Paternity leave/parental leave - Research Paper Example

Women benefit from maternity leave because they actually need time for their bodies to recover from the physical and emotional ordeal of childbirth (Butler & McManus, 2000). The length of maternity leave varies with different companies. When fathers are allowed to take time off after they become new fathers, they not only have the opportunity to bond with their children, but can also assist their exhausted wives in doing various chores around the house (Einarsdottir, 1998). Babies are notorious for waking up at all hours of the night.

For a new mother who is still nursing physical wounds, staying awake with the baby at night will leave her completely exhausted and unable to do much around the household. She will need assistance in keeping the house tidy, cooking meals, and receiving eager visitors. There are communities that view the issue of paternity leave with incredulousness. This is because their cultures are different from the ones in the West that have fostered the push towards paternity leave. For such communities, a mother is inseparably connected with the entire subject of childbirth and recovery since these processes involve the exertion of her body.

Therefore, women have every right to go for maternity leave when they give birth because they would completely be physically unable to function in the workplace immediately after birth. Men, however, do not endure any physical strain when their children are born. They, therefore, have no need to go for paternity leave, in the estimation of dissenting communities. In such instances, it might be unwise to enforce paternity leave. Companies should examine the cultures to which their workers belong before deciding on the issue of paternity leave.

Sometimes, when paternity leave is forced on members of communities that have very distinct gender roles, the new father can become an additional strain for the new mothers. For instance, in most Middle-Eastern as well as African nations, looking after the home and preparing meals is the responsibility of the women in all circumstances. Arguing for paternity leave in such communities would be counterproductive because the new mother would be burdened with additional responsibilities to look after the needs of her husband who now has extra free time and is at home.

Indeed, there are African communities where it is an accepted practice for new mothers to visit their own mothers with their new infants immediately after birth so that they may be pampered and looked after. In such cultures, the aspect of new fathers emotionally bonding with their new babies after birth is irrelevant because the culture does not expect men to show undue emotion in any circumstance or help in functions such as the bathing, feeding, and changing the soiled underclothes of their own babies (Gornick and Meyers, 2003).

Therefore, the whole concept of paternity leave, in their estimation, simply amounts to another free holiday from work responsibilities. While the trend today seeks to discourage the autocratic bent in such cultures, this cannot be achieved in one or two generations. Moreover, paternity leave should be encouraged in cultures that have already embraced some semblance of equal roles for both genders. This is because it will have an even more positive impact on future generations where the roles of both genders are concerned (Gornick and Meye