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?

"lactation doesn't define or make good parent"

No, but the ability to lactate is an indication that the parent in question is a woman.

A feminism that tells me that women are unimportant, that the things their bodies can do are a mere logistical inconvenience that mean they have to have a couple of months of medical-based leave but no more, is not any kind of feminism.

I am the last person to defend any kind of gender essentialism under most circumstances. I don't believe being a woman makes you better at caring for children, or worse at doing hard sums.

But I do believe that being a woman means that you are biologically female, that all things working as expected you have the physical capacity to get pregnant, to gestate a foetus, to give birth (failed on this myself the proper way, but still came closer than a man could), to breastfeed.

Those things don't define me as a person, but they are important things my woman's body can do, and I want them respected and treated as important, not argued away as inconvenient footnotes.

I would happily support a proposal for a year of maternity/paternity to be shared between parents (noting the interesting points raised about how you establish who should do the sharing) on a 3 months each, use it lose it, 6 months divided as suits, basis.

What I object to strenuously is the needless attempt to reclassify the leave women take after their baby is born as special birth-recovery leave, to take a currently generous provision and make it short and potentially punitive (forcing women to the doctor for certs to prove they are still "unwell" if their recovery takes "too long").

There is no need to do that, except to make an ideological (and false) point that motherhood is just pushing a baby out your vagina, and once that job is done and you've been patched up you can fuck off if you think you deserve anything other than derision for the role you played in creating that baby and continuing to feed it.

This thread claims to be about equal parenting, but it is not. Unless you believe a working parent can't be the equal of a SAHP, the OP's proposals make no sense.

Equality in parenting comes from respect and consideration and love. It's based on what happens at home.

This throwback to the 70s suggestion seems to believe that it comes from whether and how much you work.

Adayinyourlife

Your proposal does not work our so far from mine - it's a question of a few months difference in the length of the use-it-or-loose-it part of the leave.

I didn't say anything like women can fuck off or deserve derision, but I don't think that motherhood, beyond the essential and short lived differences of birth and BF should be viewed differently from fatherhood. Currently it is, with huge negative consequences for women.

Currently the proportion of women who are on maternity leave at 6 months versus the number of men is massive. Some are BF, a few are still recovering from traumatic births. But I bet for most the reasons are economic, social expectations and inertia.

I largely agree with what Himalaya has been saying.

We are in a situation where men and women are fairly equal in the workplace until they have children. Then roles in the family have a tendency to become polarised into traditional duties, and economic power becomes concentrated in the hands of men, to the detriment of women.

I would like to see childcare and domestic duties be viewed as the jobs of both parents. This would require a massive change in attitudes in society. Giving men a large chunk of paid paternity leave would help to achieve this.

In many families the mother would then take the first period of parental leave, and the father the second. There would be no transfer of parental leave as this would perpetuate the current attitudes. All parental leave would of course be optional - as maternity leave is currently.

A month? Goodness, you must have had an easy birth. It took me two months to recover from an episiotomy / post-partum infection. Four weeks after the birth I was sitting on cushions and could neither sit nor stand for extended periods of time. Yeah, sling on my work suit and briefcase, I'll be there

And before you mention sick leave, I can't imagine anything more mortifying than having to spell out all of that to my boss. I think your proposal is impractical because women would routinely have to take sick leave for at least a further month and it would cause bad feeling and be thought of as "malingering" because there would be a social assumption a month was more than enough to recover from a birth because that's what the state allowed for it.

"Your proposal does not work our so far from mine - it's a question of a few months difference in the length of the use-it-or-loose-it part of the leave."

No, it's a question of the 1-2 month post-birth recuperation before being put onto "parental leave" at your employer's convenience.

Making it easier for fathers to take time off to spend with their children is a win for everybody.

But taking important things away from women to give other, less valuable, things to men, seems like a backward step.

Your plan is effectively to abolish maternity leave as it is currently understood and replace it with something less advantageous for parents.

Why would anyone (other than business representatives) be in favour of this?

Longtail is quite right about what would happen where women had to prove sickness after 1-2 months. It would create an expectation that women should be back at work by then and were dossing if they weren't.

Meanwhile each parent is in negotiations for when over the next 3 years they get to take time off to be with their child. They've both lost the entitlement for their child to have a parent at home for the first year, should they choose that.

My proposal is that the current entitlements persist, but that they can be shared as a couple prefers, with 3 months that is non-transferrable to encourage men to take it up.

