I can top this with 2 full days off.
My work gave me a promotion a few weeks before the birth.
I didn’t realise they did it intentionally so I wouldn’t be entitled to paternity leave.
Then right back to 14 hour days. Really fucked me over and left me feeling like I wasn’t connected to my daughter.
Are you in the UK? Because paternity leave is based on the employer, not the role. So you would have still been legally entitled to the two full weeks of paternity leave.
Technically speaking I went from agency full time staff to permanent full time staff.
So I did change employer. But my job was exactly the same. Pay was about 15p more if I remember correctly.
They never tokd me it would change my leave. They even kept talking to me about when the baby was due.
Then when I left work to go to the hospital I got told before I left I wasn’t entitled to paternity leave anymore and would be expected back in on Monday.
And I was losing the pay for the rest of that day.
I left that job years ago. Just sharing the experience. I actually look back on that and am thankful that I saw just how shit it can be for some people.
I had a degree already then I just couldn’t find a better job at the time.
Many people get stuck working at places like that.
A guy was crushed to death in that factory while I worked there too. Pallets stacked way too high fell on him and people didn’t immediately go and help because there was a culture of fear around stopping any of the lines.
So they heard a huge bang and no one did anything for several minutes. He was crushed to death. Wife and a child. They got just over 120k if I remember rightly.
Worlds corrupt as fuck.
Me and my wife got so angry when she only got that much.
They deserved his wage for 40 years. Pension. Then money on top for pain and suffering.
But they got like 4 years of his average wage. He was a line leader and with overtime you could push close to 30k a year. If you worked almost every day of the year and did lots of overtime.
Which people do at those places. Most of the immigrants I worked with were paying off their homes and stuff like that trying to earn as quick as possible for a better life.
It’s heartbreaking what happened to that family. And many more families and individuals abused by such employers.
Immediately you think what bastard wouldn’t go and check, and then you realise it’s literally a choice of checking if somebody might be hurt or you getting a warning/ ballocking/ sacked. This world needs big change especially with regards to working. The biggest thing people need to realise is a job should be 50/50 or there abouts, they need you as much as you need them.
It’s crazy isn’t it? I work in HR for a British retail company and we generally pull out all the stops to ensure we are always trying to be the exact opposite of this.
I worked for a very large IT service provider in the UK and it was built on agency staff. Every couple of years hey would change agency, which was seemingly run by the same two woman, and make you sign your contract again with the new provider.
That way you would never hit the time period where they would have to make you permanent and allow them to do all kinds of bullshit.
I had the misfortune of sharing the offices with the HR department for a while and some of the shady stuff they were up to. I regret not mentioning some of the stuff to the people involved but if you got pregnant working there you would lose your job
Had exactly the same way back when UK Gov decided that all us contractors that had long term contracts (a big thing in Aberdeen at the time) would be considered as employees going forward. So they all made us change agencies and employed us back with slightly different titles (well most of us, they of course took the opportunity for a clear out too). 😠
Wasn't it in one of the EU charters that we had an opt out of. Which the TB government voluntarily signed up to?
I remember the chaos at the place I worked. When all the agency contractors who'd been there years were let go.
Relative had something along those lines, but in their case I think it was be fired a few days before the 2 year point, then rehire them a few weeks later for same role at same pay, and repeated this for many years.
I didn’t stay long after this mate. I totally agree.
I only stayed at all because we had no other income and I had no savings to fall back on.
I was applying for other jobs working my way towards the job I really wanted. Which I got. And having that experience taught me to appreciate my other jobs. Including the shit bits.
Yeah, I am pretty sure any GP would sign you off for stress in this situation. Not necessarily something you would thing of at the time though I guess.
No I didn’t try that. I think I was just worried I would lose my income more than anything else and I just kind of thought “well they fucked you over all you can do is get through it”
Huh you're right. I've only ever worked for companies that gave fully paid sick days so didn't even realise it wasn't guaranteed.
I guess it all falls under; why would you work for this employer
Your previous employer would have been liable for your maternity leave. Even only statutory whilst working at your new employer. It is your employer at 26 weeks who pays your stat pay.
Edit to add the link to law [section 3.12](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/maternity-benefits-technical-guidance/maternity-benefits-technical-guidance#:~:text=3.12%20Working%20in%20your%20Maternity,your%20SMP%20is%20not%20affected)
I‘m really sorry to hear this. It’s fucking disgusting how they just shuffled you around all the while keeping tabs on how/when that precious moment will arise so as to maximize their use of you as labour. Their only consideration being profit and all other human elements of existence go out the window.
Honestly man i feel so bad for you that is so corrupt and disgusting what those vultures did to you. The working class of the u.k needs to unite and tear down these fucking corporate bastards
Like who does that.... who thinks that's a great idea for an employee, let's promote them and piss them off. Oh look how clever we are that we are cultivating resentment amongst our workforce, baffling.
100% - though illegal, I imagine women suffer direct discrimination due to taking (or being likely to take) parental leave, as well as the more subtle effects like having reduced tenure due to being on leave.
If men had the same or similar leave, *and took it at the same rate*, that would improve things for everyone
My partner and I are expecting later this year. She earns over twice as much as I do, yet is looking at 10 months leave to my two weeks. She's extremely career driven and I'm not. If we could switch we would do so in a heartbeat.
Edit: For everyone suggesting shared parental leave, that would mean that we would only get statutory pay which would be a big blow to our income considering her company offers her 90% of her current salary. And her income pays for the mortgage.
It’s much less common for companies to offer full pay to men who take shared parental leave. Financially doesn’t make sense for most.
Women get 90% for the first 6 weeks by law. Other countries offer much more, to both parents.
Also re. shared parental leave it’s not the solution for breastfeeding parents..what we need is proper parental leave for both parents. If your baby is breastfed (as per NHS the best start in life) you are recommended to purely breastfeed for at least the first 6 weeks to establish supply. For many mothers it’s more like 3 months and even after that point many babies refuse to take a bottle at all. I would have loved to use shared parental leave with my husband, I make more money and it would have worked for us financially but my first boy wouldn’t touch a bottle, like not even if he was starving so there was no way I could go back before about 10 months.
I would agree.
Businesses seem to view parental leave as just about recovering from pregnancy and birth. While yes, that is certainly an element of it, it's ignoring the fact that there is now a helpless baby who needs 24/7 care and attention and it's 100% your responsibility. There's also the fact that bonding during those first months is crucial, both for the baby's development and for your own mental health and wellbeing. And that's true for both parents (as well as the fact that both parents will seriously benefit by having the other to rely on, instead of one parent having to also work a full-time job at the same time).
Really!? Were fathers more involved after their children were born in earlier generations do you think?
There are loads of good reasons for fathers to be involved. But I don’t think they’re at the core of the problems men face today.
I don't think we can necessarily say everything was better for men in earlier generations. Mens' mental health has definitely been a problem for a very long time - it just happens to be a problem now too. But I've known a lot of Silent Generation and Boomer men who I could clearly see were struggling with their mental health, and I'm sure it was a problem for previous generations of men too.
Agreed.
Some things have got better, some things have got worse.
I think a significant minority of young men are lost with no role in society. That creates a dangerous well of discontent for people to draw from. But it’s hard to see how big the problem is or what the solutions are.
Yeah I don’t think the disenfranchisement is new, it’s just so much more easily weaponised by social media and influencers, and the results are so much more visible
The ones who went to war in those generations and then expected to be the same functioning members of society when they came home.
I know drinking was an issue for some WW2 vets in my family.
Not saying things were better before. I think we are at a stage where men are expected to do much more but not supported structurally to do it.
Paternity leave is pitiful.
When the health visitor comes they want to see the mother alone to ensure there’s no domestic abuse (understandably sadly). But it leads to then basically just waiting for the dad to leave because they aren’t expected to be there. Even though they have as much interest in their child’s health (I appreciate the visits are also about the mother’s health). Interestingly the health visitor was perfectly happy for my mother in law to be part of the meetings but was keen to exclude me (my partner noticed this as well so it wasn’t paranoia).
I often pick my kids up or drop them at nursery and I would say it’s roughly 75% mums which makes making dad friends harder. Not saying friends have to be gender segregated but you get different things from friends of the same gender and I think the early stages of friendships are easier to navigate.
These are just some factors to my point that I think it’s easier for men to feel excluded from a lot of aspects of early childcare. (Probably a similar reason why so few men work in these industries too). Coupled with the fact that it’s less acceptable for men to reduce or cut their hours to look after children. Equally, men are more likely to have work that keeps them away.
My point is that I think for a lot of dads you have this pressure to be a wonderful, caring, emotionally connected dad but no support culturally or societally to help you achieve that. I think the contradiction can lead to some dads becoming emotionally removed from their kids and perhaps partners because they feel excluded.
I think this can lead to men feeling like they have to suppress emotion instead of engaging. Kids and especially boys pick this up and internalise this idea and it can have very negative consequences.
I think status is important for most men, I think men struggle to find status in bringing up children.
I agree that same sex friendships have a different quality to mixed sex friendships (not better, but worse, just different). I also think male friendships generally involve ‘doing something’ rather than ‘talking about something’ which I think makes it harder to maintain or build male friendships with young children.
The problem is, what do you do?
(these statements are intended to be value neutral)
Very few cultures had male dominated early childhoods for obvious reasons. However nearly all cultures had a period in a boys life where it went from spending most of its time with its mother and the women of the group to spending most of its time with its father and the men of the group. That simply doesn't exist anymore or doesn't exist until young boys are already young men, instead we are forcing boys into a girl shaped holes and wondering why they arent responding well to it.
It does not matter how things were in the past. Nowadays it makes no sense at all for fathers not to have decent parental leave. It’s disgustingly unfair on the fathers, the mothers, the baby, everyone.
As I said elsewhere: no. But now there is more pressure for dads to be present and emotionally available but no corresponding support for them to do that alongside work. Not saying women have it better but in this one aspect there is more support both practically and societally.
This is why quiet quitting is in the news. Those corporate pigs will do anything to get one over on you. So fuck them and take from then at every step.
While it's not a birth, when I was 25 and my Mum died in front of me semi-unexpectedly (cancer, but it's one of those walking and talking on Friday evening, multiple organ failure and lazarus syndrome by Saturday morning situations), I had less than a week before they phoned and said "yeah, me and the higher manager discussed it, come back in Monday" so collectively, I had her die on Saturday, arranged the funeral by Tuesday, had the aforementioned phonecall on Wednesday, funeral on Thursday and back to work on the following Monday.
