Would renaming maternity leave as parental leave help change perceptions?

[classicslove]

I've never posted on this board but something has just got me thinking about the way maternity leave is perceived in the UK.
Surely one way to change this is to rename it as Parental Leave more in line with the Swedish system with a set amount of time for the mother to recover and the rest split between both parents.
Details are not as simple as this but surely while it is still called Maternity it is assumed that it is solely the females responsibility in the thought process of the general public and in particular men and employers, whatever the law actually says.

surely while it is still called Maternity it is assumed that it is solely the females responsibility in the thought process of the general public and in particular men and employers, whatever the law actually says.

OP, I think you've got this backwards. It was called "maternity" leave because it's the women who do the birthing and, at the time maternity leave was conceived (sorry), it was 99% of the time solely women doing the childcare. And none of this has changed much.

No. Let's not start changing words just because we can't fix or change society. That's how we got into our present mess.

There's maternity leave, paternity leave, and, sometimes, parental leave. The one that needs keeping is maternity leave; arguably the other two should be equalized and/or expanded, but that is for fathers and parents together to campaign for.

Men have plenty of time to "help out" with baby care and bond with their children through various means throughout their children's lifetimes. Many do, but a lot of them choose to opt out and play golf, go cycling, or work more hours than they need to in order to avoid looking after their children in any meaningful way, especially when it's babies and it's messy and relentless (see Relationship board).

Men can make more of an effort, and get used to be tired. They can't have any more of our words.

Do you really think that a change in name will trigger a change in men's behaviours. I seriously doubt it.

What men need to understand and be educated on is that their role as a prospective father starts when their partner gets pregnant.

Yes and stop referring to working mums and start talking about working parents. It does my head in hearing all the narratives about 'busy working ' mums. We need to literally rebrand it. Talking about mums makes it sound like those working are the exception, not the norm.

Absolutely, and the Swedish model mentioned in the OP might go some way to explain why
exclusive breastfeeding rates at 6 months are between 11 and 15 % in Sweden. I think ( don't quote me) even the British have a better rate than that.

Changing words doesn’t change reality.

Women get pregnant, grow babies and give birth to them. Maternity leave is there to acknowledge this reality, and it is important to acknowledge the immensity of the task; the physical and emotional strain involved in growing, birthing and initial care of a new human being fall to women because we are mammals.

That won’t change, and pretending male and female roles are interchangeable in this aspect of life will not help discrimination against women.

I think this would be bonkers. If I owned a business, I wouldn't risk hiring a woman and investing in her training, only to have her disappear from the workplace for two years, while I had to replace her and retrain someone else, while keeping the first person's job open!
And not everyone wants to breastfeed - this constant focus on breast is best and that the woman should prioritise it can be detrimental to some women. It certainly wasn't best for me and in a society with access to clean water etc, makes very little difference on an individual level to children's outcomes. More important is maternal wealth, education etc.

I think we can't have it both ways. We can't say that extended maternity leave is essential and 'ours' (to be protected from men who want to appropriate it) and expect this not to have an impact on careers. As a pp said, you can't control what people think and how this will affect how they recruit employees.

Personally, I would give a new mum a guaranteed 6 months fully paid leave. Then I would offer the same to fathers (or the second parent). This would put both parents on a more equal footing in the workplace. This leave would not be transferable. It would give the mum time to physically recover but not keep her out of the workplace for so long that she is disadvantaged.

Im my ideal world, proper subsidised childcare would exist that wasn't financially ruinous for families.

To me maternity leave is more specific because its not just any leave when parenting, its also recovery time for women who have been through a very physically demanding process with pregnancy and labour and as such that time should be protected and recognised for that. What's needed (to me) is longer protected paternity leave and an appropriate equivalent for same sex couples or families being created through different journeys.

In our workplace its a suite of parental leave packages but it's then broken down further within that. I do think that's important to identify and protect the different needs of the individual.

6 months for me would not have been sufficient to be honest. I think it needs to be able to be transferable so that it can be decided by each family what's most appropriate for their individual circumstances. I think flexibility in that is really important.

I think a good childcare strategy is needed and I think we need lots more social initiatives that centre the role of the father, we have some great social enterprises where I live that are actually being very well received by new fathers and I think that's important as previously its been difficult to get men to engage. The more we see that cultural shift in the role of the father and move away from what's stereotypically seen as womens work I think we'll naturally then see a shift for future generations.

Split leave wouldn’t have worked for my family as my children were breastfed.

I hope so - my dad did a lot of childcare when I was a kid (mum was a nurse and worked shifts) and he was amazing. But I do believe that in making leave transferable, the mum will always be more inclined to take that leave and therefore it entrenches the idea that the mum is always the primary parent. I think workplaces almost need to have men taking equal leave, forced on them to jog us out of this situation where women are the only ones disadvantaged by having children.

