It would be great start for equality. Maybe next we could tackle teaching and nursing which is dominated by the matriarchy.
>The only way fathers are currently protected from redundancy is if they opt to take shared parental leave. But analysis from campaign group The Dad Shift suggests that was used in fewer than 2% of all births last year.
I had this conversation with my employer 3 years ago. Emailed HR basically saying “I want to do shared parental leave, please can you advise how we would accomplish this?” and the response I got was a flat “you are entitled to 2 weeks statutory leave with pay” and that was the end of the conversation. I had to take the two weeks because the shortfall would’ve amounted to a loss of around £15K over the duration of the shared leave.
Paternity leave needs to a) pay better, b) be for longer, and c) allow for greater flexibility. The current system is detrimental to both fathers and mothers, and needs urgently addressing. For anyone interested, please look into (and perhaps contribute) to [The Dad Shift](https://dadshift.org.uk/) which is looking to add greater paternity leave rights as part of the new Employment Rights Bill.
This would be fantastic. It’s not uncommon to read articles grumbling about men not being involved parents when there is just *so much* that pushes them away from it.
I remember reading one article in the Guardian (because of course) about men not wanting to take paternity leave so they could avoid dealing with babies just after my eldest was born. I was fucking furious – I wouldn’t have counted as taking paternity leave then, because it was only at the statutory rate, which I couldn’t afford, so I took annual leave instead. Most men I know have had to do similar.
Men are really an afterthought, with attitudes to dads and child raising ranging from outright contempt to a sort of patronising, “oh, you didn’t fuck it up, well done” attitude. If we as a society want them to be involved, that needs to change massively.
I’m incredibly lucky, my employer gives me 12 weeks full paid paternity leave to be taken over the first 12 months. It’s really way above what they’d have to do in this country.
It’s about time this issue got a bit of air, frankly, the focus is never no new dads or fathers in general.
A much needed step in the right direction. And this sounds promising too:
*A spokesperson for the government said it is carrying out a wider review of parental leave, including making paternity leave and unpaid parental leave day one rights, which employees qualify for on their first day of a new job.*
For far too long in society have we treated raising children as being the mother’s primary responsibility when it should be both parents equally, and especially in those vital early months that’s when men most need to be able to support their partner and newborn child.
As a woman, I think it’s absolutely crazy that this is not the case already. Men need the time to bond with baby and support their partner post partum, they have the right to be involved as much as possible with their babies and family.
Families need to be supported as much as we can, even if we don’t care about the rights of fathers, we should care about being a dying country with an ageing population and full of people that can’t afford to have children because couples are both working full time and barely able to survive.
My second child’s first year was one of the worst of my life. My wife is quadriplegic and because she doesn’t work shared parental leave wasn’t an option, but I still had to do all of the night care of baby. I’ve never been so tired in my life.
Luckily, my manager noticed… when she returned from 9 months maternity leave 2 years later and realised how hard it was.
Yes, a healthy step to trying to unpack all the toxic masculinity we keep hearing about. Rather than browbeating men and just saying what they shouldn’t do or read (Andrew Tate) we should be trying to offer alternatives and healthy role models such as being a responsible and involved father.
This is so important, firstly because men bonding with their children is just as important as women bonding with their children, and being a new parent is tough on anybody. But another reason is because assuming the mother is the person to take care of the baby forces women to be seen as the default parent. It also reduces men’s role in the family which isn’t fair.
Over here (Norway) the low uptake on shared parental leave was also an issue, so they just changed the law to make it mandatory.
The change has been considered largely beneficial and positive.
I took my statutory leave, negotiated 4 additional weeks for a total of 6 weeks leave.
2 weeks unpaid, 2 weeks from my annual leave allowance.
Wife had a complicated birth and 8 week recovery with multiple hospital visits along the way.
I got back to work, my first day back they put me on a PIP, refused to approve any further annual leave, denied the awaiting promotion and basically set my career back 2 years as a result.
My direct manager has just had a child, they’re off for 6 months.
More needs to be done.
While we’re at it, you know what really fucks me off as a hands-on dad, baby changing facilities being only in the ladies restrooms. Legislate that shit out of existence.
I have always said I never got enough time with my 3 children.
But even after having 3 kids over a course of 20 years I find that no matter what I did or request of my employer I would always be seen as an outlier.
For example when my youngest was born I requested to have flexible working hours nothing major I was just dropping hours to 32 hours a week and I would work all weekends and also request having mon, wed and fri off.
But it was such a palaver just to get any of that eventually I did and think my youngest gets is better for it overall.
I feel no matter how much we progress in other areas dads are most certainly a last thought.
But hey maybe in the next 15 ish years things will change and my daughter will have better luck with their partners getting time off.
I’ve just had my lad and the two weeks was clearly insufficient. We had 5 days in hospital due to difficulties, then I had to do midwife visits and registrations…by the time the basic paperwork was done, I’m heading back to work.
