Who is for equal parenthood?

[Himalaya]

(this comes off the other equality thread but wanted to start it as a Q in it's own right).

So much of the inequality between men and women in society comes down to the structures and assumptions that push us in such different direction when we become parents together, and it starts with maternity leave.

Sooooo.... Here is my manifesto.

1. 1 months maternity leave for women giving birth.
2. 6 months parental leave for new parents to be taken anytime in first 3 years (with some flexibility for both employer and employee) . An individual employment benefit/right - non transferable.
3. Redesign school hours and terms and wrap around childcare to fit modern lifestyles rather than harvestime and mothers as main carers.
4. build/retrofit cities so that affordable housing, good schools and commercial centres are close together.
5. free chocolate

Does anyone go for that? Is there any county like that?

Would you support a cut in female maternity leave and an equalisation of parental leave?

Sounds good to me. Not sure about the retrofit cities, but the rest is great.

I think you have missed an obvious point. Redesigning the workplace to suit families rather than men with no childcare responsibilities.

And with regards your question about maternity leave. What about breastfeeding? Until a more flexible approach to the workplace is created then how would you breastfeed beyond 6 months.

In fact, if women and children were considered equal then this wouldn't even be an issue. It would all be accommodated, rather than resented as is currently the situation. I think reducing maternity leave is approaching it from the wrong side I.e. the side that considers a year too long and is resentful of women and child rearing. Longer paternal leave would be a much better and more equal approach. Accepting that having a family and children takes time and effort from both parents.

1 month of maternity leave?

Um, no thanks. No way would I have been ready to go back to work after a month and I only took 3.5 months with DD1.

I also don't want my children's education designed with the specific intention of fitting in with adult working patterns.

DH and I are doing a pretty good job of equal parenting with your changes, and I don't think they would help in the least.

The only thing that would would be transferrable maternity/paternity leave post 3-4 months, paid at the full rate and that could be taken concurrently (and paid for the self-employed too).

How about a law saying that if you have been a full-time employee of two or three years standing, then you have a right to go part-time.

The way workplaces are going, I think tying entitlements too closely to longevity will create unnecessary inflexibility, although I agree Snorbs that part-time and/or flexible working patterns have a big part to play here.

And I'd like to see these things brought in for things other than parenting. Lots of women in their 50s get hammered when their "second wage" becomes dispensable in favour of looking after elderly parents.

Himalaya, I have copyrighted the 'Free Chocolate Pledge' you band-wagon jumper

A month when it's six months for after a section for a lot of stuff?

Weeks weeks not months
Though it took me months to feel right

Some interesting ideas here. Love the chocolate one.
But I agree with others that 1 month for the parent who's been pregnant and given birth is definitely not enough. Cd also risk adding pressure on her to return to work before she's ready, just by making it possible. And I'm not sure how extending the 6 months to a 3-year window really helps the baby, whose early months are so important. Are you implying the new wraparound affordable childcare kicks in when the baby's a few weeks old?

couldnt you take 1 month plus your 6 months if you wanted/needed it?

I am not saying 1 month leave for mothers though I am saying 7 months, and 6 months for fathers.

If you need time off work to recuperate from a major opperation that should be sick leave surely?

Leave for having a baby, leave for a section or other medical complication and leave for looking after a a baby are three separate
things but are currently all bundled together.

Most people don't breastfeed beyond 7 months anyway, and at that point you can continue breastfeeding and working in many situations.

I think with transferable maternity/paternity leave the incentives are still so strong for women to take most time (often they get full pay, where dads only get statuatory) plus it is more expected.

Either maternity pay should be something related to looking after a baby (I.e. Every sahp should get it for however long it is offered) or it is a benefit in employment (I.e. Every employee who takes time off work to care for a new baby should get it). At the moment it is a mish mash.

"couldnt you take 1 month plus your 6 months if you wanted/needed it?"

You can do that now.

The proposal is that only the month would be a definite entitlement. The other 6 would be at some point over the next 3 years as it suited my employer.

So you would be taking away my entitlement to a year off post-birth (which I've never taken) and giving me a month.

Why would I give up so much for so little?

"If you need time off work to recuperate from a major opperation that should be sick leave surely"

You want to reclassify the maternity leave of women who have complicated births as "sick leave"?

Really?

Because I don't want to be on "sick leave" when I am recovering from birth and looking after a newborn. I want to be on maternity leave with all the implications that has of time to recover while I care for my baby.

"I think with transferable maternity/paternity leave the incentives are still so strong for women to take most time (often they get full pay, where dads only get statuatory) plus it is more expected."

