Differences in maternity and paternity leave = massive sexism?

[Ryuk]

Why is leave assigned by parental sex (or on a major/minor division in the case of same-sex couples) instead of per child and divisible at the parents' decision? Isn't it sexist to say that as a female, I can have as much as X time off but my partner can have less? Not everyone needs that much time to physically recover, and some fathers/second partners would prefer to be able to contribute eaqual time.

Is there some kind of campaign for this yet?

That's the Icelandic model I believe, SGM.

Unfortunately not...

...although technically, that's not exactly what I was proposing

I live in a fairly small town in Canada where there are quite a few couples (also siblings and parents and their children - it's a small town and I work for one of the biggest employers) working for my company. A few months ago one of my colleagues had a baby, took six months maternity leave and then her husband took the next six months. No one batted an eyelid, it was totally accepted as a normal and good thing to do. I thought it was/is great. Not that dh would have been any more keen than I was to be with our children at home when they were babies - we both prefer spending time with our children now they are older.

Lackinginspiration how would you set things up - not in an ideal world but taking into account where we are now - what changes would you make to the current situation that are "doable" IYSWIM.

Thinking about what I would have done with this last baby, I would have liked to return to work at about 7 or 8 months and then for DH to have a good time at home with them after I had gone back. With my children, once they have started into solids they have cut right down on the BF - so at the moment my 14mo has one good feed in the morning before I leave for work and that's it. Very do-able.

Obviously all children are different and all families are different, with a different mix of feeding methods, sharing of childcare including with extended family, when they start sleeping better, how difficult the birth was and other medical issues etc etc. But I do feel that at the moment the set-up is too inflexible.

Re the divergence - I think it is one valid feminist idea that children and mothers have a unique bond which is very important and society should recognise the important of that etc vs another valid feminist idea that women should not be constrained into a "stereotypical" role of mother and homemaker if what they actually want to do is something different. I have a lot of time for the view that is different to mine, IYSWIM, but I think it is hard to come up with solutions that protect mothers while at the same time allowing them freedom. And that's where it can get a bit knotty.

ISNT, this is where you have to look at radical feminism/socialism/Marxism

This thread is about working within patriarchy for a better outcome for women.

But you can't deny that many many women don't want to be separated from their babies, but are forced to.

Middle class women are ok because they've got ok jobs to go back to. Other women lower down the social scale, or ones who've been left in the lurch by the father, have got benefits (if they want to take care of their child themselves- many do-) or the informal labour force: prostitution, macdonalds, care-homes etc)

I was just saying on another thread that the industrial revolution was built off the cheap and slave labour of working class women, so women working outside the home is not the issue here, never has been.

You have to see feminism as a class issue, A social hierarchy and a patriarchal hierarchy, where males and middle classes hold the majority of the power.

So I personally do not think any tinkering with the system is going to impact on women that much. But I can see the new legal changes being taken advantage of by men.

I would like to see bringing up children valued and rewarded on a par with WOH.

yes, definitely tethersend. That has to be one of the main goals of feminism.

The other problem I foresee is that women who fight for "sameness" of roles between men and women will end up in a situation where the father ends up being the one staying at home for pay while she end up going out to work for peanuts. Then, if they divorce, the courts will award the child to the father.
SO I think feminists must emphasize the role of pregnancy, childbirth (!) and breastfeeding as being a vital building block of society. Right now corporations just asssume their clients will keep coming from somewhere. Where do their clients all come from? From the unpaid or cheaply paid labour of women.

And how about childcare after the first year?

I did (and wanted to do) the breastfeeding and playgroup years. Now that the children are a bit older DH would like to go part time to look after them and if they were with him I'd be happy to work full time. But his work will not countenance part time working for him, although many women there do work part time.

My work otoh just kind of assumed I'd be part time after the children.

I think that is a really natural set up, kingfix, I mean for the father to start taking on a lot more responsibility over time. WE have to look at it in terms of the child's separation from the mother. Some women are ready at a few months, others a year, others even later. But it is always a separation from the mother.
I think it's ridiculous that your DH is not allowed to go part time when there are women there PT . Looking at laws for that would be better for women and men that looking at paternity leave in the first year.

I feel very strongly that men and women sharing childcare is the only way forward.

Only when men start taking time off to look after young babies and/or going part time to look after older children will the gender difference in careers start to narrow.

WHat if you're a single mother?

Well I am a single mother at the moment, and it royally pisses me off that my job is essentially set up for men with stay at home wives to deal with all the domestic stuff. So I am expected to do a 70 hour week and run a house, look after a child etc. (I don't, btw!)

So my life would be much easier if the men I work with were involved in their children's lives on a day to day basis too (i.e. not coming into work at 6 am every day and expecting the rest of us to emulate them).

IMO, only when men are fully involved in childcare will workplaces become family friendly.

Part-time and flexi-timed work is another but similar issues - it should be available for parents, not just mothers.

If men were to start trying to force women into work, that would be unacceptable and ways should be looked at for preventing it. But I don't think the government forcing men into work or women into houses is an appropriate alternative. Force is bad, whatever shape it's presented in.