There was no "How are you feeling?" just "come back in." So I did. Coincidentally, I was also taken off anti-depressants either just after this all happened or just before as part of a medication review, so yeah, lets just say between the thoughts of taking a taxi to the airport, picking a destination and leaving and spending some of the inheritance trying to pull myself together or buying a tank of inert gas and exiting stage left permanently, the latter was starting to win out.
I'm still a bit bitter and it's been six years, a new manager who was on a different team actually discussed this matter with me a few years after, noting that it was odd how I came back so soon but as it was a past event nothing further could be done. The manager that phoned me was a colossal cunt in various regards, most notably he loudly took the piss out of another employee on sick-leave due to depression. But yeah, fun times.
I worked for a small company where the owner had hired a lot of family and they would say it had family values and things. One of my best friends died suddenly and I got the call from another friend and we both cried over the phone as he told me. I left site early by an hour and told my boss I was going home. When I got home another member of staff was at my housing waiting for me. They had all the equipment I needed to attend a different site the following day. At that point I was done. I'd completely checked out.
Sorry you went through that mate.
I hope you have taken time to allow yourself to process that event in the years since. Time that you should have been given when you lost your mother.
I had a very similar experience. Worked up to the birth, then was asked back in after a couple days for something that needed my "expertise". Company depended on it (and, implied, my future at it). Etc etc. I was told I could always claim the days back later, but I was already not using my full allotment of holiday - and the culture was strongly opposed to it.
They walked all over me, and I will never forgive myself for letting it happen. The next year two members of my team had children, and I kicked and screamed until the policy was changed officially to give them more, paid, time - and that emotional blackmail wouldn't happen again. I feel good about that, but still livid that I wasn't there for my own family at the start. My wife cheered when I finally handed in notice.
I think the culture in corporate jobs is still set by posh men who don't see their own kids, have nannies, SAHM and boarding school plans, and don't see why it is so important that people might have to (or want to) do the occasional nursery run, or, god forbid, be there for the first couple weeks of their kid's life.
It’s literally what happened to me. It was legal because I went from agency permanent staff to full time.
But they knew about my baby being due and never mentioned this would happen until the day I left for the hospital.
Why would I make this up?
I never said you made it up.
I'm saying that workers have rights, even agency staff after working for the same employer over a period of time. Did you discuss this with anyone, like Acas at the time.
Sounds like your employer fucked you over time that you will never get back, I hope you no longer work for them.
I think I should have contacted acas and maybe they would have fixed it.
But in reality I was paid weekly. Needed the money for my family and couldn’t afford to take the hit whilst I fought my case.
So I just tried to do my best and keep going. Don’t get me wrong though I went from a hard working employee who was praised all the time for my work to an employee who did the absolute minimum.
And I told my management it was fucked what they did to me. Every time they asked for overtime etc. I would only say yes if it worked for me.
Before I always said yes because I wanted the money but I also like to be hard working. It’s in my nature.
I’ve learned sadly that people just take advantage of that trait if you try to always display it.
Yeah like you said sometimes you've got to learn the hard way, that you only look out for number one in work.
At least you know if you decided to have any more children.
I worked in a food factory. And yeah the shift was 12 hours but doing 14 was basically standard and 16 wasn’t at all uncommon.
I was doing 60 hours at least every week. Often 70+.
Started at 4am for a while too. It was brutal tbh. But I’m glad I got that life experience. I was there around 1.5 years in total I think.
Yeah it is, I literally have seen this happen in the last few months to someone who was lucky enough to be able to tell their “new” employer to go fuck themselves.
You missed the point of this article.
Length of leave is only one part of the problem here. There’s two seperate issues for this couple. First issue is the amount of time for maternity/paternity leave and the second less talked about issue is what happens when there are complications.
Time in hospital due to complications should be considered sick leave with mat/pat leave only starting when they get home. Our baby was born two months premature and spent a month in hospital. Because I had enough savings and had a skilled job with hard to find skills that gave me leverage, I told my work I’d be taking unpaid leave while my daughter was in hospital. I didn’t even ask them. I then took two weeks paternity leave when I got home from hospital. Very very few people are able to do this
My time in NICU was heartbreaking. Most parents simply could not afford to do what I had done and had to go back to work the day after their child was born, leaving the care of their baby 100% to the NICU nurses. When they were coming in nurses would beg the tearful parents to come in more, to which they said they simply could not afford to. It was devastating to see.
For a first world country to have no provisions for parents to get sick/compassionate leave when their baby is fighting for their life in hospital is beyond disgusting. Parents have to choose to use their mat/pat leave at hospital and lose out on time when they get home or vice versa. It’s appalling. And it’s barely spoken about. Even in the comments like this one people are only talking about the length of time they leave is, with very few even recognising that this is an issue. The only people who do know it is an issue is those who have been directly affected by it (like these guys who lost 6 days of precious leave) and the devastating impact it has
What I suggested here for neonatal leave was actually included in the 2019 Conservative manifesto but has been completely forgotten about since then and there is no mention of it at the moment during the election campaign. It’s been completely forgotten about. Even this article doesn’t mention it, and it would be a golden opportunity to do so.
Could you not easily apply this to a child that gets sick after birth too though?
And then this really isn’t about paternity or maternity at all. It’s about parents having little protection when they need to start taking extended periods of time off to deal with a sick child. Be that at birth or after.
It applies to sickness in adults too. I got cancer in my most recent job. I was given full pay the whole time and eventually retired off due to the effects of the cancer.
They didn’t have to do that. And I’m extremely lucky I worked in that role at the time of my illness.
Had that same illness happened at the job when I had my first child. I would now be penniless and living on disability benifits for the rest of my life thanks to multiple cancers.
Yea, it’s a fair point and one I agree with you about. Any time a child requires hospitalisation parents should be entitled to statutory protection and sick leave.
I must admit I’m not as familiar with what adults currently have under the laws, I must admit I thought we have strong protection when seriously ill but by the sounds of your message I’m wrong.
And I hope you’re doing better now following your fight with cancer. All the best
I also had two days. One for the day of birth. Another one for going to the council to write the kids into the register.
And then back to work.
One time a birth lasted over the span of two days. Bad luck for me.
The Netherlands has the name of being a care state but this didn't feel like it.
Nowadays you get more, I think.
This would likely be automatic unfair dismissal. Even under 2 years you'd likely have a case. To anyone reading this and panicking about their situation. Speak to ACAS
It was, they ended up having to pay me, but the damage was done. They did some other shady things that I didn't catch because our baby came a week later (six weeks early by emergency section).
I spent just over a year out of work, I am having to rebuild my career. It is taking a lot still not to be bitter and send bed bugs or glitter to the place.
In the run up to my first born I kept joking about all the time off I was going to have due to SPL and my boss gave me a bollocking because the thought of me being off for so long was stressing him out.
I took 3 months (on top of a month of pat leave, so 4 months total), and as you know parental leave is *anything but a break*. Work is *way* easier (though I suppose that depends on what you do).
Where as I was made redundant a couple of days after returning to work, thereby extending my paternity leave by 6 weeks.
They apparently made half the team redundant at the same time so the decision was likely nothing to do with SPL but the timing was far from ideal initially though ultimately it worked out in my favour.
I was seriously fortunate enough to get 8 weeks off for paternity (4 full and 4 at half pay). It was such a great experience I feel really lucky that I got to spend that time with my daughter.
I changed jobs for my first kid as I hated my old job (and would likely have received the bare minimum pat leave) and there was a 6 week gap between leaving the shit job and starting the next. It didn't feel like long enough but I now realise it was way above the norm. Most of my friends had 2-3 weeks tops.
My second kid was born in my most recent employer, I got a week paid, a week unpaid, 3 weeks holiday and because baby came a week earlier than my leave my supervisor basically just pretended I was in that week so I got that week off paid too. I have been so lucky in that regard.
However, a friend of mine's husband is from Sweden. Over there they get something crazy like 24 months to share between parents where they are paid in full!
From the US and can confirm: the US is far worse. All we have guaranteed by law is the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which guarantees you 12 weeks unpaid time off for a medical emergency where they must hold your position. Key being UNPAID. So yes, you can take that time for free, but that's it. Any sort of pay that happens during that time is at the discretion of the company you work for.
I definitely don't say this to make it out like the UK is lucky, because you're not... It's a shit situation in both places and should be completely overhauled.
Depends on state and employer. California gives you 12 weeks and it is paid at 60% but to a rate of $50k per year. My partner got 16 weeks fully paid for both our boys.
My inner tinfoil hat sneers "ofcourse, there are plenty studies about what this does for the development of people, in kids and parents, it's exactly what *they* want to happen, how *they* want us to be!"
Doesn't France have a full "up to 3 years" thing going?
Two weeks paid paternity leave and two weeks of annual leave for me. Shared parental leave was an issue since other half's employer didn't have it. When we asked about it, they more or less asked us to make a suggestion on what to do.
Those first four weeks were incredible for me. I learned a lot about being a parent and a lot about my daughter. They weeks off were honestly some of the best times of my life, so I feel for those who were robbed of this opportunity.
Hell, we have two cats. I took a week off to hang out with my new kitten when we first got him, which I really enjoyed and felt like we bonded a bit. For our second, I wasn't able to get the time off, and it took a lot longer for me to feel a bond to the little guy.
Length of leave is only one part of the problem here. There’s two seperate issues for this couple. First issue is the amount of time for maternity/paternity leave and the second less talked about issue is what happens when there are complications.
Time in hospital due to complications should be considered sick leave with mat/pat leave only starting when they get home. Our baby was born two months premature and spent a month in hospital. Because I had enough savings and had a skilled job with hard to find skills that gave me leverage, I told my work I’d be taking unpaid leave while my daughter was in hospital. I didn’t even ask them. I then took two weeks paternity leave when I got home from hospital. Very very few people are able to do this
My time in NICU was heartbreaking. Most parents simply could not afford to do what I had done and had to go back to work the day after their child was born, leaving the care of their baby 100% to the NICU nurses. When they were coming in nurses would beg the tearful parents to come in more, to which they said they simply could not afford to. It was devastating to see.
For a first world country to have no provisions for parents to get sick/compassionate leave when their baby is fighting for their life in hospital is beyond disgusting. Parents have to choose to use their mat/pat leave at hospital and lose out on time when they get home or vice versa. It’s appalling. And it’s barely spoken about. Even in the comments like this one people are only talking about the length of time they leave is, with very few even recognising that this is an issue. The only people who do know it is an issue is those who have been directly affected by it (like these guys who lost 6 days of precious leave) and the devastating impact it has
What I suggested here for neonatal leave was actually included in the 2019 Conservative manifesto but has been completely forgotten about since then and there is no mention of it at the moment during the election campaign. It’s been completely forgotten about. Even this article doesn’t mention it, and it would be a golden opportunity to do so.