And it still leaves all the problems about how to make sure single mothers are not discriminated against.

And it still leaves all the problems about how to make sure single mothers are not discriminated against.

And self-employed parents

ClaireDe - the self-employed parent is a whole other can of worms, because the current arrangements discriminate so openly in a way I can't (as someone in a quasi-self employed situation, soon to be fully) get my head around.

The other thing we have barely touched on are the changes in employment practices for people working now.

DH's maleness is only one factor in his job being our "main wage". The other is his age and the time he entered the workforce (and his sector).

The employment protections and benefits available to me are nowhere near his. In my industry fixed term contracts and self-employment are the rule and any kind of long-term relationship with an employer very much an exception.

My colleagues in their 20s are facing a completely different set of considerations when it comes to them figuring out how to have children.

Any proposal that doesn't include consideration of this is largely pointless, IMO.

Or, in short, good point :)

No as I have said you would have the absolute right to run the parental leave as a block straight after the birth leave.

But you would also have the option, which you do not have now to run some of it as a block and some of it more flexibly e.g. as part -time leave. At the same time with dads taking ft or part time leave.

Self employed people should have the same rights to statuatory maternity/parental allowance as employed people get for SMP.

Obviously they can't have enhanced maternity pay, since they employ themselves, and they can't ask their clients for a secure 'job', but that is the nature of self enployment.

Then what is the point of creating the administrative nightmare and new opportunities for sexist discrimination of separate "birth leave" and parental leave at all?

Just leave it that women have the option to take whatever amount of maternity leave they choose up to 8 months (2 + 6).

Fathers should also have the right to take their paternity leave straight after the birth (concurrently with partner) or at the time of their choosing within the first year.

Then each parent has the option of deferring whatever of maternity/paternity leave they didn't use as paternal leave, used flexibly (as described) over the first 3 years (I would extend this to 5).

That I could go for.

But any arrangement involving "birth leave" I utterly reject.

Well currently the partner of a woman claiming Maternity Allowance does not have the option of taking 3 months of paternity leave.

As I understand it anyway.

So they have introduced a welcome measure of flexibility and excluded families where women are not in long-term employment.

Baffling.

Self employed people should have the same rights to statuatory maternity/parental allowance as employed people get for SMP.

Obviously they can't have enhanced maternity pay, since they employ themselves, and they can't ask their clients for a secure 'job', but that is the nature of self enployment.

Self-employed mothers have at least some options through Maternity Allowance (although woefully inadequate compared with SMP provision for those employed).

Self-employed fathers get absolutely nothing. My DH could only have a week off because we couldn't afford to lose any more money than that. His business would not have been massively effected by having two or three weeks off and it would have been possible had he been entitled to some kind of stat paternity pay.

The major issue with self employment is this idea of non-transferable leave - two parent families where one is SE and cannot leave the business for any length of time face the same discrimination as single parents in this issue.

Or, to put it another way, from the perspective of the child, they have less right to spend the same amount of time with one or both of their parents as a child with two employed parents.

Parental leave should be a set amount that all children have the opportunity to benefit from (depending on what their parents decide is best for the family unit) - children with only one parent or one parent self-employed should not be at a disadvantage because of some arbitrary attempt to force fathers to be more involved.

I'd definitely go for that manifesto. Redesigning school hours for the modern world is way way overdue.

It seems to me that women get into the role of being senior parent without ever questioning whether that's right, so I see what it is that your manifesto is trying to do but, I don't think that your proposals would promote equal parenthood, because I more and more see that as a mindset. I think that it is more important that women are made aware of the downsides of becoming the senior parent and to make sure that they don't sleepwalk their way into that role. Some women rellish that role (and good luck to them) but it can be damaging for a lot of relationships and I personally think damaging for society as a whole, including the work environment.

Athinginyoirlife - I don't think it would have to be a big administrative burden (certainly without transferable leave it would be simpler). You shouldn't have to apply separately for different elements of the leave, you would simply have an entitlement - this much for being pregnant and giving birth, this much for being a new parent. One is sex linked, one isn't.

Everyone should have those entitlements as long as they are employed or self employed. Your entitlement shouldn't depend on whether you are married or single, whether your partner is employed, self-employed, student, SAHP, unemployed etc....frankly none of that is your employers business.

Novice - I agree, it is a mindset change.
But I also think if employers, legislation, schools etc... all assume that the mother will be the senior parent it becomes harder for people to challenge that, particularly at that sleep deprived and bewildering time in life.

