So what do we think about these parental leave proposals?

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

Obviously first thought is "about bloody time too", but on listening, I'm not sure how good the details are.

Toby Young was being a complete knob and saying that men wouldn't want to take parental leave, and any way women are more 'intuitive' about caring for babies. Men wouldn't want to be left with screaming baby...

DH was driving at the time coming home from work and said he had to turn over as he was so cross.

The other chap pointed out that perhaps some women didn't want to be left holding a screaming baby either [hmm[ which Tobes managed to sidestep in his response.

I think it is terrible for feminism and further reduces the value of childbirth and breastfeeding to society.

It also undermines women who do not share their leave because it suggests it is their CHOICE to scupper their career, not because it is in the best interest of their health, their children and society.

Now I'm not suggesting that some woment can't go straight back to work 4 hours after the birth, and breastfeed straight through that, but for the majority that is just not physically or culturally possible because unless you have a huge amount of control over your job you can't get that amount of flexibility, and women can take up to 6 months to fully recover from a birth.

The leave is to protect their health, not to force them to get behind in their careers. Making things equal will mean that their childbearing has no impact on their careers, not that it can potentially stuff up mens too so that women can shoulder the blame for not getting ahead because of this pretend 'choice' they now have in the matter.

I think it's fantastic - I'm only sorry it's come a bit late for our first. We would definitely have made use of it.

Why are a few people posting as if mat leave is 6 months?

Mat leave is up to a year.

Rhinestone my DH would have been at those comments from toby young too. He sounds like a cock.

I think both partners should be entitled to maternity AND paternity leave and I don't see why paternity leave should be at the expense of maternity leave. I share StartingAfresh's concern that some women could be bullied into going back to work too early for them, becasue their DH's want to be with their babies and I think both parents should have parental leave independent of that of the other parent. To tell a father: you can only have 2 weeks/ 4 weeks/ 3 months/ 6 months dependent on what the mother of your child is having, seems very strange to me - why can't both parents be entitled to parental leave separately?

But in general I'm in favour because I do think that it will even the playing field for women, not in the workplace, because once one cause of sexism is gone employers will simply find another one, but in their domestic lives. I do think that if most men understood what childcare and housework was, they would have a lot more respect for their partners and couples would be happier.

People will be posting as if maternity leave is only six months because it was for them, I imagine. It's changed relatively recently, you know.

How long is it paid for now?

Acanthus that makes sense. Will be annoying if there is a lot of knee-jerk reaction to this proposal if people don't understand the current rules.

HB At the moment stat mat pay is 90% for the first 6 weeks, then about £100 a week up til 9 months, then 9 months to 1 year is unpaid.

Some employers enhance this, above is the minimum.

If they leave the pay structure as it is I can't see this being taken up in droves.

The linked article spells out the current rules though

I think it will be interesting to see what happens to company/employer enhanced maternity schemes. Currently my employer offers maternity pay at a % of salary up to 9 months I think - presumably this will now have to be extended to male employees - making it a bit more attractive.

I don't actually believe anything useful will come out of this, it's Clegg's idea after all. Pshaw.

well said startafresh, I wholly agree with you. Once again the government has reiterated its belief that motherhood and bringing up children is not as important as going to work.

the who recommends bfing for two years.

its extremely exhausting and draining to bf and do a ful time demanding job.

I think as it has been said it will be diffcult to implement this, what will probably happen is that it will become the norm for women to take only 6 months maternity leave and then return to work whilst the father then takes part time days off for childcare etc, then they will scratch those 13 weeks unpaid leave in the first five years that any parent can take.

sigh

I just said to someone who said they could see no downsides that I though this was good, but their were a few things that should be taken into consideration when creating policy and allocating funding (examples being breastfeeding support and the fact that SOME - I even wrote it in caps - relationships are abusive it is may increase risks) and got totally bitched at about all men not being abusers in waiting :(

we're had it for ages in my original country - it's 18 months (first 70 days for the mother, rest to be shared as the parents wish). state will pay you your full previous salary though, so quite different from financial perspective. but still - of course I agree that it was about time in UK too. Nobody will force fathers to take the leave if it's not reasonable for their family, the parents simply have the option to choose. And of course it will help the society to see fathers as equal and capable parents as well.

Also, according to scandinavian research, a family is more likely to have a second kid and less likely to divorce if the father takes paternity leave with first child.

"Also, according to scandinavian research, a family is more likely to have a second kid and less likely to divorce if the father takes paternity leave with first child."

I suspect that this is slightly misleading as I would imagine those families where the father is prepared to take paternity leave are those families where the father is more likely to be involved in their children's lives anyway. Therefore they would already be more likely to have more children and less likely to split up because of any stresses brought on by having children.

Agree with both StayingAfresh and HerBea. Having said that it is, hopefully, a step in the right direction. It would certainly benefit me (being the higher earner).

When I heard this on the radio this morning, I was all for it. Guess I've got a bit left to learn as I hadn't even considered some of the important reservations put forward here. I certainly feel it's a step in the right direction though. I think Starting Afresh made a really valid point though I can't think of any solutions. Maybe it will have to happen in stages. Perhaps more fathers need to SAH to realise quite what's involved before the status of childrearing is given the recognition it deserves so that women and men equally can choose to stay with their young children without feel of poverty or marginalisation?

"Once again the government has reiterated its belief that motherhood and bringing up children is not as important as going to work."

No it has stated its beleive that fatherhood and bringing up children is as important as going to work.