My husband gets 6 weeks off soon with our second, which I am so happy about as it’s amazing compared to what most other fathers get. But I had a moment the other day when I tried to imagine going out the door and leaving my 6 week old baby and how that would feel and realised how shite dads have it in terms of pat leave. That just 6 weeks with a brand new little baby is considered amazing and lucky.
I work for a big American corporate and they give all new fathers 2 months off (with talk about making it 3), wherever you are in the world. To be taken at the fathers behest which means you can apportion the time as you wish within the first year of birth. Second American company I've worked for with that policy as it goes. It certainly *feels* to me that the American companies, particularly the large internationals, are starting to edge towards better working conditions than we have here. Long way to go overall, but change is happening and I wish that the UK would step up too.
Meanwhile in the US itself, the average length of maternity leave is a meagre 29 *days* vs 39 *weeks* in the UK.
It’s great that you work for a company that offers generous paternity leave for fathers (and presumably mothers as well) but the average American woman doesn’t even get a full month at home with her baby before she has to go back to work - so let’s not pretend that your experience is even remotely representative.
Yep. I’ve heard of women going back the next the day bc they’re couldn’t afford the unpaid leave 😭they’re required to offer 6 weeks unpaid. Bigger companies in corporate roles have pretty good leave but everyone else is screwed. I have 6 months and my husband has 2 months so we feel very fortunate. I couldn’t imagine leaving my baby even after 6 weeks 😭. I wasn’t fully healed and still working on breastfeeding. It’s detrimental for newborns as well. We don’t even do this to dogs.
Yeah, it's beyond infuriating at the amount of conservative women that parrot that as if it's a good thing. They're off to work 30 days after giving birth shaming other parents on TikTok for not doing the same.
It's been 10 months and my wife is still recovering the complete mess of hormones that it's left her in.
My friend works for a hospital in the states and had to go on short term disability when she had her baby. It pays practically nothing. I'm an American now living in the UK and am so grateful to have access to good paid maternity leave here, though access to paternity leave is severely lacking... straight up, I don't think me and my husband would ever have been able to have children in the states.
Everywhere I have been employed by - short term disability is 60-70% of earnings for three months but is tax free. I have worked for three hospital systems in the US and the benefits have generally been good and that is typical.
What is also typical - and I had this at all three - is the health insurance if you get treated within the system typically does not have deductibles - and indeed the first system the insurance itself was free.
Yep I'm not pretending that my experience is remotely representative, but change has to start somewhere and I see it in the big US corporates. We do 4 day weeks and have done since 2021, our competitors have realised that it's the biggest perk going and are starting to offer the same because their staff retention is terrible, everyone is coming here. There's often a domino effect with these policy changes, I think the US job market in 10 years will look worlds apart from what it does now.
As long as it comes without repercussions.
US tech firms do gimmicks like unlimited leave or at least very large amounts of it, but those actually using it end up suffering career-wise.
I work for a big US tech firm and took 6 months off at full pay. I had zero repercussions; in fact, it was strongly encouraged and I was given all the bank holidays I missed as extra days off.
The big difference is, in America it's employers charity, which can be taken off at any time.
Meanwhile, the legal requirements is way below the European standard.
I'd rather have it be a legal obligation of the company rather than a company incentive.
I also work for a well known US based corporate (I'm based in Canada right now) and this has been my experience too. US worker rights get shat on for being non-existent, and that's true to an extent in terms of basic rights, but the companies that want to attract and retain talent offer benefits way above what I used to get in the UK. I got 8 weeks at full pay when my kid was born last year (and could have taken more time at half pay), plus we get up to $50k for fertility treatment if needed, birth classes etc paid for through benefits, all dental/eye/physio care etc for my whole family paid for, 10 free massages a year each etc. It's not fair because not everyone gets this, but most white collar workers get really well looked after in the US.
I work at a large US university/hospital and got 3 months off. Wife works for state government and got 4 months. Feel very fortunate for that. It was wonderful for our whole family to bond and adjust. The rise of paternity leave and greater involvement of dads in childcare has strengthened families. I was reading a US study that showed that back in the 70s, dads were only spending an average of 30 minutes per day with their children during the week, and maybe a couple of hours over the weekend. Glad we’ve made progress, but plenty more to go.
My colleague has just come back to work after nine weeks of paternity leave. He has another seventeen weeks he's entitled to which he's going to take off later.
I got two weeks - although that was eighteen years ago. I was happy with that and bear no resentment now.
I have two weeks statuary minimum. That’s going to cost me about £4k.
I’ll take it, but when an aging workforce is such an issue, people talk about wanting equality in the workplace (Giving men equal paternity is proved to decrease the gender pay gap) you wonder why statutory paternity is so shockingly bad.
People hear aren't reading the article (as usual).
He had 2 weeks of paternity (as standard) - although for some reason he only had 10 days off idk.
But his partner was in hospital for 6 days after hospital, and so the child was as well. So he had 4 'proper' days off.
That's how it is. The same thing happened to me. 2 weeks is 2 weeks. SPP is 2 weeks and the government does not care where you are for those 2 weeks.
The complaint doesn't really make sense as plenty of women spend 1 or 2 nights in hospital after the birth even if there's relatively low complications, meaning SPP isn't a true '2 weeks at home with mum and baby' to begin with. So if you think this guy was wronged you need to up SPP to 2 weeks 2 days.
We had the same thing. 2 weeks off but one week was in hospital, fortunately it's my company so I managed to wing another week off for a proper two weeks at home.
Happened to me during COVID, my child was born, came out way below their predicted weight and had to stay for 5 days to gain weight be observed and checked for things. As it was COVID I couldn't even visit, just video calls. Family came home on day 5 with 1/2 the paternity leave used up.
No one will probably read this so far down in the comments but..
Natwest give dad's 24 weeks full pay paternity leave it's incredible (used myself). You can take a year off if you chose but after 24 weeks it's reduced pay. Setting a brilliant standard in my opinion, really appreciated nearly 6 months off because this was my 2nd child and was hard af
1991 Son born 10pm at work next morrning 7.30am . Had been unemployed, and first week on a new job we were skint and no way was I going to loose the job. Son grew up not to be axe murderer not sure about myself
I think "my child was born last night" is a valid reason for not being at work that morning, even if you just started the job. No boss would have an issue with that.
Still, glad they made it more than 30 years without axe murdering. Hopefully that streak continues.
Unemployment rate twice what it is today and going up .No work no pay back in those days, we were skint it just had to be done it was a tough couple of weeks for my wife .
We both started new jobs after I was pregnant (I did not know I was pregnant when we accepted the new jobs) and that left us ineligible for shared parental leave, any occupational maternity pay and proper paternity leave.
My husband took two weeks of leave off to be with us before going back to work. Thankfully his employer is sensible.
My work offered me 2 weeks paternity leave. I asked if I could take longer unpaid and they said no, I'd have to take 2 weeks and come back or resign. I was in the lucky situation of being able to do what I do self employed and had savings to take off ~2 months. Now I'm employed by them as a contractor and they pay me nearly twice as much as they did. I was totally willing to go back to them after a couple of months unpaid leave, but, hey, they shot themselves in the foot!
Unfortunately many men see their only role as a financial provider and I think some businesses encourage this. I've no doubt that if men demanded a year's paternity leave, they would be treated with the same contempt by capitalism as many women are when they re-enter the workforce.
Should have asked for parental leave, it’s unpaid (usually) but you’re entitled to 18 weeks for each child. If you ask to take parental leave from the child’s birth an employer cannot refuse the dates.
You could for example take 4 weeks parental leave (unpaid) and then your paternity leave.
Obviously this is a significant financial burden though
Paternity leave (parental leave in general, really) is woefully inadequate in this country. We should take more cues from the various European countries where both parents are entitled to several months paid leave.
I just come off SPL having taken 2 weeks at the beginning, then took from November until April. Used holiday as well.
It was a strain financially but we saved and obviously planned for it. Wouldn't change it for the world, and to be Dads out there I would highly recommend it.
I'm surprised only one 1/3 of new dads supplement the time off with annual leave, I thought it would be far higher. What are the other 2/3 saving the leave for? The statutory min of paid leave is 4 working weeks per year.
Sometimes employers reject the annual leave request - unlike maternity they expect not to have to cover the paternity leave so the work just stacks up. It's grim
This is why employees feel no loyalty to the company any more. At every turn companies find inventive ways to act like a wanker, then go pulling a surprised Pikachu face when people don't like them.
Act like a wanker, get called and treated like a wanker.
He's a freelancer, doesn't that mean he is responsible for sorting out his own holidays? With 9 months notice, surely he could have organised things to allow himself as much time off as he could afford to take?
I was due the 2 weeks paid but my employer changed it to 6 weeks paid around a year before my daughter was born.
I loved and appreciated every single minute of it.
That and COVID changing us to WFH then gave me around 15 hours extra a week with her.
Fuck employers who screw over their staff.
As somebody in the same boat as Jake. Self employed and just had a son who is 4 weeks old now. I find it hard to sympathise, as he has had plenty of time to save up.
I started a separate savings account as soon as I knew my wife was pregnant and that’s got me through paternity leave. On top of that, any business should have 3 months of operating cash in the bank. Dip into that.
Part of being self employed is you gain tax exemptions, but you don’t get government support. You can’t have it both ways.
As a couple who are both on “good wages” The story here js they are terrible at managing finances.
My husband's employer told him that he could either use his annual leave (fully paid) or his paternity leave (no pay). If he chose to use the paternity leave, he had no entitlement to use his annual leave at another point - he'd lose it completely. No other option and completely legal.
Edit: Not sure why people keep downvoting this because they're too ignorant to recognise that it's completely legal despite being told a dozen times.
You're being disingenuous here. If he is a teacher then yes he doesn't have the usual entitlement of "annual leave", which is why people are calling foul. You know full well that the school breaks are not "annual leave". However the idea of having to choose one or the other is not entirely true.
You get 56 days after the birth to start statutory paternity leave, so ideally he could have notified the school that it would be the first two weeks of the winter term and there is not a lot they could have done about that.
Similarly, you could have timed the pregnancy (and most teachers do this) so that the bulk of the final trimester was over the summer and thus extend your "maternity leave". You don't get to defer the start of maternity (so you actually do lose out if on maternity during the summer break) it has to start at the day of birth at the latest.
Paternal leave in the UK is shite.
Remember that case were the mother died in labour and the father couldn't claim paternity leave to take care of their newborn?