"Lackinginspiration how would you set things up - not in an ideal world but taking into account where we are now - what changes would you make to the current situation that are "doable" IYSWIM."

Ok, this might be jumbled:

1. I would like to see employers being encouraged to think creatively to find ways that babies and children could be a part of the workplace. I think there are very few jobs where it would be dangerous for children to be - hospitals and factories.

However, I think I'm spoiled. I see large groups of mixed aged children interacting and self-policing really well, while their parents have time to chat and drink tea in many different social home ed meets. I often find I have far more time on my hands at these groups, and far less need to interact with my children (please read that in a positive light...I do actually like interacting with my children and don't feel obliged to do it) than I do when I'm at home with them on our own.

I think this would be harder to acheive without the older children present and, of course, school would get in the way of that.

2. I would like to see more of a community spirit in our culture - more neighbourhoods working together so that families are supporting eachother. Again, not entirely sure how this would be achieved, but swapping childcare with neighbours would be a helpful thing to do as well - not as part of an enforced scheme, but just as the 'done thing'.

3. I would like to see more encouragement for extended families to stay close, and to lose the attitude that expecting that your family will help you out when you have young children is the same as having an overblown sense of entitlement. People being selfish and not wanting to help others is a huge problem in our society. I feel I am lucky enough to live the life I think everyone should be able to live simply because my friends and family help me out a lot when I need it; and I help them when they need it! Consequently, I can work as much as I want to; and get the breaks I need to be an effective SAHM who enjoys her primary role, rather than resents it.

SAHMing shouldn't be as hard work as it is, because it's not a job that should, naturally, be done alone...and it shouldn't be the only thing a mum can do because she has to spend 100% of her time on it IYSWIM.

Of course, there is no way any of these things could change quickly, but I think working on changing people's attitudes would make a massive difference...eventually.

"I feel very strongly that men and women sharing childcare is the only way forward."

Acutally, I don't think it's about men and women sharing childcare, but about communities doing it.

I do agree with this, LackingInspriation, but I think men need to be involved. I.e. if it is just communities of women, I fear that childcare and home ed will remain undervalued in society.

(E.g. think of all the publicity Toby Young has received for his plans to set up a free school vs. the unsung efforts of all the thousands of (mostly female) home edders.)

Oh yes, I totally agree with men being involved, just as much as women except in the first year or so when the babies need to be more attached to their mothers than to their fathers...the movement away from the mother should be allowed to happen naturally IMO.

The beginning of this thread was asking if there was a campaign on this yet.

I wrote to my local MP about the issue, am posting in the email below so feel free to use some or all of it. One voice might not go far, but if you all do it maybe we can get heard.

I found my MP's name on www.writetothem.com/
This website makes it very easy to contact your MP.

Good luck, and I look forward to hearing of other ways we can create momentum about this issue.

Message to MP:
Dear Name of MP,

I'm writing to you hoping that you will raise your voice in parliament in favour of a more flexible parental leave system in Britain.

The last months of the Labour government saw the enactment of the additional paternity leave regulations, which from April 2011 will allow a mother to return to work after six months and the father to use the remaining six months of her maternity leave (according to an article in the Guardian by Rob Williams on Wednesday 25 August 2010). According to the same article this act now seems in danger of being scrapped.

To get this act through would be a good start for gender equality and very beneficial to parents. Though personally I believe the act could take it even further.

So the proposed act suggests that fathers can take the remaining 6 months of the mother's maternity pay, which still suggests that the mother is the primary carer. A more just system would be to change it to parental leave and making this leave shared, so that parents have the option to choose which parent stay at home for how long.

I hope you appreciate that extended paternity leave is beneficial for both parents, as the father will have the amazing opportunity to get to know his child and the mother will not be trapped in a gendered role of being the sole carer and pressed to make the career sacrifice.

Even if there is a slow uptake in fathers using the sharing right, at least there is an option for parents to attempt having an equal parenthood where we can try and avoid stereotypical notions of what sex needs to do what part of caring for a newborn, and who should sacrifice their career.

At the moment I have no choice but to take all the maternity leave me and my partner can afford, and he doesn't have the choice to stay at home with our child, even though he would like to.

Without a system that encourages both parents to have parental leave it is hard to get at the gender pay-gap currently affecting women. The Swedish and Icelandic systems are a good starting point if you want to look at alternatives to the proposed extended paternity leave bill.

Please stand up for a more equal future in Britain.

I appreciate that you have taken the time to read this.

Yours sincerely,

I've thought about this a lot and I prefer an approach where the father/second parent must take a set amount of the leave; you don't just get to split it how you want. In Canada it's 17 weeks maternal leave, which is mainly for recovery/breastfeeding support followed by 35 weeks to be taken by either parent. The trouble is that the take-up by fathers isn't nearly as high as you'd think, and it doesn't do anything to address the relative position of men/women - esp. of childbearing age - in the workplace. We need to get to a situation where employers expect women and men to be just as likely to take leave in their child's first year.

Oh sorry, this thread went dead two months ago!