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Why dads still need to fight for better parental leave rights

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I think the introduction of shared parental leave is a great thing. I’ll be honest, I don’t think it will lead to a revolution in childcare, but it is an enormous step in the correct direction.

I’m not convinced it will lead to a huge increase in stay at home fathers. It will, however, give men a greater opportunity to get involved with their children in the early days and, crucially, it will give families flexibility to decide how to organise childcare following the arrival of a new born.

In case you haven’t guessed it, I am leading up to a massive “but”. We’ll deal with that in a moment.

First of all, for those unaware the present maternity and paternity leave systems will be consigned to history as of April 2015. In its place a system of shared parental leave will be introduced. Women will have a mandatory period of two weeks maternity leave. After this mother and father will be able to share fifty weeks of leave and 37 weeks of statutory pay (men will still have the right to two week’s paternity leave so long as it is taken within 56 days of the birth).

In theory, mum could hand the reigns over to dad and return to work after her two week spell of maternity leave ends. Alternatively the couple could decide to spend three months at home together and dad then return to work or whatever suits them best.

Are mums winners or losers?

With April fast approaching, I’ve seen increased discussion and debate about shared parental leave. I have to say I have seen some very compelling arguments coming from the pro-breast feeding lobby. The consensus seems to be that women are essentially losing the right to a guaranteed and protracted period of maternity leave.

I don’t agree with this argument, as I think women are gaining something much more valuable (ie the ability to share the burden of childcare). That said, I sympathise with the argument. You can hardly blame the pro-breastfeeding lobby for expressing concern about this aspect of shared parental leave.

This, however, is where we build up to the massive “but” I was talking about. Women are losing the right to a protracted period of maternity leave. Although men will still have the right to two weeks of paternity leave, there are no safeguards in place to stop a woman from taking all the shared parental leave herself. Mum cannot be forced to share the leave if she doesn’t want (in the spirit of fairness, dad could also refuse to share the leave if he were the main carer).

Let’s not be dramatic. I think the majority of women will be doing cartwheels at the thought of dad at least taking a month or two off following the birth of a child. Speaking from personal experience, this is something any woman who has had a hard or surgical birth will particularly appreciate.

Some mums will refuse to share 

Even so, there is likely to be a small population of women who will refuse to share the parental leave. Maybe the relationship will have broken down, maybe there is a question over paternity or maybe the mum just has no confidence in the father (which can happen for a variety of both genuine and nefarious reasons). There may be instances where interfering and overbearing relatives from the extended family tell the father he is not needed or welcome.

I certainly don’t mean to point the finger at women. Men can be controlling or have no confidence in their partners. If a man happened to be the main carer, there’s every chance he may also refuse to share the leave. The reality, however, is that mum is generally in the more powerful position in the early days and so if anyone is going to be frozen out of the family, it is more likely to be dad.

In other nations where shared parental leave is in force, a “use it or lose it” clause has been inserted into the rules. In other words a man must use some of his shared parental leave within a set time frame or else he will loose the right to it altogether. In most cases this was done because men didn’t take up their leave because they had fears their employer may disapprove if he took a lengthy break to be with the children.

Dads need to fight for a better deal

No such clause exists in the UK’s rules. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has already said such a move may need to be considered.

If implemented, this may deal with two issues in one go. Firstly, it would put employers in the position where they had to accept that men are likely to take some time off following the birth of a child. Secondly, it would put men and women on a more equal footing and make it more difficult for either party to refuse to share the parental leave.

I believe the next battle we will need to fight is to get a “use it or lose” it clause into the shared parental leave rules. This, I’m afraid, is a battle that us guys will need to fight.

Before signing off, let me repeat what I said at the start; I think shared parental leave is a great thing. It’s a major step in the right direction. To use a cliché, Rome wasn’t built in a day and over the waters in the Republic of Ireland men still only get two weeks of unpaid paternity leave. This shows how far the UK has travelled compared to some nearby neighbours. I simply think we need to accept the new rules, great though they are, will need revising to bring about even greater parity.

—Photo: flickr/Wrote 

John Adams is a married stay at home dad with two young daughters. He was previously a journalist and PR / communications professional but gave this up in 2010 to be a homemaker and look after the children.

In 2012 he launched a parenting blog focused on his experiences as a “man that holds the babies” called Dadbloguk.com  and he now writes for a variety of different publications in addition to his own blog and writes regular articles for insideMAN.