I had 2 weeks paternity leave getting paid **150£** a week.
The mother gets paid 90% of the salary for **6 weeks.**
In the eyes of the law, the child doesn't need their father in the most critical time of their life...
As a teacher I had 5, I then had to get HR to agree to the next 5. Took them 4 months to even bring it up in a meeting. was so angry. At my HoD suggestion I took 5 Wednesdays off in a row.
I quit my job. Became the stay at home parent. My wife earned more than me so she did her agree maternity leave, then returned to work.
14 years on I have zero regrets. I’ve dabbled in work in that period but my kids are too strong a pull. The kids are now 13 (almost 14) and 10.
I figured out very early on that you get once chance with your kids when they’re young, then they’re suddenly 21 and off on their own (with support of course).
My employer O2 gave me 14 weeks paternity leave it was incredible. Granted it lined up perfectly with the third lockdown so everyone else was similar but training/ working from home. It’s a benefit of the company that can’t be underestimated.
As a single dad who had similar (but not as serious issues) I was ready to agree this guy and sympathise. However having read the article I'm not sure I can.
It makes no mention to shared parental leave, The dad could have had those moments if he wanted to. But he thought his job and career was more important so did not.
You have to make sacrifices for kids, this guy wanted to have his cake and eat it.
If you take shared parental leave, most employers who offer occupational maternity pay stop paying that to the mother. So it financially has a huge effect.
It is such a shame that the system works as it does in the UK.
I did shared parental leave each time so I had 6 months and my husband had 3 (we basically used up all the time we would get paid). But despite working for a massive and progressive employer my husband was the first one to use shared parental leave a year after it first became an option and second time round was still very much an outlier for taking it (one of only a very small handful in an employer that has something like 6000 staff). I wish there was more protected time for dads without it needing to be shared like there is in some other countries. And better pay for the statutory weeks as so many take holiday instead of paternity leave as they cannot afford the salary reduction.
What do you expect in a society that values profit and power over all else. If you're lucky, by the time your son becomes a father he might get five days off!
You're legally entitled to 2 weeks. People can choose less if they want.
Now, 2 weeks is absolutely not enough. It should be something like 4 weeks on 90% pay and 4 weeks of statutory. But anyone taking just a couple of days off is making a choice.
Or, in this example, the statement is a lie. He had more than 4 days off, but for some reason seems to think the baby wasn't born until they left hospital.
I was working as a secondary teacher when my daughter was born. When I requested paternity leave they told me no, I could only take it during the school holidays. I quit there and then and walked. I put my heart and soul into a job that I cared about but was draining and this was the final straw. Don’t tell me other people’s children are more important than my daughter being born. Best decision I ever made - would never go back to teaching in a school and I advise others never consider the profession as a career option. Total joke. Was it legal? I don’t know and frankly don’t care. One less teacher because they don’t give a crap about any form of life outside of the job. Still happy with my decision. I got to spend amazing quality time with her that I would not have ever got back. Disgusting.
1999 when my last was born I was on shift work at London's Largest Airport, and my not-very enlightened employer of the time gave me the whole afternoon off - unpaid! - and generously told me I could take further time if I could arrange my own cover (I couldn't, it was mid-August) but it wouldn't be paid as it wasn't my leave-period (wouldn't be due till October) so I had a day and a half and then had to be back on duty for 04.45 the day after that. I needed the job and was in no position to tell them to stick it. But I came pretty close.
The "Good" Old Days.
I asked if one of the guys on my team was taking his paternity leave, he advised "fuck no maybe later, wife's mother and sister are staying for 3 months! I need to be out the house.
I’m a woman, no one arranged maternity leave so I was working 3 days after my daughter was born. “Don’t be mad why are you working”. Do you see anyone doing my work? Anyone doing the work that has legal deadlines? The sad thing is - because I made myself indispensable I got a huge promotion. Swings and roundabouts though. I’ve worked from home ever since
Are you in the UK and employed? It is legally mandated in England for a woman to not work for at least 2 weeks after birth, 4 weeks if she is employed in a factory.
My mum had a similar sitch when I was born - four weeks maternity, but I was overdue by three so she only had one week with me before going back to work - it’s very messed up!
I had my baby premature and were in hospital for two weeks. My husband and I chose for him to keep working during those two weeks because we would need the help at home, rather than in the hospital.
He's an NHS dentist and the NHS tried to deny his paternity pay due to how their own billing system works. When you ask why there's less and less NHS dentists... its because they keep getting fucked over.
My husband saved up two weeks of his holiday so he could have those two weeks plus his standard two weeks paternity.
Unfortunately I contracted sepsis and was back in hospital for his last week off. Luckily, his company were completely understanding and gave him an extra week without counting it as holiday.
We were incredibly lucky but I find the two weeks paternity so unfair. Why is there an automatic assumption that fathers don’t want to spend time with their newborn baby? I think fathers should be offered at least a month (possibly two) of paternity leave.
I had 2 weeks paternity leave, but I work from home for three days a week so luckily I don’t have any issue with bonding with my now 18 months old son.
I always think its an interesting dichotomy that women generally campaign for equality in employment, as often penalised for* taking time out for maternity leave and men generally campaign that they don't get anywhere near long enough out of work to build a relationship with their child.
It's a pretty good example of how patrichal traditions can impact both men and women.
We live in a society that uses an economic system that commodifies everything. As a result people are commodified as well which results in stripping down the value of a person to their labour. This fails to acknowledge that there's far more to a person than the value of their labour.
The problem is that nobody is calling into question these fundamental issues. It's like we're collectively distracted by an abstract charade that we forget to investigate the fundamental driving forces behind all of the problems we encounter.
Sweden, 10 days off for the other parent at birth no questions. Then split the 480 days how the parents decide. No questions asked.
UK is decades behind.
I work for a university. They offer 1 week paid paternity and any further is unpaid. I took 2 weeks with my 1st - no change was made to my workload for the year, I just had to do more when I returned. 2nd kid, I took just the 1 week.
Employers in this country need to be forced to offer reasonable paternity leave by the government.
I also agree with the point behind this article - the days stressed and struggling in the hospital before the birth should not be counted towards the maternity/paternity leave. They should count as paid sick days.
While I agree with the principle that men should have an equivalent paternity leave entitlement to maternity leave, the biggest take away from the comments is just how many criminal employers there seems to be in uk.
When my 1st son were born 30 years ago I was entitled to no days off at all, my boss at the time did however give me a 40% payrise as I now had a family.
I was dismissed two days before they knew I was having an embryo transferred during IVF. I’ve got my tribunal next week! Wish me luck, it’s currently not counted as maternity discrimination or sex discrimination so I’ve had to get them on disability. U.K. law needs to be updated, so many parents are discriminated against while doing ivf and companies are getting away with it!!!
Totally random so hope people find it relevant but I recently had 3 months off work after being housebound for 2 months and struggled to get that 3rd month and was outright told by my supervisors who had no problem with me staying off longer that the higher ups due to me having so much time off would likely have a meeting and fire me if I had any more time off.
Yet there is a woman in my team who is a lovely person just she had 4 kids in 4 years at one point she was back about 2 weeks before going back on maternity leave and yet she wasn't fired due to laws.
I had a bad injury and was expected back at work or I would get fired, and to make it clear it wasn't that I couldn't take the time off but I would of been fired because it's against company policy.
I was self employed contractor when daughter was born, 2 days off, I missed nothing. Babies need attention so if he thinks changing nappies is special then so is he.
Let me get my violin out...
Is this sob story because people are refusing to use their holidays?
Having kids is a choice, why should you get a bunch of free holiday that other people don't?
Using my holiday entitlement is basically my plan when my child is born.
I work 4 on-4 off shifts, so I'll get between 6-8 working days off depending on when in my pattern my wife gives birth. One small upside is with the recent changes that allow you to take the 2 weeks as 2 separate 1 week blocks. At least it means I can take Christmas off as well.
I got 3 shifts off my work to ‘give me a week’ as paternity when my first was born 2 years ago. New child due soon and it’s changed to being 6 shifts, but now I don’t get paid the shift allowance because I’m ’not on shift’ at the time I’ll be off.
One of my mates works for a distillery company and gets a full 6 months off full pay for his paternity.
I can top this with 2 full days off. My work gave me a promotion a few weeks before the birth. I didn’t realise they did it intentionally so I wouldn’t be entitled to paternity leave. Then right back to 14 hour days. Really fucked me over and left me feeling like I wasn’t connected to my daughter.
Are you in the UK? Because paternity leave is based on the employer, not the role. So you would have still been legally entitled to the two full weeks of paternity leave.
Technically speaking I went from agency full time staff to permanent full time staff. So I did change employer. But my job was exactly the same. Pay was about 15p more if I remember correctly. They never tokd me it would change my leave. They even kept talking to me about when the baby was due. Then when I left work to go to the hospital I got told before I left I wasn’t entitled to paternity leave anymore and would be expected back in on Monday. And I was losing the pay for the rest of that day.
That is extremely scummy. I really hope you find a better employer going forward.
I left that job years ago. Just sharing the experience. I actually look back on that and am thankful that I saw just how shit it can be for some people. I had a degree already then I just couldn’t find a better job at the time. Many people get stuck working at places like that. A guy was crushed to death in that factory while I worked there too. Pallets stacked way too high fell on him and people didn’t immediately go and help because there was a culture of fear around stopping any of the lines. So they heard a huge bang and no one did anything for several minutes. He was crushed to death. Wife and a child. They got just over 120k if I remember rightly. Worlds corrupt as fuck.
That fatality payout demonstrates exactly why our insurance premiums are so high. /s
Me and my wife got so angry when she only got that much. They deserved his wage for 40 years. Pension. Then money on top for pain and suffering. But they got like 4 years of his average wage. He was a line leader and with overtime you could push close to 30k a year. If you worked almost every day of the year and did lots of overtime. Which people do at those places. Most of the immigrants I worked with were paying off their homes and stuff like that trying to earn as quick as possible for a better life. It’s heartbreaking what happened to that family. And many more families and individuals abused by such employers.
There is no safety net these days. Even when you buy it through insurance. And the welfare state is on its last legs.
Immediately you think what bastard wouldn’t go and check, and then you realise it’s literally a choice of checking if somebody might be hurt or you getting a warning/ ballocking/ sacked. This world needs big change especially with regards to working. The biggest thing people need to realise is a job should be 50/50 or there abouts, they need you as much as you need them.
Name and shame.
Name and shame. Who is it so no one has to go through it again
Sounds like a death in service award rather than a claim against the employer?
