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?

Sex segregation in schools IMO is a bad thing anyway. It's just reinforcement of stereotypes. I went to a mixed equivalent of a Grammar school ("Gymnasium" in Germany) - no "bottom streams" there.

Marriedinwhite - well aren't you lucky and a bit smug that the world has turned out just right for what you were born to do.

Why would your husband be "helping you with the baby care" isn't it his baby too?

Marriedinwhite- your husband has fulfilled the role the patriarchal society has laid out for him. Go to work and let the wife look after the children.

I actually couldn't read past "what I was born to do" without being a bit sick in my mouth.

Widow that was actually my point. I am sure I am totally capable of all of those things but like anything in life that requires a bit of skill, you need to be shown how to do them and then you need to practise to get better.

Women are often discouraged from doing traditionally 'male roles' and vice versa.

Though on a pure talent level I am pretty confident that I am actually quite crap at those things. Not because I'm a woman but because as a person I have no interest and no patience either.

My daughter however will be bought up to have a go at everything whether it be baking a cake or changing a tyre!

I use a drill. Anyohne with an arm can. However peopel tend to split things in marriages. I got the chidlren's school bags ready and he was usually the first person home from work to let the nanny go home. He did (and arranged and was 100% responsible for) the dentist and optician trips. I did our tax returns.

Lots of people and teenagers like to show total incompetence at a task so the other person takes it on. If you are up against one of those then you dump the baby, 1 year old and 3 year old on him for a Saturday aftrernoon, go shopping and say - you'll manage. You'll be much better than I am. Then when you come back you say how well it was all done and if the house is a mess you have a long bath at 9 when the children are in bed and say - "ah you seem to have a bit of tidying left to do from earlier on . I think you'll find it easier next Saturday to do that as you go along."

The drill example is pathetic. No girl or women needs to be particularly determined to want to use a drill. It's really not difficult. The only thing I found remotely hard was going to buy a drill - it was such a boring thing to have to choose.

There's a lot more to using a drill well than what you do with your arms

I think there's a lot to be said for educating girls together. I loved it.

Outcomes for girls tend to be better too.

And the reason the drill example works is because there is nothing remotely hard about changing a nappy, doing the laundry, cuddling a sick child.

Anyone can do it if
a) they want to
b) nobody tries to stop them

Laundry easy?

Buying is tools is huge fun., If I compare the experience with buying a dress to buying all the stuff I have bought for my island from fishing rods to fire making kits the latter is so so much more fun.

Anyway housework and many DIY things are some of the lowest paid stuff in society including childcare because it is low paid and anyone can do it and it is boring and work which some of us do is paid much higher as it is fulfilling and much harder to do. Therefore most adults work and do what cleaning they can't avoid.

enimmead, I couldn't help to notice the interesting choice of words. You ask if mothers "let" fathers to do this and that with DC. Exactly as has been discussed here - mothers are the alpha parents and decide what others, like nannies, grandparents, dads etc, are allowed to do with the DC. Even though in theory dads should be equal parents.
And this will not change until fathers actually do take a part of the parental leave and get the chance to be the alpha parent for a while.

This does not mean that every family has to and all SAHMs who are totally happy with how the things are, would be forced to work - you would always have the option not to use the time allocated to the father. Still, as the experience of other countries has shown, a "use it or lose it" paid leave will make a difference.

By the way, according to Swedish research, if the parents share the parental leave with their first child, they are more likely to have additional ones and are 30% less likely to divorce. Interesting.

Oh well we'll have to beg to differ there, Xenia. I get zero thrill out of buying tools/machinery etc. The only way I can persuade myself to do it is by reminding myself of how much easier my life will be once I have the tool that does the job most quickly and efficiently. Dullsville central. I'd much rather buy furniture/clothes/food/flowers/houses.

Hazelnut I completely agree with you.

Marriedinwhite whilst I agree with some of your points (working hard pays off sometimes) I can't help but feel like you are one of those women who live their life according to a plan

I do have less options than I'd like now but that's largely because I had a very, very good time in my 20's. I travelled the world, went out too much and then married for love not money. I got to 34 and had some material things but not all and decided that I could either keep doing a job I didn't really like so that I could take a full year maternity or bite the bullet and start my own which leave me with less in the short term but more flexibility and satisfaction long term. It also happened to coincide with being 34 and realising that I didn't want to be an older mum.

You might be happy to stay at home for 8 years but I certainly would not and I really hate that negative picture you paint about families putting their children in childcare. Perhaps being in your company 24/7 is not actually the best thing for them!

Msfickle and others above. There are a couple of fundamental issues I just don't get.

I was taught to cook (and love it), to arrange flowers (and hate it but can do it), to be gracious (and it has become second nature), to work hard and expect very little. And I worked hard. I didn't go to university; I wasn't regarded as clever enough in 1978 or actually 1976 when the decision to do a secretarial course rather than A'Levels was made.

My sisters in law who are academically clever, have Russell Group degrees, can't cook, won't iron, don't clean and don't believe in boundaries for their children (one of whom has been expelled from a New Zealand School). They both married men who are non conformist and don't work because they wanted to be "free". They both regard themselves as feminists, as individuals, as people who are "free". Neither has ever done a day of proper salaried work. Neither have freedom, neither have independence, neither have choice in what they do, in their drudgeful jobs and unhappy marriages. But they were individuals and they were above conformity.