Everything from the basic pay (far below what I would get) to the two week cut off is laughable.
Absolutely in support of this. The gender pay gap doesn’t happen because women “are women”, it’s been proven to happen because of the responsibilities women solely take on. In Nordic countries where parental leave is shared, the gender pay gap is practically non existent.
It also helps men bond with their kids, feel more confident in their parenting because they’re not deferring to the mother for every decision, and even in custody situations. It’s a win win.
It should be a year for both parents. Like the civilised countries do.
there will be a boom in sales at Decathlon for ear plugs and fishing equipment.
almost as much of a boom Decathlon has had in tent and sleepingbag sales over the last 10 years.
edit, and b&q too, they gonna be selling ‘mancave quality’ sheds.
Worth noting that until this is the case, young women will necessarily be disadvantaged in job applications because if they get a longer period of legally protected leave than a man they are objectively worse than a man to hire, all else being equal.
This is surely a windup. I seems to me that women have the baby and as soon as their paid leave ends, they dump the child on someone else and go back to work, and most men don’t want to stay at home while their partner goes out to work. The claimants for mental health problems would most probably increase as well. It seems to me that the vast majority of people in the UK want more and more, for a lot less effort.
When I was pregnant my husband was offered the standard 2 weeks paternity leave. If the situation had been reversed and I had been in his job I would have been given 6 months on full pay. When he questioned why the policy was so different for a man becoming a father he was ‘persuaded’ not to continue his enquiries.
The result – I had a C-Section and he had to leave me at home alone long before I was healed. He was even called in mid SPL for a meeting he couldnt refuse. I developed PPP but since he was our breadwinner he couldnt be at home to support me and our son.
Outside of pregnancy and birth healing, fathers are just as vital to parenting. They deserve to be treated as better than second class parents – my husband still gets jokes about babysitting our son as if Im the only actual parent and he is not one! They deserve the same chance to bond with their children. To feed them, hold them, and love them. Women deserve the support of their partner while we learn to breastfeed and express, while we heal and adjust to the changes in our bodies, to share the sleeplessness and worries.
We need equality in paternity leave to help each new generation of men become the fathers they want to be.
If the government doesn’t want an aging population (e.g. Young people not having children) then they need to make it feel like a viable option for those young people. Things like better parental leave is a small cost over a working life but is absolutely valuable to said parents
21 comments
It would be great start for equality. Maybe next we could tackle teaching and nursing which is dominated by the matriarchy.
>The only way fathers are currently protected from redundancy is if they opt to take shared parental leave. But analysis from campaign group The Dad Shift suggests that was used in fewer than 2% of all births last year.
I had this conversation with my employer 3 years ago. Emailed HR basically saying “I want to do shared parental leave, please can you advise how we would accomplish this?” and the response I got was a flat “you are entitled to 2 weeks statutory leave with pay” and that was the end of the conversation. I had to take the two weeks because the shortfall would’ve amounted to a loss of around £15K over the duration of the shared leave.
Paternity leave needs to a) pay better, b) be for longer, and c) allow for greater flexibility. The current system is detrimental to both fathers and mothers, and needs urgently addressing. For anyone interested, please look into (and perhaps contribute) to [The Dad Shift](https://dadshift.org.uk/) which is looking to add greater paternity leave rights as part of the new Employment Rights Bill.
This would be fantastic. It’s not uncommon to read articles grumbling about men not being involved parents when there is just *so much* that pushes them away from it.
I remember reading one article in the Guardian (because of course) about men not wanting to take paternity leave so they could avoid dealing with babies just after my eldest was born. I was fucking furious – I wouldn’t have counted as taking paternity leave then, because it was only at the statutory rate, which I couldn’t afford, so I took annual leave instead. Most men I know have had to do similar.
Men are really an afterthought, with attitudes to dads and child raising ranging from outright contempt to a sort of patronising, “oh, you didn’t fuck it up, well done” attitude. If we as a society want them to be involved, that needs to change massively.
I’m incredibly lucky, my employer gives me 12 weeks full paid paternity leave to be taken over the first 12 months. It’s really way above what they’d have to do in this country.
It’s about time this issue got a bit of air, frankly, the focus is never no new dads or fathers in general.
A much needed step in the right direction. And this sounds promising too:
*A spokesperson for the government said it is carrying out a wider review of parental leave, including making paternity leave and unpaid parental leave day one rights, which employees qualify for on their first day of a new job.*
For far too long in society have we treated raising children as being the mother’s primary responsibility when it should be both parents equally, and especially in those vital early months that’s when men most need to be able to support their partner and newborn child.
As a woman, I think it’s absolutely crazy that this is not the case already. Men need the time to bond with baby and support their partner post partum, they have the right to be involved as much as possible with their babies and family.
