Also to address Lauredhel’s comment, we still get disastrous situations, don’t we – people hardly ever die or become incapacitated in childbirth, but it still happens; mums die in road accidents, they get terminal illnesses… Mine became terminally ill while I was in primary school, but what if she’d done straight after I or my brother were born? It would be terrible if the other primary parent was refused parental leave because the wording made it clear that it was for Maternity only.

Absolutely, and that is why we need very explicitly non gender specific parental leave entitlements as well as maternity leave. I see parental leave as more analogous to carer’s leave (another thing there should be more of!), and maternity leave is more analogous to “sick” leave (not saying here that birthing mothers are ill; but that they generally should not be forced into paid work around that time for personal, physical reasons).

My take on it that the slowness of change is partly due to the identification of parental leave, or maternity leave, with women. This does two things. One, it marks out women as workers who are liable to take more time off and more substantial breaks, and men as the more economically rational choice. Two, it doesn’t help with the phenomenon – one that’s not so evident with the dads posting on this thread, but still sadly prevalent in society at large – that men engaged in any activity identified as female will risk a downgrading of status (the “girl cooties” effect”).

My feeling is that on top of all the other beneficial effects of men spending more time on kids and family, carers will be less idenfiable by the very fact of being female, and that will erode discrimination. Thus, to address Lauredhel above, I might use my parental leave for breastfeeding 6 months plus another 6, but my partner’s employer should not be able to assume that my partner might not apply for a year off himself.

Once we’re further towards a situation where the carers are “hiding in plain sight”, it’ll be harder for employers to discriminate. That’s my take.

Also to address Lauredhel’s comment, we still get disastrous situations, don’t we – people hardly ever die or become incapacitated in childbirth, but it still happens; mums die in road accidents, they get terminal illnesses… Mine became terminally ill while I was in primary school, but what if she’d done straight after I or my brother were born? It would be terrible if the other primary parent was refused parental leave because the wording made it clear that it was for Maternity only.

(My dad had a hard time, even with kids able to dress themselves and make their own way to school. He was old-school himself as far as domestic arrangements went. Hey, this wasn’t supposed to happen! There was supposed to be a wife!!1!)

Maternity leave is for getting through late pregnancy, birth, recovery from birth, and establishing breastfeeding. At a minimum this should be 8-10 weeks, preferably 14 (assuming stopping work at 36-38 weeks; women with pregnancy complications or heavy manual/constant standing jobs may need to stop sooner).

Parental leave is for caring for a young child, which can be done by either bioparent, adoptive parents, or other flavours of co-parents or carers.

I have noticed that all my male colleagues who are currently in the same stage of family life have dropped back their informal hours and subsequently output, even if they have stayed on the books full-time. But their careers are taking a blow. I’ll be interested to see how all this pans out over the longer term: who catches up, who lags behind, who is forever tarred with the brush of ‘not committed’ (however you might want to interpret that). But I do like that none of the men I know express any resentment of suggest they are somehow ’sacrificing’ by stepping up to look after their kids, and this makes me feel good about the possibilities for change.

I think Guido’s comments is pertinent – it’s not just what’s available but how we are judged for taking advantage of what’s available.

I’m around two months away from finishing a year staying at home with our first child, and hopefully should be able to access part-time hours upon my return. I didn’t necessarily have to take the year off, but the main reasons I did were
1. I believe in my partner’s career and I want her to achieve the professional fulfilment she desires; and
2. I take the idea that more men need to be doing this sort of thing pretty seriously.

I just don’t think it’s good enough nowadays for blokes to keep doing the 60-80 hour week thing and then complain about not feeling like they’re being an adequate father.