Liberal Democrats get Fathers Paternity Leave rights

2013-11-29T07:16:16+00:00

Glad to see it. Hopefully people are starting to come around to the importance of fathers in children's lives. Children need to be bonding with their fathers from a young age. Women absolutely deserve a couple weeks delivery leave to recover after giving birth, but after that fathers should have equal rights for paternity leave as women have for maternity leave.

5th_Law_of_Robotics · 2013-11-29T10:49:32+00:00

The way I see it parental leave should be the same, any time the mother needs to recuperate from the pregnancy should be considered sick leave.

CyberToyger · 2013-11-29T12:26:11+00:00

So in about 2 years from now, once the law goes into effect in April 2015 and has had time to play out, it'll be interesting to see how many married men v.s. single men will be hired during that time. Since companies prefer single women over married women, I would wager they'd also prefer single men over married men. On the plus side, at least its unpaid leave. That would pretty much screw couples over and make companies only want to hire single people, if it were paid leave.

StoicThePariah · 2013-11-29T15:37:18+00:00

I have never understood why men don't get some paternity leave. With a new baby, especially if it is the couple's first, isn't it better two have two adults there to support and take care of the kid rather than one who doesn't know what they're doing?

mrwhibbley · 2013-11-29T19:52:55+00:00

When my son was born I informed my employer (A hospital) that I was going to take 3 weeks to care for my newborn son, and ensure my wife had everything she needed after delivering. I was informed there was no maternitiy leave for men, only women, or gay couples that adopted. I told them flat out, that 3 weeks after my son is born I will return to work. If I have a job then I will work, if you fire me while I am out, thats fine. But do NOT contact me until 3 weeks is up. Luckily they didnt fire me, and I am now working at a better place only 6 months later.

kurokabau · 2013-11-29T09:07:54+00:00

In addition, all parents of children under 18 will have the right to take up to 18 weeks of unpaid parental leave per parent per child per year. At the moment this right only exists for parents of children under the age of five.

Err... that really sucks for employers.

Great news on the rights for fathers though. By giving men more rights, even women will benefit because now there will be no reason to employ a man over a woman on the grounds of pregnancy since both can take time off for it.

Is there any information on what happens if a couple is divorced, or whether there is a disagreement between the mother and father on how much time each should take off? As in, if the man says "i wanna take my 6 months off in full" but the woman says, "no, I think i should take the extra 6 months off not you", what would happen? Perhaps only time will tell.

TracyMorganFreeman · 2013-11-29T16:49:53+00:00

I'm going to play devil's advocate.

Considering countries with such laws still see similar if not stronger disparities in workforce participation among the sexes, I'd say this is just something that sounds nice and is passed with the knowledge that it is really something to benefit women, while masquerading as equality, similar to offering abortions for men.

, the Liberal Democrat leader, said women should not have to choose between “a successful career or having a baby .... We want to create a fairer society that gives parents the flexibility to choose how they share care for their child in the first year.”

Except parents already had that flexibility, and this still makes them choose career versus baby.

Do they have any idea how much taking a year off for the kinds of jobs men are overrepresented will hurt their career? Women tend to take jobs with lower degrees of obsolescence for this exact reason, and this policy only incentivizes it further.

Also, shared parental leave doesn't apply to single fathers from the looks of it, so women will still be taking far more time off.

TracyMorganFreeman · 2013-11-29T07:25:38+00:00

[permanently deleted]

Slyndrr · 2013-11-29T11:49:27+00:00

‘I would absolutely call myself a feminist, without hesitating. And it makes me sad when you hear people don’t want to call themselves a feminist, whether they’re a bloke or a teenage girl, because they think the word has negative connotations.

'Feminism is about equality between men and women and is something that will improve our society. We should be encouraging people to be happy to declare themselves as feminists. We need to be very clear about claiming that word as something positive.

'It’s not about hating men, this is about creating a society where men and women working together can achieve more, rather than being pitted against each other in stereotypical archaic roles.'

Words by Jo Swinson, equality minister, who pushed this through.

CosmicKeys · 2013-11-29T10:59:59+00:00

That's great news, nice to see this at the top of the sub. It seems to bring Britain into a similar line as NZ.

StoicThePariah · 2013-11-29T21:53:20+00:00

Fine, but this means that the woman has to share that time with you, so it looks like it's just another way to give women power over men. "Can I please have some time off of work?"

Title	Liberal Democrats get Fathers Paternity Leave rights
Author	kevinwayne
Upvotes	98
Comments	56
Date	November 29, 2013 2:47 AM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1ronvb/liberal_democrats_get_fathers_paternity_leave/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/liberal-democrats-get-fathers-paternity-leave.1157505 https://theredarchive.com/post/1157505

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