Families need to be supported as much as we can, even if we don’t care about the rights of fathers, we should care about being a dying country with an ageing population and full of people that can’t afford to have children because couples are both working full time and barely able to survive.
My second child’s first year was one of the worst of my life. My wife is quadriplegic and because she doesn’t work shared parental leave wasn’t an option, but I still had to do all of the night care of baby. I’ve never been so tired in my life.
Luckily, my manager noticed… when she returned from 9 months maternity leave 2 years later and realised how hard it was.
Yes, a healthy step to trying to unpack all the toxic masculinity we keep hearing about. Rather than browbeating men and just saying what they shouldn’t do or read (Andrew Tate) we should be trying to offer alternatives and healthy role models such as being a responsible and involved father.
This is so important, firstly because men bonding with their children is just as important as women bonding with their children, and being a new parent is tough on anybody. But another reason is because assuming the mother is the person to take care of the baby forces women to be seen as the default parent. It also reduces men’s role in the family which isn’t fair.
Over here (Norway) the low uptake on shared parental leave was also an issue, so they just changed the law to make it mandatory.
The change has been considered largely beneficial and positive.
I took my statutory leave, negotiated 4 additional weeks for a total of 6 weeks leave.
2 weeks unpaid, 2 weeks from my annual leave allowance.
Wife had a complicated birth and 8 week recovery with multiple hospital visits along the way.
I got back to work, my first day back they put me on a PIP, refused to approve any further annual leave, denied the awaiting promotion and basically set my career back 2 years as a result.
My direct manager has just had a child, they’re off for 6 months.
More needs to be done.
While we’re at it, you know what really fucks me off as a hands-on dad, baby changing facilities being only in the ladies restrooms. Legislate that shit out of existence.
I have always said I never got enough time with my 3 children.
But even after having 3 kids over a course of 20 years I find that no matter what I did or request of my employer I would always be seen as an outlier.
For example when my youngest was born I requested to have flexible working hours nothing major I was just dropping hours to 32 hours a week and I would work all weekends and also request having mon, wed and fri off.
But it was such a palaver just to get any of that eventually I did and think my youngest gets is better for it overall.
I feel no matter how much we progress in other areas dads are most certainly a last thought.
But hey maybe in the next 15 ish years things will change and my daughter will have better luck with their partners getting time off.
I’ve just had my lad and the two weeks was clearly insufficient. We had 5 days in hospital due to difficulties, then I had to do midwife visits and registrations…by the time the basic paperwork was done, I’m heading back to work.
Everything from the basic pay (far below what I would get) to the two week cut off is laughable.
Absolutely in support of this. The gender pay gap doesn’t happen because women “are women”, it’s been proven to happen because of the responsibilities women solely take on. In Nordic countries where parental leave is shared, the gender pay gap is practically non existent.
It also helps men bond with their kids, feel more confident in their parenting because they’re not deferring to the mother for every decision, and even in custody situations. It’s a win win.
It should be a year for both parents. Like the civilised countries do.
there will be a boom in sales at Decathlon for ear plugs and fishing equipment.
almost as much of a boom Decathlon has had in tent and sleepingbag sales over the last 10 years.
edit, and b&q too, they gonna be selling ‘mancave quality’ sheds.
Worth noting that until this is the case, young women will necessarily be disadvantaged in job applications because if they get a longer period of legally protected leave than a man they are objectively worse than a man to hire, all else being equal.
This is surely a windup. I seems to me that women have the baby and as soon as their paid leave ends, they dump the child on someone else and go back to work, and most men don’t want to stay at home while their partner goes out to work. The claimants for mental health problems would most probably increase as well. It seems to me that the vast majority of people in the UK want more and more, for a lot less effort.
When I was pregnant my husband was offered the standard 2 weeks paternity leave. If the situation had been reversed and I had been in his job I would have been given 6 months on full pay. When he questioned why the policy was so different for a man becoming a father he was ‘persuaded’ not to continue his enquiries.
The result – I had a C-Section and he had to leave me at home alone long before I was healed. He was even called in mid SPL for a meeting he couldnt refuse. I developed PPP but since he was our breadwinner he couldnt be at home to support me and our son.
Outside of pregnancy and birth healing, fathers are just as vital to parenting. They deserve to be treated as better than second class parents – my husband still gets jokes about babysitting our son as if Im the only actual parent and he is not one! They deserve the same chance to bond with their children. To feed them, hold them, and love them. Women deserve the support of their partner while we learn to breastfeed and express, while we heal and adjust to the changes in our bodies, to share the sleeplessness and worries.
We need equality in paternity leave to help each new generation of men become the fathers they want to be.
If the government doesn’t want an aging population (e.g. Young people not having children) then they need to make it feel like a viable option for those young people. Things like better parental leave is a small cost over a working life but is absolutely valuable to said parents
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