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...

My dp is a fair boss, the shop is closed when everyone takes holidays which are a week off at Christmas, a week off at Easter and two weeks in August. I think thats pretty fair.

This would make it easier for things like jabs, so you could take the baby & look after it while it's grumpy after these.

I'm only throwing ideas around tho.

Small companies have real issues with maternity leave and often choose employees that they know will not take it. Even large companies find it very difficult to manage. My partner's company employs far more women than men, and many of those are in their childbearing years. Maternity rights are factored into the costs of employment (ie the company knows women will fall pregnant and be absent and allows for this in its budget and strategy) but it's still a major headache.

Eleusis - lots of small companies close down for holidays - all staff take their holidays at the same time.

Sometimes I think parents need to get a grip - if they decide to have children, THEY are responsible for allocating time, money etc to their upbringing, not employers or the state...

It isn't that difficult to find shop staff in his bakery but it has proven far more difficult to find bakers. This isn't aimed at 'bakers being more important than shopstaff', it based on bakers go through alot of training and qualify to be a baker, anyone can work behind the counter as you don't need to be quilified(i should know, i used to)

Two weeks paternity leave is a very short time. I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect to see your newborn for two weeks no matter what you do for a living.

I do appreciate that these things are difficult to juggle for small businesses. But, I think parents have a right to see their newborns. It ought to be more time for dad's. And what if his baker was a woman? Then what would he do? Or does he avoid hiring women so that he won't have that problem?

Yes, I agree it is fair to shut the shop anddictate the holidays. It just didn't occur to me when I typed the earlier post.

Eleusis - my partner didn't see our daughter at all until she was 3 weeks old, and for the whole first year of her life he only saw her for a day once every three weeks or so, bar holidays and the odd weekend. We were living in different countries, he was working. It was no big deal.

As an employer of a nanny, I have to give her maternity leave and give her back her job any time in the next year with one month's notice that she wishes to return. I have to hire a temp nanny to cover this time (temp nanies are much more expensive). This is a pain for me as a working parent. But, it's life.

That is very sad, Anna. But, that was his choice.

Let's be clear - the French shut their shops for holidays. Largely the English don't because actually british workers choose to work longer hours. When they're asked they often say they don't want shorter hours. It's interesting. It's not as simple as it looks. Give me an hour working to an hour trying to comfort a screaming baby. On the other hand all working parents would never want to be without their parents and really do need and want to see them every day.

I think we have a reasonable system in the UK now - if we can get it such that women and men have 6 months each in law even if they choose not to take it. If employers who are losing good women staff (some they are glad to see the back of of course, male and female) give them more than 6 weeks at full pay they will do that in a market economy.

I think 25% of people in the UK work for the public services (which is disgusting but I'm not in charge and able to get that changed) but that does lead to a 2 tier system - tax payers paying towards that to the better pensions and maternity rights that those hallowed 25% get whilst working often in very small businesses or for themselves. If you work for yourself remember you have no paid maternity leave which is one reason I was taking the occasional call the day after the twins were born.

I had to give two nannies maternity leave. One came back (part time with her child and then later with her second child) and the other one decided to leave before she went on materntiy leave but we still had to work out all the SMP etc. I was actually delighted they had babies though which many employers are. It's a hassle dealing with the admin. if the money could be paid out by the state entirely and dealt with by them if you have fewer than 10 staff that would really help small businesses.

Eleusis - there was nothing sad about it at all, and it wasn't his choice particularly. It just made much more sense and I was very happy indeed with the circumstances surrounding my daughter's birth - I had wonderful care and support and she had a fantastic first year, much better probably than she or I will ever have again.

All I'm saying is that I don't personally think paternity leave is a right or a duty or particularly necessary IF the new mother and child are adequately supported.

Xenia - outside London lots of UK small businesses close down for holidays. Just not all at the same time - the reason they all close in August in France is a legal reason.

I'm amazed you tolerated that. Don't you feel right mate you were let off the hook for 12 months here is the baby, take it and do 365 days childcare whilst I have a year off and then we'll be equal.

I haven't got time to stay or read the whole thread but I'm guessing the gist of it is that women should go back to work asap

No maternity leave is not sexist, of course it's bloody well not.

Yes, men should pull their weight.
Yes, men should be equally capable of looking after babies and children.
And imo it's reasonable to expect everyone to be able to achieve a decent Work/life balance.

IMO the thing that needs challenging is our current working oth model, NOT current UK maternity/paternity policy, which is, quite frankly, a bit rubbish.