Claire -

But transferable statutory maternity/paternity pay for self employed people essentially is the same as none at all.

If your DH was entitles to SP allowance on a transferable basis it would mean every £ he gets you lose a £ (or more if you get enhanced maternity pay).

So he could take 3 weeks off with no earnings and you 'pay' him from your SMP, or if there was transferable leave he gets SPA from the govt and you loose the same amount of SMP.

... That is why it needs to be nontransferable to make it a real economic proposition.

Claire - I don't think you can couch it in terms of the child's right to spend a certain amount of time with parents. There is no such right- otherwise maternity leave would be mandatory not voluntary.

The right is for the parent to take time off without endangering their job, and the social insurance is to enable them to do that economically.

I have a very different view. I think the fact I as a self employed single parent have very few maternity rights has been a massive benefit to me as it means I always worked so customer stuck with me and I made a lot of money. Give someone money to sti around at home which is what some rich do for their children and the situation kept women are in and you arein a sense killing them with kindness and keeping them down.

I don't think that one month off for recovery is medically or psychologically advisable at all. While some women can manage that, the majority will not be able to.

The issue of whether the mother or the father is the "senior parent" isn't dependent on post-birth leave either, IMVHO. In my DP's family with his exW, he was always the senior parent and he has continued to be the senior parent right through his children's childhood, including separation and divorce. It is purely a function of the relative interest of each parent in the children.

On page 4 someone says there are huge differences in views on this thread and there are. It's fascinating.

As I said in 2015 the law is changing anyway to reduce maternity leave to 18 weeks (although as now only 6 weeks is at 90% pay and most people do earn wuite a bit more than the £135 a week or whatever maternity pay is and cannot affodr to pay their mortgage or childcare for the other children on that so go back sooner) and 70% of women go back to work in 12 months to 18 months in the Uk at present. After that parents can share time. That is a good plan. If you are rich enough to be able to live on £135 a week for 12 weeks and stay home that is fine. If you have a rich enough husband or savings to support you in the 12 weeks at £135 then that's fine.

If the tax payer or your employer pays more than 6 weeks at 90% pay then you get more of course.

If you want to return having taken 2 weeks off as I did that's fine too in most jobs. We must remember plenty of parents, male and female, want to return to work quickly and feminists should support them in that choice and ensure there is no censure or discrimination on sex grounds if a woman goes back to work quickly.

No one yet on the thread has justified to me their points about being ill. Most housewives with 2 under 5s who have a third baby and are "recovering" from birth have a much much harder time without any help for 12 hours a day alone than they would haev in a call centre or in an office recovering from a birth. I dthink the argument that birth is such a sickness that women need lots of recovering time presumably with hosts of servants at home to do the childcare and cleaning is just put about my sexists who wants to medicalise childbirth or justify their own housewifely position.

I'm with you Himalaya. FWIW.

" I dthink the argument that birth is such a sickness that women need lots of recovering time presumably with hosts of servants at home to do the childcare and cleaning is just put about my sexists who wants to medicalise childbirth or justify their own housewifely position."

Horseshit and PMSL at me wanting to justify my "housewifely position" :o

I don't want special "birth leave" because for many women there is no need for it and for many others the proposed time will not be sufficient.

It's too inflexible because it seeks (for no good reason whatsoever) to apportion a little bit of leave for recovery and the rest for specifically non-gendered parenting.

Why do we need to be so prescriptive?

If parents are to be given time after the birth of their child, what can possibly be the need to separate that into "recovery time" and "childcare time".

Just figure out what time is available to whom, what (if any) can be shared, and let people get on with it.

Athinginyourlife

"Just figure out what time is available to whom, what (if any) can be shared, and let people get on with it."

But how do you figure it out?

Options

1. women get it all
2. each parent gets an equal amount
3. each child gets an equal amount - any leave taken by father is taken from mothers leave.

... And solutions in between these points.

How do you decide which is the right approach? The only way is to come to some implicit or explicit conclusion about how much time relates to giving birth and establishing breast feeding and how much relates to general parenting.

If someone has a traumatic birth/complications and this means they can't go back to work till the end of their maximum leave, in atransferable system this means their partner can't take any time off (in the situation where it is most needed).

If additional recovery time is recognised as a right for a woman with a medical need, and parental leave is recognised as a right for a new father they shouldn't be interchangable.