Is it possible that something is changing in the world of motherhood and fatherhood? Yes, it is possible, although we should analyze the data well to know what the variations are due to. I speak of the report 'Employment and maternity: obstacles and challenges to the reconciliation of work and family life', edited by Funcas, which says that in the last 10 years the percentage of men who take leave to take care of their children has increased.
A leave to take care of your children?
So is. This is to ask the company for an excess time, without salary, to take care of your child or your children. It's not uncommon, really, to see women who do it; they get pregnant, they have a baby, they take care of him during maternity leave and when they have to go back to work they decide to continue taking care of the baby, either because they don't find an alternative that suits them (grandparents, nursery, etc.), either by conviction, either ... (because there are hundreds of reasons).
The news in this case is that there are more and more men doing it, and it is that of the total number of people who stay at home with a leave of absence, the percentage of men has passed from 3.33% in 2005 to 5.99% in 2015. Consequently, the percentage of women has increased from 96.7% to 94.1%.
So there are fewer women of leave?
No. Actually there is more, because in these ten years the number of leave for childcare has increased by 10.6% (from 28,403 in 2005 to 31,435 in 2014). What happens is that when it comes to seeing how many men and how many women there are in total, now more men are seen.
More men, but very few yet, because we continue talking about 94.1% of women compared to 5.99% of men. Perhaps we should try to know why this happens. As we read in El Periódico, the report says that there is "a slight improvement in the distribution of loads" in couples, which seems to imply that, as I said at the beginning, something is changing.
However, and I do not want to be pessimistic, we are still in crisis, jobs are very unstable and man does not always have a better job, or more stable. Could it be that in some cases the women had more stability or better salary and that they were then the ones who chose to take a leave to take care of the children? Or are men really becoming more aware of their obligations to their family?
Maybe if the paternal casualties were more extensive ...
And how could parents get more involved in this regard? It is very difficult, because the one who stops working to take maternity leave is the mother. It is true that parents can take part, but it is usual for her to do the 16 weeks and then extend it with vacations and breastfeeding hours. At that point, the mother is already the primary caregiver of the baby and the father is the one who gives a little hand when he gets home.
In that situation, it seems easier for her to follow the baby's care than for him. Easier for a matter of habit: she has everything else by hand, she knows the baby more, the baby knows her more and in many cases she prefers it that way. I don't even want to imagine what Miriam would have told me if I had proposed something like that.
The fact is that there are countries where it would be easier. I speak of the Nordics, of course, where the paternal casualties are very extensive and then the father also becomes the primary caregiver of the baby. He spends so much time with him that unless there is a tit in the middle, they are fully able to take care of their children for the time it takes (and in case of breastfeeding they give them the extracted milk if necessary).
But as here the thing is much shorter, because we do what we can. Many times we come home and there is everything to do (it is not a reproach, it is normal). And then we take the baby for her to take a shower, and then we give her back because she cries and looks for her and so we dedicate ourselves to prepare lunch or dinner and collect whatever we have time from home.
Anyway, what is not easy, but yes, I like to think that something is changing and that parents are increasingly "parents".