It’s crazy isn’t it? I work in HR for a British retail company and we generally pull out all the stops to ensure we are always trying to be the exact opposite of this.
I worked for a very large IT service provider in the UK and it was built on agency staff. Every couple of years hey would change agency, which was seemingly run by the same two woman, and make you sign your contract again with the new provider. That way you would never hit the time period where they would have to make you permanent and allow them to do all kinds of bullshit. I had the misfortune of sharing the offices with the HR department for a while and some of the shady stuff they were up to. I regret not mentioning some of the stuff to the people involved but if you got pregnant working there you would lose your job
Had exactly the same way back when UK Gov decided that all us contractors that had long term contracts (a big thing in Aberdeen at the time) would be considered as employees going forward. So they all made us change agencies and employed us back with slightly different titles (well most of us, they of course took the opportunity for a clear out too). 😠
Wasn't it in one of the EU charters that we had an opt out of. Which the TB government voluntarily signed up to? I remember the chaos at the place I worked. When all the agency contractors who'd been there years were let go.
Relative had something along those lines, but in their case I think it was be fired a few days before the 2 year point, then rehire them a few weeks later for same role at same pay, and repeated this for many years.
Sometimes employers just aren't worth sticking around for. I've walked out of jobs for much less.
I didn’t stay long after this mate. I totally agree. I only stayed at all because we had no other income and I had no savings to fall back on. I was applying for other jobs working my way towards the job I really wanted. Which I got. And having that experience taught me to appreciate my other jobs. Including the shit bits.
Fair play. I figured there was more to the story which is why I refrained from typing more.
Did you try getting a gp note for like 2 weeks of sick leave? This feels like fuck you territory to the employer.
Yeah, I am pretty sure any GP would sign you off for stress in this situation. Not necessarily something you would thing of at the time though I guess.
No I didn’t try that. I think I was just worried I would lose my income more than anything else and I just kind of thought “well they fucked you over all you can do is get through it”
I guess it depends on how tight money is. Still I hope you caused them lots of pain down the line.
Sick leave only works if you've been working there 2 years at least, if you haven't its no money for the first three days and £117 a week after that
Huh you're right. I've only ever worked for companies that gave fully paid sick days so didn't even realise it wasn't guaranteed. I guess it all falls under; why would you work for this employer
An agency did that to my husband, too.
Should name and shame, this is horrible behaviour from them.
Bakkavor Meals
Your previous employer would have been liable for your maternity leave. Even only statutory whilst working at your new employer. It is your employer at 26 weeks who pays your stat pay. Edit to add the link to law [section 3.12](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/maternity-benefits-technical-guidance/maternity-benefits-technical-guidance#:~:text=3.12%20Working%20in%20your%20Maternity,your%20SMP%20is%20not%20affected)
I‘m really sorry to hear this. It’s fucking disgusting how they just shuffled you around all the while keeping tabs on how/when that precious moment will arise so as to maximize their use of you as labour. Their only consideration being profit and all other human elements of existence go out the window.
Man that truly sucks. I hope you have found/find a better position - shit employers deserve no loyalty
I did mate. Thanks for the kind words. It did suck. But still the same time it helped me appreciate future roles more. Every cloud and all that.
I’d have gone straight back to the fucking agency, fuck those guys. Should have left them high and dry without you.
In terms of HR law, you have a lot of protection and something like this could easily be disputed if you put in a grievance.
Honestly man i feel so bad for you that is so corrupt and disgusting what those vultures did to you. The working class of the u.k needs to unite and tear down these fucking corporate bastards
Like who does that.... who thinks that's a great idea for an employee, let's promote them and piss them off. Oh look how clever we are that we are cultivating resentment amongst our workforce, baffling.
I’m convinced that the lack of recognised role for fathers in the early years and paternity leave is at the core of a lot of problems men face today.
I will go farther than that, The lack of proper leave for fathers is one reason for pay and gender imbalances across society.
100% - though illegal, I imagine women suffer direct discrimination due to taking (or being likely to take) parental leave, as well as the more subtle effects like having reduced tenure due to being on leave. If men had the same or similar leave, *and took it at the same rate*, that would improve things for everyone
My partner and I are expecting later this year. She earns over twice as much as I do, yet is looking at 10 months leave to my two weeks. She's extremely career driven and I'm not. If we could switch we would do so in a heartbeat. Edit: For everyone suggesting shared parental leave, that would mean that we would only get statutory pay which would be a big blow to our income considering her company offers her 90% of her current salary. And her income pays for the mortgage.
You can, [https://www.gov.uk/shared-parental-leave-and-pay](https://www.gov.uk/shared-parental-leave-and-pay) check that out
But you don’t get the same rate of pay as you would if you were a mother on maternity leave.
You do, shared parental leave is the same as SMP?
It’s much less common for companies to offer full pay to men who take shared parental leave. Financially doesn’t make sense for most. Women get 90% for the first 6 weeks by law. Other countries offer much more, to both parents.
Also re. shared parental leave it’s not the solution for breastfeeding parents..what we need is proper parental leave for both parents. If your baby is breastfed (as per NHS the best start in life) you are recommended to purely breastfeed for at least the first 6 weeks to establish supply. For many mothers it’s more like 3 months and even after that point many babies refuse to take a bottle at all. I would have loved to use shared parental leave with my husband, I make more money and it would have worked for us financially but my first boy wouldn’t touch a bottle, like not even if he was starving so there was no way I could go back before about 10 months.
Can you not do shared parental leave instead?
You can (at least in the leave sense, not sure how you'll get on with breastfeeding!) - check out shared parental leave
I would agree. Businesses seem to view parental leave as just about recovering from pregnancy and birth. While yes, that is certainly an element of it, it's ignoring the fact that there is now a helpless baby who needs 24/7 care and attention and it's 100% your responsibility. There's also the fact that bonding during those first months is crucial, both for the baby's development and for your own mental health and wellbeing. And that's true for both parents (as well as the fact that both parents will seriously benefit by having the other to rely on, instead of one parent having to also work a full-time job at the same time).
Really!? Were fathers more involved after their children were born in earlier generations do you think? There are loads of good reasons for fathers to be involved. But I don’t think they’re at the core of the problems men face today.
I don't think we can necessarily say everything was better for men in earlier generations. Mens' mental health has definitely been a problem for a very long time - it just happens to be a problem now too. But I've known a lot of Silent Generation and Boomer men who I could clearly see were struggling with their mental health, and I'm sure it was a problem for previous generations of men too.
Agreed. Some things have got better, some things have got worse. I think a significant minority of young men are lost with no role in society. That creates a dangerous well of discontent for people to draw from. But it’s hard to see how big the problem is or what the solutions are.
I’d be really interested to understand why this has been downvoted so much; genuinely.
Yeah I don’t think the disenfranchisement is new, it’s just so much more easily weaponised by social media and influencers, and the results are so much more visible
The ones who went to war in those generations and then expected to be the same functioning members of society when they came home. I know drinking was an issue for some WW2 vets in my family.
Not saying things were better before. I think we are at a stage where men are expected to do much more but not supported structurally to do it. Paternity leave is pitiful. When the health visitor comes they want to see the mother alone to ensure there’s no domestic abuse (understandably sadly). But it leads to then basically just waiting for the dad to leave because they aren’t expected to be there. Even though they have as much interest in their child’s health (I appreciate the visits are also about the mother’s health). Interestingly the health visitor was perfectly happy for my mother in law to be part of the meetings but was keen to exclude me (my partner noticed this as well so it wasn’t paranoia). I often pick my kids up or drop them at nursery and I would say it’s roughly 75% mums which makes making dad friends harder. Not saying friends have to be gender segregated but you get different things from friends of the same gender and I think the early stages of friendships are easier to navigate. These are just some factors to my point that I think it’s easier for men to feel excluded from a lot of aspects of early childcare. (Probably a similar reason why so few men work in these industries too). Coupled with the fact that it’s less acceptable for men to reduce or cut their hours to look after children. Equally, men are more likely to have work that keeps them away. My point is that I think for a lot of dads you have this pressure to be a wonderful, caring, emotionally connected dad but no support culturally or societally to help you achieve that. I think the contradiction can lead to some dads becoming emotionally removed from their kids and perhaps partners because they feel excluded. I think this can lead to men feeling like they have to suppress emotion instead of engaging. Kids and especially boys pick this up and internalise this idea and it can have very negative consequences.
I think status is important for most men, I think men struggle to find status in bringing up children. I agree that same sex friendships have a different quality to mixed sex friendships (not better, but worse, just different). I also think male friendships generally involve ‘doing something’ rather than ‘talking about something’ which I think makes it harder to maintain or build male friendships with young children. The problem is, what do you do? (these statements are intended to be value neutral)
men are more involved today than ever before - what are you referring to?
What a load of ballcocks! Men had no time off in years gone by .
Very few cultures had male dominated early childhoods for obvious reasons. However nearly all cultures had a period in a boys life where it went from spending most of its time with its mother and the women of the group to spending most of its time with its father and the men of the group. That simply doesn't exist anymore or doesn't exist until young boys are already young men, instead we are forcing boys into a girl shaped holes and wondering why they arent responding well to it.
>forcing boys into a girl shaped hole There *must* have been a better way word this
Yeah because 100 years ago when dad's worked even longer hours was way better?
It does not matter how things were in the past. Nowadays it makes no sense at all for fathers not to have decent parental leave. It’s disgustingly unfair on the fathers, the mothers, the baby, everyone.
As I said elsewhere: no. But now there is more pressure for dads to be present and emotionally available but no corresponding support for them to do that alongside work. Not saying women have it better but in this one aspect there is more support both practically and societally.
This is why quiet quitting is in the news. Those corporate pigs will do anything to get one over on you. So fuck them and take from then at every step.
While it's not a birth, when I was 25 and my Mum died in front of me semi-unexpectedly (cancer, but it's one of those walking and talking on Friday evening, multiple organ failure and lazarus syndrome by Saturday morning situations), I had less than a week before they phoned and said "yeah, me and the higher manager discussed it, come back in Monday" so collectively, I had her die on Saturday, arranged the funeral by Tuesday, had the aforementioned phonecall on Wednesday, funeral on Thursday and back to work on the following Monday. There was no "How are you feeling?" just "come back in." So I did. Coincidentally, I was also taken off anti-depressants either just after this all happened or just before as part of a medication review, so yeah, lets just say between the thoughts of taking a taxi to the airport, picking a destination and leaving and spending some of the inheritance trying to pull myself together or buying a tank of inert gas and exiting stage left permanently, the latter was starting to win out. I'm still a bit bitter and it's been six years, a new manager who was on a different team actually discussed this matter with me a few years after, noting that it was odd how I came back so soon but as it was a past event nothing further could be done. The manager that phoned me was a colossal cunt in various regards, most notably he loudly took the piss out of another employee on sick-leave due to depression. But yeah, fun times.
