Maternity leave being undermined by Shared Parental Leave?

[Sunkisses]

I'm concerned that recent legal cases show that women's rights via maternity leave and pay are being undermined and devalued by Shared Parental Leave, a possible unfortunate and very dangerous outcome for women. The legal cases ultimately (and thankfully) failed, but I want to draw women's attention to this. For me, this goes hand in hand with the denial of women's biological reality that trans activism does.

Two men bought cases against their employers arguing 'discrimination' as their employers paid more money (maternity pay) to mothers than they did to fathers who took Shared Parental Leave and just got the statutory amount. This is tone deaf to the massive toll pregnancy and childbirth has on women, recovery time, PND, the importance of breastfeeding, and the critical importance for bonding between mother and newborn in the first year. Worryingly it looks like their cases initially won at the Employment Tribunals, but thankfully were overturned at the Court of Appeal.

Our foremothers fought long and hard for maternity leave and pay. Our generation must make sure it is never undermined on our watch.

More info about the cases here: www.personneltoday.com/hr/hextall-v-leicestershire-ali-v-capita-enhanced-maternity-pay-shared-parental-pay-court-of-appeal/

My friend recently had his first baby, his wife is self employed. She took the first four months off, she returned after this as the longer she had off the work the less likely she was to regain her customers. My friend would take the remaining time off until their baby is a year old, he however is only paid the statutory amount from his employer, yet someone on maternity pay on month five of leave would be on 100% of their salary until the 9th month of leave at his company at which time it would decrease to 75% until the 12th month of leave.

It's in the baby's interest to form a strong bond with the main caregiver - which to me means that yes, it makes sense for an adoptive main care giver (mother, father or other) to have a full year. I'm very supportive of increasing the leave available to secondary care givers but while children are very little I think it makes sense to prioritise the primary one.

DS still has a very, very strong bond to me (and don't we know it at the moment, as we're at a very separation anxiety stage!). He also has a very strong bond with dad, and I think he benefits in a lot of ways from having a father who is a genuinely equal parent. I absolutely think that it was in his best interests that we did SPL. He is also part of a family, and it was in that whole family's interests.

In terms of bond, it’s interesting to see that DD has an equally strong bond with both us, even though I went back to work at 6 months and DH remained the SAHP.

Stuck babies can have more than one caregiver or change the primary caregiver and surely that’s the ideal. It is definitely in the baby’s interest to have a strong relationship to its dad. In countries where people take this up and do share care, I don’t think they have a big problem with attachment issues or anything like that. Plus the mother working doesn’t mean she will never see the baby. Of course, in the long term, the child will benefit hugely from having parents who are both caring and nurturing AND are also both capable of providing for the family.

At the moment DS's bond with me seems stronger, which surprised me because we had roughly equal amounts of time at home with him and DS spends more time with him in the average week (and all school holidays with him). However, I think he might also just be going through a 'mummy' phase - I suspect we'll see a daddy phase in due course!

. In countries where people take this up and do share care, I don’t think they have a big problem with attachment issues or anything like that

I have family in a country where this is the norm, but the reality is that few mothers actually go back much before a year, but because leave is generous instead they work it so either she takes a year and the other partner takes a few months after that, or they both share the first or last few months of maternity.

SPL is a trainwreck of a system and it absolutely disadvantages women as it is. We did it and it's a horrible arrangement because if you want your partner to have time off, you have to "give" them your leave. I ended up massively resenting my partner because I was back at work before I was physically and mentally ready

That was for you and him to sort out.

The answer is to massively increase paternity leave, not to put women in a situation where they have to cut their own allowance in order to give it to the male partner

Do you have any idea of the burden maternity leave causes for employers? Yes we just have to suck it up but it seems to me that in all of this employees' demands come before everything else.

Currently out of a team of 17 I have 3 employees on maternity leave and 2 who will go before the current 3 are back. We will have to cope somehow- oh btw the usual MN response of " just hire temps" is unrealistic nonsense.

It surprises me that anyone thinks SPL is un feminist. We split it 6 and 6 months with our first and we are the only couple I know who genuinely split domestic responsibilities 50:50. SPL was a huge part of that.

It is really unusual to be still physically suffering from childbirth six months on. Of course, I am sorry for those women but I don't think we should design the whole policy around them.

I also don't think SPL is only viable when women are the higher earners. Generally couples I know with higher earning women somehow find the money for maternity leave, it's about prioritising saving for it. My DH and I earn around the same so being off work requires financial planning for either of us.

I am disappointed that some women are so protective of women continuing to have more of a parenting role to the point of wanting to deny other people the choice. If you want to take the whole 12 months, you can - the vast majority of couples don't even consider SPL so it's hardly some big threat to the established order.

Unless you think that the baby being with their father is somehow more likely to cause any attachment issues than that baby being in nursery, then there's plenty of evidence that a baby isn't going to get attachment issues just from having a working mother.