In the run up to launch of the film Down Dog on 14 February, insideMAN is running a series of articles about fatherhood and we’d love you to get involved. You can join the conversation on twitter by using the hashtag #MenBehavingDADly; leave a comment in the section below or email us with your thoughts and ideas for articles to insideMANeditor@gmail.com.

For more information about the film see www.downdogfilm.com

Boys are boys and girls are girls, get over it!

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Yesterday we asked if parents should buy their children gender neutral toys this Christmas. The gender equality expert, Karen Woodall, responded with such a thoughtful comment that we’ve republished here as an article. Here’s what she had to say:

I used to think it was nurture not nature when I had a girl and then she had a boy and I was taught a very very very big lesson…girls and boys are different creatures….the older I get the more I understand how different we are and how that difference is what we need to work with in equalities work not this endless focus on neutral.

The strapline of the old Equal Opportunities Commission used to be: “Women, Men, Different, Equal”. It is a shame that it is not still widely used because this idea that if something is gender neutral it is good, is not actually true in equalities work.

To even up power imbalance you have to make something gender aware not gender neutral because of the way that gender neutral is enacted in a gender biased world …so take the case of toys for example…a gender neutral toy will be likely to be turned into a gendered toy by the girl or boy playing with it. Girls will turn a block of wood into a doll and nurse it and boys will turn it into a gun or some other attacking implement and use it that way.

Messing with a child’s gender identity is cruel 

 

That is because we are not born the same, we are born with different biological drivers and if we nurture those different drivers in children, the argument goes that we shut down their other capabilities, so, although they would turn a block of wood into gendered toys left to themselves, if you want to drive gender neutrality in children what you do is gender proof the toys and ensure that they cannot be identified or used to further gendered expectations.

You would give a girl a science based toy and suround her with messages that this is her identify and a boy a doll and a pram and surround him with messages that this is his identity, that way you counter the nature based stuff. Now when this is put like this most people recoil because they don’t really want children to be socially engineered like this and personally, I thnk those people who interfere with children’s inherent gender identity are clueless and quite cruel.

I was one of those for the first three years of my daughter’s life (how embarrasing to think of it now) in that she was not allowed to have anything pink or anything girly. Then I saw her playing with her friends in nursery and realised that what I was doing was imposing MY beliefs on her instead of allowing her to grow and helping to gently shape that.

Men and women are not the same 

 

Now that she has a boy who is all things that boys can be – sticks, mini cars in his pockets, scuffed knees, grubby face, jumps rolls and generally spends his life upside down if he can – I understand at a very immediate level that if you let difference come through it does.

However, in terms of equalities work there is a long way to go because men and women are not the same and they are not the same within the spectrum of their own gender either. Gender identity is different too, you have very girly girls for example and less girly girls, you have very masculine boys and less masculine boys and allowing that difference within gender identity by promoting and supporting fluidity in the way we express our femine and masculine selves is really important in promoting equality.

Ultimately it is about difference and having the choice to express that difference. We are not all neutral and we are not all the same and when we understand how to cope with our differences then we are into a place called equality.

—Photo Credit: flickr/Ano Lobb

Tell us what you think? Will boys be boys (and girls be girls) or are the toys we give our children helping to condition them to be masculine or feminine?

If you liked this article and want to read more, follow us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook

ABOUT KAREN WOODALL:

Karen Woodall is a partner at the Family Separation Clinic working with the whole family through difficult times.  Karen is a specialist in working with high conflict separation and parental alienation.  Her book Understanding Parental Alienation; learning to cope, helping to heal is in press. Working with families from a non feminist perspective, Karen is co-developing support services which are based upon understanding of family violence and dysfunction as a generational problem and is working alongside Erin Pizzey to build these into a therapeutic model which can be widely used.  

You can follow Karen’s writings at her outspoken and often controversial blog: Karen Woodall.

Also on insideMAN:

Gender equality. Man you lose, woman… You lose too! (But the state wins.)

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Andrew Johnson is a retired father with six grown-up children and personal experience of the family court system.  This is his anti-statist, libertarian perspective, on why the search for equality between men and women is doomed to fail.

— This is article #71 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys 

I have heard that the goal of the men’s movement is, “finishing off what feminists started when they campaigned for gender equality – TRUE equality!”

It is not a good idea.  Apart from the fact that it is IMPOSSIBLE anyway, it is not even wise to try and achieve something that goes against the real, observable nature of humanity.

Men and women are not “fungible”.  Meaning,  we cannot treat men and women as if they are easily interchangeable, have the same properties and characteristics, etc..

We are not dealing with, for example, haddock and cod. We are dealing with entities that are, by natural evolution, meant to complement each other when taken together, and have greatly different properties when considered separately. Meat and spuds. Plaice and lemon.

