Paternity leave (and gender inequality)

Even before I became a mom, I thought that dads were shortchanged when it comes to paternity leave. The Husband's company policy is a generous 3 days; all of which come from his standard annual leave allowance.

The Husband took 2 weeks off from work and the day before he went back to work, I cried wondering how I'd survive alone with Squeak.

By now, you know that I suck at motherhood but it was about a lot more than caring alone for Squeak.

We fight for gender equality every day and every day we keep losing because of our social structures. Parental policies at government and corporate levels say that a woman's place is still to be at home to take care of the children and that a man does not have this responsibility.

But the truth is that child rearing is every bit a dad's desire as it is the mom's. The Husband was more excited than I was when we got news of OUR surprise pregnancy. He was involved throughout the health of OUR pregnancy from gynae visits to emergency hospital stays. He prepared for OUR baby's arrival by maxing out credit cards on baby items that we both researched and decided on. But when OUR baby was born, paternity leave policies dictated that time for dad to bond with the baby was not important. It was mom only that got time off from work to care for the newborn.

Bonding with a newborn is hard for dad. The baby only wants mom. Even though Squeak wasn't interested in anything but boobs, The Husband wanted to bond with him. And there are so many ways he did that and much more that he could have done if he was home for longer. I take on the majority of child rearing duties because he doesn't have the time to get involved enough to be as good at those tasks as I am.

Here are some of the reasons paternity leave is so important:
1. Childbirth is freakin hard man. The Husband took care of me. He changed diapers when I couldn't get out of my hospital bed, bathed Squeak when I couldn't bend from c-section recovery, and made sure I was fed when I was so busy with a baby that wanted to be with me all the time. 

2. I was so sleep deprived in the first few weeks. The Husband also woke up with every scream for a night feed but he went back to sleep easily while I stayed up to breastfeed. We didn't realise just how much this took a toll on him until he started struggling to stay awake for the first few weeks when he was back at work. So he also needed more time to adjust to life with a newborn.

3. Even science thinks dads should have enough paternity leave. Studies have shown that having dads around boosts moms levels of prolactin and oxytocin hormones which stimulates the production of breast milk and letdown. Sharing the tough days with a partner also keeps mommy depression at bay and there are so many benefits for the little ones too like increased vocabulary.

Not providing paternity leave sends the message that it isn't important for men to bond with their kids and that women become the default person for child rearing responsibilities and to take time off work delaying the progression of their careers. Equal parental leave is essential in promoting gender equality. Giving dads time off can help women earn more money in the long term and maintain their careers.

I think parental leave should be equally distributed across both genders. There are questions about how we can afford such a benefit. A quick uneducated perspective is to look at how income tax is being spent so that our corruption budget can be assigned for parental leave through, say, UIF. The private sector could get rewarded for promoting this in the same way that corporates get incentives for improving the country's BEE stats. And before anyone points out that having babies is not the government's problem; oh yes it is. More people of employable age equates to a larger workforce which is what drives our economy. Today's babies will dictate the next generation's economy.

I'd love to know what your thoughts are. Do you think paternity leave is important? How much time should dad be allowed to take? And who should carry the cost? 

God is a misogynistic bastard

Yes I'm thinking about how St Peter, consulting his iPad, might ask about this title whilst hoards of other souls (who have never publicly stated the obvious) walk through the pearly gates; no questions asked.

I'm jumping ahead of myself. Here's why I was so angry with God last night.

Despite my atheist ways, I actually do believe in the existence of God or that God existed at some point. The science even backs it up. The chances that the perfect collection of atoms came together to form earth and life as we know it with perfect precision is slim. Take breastfeeding, for example. It's the perfect food to sustain a baby and so complex that no laboratory has successfully artificially imitated it as yet.

Which brings me to the offspring who was gnawing at my nipples for half an hour straight. Not to feed, no. It was too help with the gas troubles he had. All while The Husband dozed off peacefully unaware.

