Deputy PM Nick Clegg will be delighted to finally have some good publicity under his belt after announcing plans to reform the parental leave system by 2015. Under the current system, which harks back to the dark ages before equality legislation existed, fathers are entitled to two weeks of paid paternity leave whilst female employees can expect up to a year of paid maternity leave. Clegg intends to implement a new, more flexible system of shared parental leave where parents can decide between them who returns to work and who takes the additional leave.
At last! Recognition by the state that not all women want to spend the year after childbirth making play dough figurines and self-medicating in the loo whilst their burly husbands swagger home with the pay check. What’s the point of having equality laws in the workplace when we reinforce gender stereotypes with archaic and imbalanced legislation on parental leave? Once a baby no longer needs to be breast-fed parents should be able to decide who takes the additional leave with no further input from the government. It is not emasculating for fathers to relish the opportunity to bond with their newborns, nor is it shameful for mothers to feel grateful and relieved when they re-enter the workplace after a demanding spell at home with a new baby.
It is a crying shame that men have been virtually banished from baby care, sent trundling off into the wilderness to haul back great hunks of bleeding meat to their needy brood whilst the mother furnishes the young with the emotional nourishment that apparently only a mother can provide. It is an, albeit rare, example of reverse discrimination, the assumption that only women, with their engrained qualities of compassion, empathy, warmth and the much lauded ‘mothering instinct’ can adequately care for our young. Is there no such thing as a fathering instinct then? Are men intrinsically less capable of rearing children than women?
Just as women have suffered years of discrimination in the workplace, so men have suffered years of discrimination in the home, portrayed by the media bumbling round the kitchen all fingers and thumbs whilst their irate wives whip the back of their legs with a dishcloth and moan about the unequal share of housework. Not that I am excusing the certain proportion of men for whom wild horses couldn’t drag them to the washing machine, and who need a good kick up the behind (metaphorical of course, LML does not condone domestic violence) but newsflash! Men can load dishwashers and change nappies too if given the opportunity.
The reforms outlined by Clegg are a success for many reasons. They are a success because, at long last, they recognise the implicit discrimination against men and women when it comes to childcare and attempt to redress the balance. They are a success because they potentially give thousands of children the opportunity to spend time with their fathers during their formative years, forming close-knit bonds that will last a lifetime. They are a success because employers won’t know in advance whether a mother or father will take parental leave, and therefore won’t be able to discriminate against women of a child-bearing age when recruiting for jobs.
Finally, they are a success because they don’t subtly promote one way of living over another as the existing parental leave structure does. Instead they give parents the choice to find a system that works best for them. Some parents will stick with the status quo, others will go for a complete role reversal whilst I suspect the majority of us will find somewhere in between the two.
In a society that has become increasingly proscriptive – drink plenty of water, but not too much! Breast-feed your children, but not for too long! Eat fish, it’s good for the heart! Stop eating fish, our oceans are empty! – it is a pleasure to be given a choice in something for once.
Three cheers for choice – and for Clegg.
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