In Africa, the woman is nearly worshipped when she is pregnant. Everything about the family revolves around her during the nine months gestation period. She is given serious attention and, most times, restricted from doing hard tasks or chores that put her life and that of the unborn baby at risk.
It is perhaps this culture that may have given birth to “maternity leave” as it’s called in the Western world where pregnant women are given time to rest, give birth and nurture their babies for, at least, three months before resuming work.
Maternity leave is entrenched in the labour laws such that it’s the right of the woman to stop work once she nears her delivery date. Sometimes this starts three months before putting to bed. So, inadvertently, the men have to work hard to close up any shortfall at those periods both at home and office. There is an African proverb that says “a man is pregnant just like his wife during pregnancy”. The man ensures that his wife puts to bed safely and this entails doing domestic and office work to make sure the woman is comfortable.
Latest legislation in Europe to support maternity leave has risen over the years. In the USA, pregnant women take six to 12 weeks of maternity leave, though much of it unpaid, before returning to work. Maternity leave in Britain is now 12 months with new mums receiving up to full pay for the first six months.
In Sweden, parents can share up to 16 months leave after birth, with up to 80 percent pay. In Germany, mothers can return to their jobs up to three years after giving birth and, in some circumstances, may even take the third year of this leave up until the child’s eighth birthday.
The question then is where is the consideration for the fathers who bear the brunt of this long absence from work by the women? By the way, it’s the same fathers who try to make ends meet; while they work at the office, they also come back home to take care of their wives and children. The men, during this period, are overworked, stressed and financially strained. Remember it’s during this period he spends most of his earnings in buying milk, nappies, providing good food for the breastfeeding wife.
So, while the woman returns to work after almost nine months of leave, the man continues to work without rest till another pregnancy cycle. The cycle continues till the man retires and dies.
It is based on this argument that many labour activists are calling for “paternity leave”. Their view is predicated on the belief that gains from maternity leave would be multiplied if countries extend it to apply to fathers too. Their argument goes further to claim that those (women) who take long leave off work see their skills grow rusty and fail to gain experience and promotions. Some employers still avoid hiring women they think will be away a lot.
That, however, does not take away roles women play in the work place, nor does it diminish the right of fathers to take leave in order to rest from the stress they face when their wives are pregnant.
The fact is that men these days are overburdened by the rat race and the domestic war front. Their health are threatened in such a way that many can fall sick.
This is likely the reason why some European countries are beginning to make room for fathers by encouraging them to share the leave period with their wives. In Sweden, for example, couples get “equality bonus” for splitting their time off more evenly. When a woman hands her baby to the father and heads out of the door to work, he learns how to be a better parent.
Fathers who even take short paternity leave play a bigger role in child-rearing years later. Studies indicate that babies whose fathers take paternity leave go on to do better in cognitive tests at school.
Rather than simply cutting maternity leave in response to such findings, a growing number of governments are trying to spread the child-rearing burden between mums and dads.
Britain, sometime in 2015, decided to combine maternity and paternity leaves into a single chink of parental leave, to be split between mother and father.
To overcome the obstacle created by legislation, some countries are giving fathers enough perks. In a few, including Chile, Italy and Portugal, paternity leave is compulsory. Others offer incentives that are hard to turn down. Sweden relaxed its gender neutral approach and now grants a bonus to parents who share leave more equally. The real picture is that where leave is well paid and not seen as gender sensitive, fathers seem willing to request for it. But traditional maternity leaving which channels men into bread winning and women into child-rearing is hardly neutral. Shared parenting stands to improve women’s careers, children’s development and father’s satisfaction.
As to the social benefits, research has affirmed that children benefit more when their fathers take leave and nurture them. A Norwegian study found that it improved children’s performance at school, daughters most especially seemed to flourish if their dads had taken time off. It could be that dads who take paternity leave are more dedicated to the domestic front than those who do not.
Because paternity leave tends to be short and poorly paid or even nonexistent, leaving fathers tend to rely on their annual holiday allowance. In Nigeria where most states are gradually phasing out leave allowance, granting paternity leave brings no incentive as some men would rather work their asses out than be subjugated to few weeks of absence from work without pay.
On the other hand, there is need for serious consideration of the matter by policy makers, looking at the social benefits. The visiting social vices and deviant behaviour by young men point to the need why fathers should take time off and give attention to their kids. Habits formed during the child’s first year stick.