Flexible parental leave: The key to having it all?

I definitely agree that there needs to be more respect for parenting, done by both parents rather than just the one, (if there are two parents around). I'm not clear how this works given that the paternity leave for men is 2 weeks, and yet it says above that the 'remaining 50 weeks could be shared' between both parents. How does that work? Although it will probably be slow to take effect, legislation like this pushes the discussion in the right direction and makes more archaic practices and assumptions less acceptable. Like the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975, it wasn't welcomed with open arms and wasn't put into practice immediately, but it certainly changed opinions and work ethics over the long term. (Not that we're all the way there yet.)

I think it's a step in the right direction but it will probably be a while before men will feel like they are able to take any of this leave. As others have pointed out, this hopefully will help fight some of the arguments against pay and promotion equality.

However, I don't think change will come overnight. For example, the rights for parental leave for kids (illness etc) are the same for men and women but how often are men off rather than women? A guy who worked for me was off when his son was ill in my old employer. My boss, the MD said "Where's Andy?" (I've changed his name) I explained and the boss replied with "Well what's his wife doing? Why isn't she looking after him?"

That said, if promotion prospects for women improve if more women are the main wage earner, it might change.

In summary in my view, a good thing, a step in the right direction but not a magic bullet for all causes of inequality in the workplace.

A few details need to be worked out too. I know some maternity leave schemes are more generous than others so it might even be worth the major breadwinner to be off for some of it! I'm sure employers have some details to work out...

Well said. We still have a long way to go.

I completely support the offer of choice for maternity/paternity leave, and understand why it might seem that doing this is potentially breaking down the male/female barrier in the workplace. I also like the idea of both parents being able to take leave at the same time. But.. Couldn't this actually backfire with employers expecting women should be able to come back to work after a few weeks when they aren't ready, maybe (just maybe - I know that the feminists out there might shoot me down) most women really want to take longer off with their babies. It suggests that women should be ready to work after two weeks and isn't that trivialising the physical and emotional experience of childbirth.

Like Laura said, I think it's more important that they re-think flexible working so that mothers can go back to work and can thrive in the workplace at the same time.

My OH wouldn't have considered taking time off, he's a self employed farmer so didn't take any specific time off at all. Luckily I had my mum around, and a company that assumed I'd be taking the full year (it ended up being 11 months, 12 with my holiday on the end). In theory it's a great idea (especially for families where the woman earns more and is the main breadwinner so needs to go back over the man), but in practice I think it's going to make admin and payroll etc extremely complicated for companies, let alone the government for tax purposes. Ok, if the couple work in the same company, but different companies - given lots of companies struggle to get things right for one employee for a set amount of time, there's a lot more room for error and confusion for employee and employer with this option. I think more flexibility on an everyday basis is more workable for more people - and maybe more work supported childcare would be advisable.