As you read a while ago in the blog, the political party Podemos was unchecked yesterday in terms of conciliation with a declaration of intentions: if they govern, parents will have 16 weeks of parental leave to match women. That is, both the mother and the father can enjoy 16 weeks receiving 100% of their salary.
As we have commented, they have opened the ban by proposing a measure that other political parties have been weighing for a while, but that no one had yet decided to propose. How do i know Because a few months ago I received a call from a deputy asking for an opinion about the measure in question.
The opinion that I offered him is the same one that I offer you here today and so it is your turn to speak to you parents and to you mothers, so that you also tell us what you think about it. Is the parental leave of 16 weeks to match the man with the woman, is it a benefit or a harm?
To match the woman with the man
As I have written the title it seems that the measure that has been chosen from Podemos is intended for the benefit of men. Poor us, we only had 2 weeks to take care of our baby and our wife, who just gave birth, and so we can spend much more time with both of us, trying to get our baby and our family forward.
However, it is not so. It is not to match the man with the woman, but the opposite, the measure is designed to match women with men. Having a baby, being a mother and taking a 16-week leave is something that, unfortunately, harms women. I shouldn't, I know, I agree, but it hurts her because she puts her at a disadvantage in a voracious, atrocious and feeling-free labor market. Fuck, if we can even hear a woman say that it is better to hire children under 25 and over 45 because if they get pregnant it is a problem. And if a woman does not say it, the big companies, like Apple and Facebook, tell you that they pay their workers the freezing of eggs so that they are not mothers when they should be.
Well, this measure is intended to ensure that women are not disadvantaged with respect to men but, in any case, that neither of them is disadvantaged, or that both are directly disadvantaged (now men and women will appear who in job interviews they will explain that they will not have any children). It is not the definitive measure, of course, because culturally women will continue to be seen as the mother, the one to call in case the child gets bad in school or does it look the same that a man asks to leave his post to go find your sick son when a woman asks for it, but it would be an important step for equality and an advantage for women in two ways: she will have dad more time at home, which is a benefit for her and for the baby and in the eyes of entrepreneurs, it will not be so stimulating to hire men over women, because both of them They will have exactly the same casualty.
The day they called me from CiU
I am nobody. I am just a family man, a nurse, who occasionally gives his opinion on topics related to babies, fatherhood and motherhood in this humble blog. So as I am nobody in this policy (nor do I pretend to be, nor do I want to) I was patidifuso when I received a call from a CiU deputy, specifically the spokeswoman for the Equality commission of the party, asking for my opinion about it.
From what I thought I understood, he had received news of initiatives calling for a 16-week parental leave that would equal maternal leave and it seemed like a great idea. I told him that he was right, that it was certainly a great idea and that it would be a great benefit for women and mothers, because there is no right to be belittled for being different and for giving birth to those who will be the future of our country.
However, when a baby is born, this little person appears in the world with their needs, tremendous needs, which must be resolved by their parents, or by anyone, for much more than 16 weeks.
If there is money to increase the parents 14 weeks, why not do it with the mothers?
Already. I guess you know where I'm going. We have been years, many years, complaining that maternity leave is ridiculous. It is 16 weeks, a little less than 4 months, after which the mother returns to work and the baby is semi-abandoned (I do not get mad at grandmothers, who do exemplary work, but it is so). When a baby is 16 weeks old, his dependency level is still exaggerated. He is not able to do anything for himself. You cannot even move or communicate and it is recommended that you continue breastfeeding exclusively.
How do women do it? Well, how can they. Some take reduced hours, others ask for permission to extend those weeks as much as they can, others return to work and leave the milk that has been taken out so that the father or grandmother gives it to them, others stop breastfeeding, others ... Solutions and patches to an obvious problem: with 16 weeks you leave behind a helpless baby, almost as helpless as when he was born. Because if you told me that he already speaks a little, he is already able to eat a little alone or that he sleeps well, even. And look, he would even be able to avoid talking and eating, only that with 4 months he would sleep almost the entire night of the pull, at least the parents would go to work. But it is not the case. Life, with 16 weeks, It is not much better than when the baby is 2 or 3 weeks old.
The minimum acceptable would be to be able to leave the baby in the care of another person with 6 months of age. Then I could have done exclusive breastfeeding, as recommended, and from that moment I could start eating other foods that would complement breastfeeding, which the mother could continue to offer when returning home.
But hey, why settle for 6 months if there is money to increase in 14 weeks of the parents? If at 16 of the mother we add the 14 of the parents, we have 30 weeks of maternity leave, equivalent to about 7 months. That would be a great casualty for a baby. That would be a benefit for a mother when caring for her child. I could breastfeed the exclusive 6 months and still have a month to start giving him all the new foods. With 7 months I would leave a third person to a baby with much more autonomy, able to eat many things and interact in different ways. If they even remain seated! Nothing to do with that baby of almost 4 months.
But of course, this loss would be a benefit for the baby, incredible, and a benefit for the mother, also incredible, at the cost of being a harm to women in their work facet. We fix one thing, but we spoil another.
All this to say that, when I spoke with the lady deputy, I explained both: "If I think of women as workers, we go to equality, directly, without thinking twice. If I think of women as mothers, and consequently in the baby, we are going to create an even greater inequality, precisely because I am one of those who think that men and women cannot be equal, unless suddenly we can give birth, breastfeed and care for our children just like a woman does it. "
Come on, if it was her, or if she was a politician, I would have a serious problem to solve this situation, because I wouldn't know which one to opt for. As I am not, I do not take it and I simply say that either of the two measures or options seems excellent to me, especially because they exceed what we have now, a ridiculous low of two weeks for parents and a ridiculous low of 16 weeks for mothers
Photos | Thinkstock
In Babies and more | Spain farther and farther from Europe in maternal casualties. Comparison of maternity benefits, Maternity and paternity leave in Europe, The government again delays the one-month extension of paternity leave and sets it in 2015