In contrast, I started work at 20 and worked without a break for 14 years. By the time I was 30 I was entirely financially independent and could have had a child on my own and been able to provide for us. However, in the meantime I married for love and was able to stay at home, having fulfilled my ambitions (Eurobond Salesman in investment banking, own house, well travelled, good car, great wardrobe and money in the bank) and to chose to spend eight years at home looking after our children and supporting my DH.

I have had choice, love and independence since my late 20's. Can anyone tell me what brand of feminism doesn't include choice and independence. My SILs certainly aren't independent and certainly aren't happy; in spite of telling my world was crap and their brother was a capitalist bastard the week before I married him.

I'd also like to know what the independence that feminism is supposed to bring has to do with expectations that the state should fund and support chosen lifestyles. Independent women chose their lifestyle and fund and support it; if love is part of the equation even better.

Smile and nod, smile and nod, just as I do to the SILs.

Two complete extremes. I quite agree in working hard and expecting little. Also agree that The state shouldn't have to fund people's choices.

The point here is about fairness and I don't think anything you've raised here relates to the topic of this thread which is simply about encouraging equality in parenting.

My husband and I want to share the parenting. I also want to go back to work. I'm very pleased for you that you got what you wanted but when you went on mat leave I dare say you got some mat pay didn't you?

All this thread is attempting to raise is that the law as it stands does not allow for equal parenting.

I completely disagree with your statement that the law as it now stands does not allow for equal parenting. Men now have the right to up to six months of paternity leave.

When our first son was born I was entitled to six months of maternity leave, I think I got 90% of my salary for six weeks and then SMP which then was between £20 and £30pw. I went back to work after three months, part time as a compromise for the company but stopped after a year because I didn't feel that arrangement was affording enough quality of life for the money.

Parenting is about a great deal more than the baby stage and a great deal more than the practical tasks of feeding and changing and school runs. We thought parenting was sufficiently important not to sub-conract any of it to others. I wanted to do it; DH was carving a career - the career that has provided the DC with a fabulous start in life (teenagers now). Most of all our DC have had the security of a happy family, love and an absence of ingrained bitterness and complaint.

Unless you earn about £100 a week or in some job with enhanced maternity rights the 6 weeks at 90% pay (and very very little after that) means mean and women are for practical purposes treated pretty much the same. Obviously the rich can afford to swam around at home for 6 months or more on £135 a week but most people cannot afford that unless they have saved up or have a rich partner.

xenia - Sometimes it's a bit more complicated than that. childcare costs meant for us actually that on SMP our household income was higher than after returning to work - no mental gymnastics of whose pay is paying the childcare, but just simple income vs outgoings.

Marriedinwhite if you've read any of this thread you'd see that men can only take their six months after the child is 20 weeks.

In cases like my own where the woman is the main earner and needs to return to work before the 20 weeks, this does not represent equality

All I'm asking for is the same thing you had when you had your child which we do not have.

The percentage is paid on your salary, not on all of your earnings. When you pay yourself a minimum salary and then dividends on profit you effectively get 90% of naff all

As I have never once been entitled to any maternity pay I am probably the worst person to comment on it. When I had the first three children you had to have 2 years' continuous service to get the 90% payfor 6 weeks. I worked for three employers in that period and never had it. Babies 4 and 5 I worked for myself and was in effect back in work at home the next day. That lack of rights in a sense is the main reason along with marrying a man who earned a lot less (a tenth eventually) why life has been so good and I have done so well.

Had I had long well paid rights I might have taken them and ruined a very lovely career.

Good response Xenia. A very positive way of looking at an unfair situation

I will be like you and to be honest if you believe it can work (which I do) then it will

Pretty sick of militant mums telling me I must be mad to even think its possible. Anything is possible if you believe it!

There can't possibly be true equality until men carry the babies and give birth. We are physiologically different and women need a period of recovery.

What is stopping you from having the same thing I had when my first child was born? What is stopping you from carving your career first? What is stopping you and your partner from saving up until you can afford the first baby? What is stopping you from having 90% of your salary for 6 weeks? What is stopping you from claiming SMP until your baby is four months old? What is stopping you from finding a nice nursery and dropping baby there from 8am until 6pm?

The point I tried to make is that feminism is about having equal rights to men or anyone else in society. Being equal, in my eyes, means being independent. As far as I am concerned I achieved independence in my own right by the age of about 30. Having done that I then chose to take a back seat in my career to support my family. I worked for 16 years from 20 to 35(ish) I then had 8 years off and have been back at work now for 9 years and have another 15 ahead of me. In total I shall have worked for 40 years by the time I retire at 67. I think that has earned me the right to be equal however I chose to do so.

However, if one is not independent from the state then one is not equal, one is not independent and a woman dependent on the state certainly cannot be a feminist. The OP to me was expectant of state support and personally I don't see how that marries with the tenets of independents for men or for women.

married, we are there though now. If a woman chooses not to give birth it is not that hard and not very expensive to hire an Indian surrogate. They will have your genetic child and then you bring it back here. There is a growing trend of not gestating your own child. We are not yet at a point where it is a machine that does the gestating but that may be possible in due course.

We will never get agreement on political issues between women (or women and men) as some will be free market libertarians as I am (although I support 6 weeks at 90% pay for women although even that I would allow spouses to transfer if they wished) and others will want universal free childcare for all or huge subsidies for stay at home parents (and presumably with the 60 - 70% rates of tax which go with that)

Xenia - if you were a true free market libertarian you couldn't possibly adopt your all-women-must-work stance.