Lib Dem manifesto

[GoogleWhacking]

Has anyone seen it? They are pledging to recognise non binary identities in law and remove the need for medical reports for the GRA!

Definitely not voting for that!!

Exactly

Get back home women. Your job is Mother.

I had to go back to work after 6 months, due to the end of contractual maternity pay and the fact I was the higher earner by quite some margin. We couldn't afford for me to be off for a year.

SPL meant my husband could then be off and LO didn't need to go to nursery at that point.

Not all women come from a traditional family where the father earns most and the mother stays at home. A "one-size-fits-all" policy is the worst of all worlds. A policy that allows families to decide what best works for their specific contexts is much better.

@CassieMaddox I'm not suggesting anything like that. I'm saying that women's current entitlement should not be eroded to a choice/negotiation to enable shared leave. Fathers/other parent should have their own separate entitlement. Ie Paternity (Other parent) leave should be extended, rather than Mat & Pat leave merge into only Shared Parental Leave.

While I agree with you, there would be uproar. It's been hard enough to get women to have a year.

I think employers/businesses would demand a reduction in ML to support PL. This is a workable compromise - net zero effect on business, the leave is given to "the family" rather than the mother.

Its a compromise being demanded of women. As per usual.

Not really. We have exceptionally generous mat leave in this country, its not some kind of divine right.
I think its more about levelling the playing field for parents. I personally would like to see fathers more involved with their children and child rearing as its key to breaking down patriarchal assumptions. This policy is about flexibility for families, I can't see what the issue is (unless you are some kind of gender traditionalist).

No, not a gender traditionalist. Being a feminist is rather at opposition to that. Objecting to sex-based stereotypes was a fairly inbuilt instinct for me.

You'll note that I have already explicitly stated that I want to see fathers more involved with parenting, for exactly the reason that you quote.

I also don't want the current mode of SPL removed. I don't in any way want the hard fought for entitlement for women to be compromised by any extension or change to SPL. Women must be able to take their full entitlement if they choose. Any pushback on maternity leave is a dangerous path for women imo.

Pushing for improvements to Paternity leave will be hard but I don't think that's a reason not to do it.

I can't see what the issue is (unless you are some kind of gender traditionalist).

The issue is that maternal leave and parental leave should be separate. Men don't gestate and their bodies don't have to recover from childbirth, then move into breastfeeding.
Men should not be able to guilt trip their partners into giving up some of their maternal leave.

I think we have to do baby steps of what is palatable. At the moment additional leave will be perceived as "too expensive" and damaging to business.
As I said upthread, take up of SPL has been low. I don't think there is much risk of women being forced to give up leave they want to take.

The women who are forced are the ones at highest risk. They are the ones that need the most protection, and this will affect their children as well.

Sir Ed Davey seems to have written a bucket list of fun things to do and get his political party to pay for. If I had any respect for him at this point I would be losing it rapidly each time his vapid and pointless nonsense appears on the news.

I wonder what would happen if the parents weren't together anymore.

Would your former partner be able to claim half the leave (or more? Is there a limit that each person could take?) even if you disagree?

This, exactly. It's not difficult to understand.

If women were allowed to have elective c-sections if they preferred ,without being accused of being too posh to push, wasting NHS resources etc, the number of birth injuries would reduce massively. See the example of Louise Thompson.

I would have thought it was better for baby too - ie having a fit and healthy mum who gets over the birth quickly. But I digress!

I don't really see how you can link maternity and paternity leave unless you work for the same employer anyway!

Surely if I take a year's leave that's up to me and my employer and if my partner's employer allows him to take leave, that's between them? Or is the idea that if you get tax payer funded paid maternity leave for a year you would only get 10.5 months if your partner wanted it and they'd get the other 6 weeks? Stat mat leave pay is really low anyway - I couldn't' have afforded to live on it.

I think a bigger issue is childcare costs and I think childcare should be tax deductible in full.

C sections take longer to recover from, so I'm a bit confused here. You can't drive for six weeks and need sign off from a doctor before you can drive again.

How do you think getting rid of SPL and enforcing maternity leave for mothers only is going to protect them from an abusive husband?

I've had 2x third degree tears and an ELCS. The ELCS was far less debilitating.

It's done by the two employers writing to each other to confirm (at least it was when I did it). Not really that complicated.

I did wonder about that. I assume it would be linked to the legal child care arrangements e.g. if it was agreed to be 50/50, the father would be entitled to 50%.
Not sure how childcare arrangements work with newborns.

They definitely don't work on 50/50 frequent and short visits is the recommended not overnight care.

It used to be the case that while an infant is being breastfed, there is no 50/50. The infants welfare is supposed to come before the fathers rights.

Right. So no SPL in those cases then.

No one is suggesting that.