Unaware that The Big Guy created women to bear the brunt of parenting. We carry the foetus until it's born because we were gifted with a uterus, a vagina that was meant to have life torn through it and breasts from which our lives are sucked out of. And then just for fun, the bastard (oh sorry, Bastard - let's maintain a little respect here, shall we) gave men nipples.

This epiphany came in just before the start of Shravan where I am paying obeisance to the following Gods:

• There's Shiva who was actually the world's saviour. He drank a poison that was going to end the world. I figure he could have let the world end. Maybe another God could take another go at it and not decree that women be stoned to death every time one of them breathes the way some of our major religions like it. Also, we pray to guy's penis as a symbol of him. How much more patriarchal can you get?
• The Parvati kinda of patriarchal. This Goddess was created for Shiva. But because she was dark in complexion, Shiva didn't want her. Instead of showing my dark skinned sisters a role model of self respect, she persevered in lusting after him.
• Krishna is my favorite God because he is oh so playful. But he married eight queens  and my people were up in arms when a playful Bollywood song about his main wife being sexy was released. Yes, the God can be a playboy and the Goddess can be nothing but subservient to him.

So no, patriarchal legion of Gods, you don't get my vegetarian fast as a worship to you when you designed women to physically suffer through life while men get off scot-free. And the reward for our suffering? Subservience to men.

Breast is not best

Breast is not best. It's the biological norm. I don't know what happened but at some point, we had to tell people that breast milk was the best food for babies. For me, it goes without saying, after all isn't that what breast milk was designed for?

All animals are created to have the ability to feed their young. With humans, it's milk from the bosom until we can provide babies with normal food. And until recently, normal food was whole food that could be cultivated from the earth and not developed in a lab with secret ingredients like infant formula.

So why then is infant formula the new norm?

Breastfeeding women are chastised in public because boobs are now seen as sexual parts instead of their primary function as vessels that transfer sustenance to helpless babies.

Countless women keep asking me whether I have enough milk. I'm left wondering why I wouldn't have enough milk. Isn't that what my body was designed to do. Sort of like how my body was designed to grow a baby in my uterus.  I did that just fine without having to resort to growing him in a man-made alternative.

Some have asked when I will start supplementing with formula. My response  is when I can no longer feed him from my breasts. I can't understand why someone with no breastfeeding problems will want to limit natural and nutritious mother's milk.

And how shocked was I to hear how many women didn't breastfeed because they didn't have enough milk. I cannot believe that we have not had enough support to teach women about breastfeeding and why they probably did have enough milk and just didn't know it. It's natural. I mean how many other animals say they aren't producing enough milk for their young? None?

Biologically, only a minute amount of women truly cannot breastfeed (experts generously estimate about 5%). So if the majority of us can breastfeed then why did formula become so widespread?

I did a bit of research and found out that it started with developing emergency food for babies who could not get breast milk which then developed into Capitalist greed. Here's a horrifying article on how Nestlé convinced the third world that formula was better and, in the process of taking money from the world's most downtrodden, were the cause of millions of infant death. That could have been avoided if those women hadn't heard of Nestlé and kept on breastfeeding.

Present culture now dictates that mothers should no longer at their babies becks and calls. So it becomes easier to choose formula when mothers aren't around and have to go to work.

Formula is convenient in a world where a mother can't be with her child all the time. It's a lifesaver for infants who can't receive breast milk. But no, breast is not best. It's normal. It's how our bodies are designed and babies are instinctively geared towards seeking out mom's breasts for nutrition.

The more we start embracing the concept that breast feeding is normal, perhaps the more we will start seeing more women trusting their bodies to be enough for their babies without resorting to artificial nutrition as a first choice.

Last week was breastfeeding week and how better to honour that than by normalising breastfeeding. We can only do this by supporting mothers. Help mothers feed their babies by not telling them they shouldn't do it in public. Learn more about the wonderful science of breastfeeding and the benefits of breast milk. The more we see breastfeeding, the more normal it becomes.