The “contentious” issues of sexual politics do have a habit of being based on “inconvenient” realities that the “equality” obsessives have absolutely no way of squaring off. We are a not a hermaphrodite species. “Ye can-nae change the laws of biology captain” as Scotty famously did not say in “Star Trek”.

Did you note I used the term “sexual” politics?  It is my personal policy not to use terms that are often associated with feminist writers. Not merely to distance myself from an ideology I do not care much for, but because I regard “sex” as more explanatory than “gender”. The reasons why “the sexes” can’t often be treated as if they are the same, is because sexual reproduction depends on them behaving differently and having different properties. “Gender politics” really comes down to SEX. Let’s not be coy now.

REALITY 1:

Women bear children. They carry a child for nine months. They provide that growing body with all it needs. It is a major thing in the life of any woman who experiences it. It is not without risks and is often a difficult time for the woman. Mentally and physiologically.

Reproduction has a hugely significant impact on females. Solely the female. Not the male. He does not carry a child. He does not bear the risk, the pain.

He is not even necessarily aware that his genes are being used to create a child — few men are “required” to fulfil the reproductive abilities of all fertile women.

So, it is natural in society that when it comes to children – babies especially — it is all about THE MOTHER. It is and pretty much always will be, geared around HER needs and comfort.

Of course, that leads us on to…

REALITY 2:

Men are required to fertilise female eggs.

Without even getting into the immense task involved in convincing a woman to bear a child for a man. (Suffice it to say, women are CHOOSY and can afford to be, indeed HAVE to be, if they want the best chance for their offspring to be strong and cared for.)

That is pretty much all a chosen man needs to do, to ensure the species continues.

Hang on, no, not quite.

Raising kids, is hard work. It is time consuming. It demands a lot of resources. Who has to provide these resources?

The mother, is the PRIMARY parent, so she is needed for that role.

Don’t like that thought? Tough. Get used to it. Times have NOT changed much matey. Nor are they likely to this century.

Perhaps a DNA test can determine who “the other parent” is. If the mother wishes that. But he is not going to be breastfeeding the child, and certainly not carrying the child for nine months.

‘Human nature does not seek equality’

So what can his role be?

I think we know that. He provides. He cares for the mother, he engages with the world of work and labour, and brings back resources. Hey, he can even change nappies and play with the child.

There are of course others who can do this.

The state will even do it. The state can (and does) take over much of the “child raising” and resource provision so that both the mother and the father can then be “free” to… Support the state!

This is why the statists like the idea of “equalising” the sexes.

But it doesn’t really work does it? Mothers remain “sacred”. Men are still expected to work to provide for mothers, either directly, or indirectly via taxation.

A fools errand…

There are other reasons I can give why the quest for equality is at best pointless and even counterproductive.

Men will usually choose to provide women with MORE than what is “equal” and indeed women (and fathers of the bride) will always be willing to rate men on how they provide for her. (Capitulation?)

Human nature does not seek “equality” it seeks MORE than an equal share of resources when it can get it.

The most obvious inequalities are FINANCIAL differentials between SOCIAL CLASSES, vast and overwhelming compared to sexual inequalities in many regards.

Perhaps consider this:

Two equal parties, are more likely to argue, less likely to be able to settle their disagreements and make a decision, and ultimately will need a third party that is ‘MORE EQUAL’ than both to decide for them and there we come back to her ‘mate’ the STATE.

So, what is the way forward for men, women, children and the family life so many of us  cherish?

Aim not for unrealistic and mutually power reducing “equality” between men and women. But for a system that encourages COMPATIBLE treatment of men and women. A system that frees men to be  the best of manliness and allows women to be the best of womanliness.

And the beauty of it is, we know how to do that. Our cultural instincts showed us, a long time ago, and it doesn’t need any state help to “engineer” it along.

Gender equality? It was never the solution, and all attempts at making  it so worsened the problems between the sexes. It was, and still is… A fool’s errand.

Feature image: Flickr/winnifredxoxo

Andrew Johnson is retired father with six grown-up children and personal experience of the family court system. He considers himself to be an anti-statist libertarian.

You can find all of the #100Voices4Men articles that will be published in the run up to International Men’s Day 2014 by clicking on this link—#100Voices4Men—and follow the discussion on twitter by searching for #100Voices4Men.

The views expressed in these articles are not the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

You can join the #100Voices4Men discussion by commenting below; by following us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook or by emailing insideMANeditor@gmail.com.