I think (I'd do this if I had time) if we were to look at countries with better/more enlightened mat/pat policies we'd find that actually, economically, they're NOT worse off (not that economics/monetary value is the only thing worth measuring). And therefore they have concluded that it was the working model that needed to flex to accomodate children, not the other way round. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

And I employ people and wouldn't DREAM of discrimating against someone because they were of child bearing age. It would be wrong, not to mention illegal (but hard to prove).

Anna, those views are way too Victorian for me to comprehend.

Xenia - no, I didn't feel remotely that way, I loved every single minute of that first year, it was amazing.

One of my aunt's friends, a very wise woman who has seen a lot of the world, commented to me that I "was so lucky" to be able to devote so much time to myself and my baby without a man to worry about. She was so right.

WWW, I don't see the issue on this thread as reducing mat leave and getting women back to work (although that is the course I would choose for myself) but rather making it equal among mums and dads, no matter what the length is. 6 weeks each at 90% of usual pay. That's what I want. There is no reduction to may leave/pay here. I just think men should get the same opportunity to take pat leave.

And as for discriminating on child bearing age. Of course it is wrong. Of course it is illegal. But, it still happens. Oh, and of course YOU don't do it. But, sadly, not every employer is as good as you are.

Eleusis - I'm quite certain that no Victorian woman would have had the extremely happy set of circumstances I had. It was all perfectly modern. Personally I think that all this paternity rights stuff is very unprogressive, and does terribly harm to women, undermining their critical biological role in child rearing. I'm frequently very angry when I see women bullying other women into adopting male behaviour patterns. That is what I find retrograde.

Well may be. Convince me I'm better off as a single mother of 5 than having a man around then. And a lot of women never get the chance to have any children ever. All those who have children on mumsnet are very lucky and male fertility is plummeting etc. My brother had 4 medical colleagues (women) all having IVF at once all who'd postponed babies to their late 30s. I will have to ask him how many of them managed it.

I don't think the thread was saying get back to work. It was just trying to ensure fairness. Around the world women often do get a rather bad deal, no rights, etc etc we needn't go through the history of male abuse of women, but by involving men as fathers we also benefit men too many of whom would love to be relieved of that 30 year burden to support. Some men just disappear and never pay a penny of course (and some women too who leave their families) but measure like this Government is putting in place to give men and women both 6 months off are a good plan. There are many more equal marriage with men involved at home in real life that I see than those where women do the house and men work.

When hiring my dp goes on skill and experience not gender. Yes 2 weeks is a short time and i am not disagreing that men should be allowed two weeks off. That was just an example of what a small empoyer does when these things happen.

The baker who is taking the perternity leave is having his second child. He had his first in 2005, before the rules about pertanity leave came in, his 1st baby was born on a Monday, Easter week, the busiest week at the bakery especially the Thursday before Good Friday. The baker wanted that week off but my dp said he could have Tuesday and Wednsday off but not Thursday because he just couldn't cope with the work load without him so he came in Thursday. The shop was shut Good Friday and the whole of the following week anyway.

In October 2006, my baby was born on a Wednsday, this baker phoned in sick with a bad back and didn't return for over a week meaning my dp would have to cover him doing 3am-5pm. When he came back to work the 'bad back' had disapeared and he told the other bakers wife on the phone that he done it dilibratly as pay back. You can get a doctors note for a bad back because there is no actaul way of proving it. This kind of trick makes me sick and that was a very hard time for us and the fact this baker can just get away with it makes my blood boil.

Women have a critical biological role in child bearing, not child rearing.

Ooh, A I can't agree with that. It's very sexist. Women used to be told in the UK their brains were too small to become doctors etc. We aren't that long from that. Women can do most things men can at work and men can change nappies and there's no inherent inability on the part of either of them to scrub the loos either. We don't woman as precious flower unable to manage staff, weak feeble but good at nurturing only. Instead there are characteristics men and women both have and if you've picked the short straw with a man who is circa 1880 UK then comiserations to you but let's not say it's great if we make out there's this huge divide and it's an insult to the 250,000 UK stay at home fathers too.

El, obviously I agree.
Icing, true, same with my teacher husband. People think teaching is flexible but it's very hard. He didn't want to be there when the twins were born so went off to school (but the marriage was pretty bad by then anyway) but with the others he had to call in that day to have a day off except the one born in holidays but taking more than a day hugely affects school cover so he went back in not because anyone would have stopped him but because there was the job to be done just as I felt after the birth of the twins I had responsibility I have to all those people who rely on me (when I'm not messing around on mumsnet) not to let them down either.

We all have all kinds of responsibilities to people and we balance them every day whatever our gender.