Is maternity leave sexist ?

[mozhe]

I think so.....surely it should be parental leave that is available to both parents,( or maybe even members of the wider family network, like grandparents ? ), and there should be financial incentives to encourage both parents to take it. What do other people think ? Instead of trying to make maternity leave longer should we not focus on supporting parents back into work sooner and providing better/cheaper/more appropriate childcare...

nogoes - perhaps you'd like my company? Bog standard maternity pay for women, but above the minimum paternity pay for men?

Is that right Lunarsea? Seems like none of them get it right...

weird

Parental leave is split in Sweden (not sure if this has been mentioned before) and men are now required to take 90 days of the c. 480 days total. Using this in combination with annual leave means it's relatively unusual for a child to be placed in daycare before 18 months as the parents share the care between them.

On the original post "...providing better/cheaper/more appropriate childcare ..." I'm not aware of more appropriate childcare than that of a parent, if this is what is affordable and desired?

I think by "more appropriate" mohze meant more appropriate than some of the childcare that is on offer, not more appropriate than the parent.

I really like the idea of splitting it. I'd like to see men given the same 6 weeks at 90% of pay, and then allowing mum and dad to split is as they see fit. So, 12 for them to split as they wish. And I think single mums whose partners have done a runner should get all 12 if she wants it.

I work because it is good for me, not because I need the money - obviously !

In Sweden on the rare occasion where the bloke has done a runner (even if parents have separated they will typically share the childcare - a concept Britain could do with embracing?) the mother gets the entire allowance, she doesn't lose the 90 days the man would have had.

In terms of pay, I think it's much better funded than the 6 weeks at 90% or no-one would do it. I recall a friend of mine bemoaning the fact she got pregnant whilst living outside Sweden so she wasn't entitled to the same pay - at a guess I would reckon on 90% for the entire duration of the parental leave. And in order to be fair, they will now fund a year or so's sabbatical for non-parents to spend doing their own thang as well! (Not sure what happens if you do your sabbatical and then have children ... I assume all the tax I paid in Sweden goes to this good cause!)

no.

Tribpot, maternity pay here is for six months, not six weeks.

Or rather, that should be statutory paid maternity leave is now 9 months in the UK (with another 3 months unpaid).

But, that £105 per week is practically nothing. The only period worth really considering is the 90% of your pay, which is only 6 weeks.

Is giving birth sexist?

Thanks - I do know of the arrangements here as I now live here, the six weeks was in reference to Eleusis' post saying it's six weeks at 90% pay. If that were the norm in Sweden my friends would not be spending a good 18 months involved in the exclusive care of each child.

I will add, though, that my friends in Holland and France are very jealous of our maternity/parental leave rules, things are not so advanced there.

Well right back in 1982 I was writing that it was and I still think so. But Blair is changing it. From 2009 women will get 6 months maternity leave and men 6 month's paternity leave (although women can take the full 12 months if they want to be really sexist about it). Obviously maternity rather than parents leave engrains women as primary carers and puts back women's rights. It's obvious.

Even the Government recognises this and is trying gradually to even out the male and female rights. They have looiked at other countries abroad particularly those which give rights to men which are NOT transferrable to women which is the key - take it as a man or your family loses it. It seems only to be those which actually force a bit more fairness into the thing.

The 6 months maternity and then 6 months paternity would work well for many couples particularly afetr I saw this week that only something appalling like 5% of UK mothers fully breastfeed to 6 months!

Umm, well I guess when men can have babies and breastfeed it will be. Until then of course it's not. There is no way I would have been mentally or physically ready to go back to work for at least a few months after giving birth. It IS the mother that particularly needs that time.

Depoends on your income doesn't it. For somne people £112 a week which is SMP (and will be additional paternity leave for 6 months when it comes in) from week 7 is not too far off what the man or woman earns. I don't know what the average net weekly wage is but may be £288 or something. So it's a possible amount to live on and not too different from your full time earnings. For some of us it is what we'd spend on a day's childcare or even an expensive meal out and is nothing like what we earn. So it's impossible to say how significant it is as a sum a general thing. Certainly one reason I went back at 2 or 3 weeks was because (a) I wanted to and (b) financially. I was certainly fit enough. Nothing easier than sitting at a desk post birth compared to chasing around after babies and toddlers and scrubbing floors. Work is a picnic and you get a break and pay etc etc.

"There's far too much hogwash/mystery around breastfeeding...it is an easy, natural thing to do."

Mozhe if you have been on Mumsnet any length of time, you will know that a comment like that is deliberately calculated to upset and distress a large number of members.

So why would you want to do that?

I really would have thought someone as busy and important as you, would have better things to do than trolling on a parenting site.

Thats like saying 'giving birth is an easy, natural thing to do.'

Natural, yes. Easy, no.

You went back to work at 2 or 3 weeks! I'm jsut at that and I know your views on working but I assumed you gave your children more than 2 or 3 weeks out of your womb before returning to work.

Why not just give every woman a C-section at her desk and give the baby straight to a childminder? The mother can see the child in her own time, when her work is over. Most mothers, even with straightforward pregnancies, NEED time to rest before and be with their baby after - is that so wrong???

And with mat leave, yes the £105 might be a small amount but don't forget the other benefits - while on mat leave you have recognised official leave and can't be ordered back to work or sacked for being away, which was worth its weight in gold to me.

Giantsquirrel...unfair ! I am most definitely not trolling,( though not entirely sure what that means),I regularly post on topics that interest me..on a parenting site because I am a parent,( x5.5 times)....just because you often disagree with me doesn't mean you need to get so cross...? I think you might be a bit over sensitive...some of what I say is a bit tongue in cheek.Though there's an element of truth in it all....I really enjoy MN !

Mozhe - who the hell do you think you are? The number one priority is the health of the baby and the mother - before and after the birth. Work is pretty unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Your posts prove my own observations that the only women who break through the glass ceiling are those who should have been born men.

I really truly hope you never spend years TTC, have a problematic pregnancy, a traumatic birth, PND and very painful, problematic breastfeeding. I really do.

People differ, don't they? Why should it matter? Working doesn't mean your children don't have parents and don't see their parents. It just means that in the day the child is with another loving adult - we had the first nanny for 10 years and she knew the babies from birth so no huge wrench when I went back to work. Expressing milk was a nuisance but that was the only bit I found particularly hard or annoying and I adored breastfeeding as did all the babies including the twins. I think chidlren just then work around you being out at work or whatever - they feed just before you leave and then the first thing you want to do when you get in is feed - lovely way to calm down, relax into each other for a nice evening and night of mother baby bonding etc.

She's 22 now. I don't think in terms of personality ,effect, attachment love you can say - there is a weird damaged one because her mother went back to work at 2 weeks and there is a happy adjusted one because she was with her mother 24/7 for 5 years under the continuum concept co-sleeping. I just don't think it works like that as people differ so much. Many men return to work at 2 weeks. Do you castigate them for that? Do they love their children less? Are they abandoning them and not bonding with them - of course not.

x-posted Mozhe - you sound a little more human now. The second paragraph goes for Xenia too btw.

So are we saying here that men can be mothers to babies from birth. Obviously in some situations they have too.

Other than that, this sucks.