Shared parental leave - doesn't go nearly far enough

[jamtomorrow1]

I am pregnant and my husband and I are planning to make use of the shared parental leave provisions. I seem to be spending an increasing amount of time ranting about this, but I am nonplussed by the government's belief that allowing men to share the 52 weeks' leave is enough to create a situation of equality. If the mother's employer will offer enhanced maternity pay, but the father will be entitled to the statutory amount only, then it doesn't take a genius to realise that very many couples will be forced into a situation where the mother is the only one who can afford to take the time off. This struck me as contrary to the entire spirit of the legislation. I had a look at some of the relevant employment law decisions, which seem to be pervaded by terms like "the mother's special relationship with the child". How are we ever going to achieve anything like equality in opportunity to stay at home and opportunity to go back to work when there is a gender bias built into even supposedly equal-opportunities legislation?

Just reading the acas info.
If the regs come into force in December, the parents start qualifying from January 2015, why is it only babies born after 5th April that qualify for shared leave?

Because you have to tell your employer your plans 15 weeks before the EDD!

But it says you only have to give 8 weeks notice of a request for shared leave and the employer can't refuse if it's a continuous block.

I get your point about the 15 weeks notification for the mother as that's current rules too.

My DM works in payroll and she reckons it will be a nightmare for employers to administer and very easy for the employee to be paid incorrectly. Still, it's a step in the right direction.

Oh, they probably wanted it to start on the first day of the new tax year and just counted back from there.

True.
looks like we'll have to do it under the current regs then if I can persuade DP.

It strikes me as more sensible for the government to make plans to view it as simple 'parental leave', so with little distinction between mother and father - probably the only distinction being the first month or two if the mother needs it to recover physically.

Though I admit that wold get very complicated with different employers having different leave/pay policies.

I think so.

As far as the government is concerned, it provides ShPP "blind" to the recipient; other than stipulating the minimum 2 weeks for the mother after birth, it gives the 90% shPP and the £130ish pw SHPP to whoever is on the list for it, post April 15.

Post from Clegg!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/guest_posts/2218743-Guest-post-When-it-comes-to-parental-leave-we-must-pay-fathers-the-same-as-mothers-if-we-want-gender-equality

The comments on that post really sadden me actually. I do understand why many women feel like this is the state taking away their options but sometimes I can't help feeling that the reason feminism is taking so long to really change things is that there are so many women who are happy with the status quo. It seems unlikely that any slave anywhere truly believed he/she was inferior and should be property. And even so it took ages to get slavery changed.

That's what I thought too workingbling. The first few comments really shocked me in fact, I'm probably on FWR too much. It's hard to get across how reactions like that just prove the point really.

I think there will be employers who "ask" women why they aren't coming back sooner and their husbands doing their share; just as these questions are asked if it is always the mother covering sick children.

But these questions should be in everyone's minds, IMO, and the sooner employers realise that both men and women are impacted in their working lives by having children, the better.

I don't think that it is just overtly abusive relationships which could misuse this. The balance of 'wifework' in otherwise happy relationships, even by women who are working fulltime and well paid, is often unequal. So if men decide that taking leave is desirable (and SAHDs are certainly more appreciated in some quarters than SAHMs), that decision might be made by men rather than women or genuinely fairly.

I'm not saying men shouldn't get leave, but I think we have to be careful about removing rights that women have to give them that.

I wonder how shared leave entitlement works if one partner is unemployed or if they are separated or disagree about how the leave should be divided etc.

Yy, the default recipient is the mother.

Any system is open to abuse; abusive men can have CB paid to them, for example. But I don't think that's a reason not to do it.

If one partner was unemployed, assume other would want to be in work as much as possible anyway, I imagine many mothers with unemployed partners take minimal ML.

Yy Yonic. The possibility of abuse doesn't negate the value in the proposal.

Pressed post too soon.

If we did say things hat have opportunity for abusers should be banned then ml would be ditched immediately. How many women are completely disempowered by ml? My their partners' and society's view that they can only be mothers? What about the women whose p refuses to pay child are costs, forcing her to remain primary carer and financial dependence.

Would there be any flexibility for families where the mother is a SAHP? I really like the idea that the father could take some extra overlapping leave in the early days, but this might not be available if the mother isn't on maternity leave at all.

Similarly, how would it work for people who are self employed?