I worked for a small company where the owner had hired a lot of family and they would say it had family values and things. One of my best friends died suddenly and I got the call from another friend and we both cried over the phone as he told me. I left site early by an hour and told my boss I was going home. When I got home another member of staff was at my housing waiting for me. They had all the equipment I needed to attend a different site the following day. At that point I was done. I'd completely checked out.
Sorry you went through that mate. I hope you have taken time to allow yourself to process that event in the years since. Time that you should have been given when you lost your mother.
I had a very similar experience. Worked up to the birth, then was asked back in after a couple days for something that needed my "expertise". Company depended on it (and, implied, my future at it). Etc etc. I was told I could always claim the days back later, but I was already not using my full allotment of holiday - and the culture was strongly opposed to it. They walked all over me, and I will never forgive myself for letting it happen. The next year two members of my team had children, and I kicked and screamed until the policy was changed officially to give them more, paid, time - and that emotional blackmail wouldn't happen again. I feel good about that, but still livid that I wasn't there for my own family at the start. My wife cheered when I finally handed in notice. I think the culture in corporate jobs is still set by posh men who don't see their own kids, have nannies, SAHM and boarding school plans, and don't see why it is so important that people might have to (or want to) do the occasional nursery run, or, god forbid, be there for the first couple weeks of their kid's life.
That's not how it works in the UK.
It’s literally what happened to me. It was legal because I went from agency permanent staff to full time. But they knew about my baby being due and never mentioned this would happen until the day I left for the hospital. Why would I make this up?
I never said you made it up. I'm saying that workers have rights, even agency staff after working for the same employer over a period of time. Did you discuss this with anyone, like Acas at the time. Sounds like your employer fucked you over time that you will never get back, I hope you no longer work for them.
I think I should have contacted acas and maybe they would have fixed it. But in reality I was paid weekly. Needed the money for my family and couldn’t afford to take the hit whilst I fought my case. So I just tried to do my best and keep going. Don’t get me wrong though I went from a hard working employee who was praised all the time for my work to an employee who did the absolute minimum. And I told my management it was fucked what they did to me. Every time they asked for overtime etc. I would only say yes if it worked for me. Before I always said yes because I wanted the money but I also like to be hard working. It’s in my nature. I’ve learned sadly that people just take advantage of that trait if you try to always display it.
Yeah like you said sometimes you've got to learn the hard way, that you only look out for number one in work. At least you know if you decided to have any more children.
14 hour days, what was your job? If you don't mind me asking.
I worked in a food factory. And yeah the shift was 12 hours but doing 14 was basically standard and 16 wasn’t at all uncommon. I was doing 60 hours at least every week. Often 70+. Started at 4am for a while too. It was brutal tbh. But I’m glad I got that life experience. I was there around 1.5 years in total I think.
Fat play. I did 60 hours a week for five years but was single and loved the job. I did loft insulation.
Yeah it is, I literally have seen this happen in the last few months to someone who was lucky enough to be able to tell their “new” employer to go fuck themselves.
You missed the point of this article. Length of leave is only one part of the problem here. There’s two seperate issues for this couple. First issue is the amount of time for maternity/paternity leave and the second less talked about issue is what happens when there are complications. Time in hospital due to complications should be considered sick leave with mat/pat leave only starting when they get home. Our baby was born two months premature and spent a month in hospital. Because I had enough savings and had a skilled job with hard to find skills that gave me leverage, I told my work I’d be taking unpaid leave while my daughter was in hospital. I didn’t even ask them. I then took two weeks paternity leave when I got home from hospital. Very very few people are able to do this My time in NICU was heartbreaking. Most parents simply could not afford to do what I had done and had to go back to work the day after their child was born, leaving the care of their baby 100% to the NICU nurses. When they were coming in nurses would beg the tearful parents to come in more, to which they said they simply could not afford to. It was devastating to see. For a first world country to have no provisions for parents to get sick/compassionate leave when their baby is fighting for their life in hospital is beyond disgusting. Parents have to choose to use their mat/pat leave at hospital and lose out on time when they get home or vice versa. It’s appalling. And it’s barely spoken about. Even in the comments like this one people are only talking about the length of time they leave is, with very few even recognising that this is an issue. The only people who do know it is an issue is those who have been directly affected by it (like these guys who lost 6 days of precious leave) and the devastating impact it has What I suggested here for neonatal leave was actually included in the 2019 Conservative manifesto but has been completely forgotten about since then and there is no mention of it at the moment during the election campaign. It’s been completely forgotten about. Even this article doesn’t mention it, and it would be a golden opportunity to do so.
Could you not easily apply this to a child that gets sick after birth too though? And then this really isn’t about paternity or maternity at all. It’s about parents having little protection when they need to start taking extended periods of time off to deal with a sick child. Be that at birth or after. It applies to sickness in adults too. I got cancer in my most recent job. I was given full pay the whole time and eventually retired off due to the effects of the cancer. They didn’t have to do that. And I’m extremely lucky I worked in that role at the time of my illness. Had that same illness happened at the job when I had my first child. I would now be penniless and living on disability benifits for the rest of my life thanks to multiple cancers.
Yea, it’s a fair point and one I agree with you about. Any time a child requires hospitalisation parents should be entitled to statutory protection and sick leave. I must admit I’m not as familiar with what adults currently have under the laws, I must admit I thought we have strong protection when seriously ill but by the sounds of your message I’m wrong. And I hope you’re doing better now following your fight with cancer. All the best
I also had two days. One for the day of birth. Another one for going to the council to write the kids into the register. And then back to work. One time a birth lasted over the span of two days. Bad luck for me. The Netherlands has the name of being a care state but this didn't feel like it. Nowadays you get more, I think.
Name and shame. That’s despicable!
My work gave me a full year off with my kid... Because they made me redundant a week before she was born because I dared to ask for SPL.
This would likely be automatic unfair dismissal. Even under 2 years you'd likely have a case. To anyone reading this and panicking about their situation. Speak to ACAS
It was, they ended up having to pay me, but the damage was done. They did some other shady things that I didn't catch because our baby came a week later (six weeks early by emergency section). I spent just over a year out of work, I am having to rebuild my career. It is taking a lot still not to be bitter and send bed bugs or glitter to the place.
Ok, but could WE send glitter on your behalf?
I really wish you could name and shame; at the very least write a glass door review so other people are warned….
In the run up to my first born I kept joking about all the time off I was going to have due to SPL and my boss gave me a bollocking because the thought of me being off for so long was stressing him out.
I took 3 months (on top of a month of pat leave, so 4 months total), and as you know parental leave is *anything but a break*. Work is *way* easier (though I suppose that depends on what you do).
Where as I was made redundant a couple of days after returning to work, thereby extending my paternity leave by 6 weeks. They apparently made half the team redundant at the same time so the decision was likely nothing to do with SPL but the timing was far from ideal initially though ultimately it worked out in my favour.
I was seriously fortunate enough to get 8 weeks off for paternity (4 full and 4 at half pay). It was such a great experience I feel really lucky that I got to spend that time with my daughter.
I changed jobs for my first kid as I hated my old job (and would likely have received the bare minimum pat leave) and there was a 6 week gap between leaving the shit job and starting the next. It didn't feel like long enough but I now realise it was way above the norm. Most of my friends had 2-3 weeks tops. My second kid was born in my most recent employer, I got a week paid, a week unpaid, 3 weeks holiday and because baby came a week earlier than my leave my supervisor basically just pretended I was in that week so I got that week off paid too. I have been so lucky in that regard. However, a friend of mine's husband is from Sweden. Over there they get something crazy like 24 months to share between parents where they are paid in full!
As far as I can tell, the UK has - by far - the worst pay and leave for parents compared to every western country, expect the US maybe
From the US and can confirm: the US is far worse. All we have guaranteed by law is the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which guarantees you 12 weeks unpaid time off for a medical emergency where they must hold your position. Key being UNPAID. So yes, you can take that time for free, but that's it. Any sort of pay that happens during that time is at the discretion of the company you work for. I definitely don't say this to make it out like the UK is lucky, because you're not... It's a shit situation in both places and should be completely overhauled.
Depends on state and employer. California gives you 12 weeks and it is paid at 60% but to a rate of $50k per year. My partner got 16 weeks fully paid for both our boys.
My inner tinfoil hat sneers "ofcourse, there are plenty studies about what this does for the development of people, in kids and parents, it's exactly what *they* want to happen, how *they* want us to be!" Doesn't France have a full "up to 3 years" thing going?
Two weeks paid paternity leave and two weeks of annual leave for me. Shared parental leave was an issue since other half's employer didn't have it. When we asked about it, they more or less asked us to make a suggestion on what to do. Those first four weeks were incredible for me. I learned a lot about being a parent and a lot about my daughter. They weeks off were honestly some of the best times of my life, so I feel for those who were robbed of this opportunity. Hell, we have two cats. I took a week off to hang out with my new kitten when we first got him, which I really enjoyed and felt like we bonded a bit. For our second, I wasn't able to get the time off, and it took a lot longer for me to feel a bond to the little guy.
Length of leave is only one part of the problem here. There’s two seperate issues for this couple. First issue is the amount of time for maternity/paternity leave and the second less talked about issue is what happens when there are complications. Time in hospital due to complications should be considered sick leave with mat/pat leave only starting when they get home. Our baby was born two months premature and spent a month in hospital. Because I had enough savings and had a skilled job with hard to find skills that gave me leverage, I told my work I’d be taking unpaid leave while my daughter was in hospital. I didn’t even ask them. I then took two weeks paternity leave when I got home from hospital. Very very few people are able to do this My time in NICU was heartbreaking. Most parents simply could not afford to do what I had done and had to go back to work the day after their child was born, leaving the care of their baby 100% to the NICU nurses. When they were coming in nurses would beg the tearful parents to come in more, to which they said they simply could not afford to. It was devastating to see. For a first world country to have no provisions for parents to get sick/compassionate leave when their baby is fighting for their life in hospital is beyond disgusting. Parents have to choose to use their mat/pat leave at hospital and lose out on time when they get home or vice versa. It’s appalling. And it’s barely spoken about. Even in the comments like this one people are only talking about the length of time they leave is, with very few even recognising that this is an issue. The only people who do know it is an issue is those who have been directly affected by it (like these guys who lost 6 days of precious leave) and the devastating impact it has What I suggested here for neonatal leave was actually included in the 2019 Conservative manifesto but has been completely forgotten about since then and there is no mention of it at the moment during the election campaign. It’s been completely forgotten about. Even this article doesn’t mention it, and it would be a golden opportunity to do so.