Attachment theory has lots of things to recommend it, but I think the current trend towards using it to convince women that their bond with their baby is incredibly fragile and will crumble at the slightest hurdle is both unscientific (do you know what sorts of backgrounds children with attachment disorder usually have? It's not 'well, I come from a loving family and two doting parents but at six months I went to spending a bit less time with mum and a bit more with dad') and unkind - it scares women unnecessarily.

Stuck ‘won’t somebody think of the children’ is often used to guilt trip women into giving up work and becoming financially dependent on men (which is bad for women AND children). It’s never mooted that working dads have a bad impact on kids. Dads can go on a three week business trip when the baby is 3 months old and nobody bats an eyelid but woe betide if a woman wants to go back to full time work at any point. At the end of the day, I doubt that having the father take some time to deliver primary care is going to cause psychological harm.

Yup, agree NewAccount. Kids with attachment disorder usually have VERY traumatic backgrounds.

New account

Honestly, I think a lot of attachment theory stuff is about putting women back in their place. Not a surprise to me that Sears is v Christian and anti women working. A certain number of women also want to rationalise their decisions rather than just say they want to be at home.

Settlersofcatan - 6 months into my maternity leave my child was 4.5 months old. Because i had severe complications and was hospitalised. I was still strughling with the after affects of birth at 4.5 months. I probably wasnt at 6 months but how many people start their mat leave on the day their child is born - particularly in more phyiscal jobs.
I am not arguing that women have to have a whole year. I went back atv8 months. I like a flexible and well paid system that individual families work out what is best for them. I am fed up with pretending that babies magically appear and this proess has zero impact on women.
I also wish there were more conversations about men working part time to assist with childcare in the longer term.

I actually think that it's a bit shit in general that leave taken while pregnant comes out of maternity leave - I was delighted when DS was a week early, a few days after I started mat leave because I didn't want to waste three weeks of leave sat around pregnant, but obviously I couldn't have prevented that if he'd come at 42 weeks! I do think that there should be separate pregnancy leave and maternity leave.

One in eight employers responding to a recent survey said they were reluctant to hire women who might have children.here

Anything which might increase the numbers of men taking time off can only benefit women.

I'm all for men getting same pay as women when on parental leave, but I cant see businesses being up for it. Having to pay 2 loads of enhanced pay? No chance!

Grimbles it would be for the same period of time in total so it shouldn’t cost more. There will be a saving because women will have a shorter time off if they share the leave with their partner.

It would cost more though if you are having to pay 2 lots of enhanced pay to cover a couple who both work for the same company.

Even if they didnt, it would still cost companies more to cover mat and pat leave at whatever contractual rate than just mat leave.

Hence why businesses would lobby against it.

Then let the state pay for it through taxation. Honestly it’s a fucking joke. The provision here is woeful compared to other countries and out taxes aren’t even low. Other countries manage to make adequate provision so that people don’t have fuck their careers up to have a family.

”I'm all for men getting same pay as women when on parental leave, but I cant see businesses being up for it. Having to pay 2 loads of enhanced pay? No chance!”

Virtually all of our SME clients who offer enhanced maternity pay have matched it when it comes to shared parental pay. Just as they had already for adoption pay.

Uptake of ShPP is so low that the impact is fairly minimal anyway, especially when you bear in mind the balancing effect of some women being off for a shorter period.

Yes, it is a joke, but whilst socialism is still seen as a dirty word and people keep voting in political parties in the pockets of businesses then not much will change.

It’s surely a bigger waste to train and invest in women only to have them leave after 10 years or so because working conditions aren’t compatible with family life. If I was an employer I would be more worried about the exodus of women from professions with a long and expensive period of training.

Just saw your post @CatteStreet. Thanks for the clarification. I do think the German model is a lot better than the UK, as you get a lot more flexibility and everyone gets the well-paid leave, not just those whose employers have enhanced pay. They also have a few more measures to stop employers unfairly sacking pregnant women and new mothers, which we could do with here. It is really common for women to get selected for redundancy after they have a baby and most new mothers just don't have it in them to run a discrimination claim.

I fundamentally disagree that men's parental rights should come at the expense of women's.

I get the principle that fathers doing more decreases the burden on mothers - but I disagree that they currently do so little because they can't. I am happy for the couples posting here who have worked out equal parenting and shared leave has helped them - but I profoundly disagree that the shared leave caused those fathers to engage so deeply, in good faith.

When a child is a few years old, and onwards, and has two parents, both of whom are fit and able to work, there are NO legal barriers to fathers taking their turn to do any of it - and how many bother?

I really do not trust any men bellyaching that they're set up to fail at parenting. If you have cleaned vomit off a two year old between two hourly feeds of a newborn who won't go down in her basket, while your stitches are dragging and you're still anaemic, meanwhile your partner snores, you know that if you WANT to be a present and engaged parent you WILL be

LukewarmCustard - yes re Germany and maternity discrimination. There is a pretty much absolute ban on dismissing a pregnant woman, up to four months post partum, from the first day of her employment. Any dismissal has to be run by a specific committee (which means it is possible to get rid for really bad misconduct but not in the normal run of things).