Are you really saying it is in women's best interests to be have no option but to take all the available parental leave or use paid childcare? I am more than a walking womb and breasts - I am a mother and a woman with a career. Both are important. Dh is a father and a man with a career. Both are important.

I agree, the message is that fatherhood is as important as motherhood in comparison with going out to work. Which seems like a good thing to me.

I like the idea of separate parental leave in theory, but the biggest barrier to that is going to be the impact on businesses. The current proposal is a very good first step in my opinion.

Maybe there needs to be a distinction between maternity leave and parental leave as currently there seems to be some difference of opinion as to what maternity leave is for - i.e. is it for the mother to recover from the pregnancy/birth (in which case it's obviously only relevant to the (birth) mother), or is it for spending time with the child (in which case it should surely be shared if we have it at all). If it's for recovery from the birth then it probably only needs to be a relatively short period, ongoing complications etc could be dealt with as any other long-term sick leave.

Problem is if we have parental leave as distinct from maternity leave and nothing to do with recovering from birth etc, I can imagine people will start to question why businesses/the government should subsidise that and why parents shouldn't pay for childcare instead. The best answer to that would be 'to encourage breastfeeding'...but then you are struggling to justify including men...

I think the proposals are excellent. Even though they are only a first step, and there is a long way to go in terms of changing attitudes, they definitely are that first step.

DH and I were lucky enough to be able to share childcare because we run our own business together (and weren't in Britain & not eligible for any sort of maternity pay anyway).

Yes, breastfeeding is an issue, but by 6 months many mothers/babies can work out a pattern to feed early/late & combine with ff.

In general terms I think maternity leave is a bad thing for women's equality because it firmly places the burden of childcare on women, rather than it being a joint responsibility for the parents. This law goes some way to addressing that belief, as it raises the possibility that a man is just as entitled to parental leave as a woman and therefore when hiring, companies have to bear that in mind.

And unfortunately, whilst it would be lovely to say "Have as much time as you would like" businesses need their staff to do their jobs - particularly small businesses. So they think exceedingly hard about hiring women because even if they can claim back the money they pay them (albeit having to pay it out first and then reclaiming it), it's about trying to find someone of the same level of experience and skill to do the job on a temporary contract. No one with up to date skills is going to leave a job for a temp contract. And even if you could get someone, there is still the extra training on company procedures/handover which would be needed. So companies are incredibly wary of hiring women - hopefully this equals the field a bit.

Having said that, it means even fewer people will go into self-employment since you would have to be mad to walk away from the benefits of being an employee - I take my hat off to any female business owner who takes a year out of her business and can still walk back into the same job! It just doesn't happen.

Not sure what the solution is, but maternity leave as a concept isn't doing us any good.

northerngirl, its not really a matter of paying out first then reclaiming (or at least, you'd have to have a very tiny firm and a very highly paid woman on mat leave). You knock the money paid out for maternity pay off of your PAYE/NICs sent to HMRC each month, so you're not out of pocket & then reclaiming.

If the amount paid out is more than you would owe them, you put in a claim online & they pay very quickly, they don't spend any time checking etc (its all automatic). I've had to do this when we had to pay out a large tax refund, at the same time as one of our five employees was on maternity leave, and the money was in our account within days. If you needed to do that for maternity pay, you could put in the claim before the end of the month so you weren't out of pocket.

Unless you think that women shouldn't work and have babies, I'm not sure that there is any solution other than maternity leave, improved my making it parental leave shared between both parents.

I certainly wouldn't want to see a situation where women had their babies then went back to work 4 or 6 weeks later - not good for them, but also I can't imagine that the average parent would be able to work effectively in such conditions.

Self employment is a very different situation - if you run your own business in general you have dramatically more flexibility about when and how you work, its not at all the same as being an employee.

Maternity leave is not about breastfeeding, it's about the parent spending the majority of the first year of life with their child(ren).

It's perfectly possible to work from early on and breastfeed - I have several friends who did this, all you need is a good pump and some determination. And anyway, it's an equality question, not an infant nutrition question.

The point about women being bullied back to work because dad wants to have time with the baby too, doesn't stack up. At the moment men are forced to work, without the option of looking after their child full time for an extended period of time. Nobody asks the men whether they'd rather work or stay at home. Nobody asks the women either. So without equal rights to parental leave, both men and women are forced into situations they might not have chosen if given the choice.

In Germany paid parental leave is 12 months if only taken by one parent, but if shared can be extended to 14 month. Women have to take off 8 weeks after birth, but what is done with the rest of it is up to the couple. It's also possible that they take the leave simultaneously, i.e. the father takes the first 2 months off after the birth, and the mother stays at home for a full year (or he stays off a full year and she returns to work after 2 months), and it can also be split 6/8, 7/7 etc, whatever they decide.

I don't see how this government's leave proposal makes anything more difficult for small businesses, as it doesn't matter whether they have recruit cover for a woman or a man going on parental leave, unless they'd admit to not employing women of childbearing age to avoid this "problem".

I think there;s still a long way to go towards equality, but this is a first step, and a positive change for men and women, who don't want to be stereotyped into gender roles.

"It's perfectly possible to work from early on and breastfeed - I have several friends who did this, all you need is a good pump and some determination"

yes of course. I fed all of mine for a long time. First 17, second 3 yrs, 3rd 4 yrs. I couldn't express so they had formula with the CM. But I still carried on bfing them on demand the rest of the time. It's about finding a compromise that works.

I agree with StartingAfresh as well.