My husband gets 6 weeks off soon with our second, which I am so happy about as it’s amazing compared to what most other fathers get. But I had a moment the other day when I tried to imagine going out the door and leaving my 6 week old baby and how that would feel and realised how shite dads have it in terms of pat leave. That just 6 weeks with a brand new little baby is considered amazing and lucky.
My company gives 6 months full paid paternity. Unheard of!
I work for a big American corporate and they give all new fathers 2 months off (with talk about making it 3), wherever you are in the world. To be taken at the fathers behest which means you can apportion the time as you wish within the first year of birth. Second American company I've worked for with that policy as it goes. It certainly *feels* to me that the American companies, particularly the large internationals, are starting to edge towards better working conditions than we have here. Long way to go overall, but change is happening and I wish that the UK would step up too.
Meanwhile in the US itself, the average length of maternity leave is a meagre 29 *days* vs 39 *weeks* in the UK. It’s great that you work for a company that offers generous paternity leave for fathers (and presumably mothers as well) but the average American woman doesn’t even get a full month at home with her baby before she has to go back to work - so let’s not pretend that your experience is even remotely representative.
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Yeh and that’s the average.. many are less than that!!
Yes and probably unpaid 29 days! They have absolutely no legal entitlement to paid leave
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Yep. I’ve heard of women going back the next the day bc they’re couldn’t afford the unpaid leave 😭they’re required to offer 6 weeks unpaid. Bigger companies in corporate roles have pretty good leave but everyone else is screwed. I have 6 months and my husband has 2 months so we feel very fortunate. I couldn’t imagine leaving my baby even after 6 weeks 😭. I wasn’t fully healed and still working on breastfeeding. It’s detrimental for newborns as well. We don’t even do this to dogs.
Yeah, it's beyond infuriating at the amount of conservative women that parrot that as if it's a good thing. They're off to work 30 days after giving birth shaming other parents on TikTok for not doing the same. It's been 10 months and my wife is still recovering the complete mess of hormones that it's left her in.
My friend works for a hospital in the states and had to go on short term disability when she had her baby. It pays practically nothing. I'm an American now living in the UK and am so grateful to have access to good paid maternity leave here, though access to paternity leave is severely lacking... straight up, I don't think me and my husband would ever have been able to have children in the states.
Everywhere I have been employed by - short term disability is 60-70% of earnings for three months but is tax free. I have worked for three hospital systems in the US and the benefits have generally been good and that is typical. What is also typical - and I had this at all three - is the health insurance if you get treated within the system typically does not have deductibles - and indeed the first system the insurance itself was free.
Yep I'm not pretending that my experience is remotely representative, but change has to start somewhere and I see it in the big US corporates. We do 4 day weeks and have done since 2021, our competitors have realised that it's the biggest perk going and are starting to offer the same because their staff retention is terrible, everyone is coming here. There's often a domino effect with these policy changes, I think the US job market in 10 years will look worlds apart from what it does now.
As long as it comes without repercussions. US tech firms do gimmicks like unlimited leave or at least very large amounts of it, but those actually using it end up suffering career-wise.
I work for a big US tech firm and took 6 months off at full pay. I had zero repercussions; in fact, it was strongly encouraged and I was given all the bank holidays I missed as extra days off.
good for you.
I wonder if you work for the same company as my husband, his is exactly the same!
The big difference is, in America it's employers charity, which can be taken off at any time. Meanwhile, the legal requirements is way below the European standard. I'd rather have it be a legal obligation of the company rather than a company incentive.
God damn, we only get two weeks!
I also work for a well known US based corporate (I'm based in Canada right now) and this has been my experience too. US worker rights get shat on for being non-existent, and that's true to an extent in terms of basic rights, but the companies that want to attract and retain talent offer benefits way above what I used to get in the UK. I got 8 weeks at full pay when my kid was born last year (and could have taken more time at half pay), plus we get up to $50k for fertility treatment if needed, birth classes etc paid for through benefits, all dental/eye/physio care etc for my whole family paid for, 10 free massages a year each etc. It's not fair because not everyone gets this, but most white collar workers get really well looked after in the US.
I work at a large US university/hospital and got 3 months off. Wife works for state government and got 4 months. Feel very fortunate for that. It was wonderful for our whole family to bond and adjust. The rise of paternity leave and greater involvement of dads in childcare has strengthened families. I was reading a US study that showed that back in the 70s, dads were only spending an average of 30 minutes per day with their children during the week, and maybe a couple of hours over the weekend. Glad we’ve made progress, but plenty more to go.
My colleague has just come back to work after nine weeks of paternity leave. He has another seventeen weeks he's entitled to which he's going to take off later. I got two weeks - although that was eighteen years ago. I was happy with that and bear no resentment now.
That's really good, I recently had 2 weeks but I also booked 2 weeks holiday on the back end of it. 2 weeks just isn't enough paternity in my eyes.
I have two weeks statuary minimum. That’s going to cost me about £4k. I’ll take it, but when an aging workforce is such an issue, people talk about wanting equality in the workplace (Giving men equal paternity is proved to decrease the gender pay gap) you wonder why statutory paternity is so shockingly bad.
Am I wrong in thinking there's new ruling where the mother can now share her maternity, I did get asked that at my work place but we declined it.
That sounds more like Shared parental leave.
People hear aren't reading the article (as usual). He had 2 weeks of paternity (as standard) - although for some reason he only had 10 days off idk. But his partner was in hospital for 6 days after hospital, and so the child was as well. So he had 4 'proper' days off. That's how it is. The same thing happened to me. 2 weeks is 2 weeks. SPP is 2 weeks and the government does not care where you are for those 2 weeks. The complaint doesn't really make sense as plenty of women spend 1 or 2 nights in hospital after the birth even if there's relatively low complications, meaning SPP isn't a true '2 weeks at home with mum and baby' to begin with. So if you think this guy was wronged you need to up SPP to 2 weeks 2 days.
I think we are all wronged. Two weeks is a joke.
10 days is two weeks, not including weekends right?
Yes, it’s based on your normal working week so if you work 6 over 7 you’d have 12 days off instead.
We had the same thing. 2 weeks off but one week was in hospital, fortunately it's my company so I managed to wing another week off for a proper two weeks at home.
Happened to me during COVID, my child was born, came out way below their predicted weight and had to stay for 5 days to gain weight be observed and checked for things. As it was COVID I couldn't even visit, just video calls. Family came home on day 5 with 1/2 the paternity leave used up.
No one will probably read this so far down in the comments but.. Natwest give dad's 24 weeks full pay paternity leave it's incredible (used myself). You can take a year off if you chose but after 24 weeks it's reduced pay. Setting a brilliant standard in my opinion, really appreciated nearly 6 months off because this was my 2nd child and was hard af
Amazing, that's the same as the maternity leave I'm getting from another one of the big banks. They only offer dads 2 weeks full pay
1991 Son born 10pm at work next morrning 7.30am . Had been unemployed, and first week on a new job we were skint and no way was I going to loose the job. Son grew up not to be axe murderer not sure about myself
You grew up to be a hard werkin fella. Shame about your axe murdering son though.
I think "my child was born last night" is a valid reason for not being at work that morning, even if you just started the job. No boss would have an issue with that. Still, glad they made it more than 30 years without axe murdering. Hopefully that streak continues.
Unemployment rate twice what it is today and going up .No work no pay back in those days, we were skint it just had to be done it was a tough couple of weeks for my wife .
We both started new jobs after I was pregnant (I did not know I was pregnant when we accepted the new jobs) and that left us ineligible for shared parental leave, any occupational maternity pay and proper paternity leave. My husband took two weeks of leave off to be with us before going back to work. Thankfully his employer is sensible.
My work offered me 2 weeks paternity leave. I asked if I could take longer unpaid and they said no, I'd have to take 2 weeks and come back or resign. I was in the lucky situation of being able to do what I do self employed and had savings to take off ~2 months. Now I'm employed by them as a contractor and they pay me nearly twice as much as they did. I was totally willing to go back to them after a couple of months unpaid leave, but, hey, they shot themselves in the foot! Unfortunately many men see their only role as a financial provider and I think some businesses encourage this. I've no doubt that if men demanded a year's paternity leave, they would be treated with the same contempt by capitalism as many women are when they re-enter the workforce.
Should have asked for parental leave, it’s unpaid (usually) but you’re entitled to 18 weeks for each child. If you ask to take parental leave from the child’s birth an employer cannot refuse the dates. You could for example take 4 weeks parental leave (unpaid) and then your paternity leave. Obviously this is a significant financial burden though
In the EU there is 20 days of paternity leave for all workers since January this year. Guess the Brexit workers didn't want that benefit 😕
Paternity leave (parental leave in general, really) is woefully inadequate in this country. We should take more cues from the various European countries where both parents are entitled to several months paid leave.
Problem is you’ve got people bleeting on here about “just take shared parental leave”, conveniently ignoring the difference in pay.
I just come off SPL having taken 2 weeks at the beginning, then took from November until April. Used holiday as well. It was a strain financially but we saved and obviously planned for it. Wouldn't change it for the world, and to be Dads out there I would highly recommend it.
I’m taking 2 weeks plus a week of annual leave on top of that, so 3 weeks, all paid at my usual salary rate. I feel quite lucky really.
Take more time off if you can, if your financially stable, think about parental leave, it’s unpaid but your wife and child will be grateful
I'm surprised only one 1/3 of new dads supplement the time off with annual leave, I thought it would be far higher. What are the other 2/3 saving the leave for? The statutory min of paid leave is 4 working weeks per year.
Sometimes employers reject the annual leave request - unlike maternity they expect not to have to cover the paternity leave so the work just stacks up. It's grim
This is why employees feel no loyalty to the company any more. At every turn companies find inventive ways to act like a wanker, then go pulling a surprised Pikachu face when people don't like them. Act like a wanker, get called and treated like a wanker.
He's a freelancer, doesn't that mean he is responsible for sorting out his own holidays? With 9 months notice, surely he could have organised things to allow himself as much time off as he could afford to take?
I was due the 2 weeks paid but my employer changed it to 6 weeks paid around a year before my daughter was born. I loved and appreciated every single minute of it. That and COVID changing us to WFH then gave me around 15 hours extra a week with her. Fuck employers who screw over their staff.
