Would you and your partner take time off work if companies offered 6 months paid parental leave for all?

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Having a new baby is an exciting time regardless of whether you’re a mum or a dad, and spending time with them in those first few months is a precious experience. A year ago Aviva introduced its equal paid parental leave policy, where all employees can take up to 12 months off, with no need for mums to share their maternity allowance. With this in mind, Aviva would like to hear your thoughts on giving all parents the same amount of time off.

Here’s what Caroline Prendergast, Interim Chief People Officer at Aviva has to say: “We decided to make all parents at Aviva eligible for the same amount of paid and unpaid time off, regardless of gender, sexual orientation or how they became a parent. We thought that dads would want to spend time with their new arrivals, just as mums do. One year on, our experience shows that with financial barriers removed, they do just that.”

You can find out more about Aviva as an employer here.

If all companies offered 6 months paid parental leave, do you think your spouse or partner would be prepared take the time off work to share childcare duties? If not, why not?

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Yes, I think my husband would have done. He's a very hands on Dad.

My partner would have LOVED to do this, he really thins he is missing out (which is true!). Recently saw a clip about dads in Sweden having equal rights to paternity, and it was amazing see so many spend time with their babies.
I think financially, I would not mind to go back to work earlier if my partner was at home, but his company does not allow longer paternity leave unfortunately.

It’s a great idea in principle but DH and I run our own company of under 10 people. I work from home managing it and everyone else is out and about client facing. There’s no way either of us could have that much time off. We were lucky we had DS whilst I was still employed as I have no idea how we would have managed in the roles we are in now.

Depends. Fully paid or just smp level? If fully paid, I think they'd almost all go off work.

My DH would love to do this! As it is, hes getting 2 weeks and Im getting 6 months on SMP then i have to go back so we can afford the bills. Decent paid leave would make the whole thing a lot less stressful!

We would absolutely LOVE this. My husband would be delighted to spend some more time at home with the kids and I would love to get back to work a bit sooner. Unfortunately, due to our set-up - this is our third child and he is full time, while I am part time - we cannot take advantage of shared parental leave without it affecting our income too much.

It will probably take a while to catch on widely, but I think schemes like this are definitely a step in the right direction X

Dh would definitely love to take this up if it was offered in his workplace, but I do think he would find it difficult to bring up with his managers, who thought him odd for wanting to take his 2 weeks paternity with our first... I can just imagine the faces and comments if he said he was taking 6 months!

I think it's brilliant to have the option. I wish everyone would offer this!

In principle, I would think this is a great idea. For our family it would no doubt have caused issues - I breast fed until 18 months, and the first 12 months were on demand, no routine. There's no way I could've done that returning to work - but DH would have wanted to take leave too, so there would no doubt have been arguments.

I can't see my partner taking the time off. He's a great help when he's had his two weeks off but following that he begins to go stir crazy he's a workaholic and I think he would miss it too much

I would love this but my husband actually had this available to him. However, the pull of overtime and additional cash made it unfeasible.

Great idea, esp if mum is needing more support, my dh would have def used this for about about 3 months to help me out and to spend those first precious months as a family. After that I think he would get bored and would want back to work unless I went back to work and he continued to look after baby!
I think two parents looking after one baby for much longer under the same roof could cause some friction and babies under 12 months needs are pretty simple, would prob be a great time to travel as a family though

DH definitely would take 6 months off to help and bond with our baby.

DH's company only give 2 weeks paternity with no full pay, only offer of government's £140.98 p/w despite DH working for a private company!!

So he was losing a few hundred a week taking time off.

Unfortunately I was taken into hospital with pre-eclampsia where I stayed for 2 weeks before being induced due to alarmingly high bp.

DH approached his work to take this time as special leave... they refused.

So he took time off unpaid. After I gave birth to our premature daughter he took his pitiful 2 weeks maternity followed by most of his annual leave to help support us both.

Expecting another bundle of joy and worried how he will juggle time with his new baby V's earning enough to look after us.

If only he worked for Aviva!!

absolutely!!

I would absolutely hate this! Imagine being in the house 24/7 with DH! Ugh, annoying! The two weeks paternity leave he had was nice but that was definitely enough. I like looking forward to him coming home in the evening and spending time with him then.

Crema did you not leave the house at all for 6 months??

@SleepingStandingUp I'm only 6 weeks in to be fair but even so, baby is cluster feeding and I'm glued to the couch. Exhausted!

It will get easier though and DH at home would mean he could do all the housework and feed you whilst you're feeding baby. Pack the baby bag. Drive the car. Hold the baby whilst you shower. Hold the baby whilst you nap. And when your beautiful milk monster gives eating her bodyweight in milk a rest, he can hold the baby whilst you have a long sleep lol

I love this. My DH works there and will be taking advantage of it next year.

A lot of posters here confused that it means the mother has to go back to work earlier. This has nothing to do with the other parent, the one who works for Aviva gets 6 months off on full pay regardless of what the other parent is doing.
I think it's a brilliant idea and will help so much with employee retention.
With our first, DH only got 5 unpaid days off and it was bloody awful so we're so excited for this time around.
Well done Aviva, if only my company did the same!

We would have taken advantage of this but probably one after the other as a poster upstream said, maybe with a month overlap in the middle.

I enjoyed having the time at home of my own, I wouldn't have wanted him there with me for 6 months. But we only had one child. I can see this being a huge benefit for larger families.

Yes. In a heartbeat. We're sharing some SPL already (9 months me, 3 months him) but it has required finance juggling and it's going to be interesting sorting out breastfeeding feeds when I go back to work next year (baby boy will be 9.5 months).

We're overlapping our leave to have some time together as a family. So we'll have one month me on maternity him on SPL. One month me on a/l him on SPL. One month me back in work him on SPL. I have a reasonable amount of A/L to use so will be taking two days off work a week until baby boy is one.

My husband is self employed. He did take a month off when ds was born which was lovely.

I made sure DH did just that. I earn more than him anyway so he didn't have any excuse not to lol.

But beyond personal experience, it's also great for female empowerment. More men and dads away from work for six months means women at that place of work then have a good chance to surpass these men for promotion etc. So just from a feminist, societal pov we should be advocating more men staying behind and become more domesticated in their roles.

If it was financially viable then definitely but at the moment it just isn't. I think things are really starting to change now in some companies at least.