Regarding Maternity leave...
My partner and I made the decision that she would quit work and raise our children until they reach full time school age. Firstly, I was earning more. Secondly, if she had have stayed in work, we would have been worse off - her being in employment cuts the amount of tax credit we would be entitled to, and childcare would cost more than she could reasonably earn and still have some family life. For our first daughter this was supposed to be simple - a planned delivery after her being 2 weeks overdue made me taking my statutory 10 days of leave from work a breeze (even if at the time we wre stuck in a horrible house move chain). We expected similar for our second daughter, but she was born via emergency induction a month early with life threatening consequences for mother, which made things very tricky. I was entitled to 10 days leave, and after these 10 days made an attempt to return to work. The first day my Head of Faculty sent me home by mid day as I was a mess. The next morning the Bursar rang me at home, demanding to know where I was - basically if I took another day off, according to him I would be taking "Paternity Leave" - basically 6 months of unpaid leave... needless to say I went in the next day, had a full and frank exchange of veiws with him over how if I were female I would get 9 months of leave under full pay with job protection to take when I deemed fit, compared to being bullied back into work as I am male, and needing to care for one child while 2 other family members were touch and go in the hospital. I dont feel that a man deserves the same deal here as women - after all pregancy, birth and motherhood has a much bigger effect on thier life than for a man... but there has to be a much better deal than what I was offered.
As an aside, the system that operates in my workplace has been taken advantage of to some extent. Basically, more than one female member of staff has taken thier 9 months, and with 2 months to go handed in thier statutory notice of resignation, thus getting 9 months of pay checks without working! Whilst I cant blame them for taking advantage of such a system, It does grate a little that people end up covering for them to keep thier job open when they have no intent of taking it back up again. On the other hand, I did gain 2 promotions thanks to this, so maybe I shouldnt be so bitter.