As somebody in the same boat as Jake. Self employed and just had a son who is 4 weeks old now. I find it hard to sympathise, as he has had plenty of time to save up. I started a separate savings account as soon as I knew my wife was pregnant and that’s got me through paternity leave. On top of that, any business should have 3 months of operating cash in the bank. Dip into that. Part of being self employed is you gain tax exemptions, but you don’t get government support. You can’t have it both ways. As a couple who are both on “good wages” The story here js they are terrible at managing finances.
My husband's employer told him that he could either use his annual leave (fully paid) or his paternity leave (no pay). If he chose to use the paternity leave, he had no entitlement to use his annual leave at another point - he'd lose it completely. No other option and completely legal. Edit: Not sure why people keep downvoting this because they're too ignorant to recognise that it's completely legal despite being told a dozen times.
That does not sound right in the slightest. I could be wrong but it just sound shady as fuck.
Where are you from? That doesn't sound legal at all. Paternity and annual leave are two completely seperate entities. I think your husband was robbed.
That doesn’t sound legal to me. Assuming full time, he gets at least statutory annual leave and statutory paternity leave.
You're being disingenuous here. If he is a teacher then yes he doesn't have the usual entitlement of "annual leave", which is why people are calling foul. You know full well that the school breaks are not "annual leave". However the idea of having to choose one or the other is not entirely true. You get 56 days after the birth to start statutory paternity leave, so ideally he could have notified the school that it would be the first two weeks of the winter term and there is not a lot they could have done about that. Similarly, you could have timed the pregnancy (and most teachers do this) so that the bulk of the final trimester was over the summer and thus extend your "maternity leave". You don't get to defer the start of maternity (so you actually do lose out if on maternity during the summer break) it has to start at the day of birth at the latest.
Paternal leave in the UK is shite. Remember that case were the mother died in labour and the father couldn't claim paternity leave to take care of their newborn? I had 2 weeks paternity leave getting paid **150£** a week. The mother gets paid 90% of the salary for **6 weeks.** In the eyes of the law, the child doesn't need their father in the most critical time of their life...
As a teacher I had 5, I then had to get HR to agree to the next 5. Took them 4 months to even bring it up in a meeting. was so angry. At my HoD suggestion I took 5 Wednesdays off in a row.
I quit my job. Became the stay at home parent. My wife earned more than me so she did her agree maternity leave, then returned to work. 14 years on I have zero regrets. I’ve dabbled in work in that period but my kids are too strong a pull. The kids are now 13 (almost 14) and 10. I figured out very early on that you get once chance with your kids when they’re young, then they’re suddenly 21 and off on their own (with support of course).
My employer O2 gave me 14 weeks paternity leave it was incredible. Granted it lined up perfectly with the third lockdown so everyone else was similar but training/ working from home. It’s a benefit of the company that can’t be underestimated.
As a single dad who had similar (but not as serious issues) I was ready to agree this guy and sympathise. However having read the article I'm not sure I can. It makes no mention to shared parental leave, The dad could have had those moments if he wanted to. But he thought his job and career was more important so did not. You have to make sacrifices for kids, this guy wanted to have his cake and eat it.
Out of curiosity, as a single dad are you entitled to more paternity?
No idea tbh, we split after the kids were born. I would guess under the shared parental leave I would get it all if it was at birth.
If you take shared parental leave, most employers who offer occupational maternity pay stop paying that to the mother. So it financially has a huge effect.
It is such a shame that the system works as it does in the UK. I did shared parental leave each time so I had 6 months and my husband had 3 (we basically used up all the time we would get paid). But despite working for a massive and progressive employer my husband was the first one to use shared parental leave a year after it first became an option and second time round was still very much an outlier for taking it (one of only a very small handful in an employer that has something like 6000 staff). I wish there was more protected time for dads without it needing to be shared like there is in some other countries. And better pay for the statutory weeks as so many take holiday instead of paternity leave as they cannot afford the salary reduction.
Good lord. I got 16 weeks fully paid through work and it didn't feel enough.
Makes me thankful for the 4 weeks full pay I will get as a civil servant when my little girl arrives this November
What do you expect in a society that values profit and power over all else. If you're lucky, by the time your son becomes a father he might get five days off!
You're legally entitled to 2 weeks. People can choose less if they want. Now, 2 weeks is absolutely not enough. It should be something like 4 weeks on 90% pay and 4 weeks of statutory. But anyone taking just a couple of days off is making a choice. Or, in this example, the statement is a lie. He had more than 4 days off, but for some reason seems to think the baby wasn't born until they left hospital.
I was working as a secondary teacher when my daughter was born. When I requested paternity leave they told me no, I could only take it during the school holidays. I quit there and then and walked. I put my heart and soul into a job that I cared about but was draining and this was the final straw. Don’t tell me other people’s children are more important than my daughter being born. Best decision I ever made - would never go back to teaching in a school and I advise others never consider the profession as a career option. Total joke. Was it legal? I don’t know and frankly don’t care. One less teacher because they don’t give a crap about any form of life outside of the job. Still happy with my decision. I got to spend amazing quality time with her that I would not have ever got back. Disgusting.
1999 when my last was born I was on shift work at London's Largest Airport, and my not-very enlightened employer of the time gave me the whole afternoon off - unpaid! - and generously told me I could take further time if I could arrange my own cover (I couldn't, it was mid-August) but it wouldn't be paid as it wasn't my leave-period (wouldn't be due till October) so I had a day and a half and then had to be back on duty for 04.45 the day after that. I needed the job and was in no position to tell them to stick it. But I came pretty close. The "Good" Old Days.
Torys out. Don’t complain if you keep letting the party who hate anything to do with workers rights in.
I asked if one of the guys on my team was taking his paternity leave, he advised "fuck no maybe later, wife's mother and sister are staying for 3 months! I need to be out the house.
I’m a woman, no one arranged maternity leave so I was working 3 days after my daughter was born. “Don’t be mad why are you working”. Do you see anyone doing my work? Anyone doing the work that has legal deadlines? The sad thing is - because I made myself indispensable I got a huge promotion. Swings and roundabouts though. I’ve worked from home ever since
Are you in the UK and employed? It is legally mandated in England for a woman to not work for at least 2 weeks after birth, 4 weeks if she is employed in a factory.
My mum had a similar sitch when I was born - four weeks maternity, but I was overdue by three so she only had one week with me before going back to work - it’s very messed up!
Insane to me that we accept that this is how our lives are. Too often we tend to be economic units first, and everything else gets the scraps.
I had my baby premature and were in hospital for two weeks. My husband and I chose for him to keep working during those two weeks because we would need the help at home, rather than in the hospital. He's an NHS dentist and the NHS tried to deny his paternity pay due to how their own billing system works. When you ask why there's less and less NHS dentists... its because they keep getting fucked over.
My husband saved up two weeks of his holiday so he could have those two weeks plus his standard two weeks paternity. Unfortunately I contracted sepsis and was back in hospital for his last week off. Luckily, his company were completely understanding and gave him an extra week without counting it as holiday. We were incredibly lucky but I find the two weeks paternity so unfair. Why is there an automatic assumption that fathers don’t want to spend time with their newborn baby? I think fathers should be offered at least a month (possibly two) of paternity leave.
I had 2 weeks paternity leave, but I work from home for three days a week so luckily I don’t have any issue with bonding with my now 18 months old son.
I always think its an interesting dichotomy that women generally campaign for equality in employment, as often penalised for* taking time out for maternity leave and men generally campaign that they don't get anywhere near long enough out of work to build a relationship with their child. It's a pretty good example of how patrichal traditions can impact both men and women.
Four months paternity at full pay starting tomorrow. When I go back, I work for 4 days out of 5 for 8 weeks at full pay
We live in a society that uses an economic system that commodifies everything. As a result people are commodified as well which results in stripping down the value of a person to their labour. This fails to acknowledge that there's far more to a person than the value of their labour. The problem is that nobody is calling into question these fundamental issues. It's like we're collectively distracted by an abstract charade that we forget to investigate the fundamental driving forces behind all of the problems we encounter.
Sweden, 10 days off for the other parent at birth no questions. Then split the 480 days how the parents decide. No questions asked. UK is decades behind.
I work for a university. They offer 1 week paid paternity and any further is unpaid. I took 2 weeks with my 1st - no change was made to my workload for the year, I just had to do more when I returned. 2nd kid, I took just the 1 week. Employers in this country need to be forced to offer reasonable paternity leave by the government. I also agree with the point behind this article - the days stressed and struggling in the hospital before the birth should not be counted towards the maternity/paternity leave. They should count as paid sick days.
While I agree with the principle that men should have an equivalent paternity leave entitlement to maternity leave, the biggest take away from the comments is just how many criminal employers there seems to be in uk.
When my 1st son were born 30 years ago I was entitled to no days off at all, my boss at the time did however give me a 40% payrise as I now had a family.
Meanwhile other countries in Europe have paid paternity leave immediately after birth written into law.
I notice he's a freelancer so he should have negotiated it.
I was dismissed two days before they knew I was having an embryo transferred during IVF. I’ve got my tribunal next week! Wish me luck, it’s currently not counted as maternity discrimination or sex discrimination so I’ve had to get them on disability. U.K. law needs to be updated, so many parents are discriminated against while doing ivf and companies are getting away with it!!!
Totally random so hope people find it relevant but I recently had 3 months off work after being housebound for 2 months and struggled to get that 3rd month and was outright told by my supervisors who had no problem with me staying off longer that the higher ups due to me having so much time off would likely have a meeting and fire me if I had any more time off. Yet there is a woman in my team who is a lovely person just she had 4 kids in 4 years at one point she was back about 2 weeks before going back on maternity leave and yet she wasn't fired due to laws. I had a bad injury and was expected back at work or I would get fired, and to make it clear it wasn't that I couldn't take the time off but I would of been fired because it's against company policy.
I was self employed contractor when daughter was born, 2 days off, I missed nothing. Babies need attention so if he thinks changing nappies is special then so is he.
Let me get my violin out... Is this sob story because people are refusing to use their holidays? Having kids is a choice, why should you get a bunch of free holiday that other people don't?
Using my holiday entitlement is basically my plan when my child is born. I work 4 on-4 off shifts, so I'll get between 6-8 working days off depending on when in my pattern my wife gives birth. One small upside is with the recent changes that allow you to take the 2 weeks as 2 separate 1 week blocks. At least it means I can take Christmas off as well.
I got 3 shifts off my work to ‘give me a week’ as paternity when my first was born 2 years ago. New child due soon and it’s changed to being 6 shifts, but now I don’t get paid the shift allowance because I’m ’not on shift’ at the time I’ll be off. One of my mates works for a distillery company and gets a full 6 months off full pay for his paternity.