Then make sure men have the same entitlements to pay that women do if they take the time.

Don't just take useful things away from women in the name of "equality".

If women want to take most of the available leave, I think it's pretty arrogant to tell them they can't because it doesn't suit your ideological agenda.

One of the things that is debilitating for women in the workplace is pregnancy. What are your plans for making it equal so that men suffer months of nausea and tiredness (and possibly need time off due to complications)?

The path to equal parenting is not through leaving workplaces as they are but forcing women to give up hard-won and important employment rights.

whatever maternity leave women get , men should get exactly the same, this will not only help to make bringing up the kids an equal task but will change the fact that some employers see women as a greater risk, especialy if they havent had kids yet.

yes there will allways be some men who will do anything rather than help out at home, but society has changed massivly over the last 30-50 years, a man pushing a pram 50 years ago would have been laughed at, today it's commonplace. a change in the law like the equal maternity/paternity leave would change society still further, and i rekon society is ready for it.

now before you all say "why should the menz get so much time off, isnt like they have passed a bowling ball".
women can be to be totaly shagged out for days or weeks after labour, the man can help alot during that time, and if she's fit again in a few days he can time time off later when she go's back to work.

Athinginyourlife -

Sorry. Not explaining myself well.

My proposal is:

Women should have 1 month off for birth.

Women who need extra time off for medical reasons would get the time off for medical reasons.

There should be no assumption that babies are more naturally or better cared for by either parent so the "parental leave" part should not be a sexed based entitlement, but an employment entitlement.

So women would get a further six month entitlement after their birth leave for parental leave. This should be an absolute entitlement to take straight away, but could also be negotiable as say 3 additional months off then 2 days off a week etc...or whatever they work out with their employer.

Men should get 6 months off, which again does not have to be taken straight away, but if not taken all in one chunk would need to be mutually negotiated with their employer.

The two entitlements would be independent and non-transferable.

This would give men and women equal rights to time off with pay to care for an infant, without costing employers or govt much more than current 1 year maternity pay.

"One of the things that is debilitating for women in the workplace is pregnancy. What are your plans for making it equal so that men suffer months of nausea and tiredness (and possibly need time off due to complications)?"

Nausea and tiredness in pregnancy had nothing to do with who looks after the child after it is born.

I would say better options are changes to the workplace:

1. More working from home.
2. Part time work being seen as equal to full time work in terms of opportunities for promotions.
3. Part time work being more flexible in terms of hours.
4. Full time work being more flexible in terms of hours.
5. Less ageism. Plenty of men have started their careers in early twenties, reach their career peak at 40 and taken retirement in their fifties. There is no rational reason why women who have kids in their twenties can't be starting out in a career at 30 and at their peak at 50, except for the prejudice we have against older women and mothers.

In Iceland, it is common for student couples to have children. It is far easier to combine studying and young children than work and young children. I think we are putting too much emphasis on doing everything at around 30 and lots of families just cannot manage career climbing, young children, pregnancy and grandparents becoming elderly all around the same point.

But a lot of people put off having children until their thirties because of the ridiculous cost of housing, and now many other people have kids in their thirties because it is now 'normal.'

My SIL is unusual in that she is advising my niece to have kids first and move on to the career later, rather than try and do everything at once. But then that situation is dependent on inter-generational support, rather than telling woman to pick the right man and if he isn't supportive, that is the woman's fault - she chose her bed and now she has to lie in it.

The issue with having non transferable leave is that it is not in the child's interests. If one of your parents decides they don't want to take the leave or doesn't even know the child, then that child misses out. I would say the mother gets one year maternity leave (breast feeding being an issue here) and the other six months can be taken by a person of the primary carer's choosing during the next five years.

Then if, for example, you were a single mother and had a supportive brother or mother, they could take the six months leave to spend with your child.

Vashti - I would agree with all of those, but they are not alternative options to changing the parental leave provisions so that they are not sexist.

Why is that such a no-go?

I would support your proposals.

I really feel that the current proposals do a disservice to both men and women. I am self-employed so can take as much time off as I want, albeit with only SMP as my income. I am hoping that when DP and I come to have children that he would be able to negotiate with his employer to reduce his hours by two days a week from when the DC is 4 months old so that I can continue working.

DP would quite like to take a complete career break for some time whilst the DC are small to be a SAHD, and although his company professes to be family friendly, I really fear that he would damage his career prospects if he does so. Having a right to statutory parental leave would mean that he could take this break without the fear that it would be held against him.