Shared parental leave/pay is offered in the UK but the mother needs to give up leave/pay in order to share it with her partner. Its often only a statutory amount (similar to maternity pay) which may be why take up is so low. The mother can share up to 50 weeks leave and 37 weeks pay.

I mean in the world you are commenting on you'd be equally as at risk hiring a man if they were then allowed to take 2 years pat leave from 2 to 4!

I do think that the only way to reduce discrimination against women in the workplace is to ensure that it's as much of a risk to hire a woman as a man. I don't think we should do that by allowing people parental leave for the first four years of a child's life.

Maternity is not just recovery time - it starts before birth for the health of the mother and child. Not all women at fit enough for work in the latest stages of pregnancy due to pregnancy related issues. Some get hospitalised at this point. Most women are exhausted during those final few weeks. Lax ligaments and other changes put them at risk in many jobs.

Just imagine if we say men who have hernias should share their sick leave, including post-operatively, with their partners for ‘equality’?

My company does this, but I think it’s more systematic as there are different levels of company pay associated with this (different lengths of enhanced pay) and so it’s just a pay code used to differentiate.

I can't imagine many men wanting to stay home until the kids went to school tbh. If they did want to, I think it would be too much time off to not completely disadvantage all people of childbearing age in the workplace. This is already something that employers are wary of when it comes to hiring women - we'd be extending that to younger men, which wouldn't help women or children financially.
How would it work with people who have more than one child? You'd end up with situations where people are planning their families so they get back to back leave and could be out of the workplace but getting paid/having jobs kept open indefinitely.

At some point we have to accept that we can't have everything - we can even things up so that mums aren't the default parent, but in general, I'm not sure we can expect employers to prioritise employees personal choices to have (more than one) dc. Not at that level of leave at any rate.
Its not fair on those people who maybe don't have children but would like paid leave to care for a parent, for example.

From how you posted it, to my (admittedly over heated brain) it appeared to add up to more.

And that not all fathers would take the leave they could.

There are different types of parental leave. The 18 weeks per parent per child is generally unpaid leave and can be taken in blocks of 1 week and up to 4weeks per year until the child is 18.

Shared parental leave/pay is offered after the birth of a child and the mother can share up to 50 weeks leave and 37 weeks pay by cutting short her own maternity leave/pay period. It may be offered at statutory rates or enhanced rates depending on the employers.

If this is true (AI) generated, not very hopeful about men engaging:

In the UK, only about 32% of eligible fathers take statutory paternity leave. Of those who do, nearly half take just two weeks or less. Furthermore, take-up of Shared Parental Leave (SPL) is incredibly low, with fewer than 2% of working dads utilizing the scheme.

The gap between policy and reality varies drastically around the world, though father uptake is universally lower than mother uptake. The situation breaks down into the following key realities:

In the UK

Low Uptake: Roughly two-thirds of new fathers and partners who qualify for statutory paternity leave do not take it.
Financial Barriers: Statutory Paternity Pay is notably low (below half the national living wage), leaving 62% of British fathers reporting financial struggles following a child's birth.
Shared Parental Leave (SPL): Despite policies allowing parents to split up to 50 weeks of leave, fewer than 2% of eligible families use it. This is heavily skewed toward high-income earners who can afford the pay disparity.
Workplace Culture: Analysis by The Dad Shift revealed that thousands of fathers lose their jobs annually as a direct result of taking paternity leave, and many more fear career penalties or stigmatization.

Global Trends & Comparisons

Nordic Countries (e.g., Sweden): Because of highly generous, "use-it-or-lose-it" quotas earmarked exclusively for fathers, the vast majority of men take substantial leave (fathers take about 30% of all paid parental leave days).
The OECD Average: Across developed countries, fathers are taking more leave than they did a decade ago, but the division remains highly unequal. Policies in countries like Spain provide up to 16 weeks of fully paid leave, dramatically increasing uptake compared to nations with lower compensation rates.

Key Drivers Preventing Uptake

Low Compensation: Many families simply cannot afford the steep drop in household income.
Workplace Stigma: Men often fear being perceived as less dedicated to their careers or facing negative repercussions from managers.
Lack of Awareness: Up to 45% of dads report not knowing that shared parental leave options are legally available to them.
Cultural Expectations: Social norms and traditions often view the mother as the primary caregiver.

This. My abusive ex would 100% have forced me back to work ASAP to allow himself as much time at home as possible with no scrutiny.

I’m in the UK and it’s been like this for years now and open to pretty much everyone, including if you adopt:

https://www.gov.uk/shared-parental-leave-and-pay