062Y55A03 10/03 Paternity Leave

It was so wonderful to see the sun again! I hope you weren't too uncomfortable being outside - but I just couldn't bear the thought of being stuck inside the building on the first good day we have had after all the rain, rain, rain.

So...once again you have surprised me, people. I was really pleased when most of you seemed to agree that both parents taking leave to look after the child was a good idea. I was also pleased to see that one of you (John?) had actually interviewed a young mother for her views. Yep. Research means getting information from wherever you can and if you can research from a Primary Source [ someone who is actually involved] that's wonderful. After all, Internet sources are great but on questions like this going direct to a person involved is even better. Good work, mate.

But "Paternity Leave" means just that: the father taking leave to look after the baby. Not "Maternity AND Paternity" leave. And there I was gobsmacked![ informal word for really, really surprised; amazed; astounded]. Most of you thought that was a bad idea. Actually, I strongly suspect that not many people actually did go on-line for any research on this, or you would have found out, on English Google, just how much information there is on this subject.

Now, don't get me wrong. I wasn't surprised that everyone didn't support the idea - what surprised me the the REASONs given for not supporting the idea.

Currently men in Britain both are entitled to, and take two weeks paternity leave around the birth of their baby. An idea pretty much all of you thought was a good idea. They are also entitled, in many firms, to use up their holiday entitlements and so quite a few end up taking a month off. However, a new move is taking place for men to take up to six months off. It is felt that with the mother taking the first six months off and the father taking the next six months off the baby is cared for by a parent for the first year of its life before people have to start thinking about baby care centres. Remember, most people overseas are not in a position where grandparents can just stop working and stay at home to look after children.

Men in The Netherlands, and Scandinavian countries already get paternity leave for much longer periods - as do the mothers who can take up to 18 months off in some places.

Men in America are entitled to two weeks paternity leave at any time in the first year of their child's life but, by contrast with English or Northern European men, very few of them take it. Far too many of them feel that they will lose face with the other men or that, in the cut throat[very competitive; rather brutal] American work place, they will lose career opportunities.

So, I was quite prepared for many of you to disagree with with the idea from an economic or career perspective. What really blew me away [another way of saying amazed or very surprised] was the idea that so many of you thought that men would not be as good at parenting as women.

I cannot actually remember ever hearing this point of view. Even very prejudiced, or old-fashioned men who believe that it is women's work to look after babies do not think so because they think that men couldn't do it as well. In fact they think that it is something men could do just as easily or even better than women, but because it is so repetitive and boring that men's superior brains would be wasted doing it!!

I realise that many of you are very young and so have not had mature relationships with the other gender yet - but even so, to hear that men are not so "gentle" was another new idea for me. Men may be bigger or stronger than women, but they are capable of infinite gentleness and tenderness. Men work in highly-skilled jobs like technical work, as surgeons and, of course as paediatricians [doctors who only treat small babies] - in all of which fields they cannot be rough or careless. Hey, even male criminals who break into safes or houses, need to have very gentle, sensitive hands in order to work quickly and quietly and not get caught!

The idea that women, somehow, have more knowledge about babies is also surprising. It's not programmed into female DNA, you know. Its something we all have to learn so I simply don't see why it would be thought that women learn quicker or better than men? The only reason that a women might know more about her own particular child is if she spends more time with it...and the whole purpose of paternity leave is for men to be able to share that time.

As in the example I gave about the safety pin sticking into my own baby and causing him to cry, women makes mistakes that can harm their babies. Sometimes too, men come up with different or even better solutions. Like most of you, I was an only child too, so I had had nothing at all to do with babies until I had my own. My husband, on the other hand, had looked after his younger brother and sister and had a lot more knowledge than I. I kept thinking I would break the baby! He told me that babies are a lot more unbreakable than we realise.

I think that one of the reasons I love my job is that you guys, my students, are always surprising me and causing me to look at things from different angles. The winds of change are blowing very strongly through China...they are almost becoming a hurricane. One day you might remember this discussion and wonder how you could have ever thought this way. Then again, you might go through your whole lives with this thinking unchanged. I however, will always look back on this and many other discussions and realise how little I know about the world and how many different ways there are to look at it.