I know that one argument against reducing any maternity leave provisions for women is that there are many fathers who would not contemplate taking time out, so more burden would be placed on women. I think this argument is self-defeating of its aim. There are a great many men who would like to stay at home with their children, so you have to legislate for the most positive situation, not the least. Secondly, changing the law almost always has the effect of changing society's attitudes. If there was a legal expectation that men would take time off for childcare, it would eventually become an expectation of society as well.

I also reject the arguments about it being bad for small businesses to allow their employees to take time off. If there was an expectation that both men and women will take time off for childcare, then either employers would have to adapt to that, or employ more staff from the one demographic unlikely to take time off for childbirth/ care of young children - ie women over the age of about 45.

No, no, no! terrible.
I say this as someone who now works full time with a SAHD DP - I am not at all against fathers doing full time childcare, or part time (actually my ideal would be for us to split it).

But SEVEN MONTHS? My sister had her kids when it was a bit like that and it was so hard. I am getting a bit teary thinking about going back to work when my dcs were that age, or losing my job. I wasn't physically fit to, really, and still feeding in the nights.

Lots of people bf after 6 months. After a year, if you are still bfing, you don't have to do it all day. In fact I managed this with dd1 when she was 9 months, when I went back to work the first time. But 6 months? Sounds very tricky to me.
Plus, the "most people..." thing is unimaginative and limited - would we like it if more people did, if fewer babies (if it suited their mothers) were dependent on formula, ever? I would. What do we want to happen?

Women should be privileged with leave and other working arrangements that allows them full access to their babies, and their babies to them, for the first year. This was hard won and it makes me angry to hear people talk about giving away women's rights in the name of feminism. In my case, had I not been allowed 12 months leave with dd2, I would have lost my job, not been "empowered". This is the job that we, as a family, now rely on. Had I tried to go back at 7 months, I would have either been sacked, or gone on long term sick and been sacked.

This is what they want! It is making it harder for women to have careers if you limit the time that they can have with their little babies and still keep their jobs. It is toadying to a horrible, markety, thoughtless zeitgeist which privileges Business above all else (I must be angry! When was the last time "zeitgeist" came into my head? I think I might go and listen to Portishead)

The thing is - the really crucial thing is - we don't need to compromise to make Business workable. We don't need to say, "I want the father of my children to have time to be a parent, so I will offer up 6 months of my mat. leave to Business, to fill the gap, to placate the great god Business". You don't need to, because Business already owns the fucking lot of us, and our houses, and our time, and our money, and our thoughts, and the whole bloody lot. Business needs to give more to us. Certainly not bloody less.

Nothing should be dependent on length of service. That's really unfair - the way the world of work is going, some people might have worked 20 years continuously and never had a permanent contract.

Yes yes yes to cities and work places being arranged to acknowledge that adults are often parents.

Yes yes yes to parental leave, but not at the expense of the mother's first year.

Himalaya, I suppose one of my concerns with it is that by making parental leave equal, we are reinforcing the idea that the children who have the most opportunities and who society will set itself up to accommodate are those who have two parents.

That is clearly discriminatory against children who are not in such a situation.

That then puts an onus on women (who are generally unlikely to walk away from a baby if they have gone through the process of pregnancy) to arrange their lives around being in a nuclear family arrangement (whether she lives with the other parent or not) for the supposed benefit of their child, regardless of whether or not that is in the best interests of the woman.

Rather than change the situation from the mother being always responsible to one where the parents were jointly and equally responsible, I would like both men and women to set up who cared for (in every sense of the word) children to not have a norm, but for people to set up a wide range of solutions that suited them.

Nausea and tiredness in pregnancy have a lot to do with how a woman bounces back - or not - after it. I found pregnancy killer and was a rag for a long, long time.

Children have to be looked after full time till they go to school, and after that, around the school day. This is a lot of time. Let's think about equality between parents for pre-schoolers and children at school, not for tiny babies under 1. We need to see measures that support a certain amount of leave or flexible working for every year of the child's life. Including the first, but not at the expense of existing mat. leave.
Why all this focus on up to one year? Is this

a. because yours go to boarding school when they are one,

or

b. because you have internalised the notion that "you can't have something for nothing" - that we somehow owe business something if we want more of something else - and that is the ONLY SODDING YEAR IN WHICH WE HAVE ANYTHING, ANYTHING AT ALL, TO BARGAIN WITH?

Stop bargaining. Stop it! Leave it alone and demand MORE

Vashtibunyan, so much rightness in your posts