposedly a democracy. "that would cost more" isn't a killer argument for "no". the next line in that discussion is "and, do we think it's worth it?"

Yonic, do you think it's not?

I mean there must have been a time pre-maternity leave when people were flobbing their jowls going "how is this going to be paid for? Can women not just be supported by their husbands if they are going to have babies? Who let them into the work place anyway?" I feel like "the costs of working fathers' parenting will have to be borne by mothers" is accepting a whole load of axioms that have not been questioned and are not in our favour