Can anyone explain to me how offering fathers paid leave from work for a year will somehow convince MOTHERS to have children?
I don't get the logic of the thinking here at all. Currently our society, as in ALL the societies of the West, the problem exists of women having too few children. So how does this policy address that issue...by rewarding men? Somehow the solution, no matter the problem, always appears to be let's give men more control, more rewards, more status...
Forgive me for saying this but it's women who are the future mothers here that need to be 'stroked' shall we say, not men whose role in this area is limited...If the problem is women not wanting to have children because they are working too much and don't have the resources or time they need to devote to their children, then let's try a novel idea here and GIVE ANOTHER YEAR OF PAID LEAVE TO MOTHER...What about that idea? Let's give mothers two years of paid leave to convince HER to want to have children or more children if she already has one...as that is the sort of incentive that will move the pivotal person involved here in the decision making process...
Which is clearly WOMEN...
Mother uses the year or so of staying at home NOT just as time to bond with baby, but as a period of recovery and recuperation from the ordeal she just went through, that's why it's usually included under a medical leave...Right now the last thing mothers need during that period is to have to justify herself wanting that period with a fight over who gets to stay home with the baby for the first year or so...
It should obviously be MOTHER and if you need to ask why, you probably shouldn't have bothered becoming a parent in the first place...
The GuardianThursday
November 11, 2004
Tories offer fathers share of baby leave
Howard tries to outflank Labour with paid leave plan for new parents
by Lucy Ward and Michael White
Fathers would be able for the first time to share with their partners up to a year's paid leave from work after the birth of a baby, under proposals to be unveiled by the Conservatives today. With family issues increasingly seen as a key battleground of the coming general election, both main parties will today seek to seize the initiative of maternity and paternity rights, and childcare. The Tory leader Michael Howard will outline his party's plans in a speech this morning just as the prime minister, Tony Blair, addresses a major childcare conference. Mr Howard will attempt to outflank the government by proposing a minimum £150 weekly payment, almost £50 more a week than at present. Initially it was thought that this payment would be for the full 12 months of the child's first year. But last night there appeared to be some confusion in Tory circles over the exact terms of their offer to parents. The initial offer of a full year's paid leave was being whittled down by party policy-makers to six months - the same period available to parents under existing welfare legislation. But in an unprecedented concession to the growing number of men who want to play an active childcaring role, Mr Howard will also promise fathers the option of sharing the leave for the first time. Both proposals are aimed at pre-empting similar moves planned for Labour's election manifesto, to be included in the government's 10-year childcare strategy before Christmas.
5 comments:
I didn't skewer a 'positive' idea.
If you ask most mothers, what their biggest problem is after having children, I am quite certain it would not be trying to figure out a way to get back to work faster...since if that's the problem, it's no problem. As mothers have the option to NOT use the leave if they don't want to...instead they can just go back to work.
Nobody forces mothers to go on leave, they can work until the day of delivery and be back at work the day after, if they wish...
What has happened now is that men are trying to force mothers back into the workforce faster...by really cutting the leave they already have by half. Now men can take the other half for themselves...and being the more aggressive half of most couples, I assure you they will...
Mothers should NOT have to be set up for a fight every time they have a child over which parent has the right to use HER leave...That year should be a time for mother to bond with her child, as well as rest and recuperate from HER ordeal...what SHE just went through...and men should be working and providing her and child with enough resources to allow her to do that without imposing a burden on everyone else...
...just like the male of every other species does...
"Your assumption is that men will voluntarily leave their jobs and "force" their wives back to work so they can stay home..."
Just like your assumption is that men won't do this. Unfortunately over the last decade or so I've seen that we cannot ASSUME anything in these situations anymore.
Like the very naive assumption that a stay-at-home mother usually gets custody of her children. It sounds logical, most people would agree with it off-hand, but again, it would be a very dangerous assumption since it happens NOT to be true. Actually most non-custodial mothers appear to be formerly stay-at-home moms...not these high powered career women who work 12 hours every day including Saturday...those sort of savvy women can usually finagle the system with an expensive attorney and win their cases with no help from anyone.
So assumption in these areas can be dangerous...
"I have two friends. They just had their first child. The man in the relationship is the primary bread-winner. However, the wife is not anxious to spend an entire year at home. She has a career she enjoys and finds fulfilling and wants to go back to work. However, since her husband cannot get extended paid leave, their choice is to have the child watched by a stranger or to have her stay home past when she would like to. This British proposal would allow her to do something she actually wants to do but cannot under the current system."
First of all I have NOTHING whatsoever about ANY arrangement couples make between themselves...NONE...if she wants to work, he wants to stay home or reverse the equation or they both want to work and get a trained caregiving dog or a chimp to handle childcare, I DON'T CARE...
BUT when they attempt to make these private family arrangements official then I have a problem with it. As this British proposal would be disasterous for mothers as the law would not JUST apply to married couples once it's passed but never-married mothers as well...
So then we would have the scenario where a man who did NOTHING for this mother throughout the entire pregnancy (other then a brief recreational sperm donation) and maybe did nothing during the first six months of the child's life as well, (since it could take six months to track him down and even get a paternity acknowledgement and child support/visitation order in place) could then turn up and demand six months off to stay at home...thus forcing MOTHER back to work early.
AND if you think anybody is going to sign off on some layabout, probably dumping his kid off with his latest girlfriend or other female enabler relative, so he could hang around on the corner all day or lying on the couch watching TV, well you're sadly mistaken.
"See, that is the problem with this site. You have a combination of sanctimony and bias that makes you utterly unable to form reasonable positions.
Is there a single circumstance in life that you don't see as an attack on women? My guess is no."
My site exists to discuss the issues women face today in their role as mothers...I'm sure there are MANY things that happen to women in their other roles, such as discrimination in car insurance rates, credit, pricing for hair cuts or dry cleaning...maybe in some career choices women suffer some sort of job discrimination, but guess what, I don't know or CARE about these things...
"Maybe you should evaluate what it is in you that is unresolved."
Why?
The internet is a public forum...My opinions and ideas are my own and I am free to post them here. If I post someone else's work I give them full credit, just adding some paragraphs of my own about why I think they are incorrect...
So what is it that should be evaluated about me...
Is it that I have to be Mother Theresa or have a degree in law or journalism to make me worthy enough to have a blog? Plenty of men who are total idiots have blogs and forums to sprout off their opinions in this public forum.
Do you go around and evaluate all their sites as well?
My "perpetual search" as you call it is how I chose to open discussion with others, who are genuinely interested in the topic, of how the role of mothers has been impacted by various changes in law, public policy and people's changing perception of mothers.
Clearly that is not a topic that interests you very much; so I'm curious why you stopped here in the first place...to argue maybe?
It's actually you who are sad to waste a day of your free time arguing with someone over a topic you don't even seem to know much about or appear very interested in...
I can see this discussion following a very typical pattern...First the questions posing as legitimate interest, followed by the sly digs you're sad, you should evaluate yourself, yada, yada, yada...
Next will come the outright insults...
Then I'll have to ban you as an argumentative troll.
Sorry.
I am about to erase your last two comments as you are abusing the privilege of posting...
This is NOT a place for you to work out your personal problems or try to analyze me but to discuss various issues that I've outlined on this site.
Either do that or you're getting the boot...
Sorry but I warned you. I just erased your last two comments. They were trying to fall into the emotional abuse range and I'm just not standing for it...
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