Whose childhood is it anyway?

"It has been quite obscene the way the debate has been run as a women's issue, in complete isolation from the benefits of young children."

What are the benefits of paid maternity leave? According to the Federal Government, paid leave compensates women for workplace disadvantages suffered through child-rearing, ensures women have a chance to recover from childbirth, helps with the costs of having children and encourages women's participation in the workforce.

Notice something? The child's needs are never mentioned. Isn't it interesting that the entire public discussion on paid maternity leave has focused on the benefits to women, to employers, to the economy, to Australia's fertility, but barely a thought is given to the question of how 14 weeks' paid leave might affect the baby at the centre of the debate?

This omission has not gone unnoticed by one of Australia's key advocates for infants, Graham Vimpani. "It has been quite obscene the way the debate has been run as a women's issue, in complete isolation from the benefits of young children being able to spend longer periods with their primary care givers," says Vimpani, a professor of paediatrics and child health at the University of Newcastle.

Vimpani has been instrumental in encouraging Australian child experts and governments to develop strategies focusing on the first three years of childhood - a time that brain researchers say is proving to be critical to the intellectual and emotional development of children.

With children's attachment to their primary care giver identified as one of the key factors in determining effective brain development, there is growing international consensus about the need to support that relationship during these critical early years. Adding force to the argument is research emerging from major international studies on child care suggesting it is difficult to provide infants in day-care centres with the care they need.

In the United States last month, the latest results emerged using data from the US National Institute of Child Health, and Human Development Study of Early Child Care - an immense longitudinal study involving 28 eminent American researchers.

These results showed negative effects on the intellectual development of infants under nine months of age who were placed in full-time care. This latest finding heralded a significant policy shift from the American researchers who recommended that if possible, a parent should stay at home or work part-time for the first year of a child's life.

Such policy recommendations make news in the US, yet many European countries concluded some years ago that it was not possible to provide appropriate child care for infants and instead have provided combinations of paid and unpaid leave, as well as home-care allowances for parents caring for infants.

Given these developments, it may not be in a child's interests to encourage mothers to take only 14 weeks' leave before returning to work. "Fourteen weeks is ludicrous," says Trevor Parry, associate professor of paediatrics at the University of Western Australia, and chairman of a committee that recently presented the WA Government with a strategy for children. "Why shouldn't it be 12 months or 18 months when we know it is the first three years of life that are important, not just the first 14 weeks." Parry says research is about to begin in Australia. It will attempt to replicate overseas studies that have found young children, separated from their mothers and placed in day care, may show prolonged elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which can adversely affect children's health and development.

According to Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward - who has released a discussion paper on the maternity leave proposal - the choice of 14 weeks is somewhat arbitrary. It happens to be the minimum time recommended for maternity leave by the World Health Organisation, and while most countries that have paid leave started with this type of brief paid period, many are now shifting to longer periods such as six months or even a year.

For example, France and England started with 14 weeks but now offer six months' paid leave. Many other countries offer some paid leave with longer periods on reduced pay. Goward says her consultations have revealed widespread community sentiment that 14 weeks is insufficient, which, she says, is hardly surprising since the majority (75 per cent) of Australian women remain out of the workforce when they have a child under the age of one, and those who are working are usually part-time.

The Goward report focuses mainly on the 14-week proposal, because seeking more time was seen as too ambitious. "Everybody is so bloody modest. They say, 'Oh, if we go for 14 weeks it's a start, but if we ask for 26 weeks they wouldn't give it to us'," Goward says. She acknowledges that the assumption is that once the leave is in place it won't be so hard to push for an extension.

But according to a University of Queensland professor of paediatrics, Ken Armstrong, the problem is that the debate is now being conducted as if 14 weeks' maternity leave is in the children's interests, which signals to future mothers, to employers and to governments that there's nothing wrong with a mother returning to full-time work and leaving a child of this age in care.

"What the message says is you really only need to care for a child yourself for up to 14 weeks and then they are basically anybody's business," he says.

That message has now prompted the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Larry Anthony, to contribute to the public debate. Anthony believes we should be putting children's interests first in the debate. "The language of 14 weeks is a real problem if that came to mean that our society believes you only need to be at home for that period of time and then you should return to work," he says, noting European trends to encourage parental leave for the child's first year.

While acknowledging longer parental leave is usually best for infants, Macquarie University's professor of early childhood, Alma Fleet, believes there still needs to be flexibility to support the variety of circumstances among women, children and employers.

"Research suggests stability of care is critical but that stability may come from consistency of care in a quality long-day care service," she says, pointing out that not all parents are able to give children the attention they need due to circumstances at the time.

Last Tuesday, work and family issues - including the 14-week maternity leave proposal - were the main items on the agenda of the cabinet strategy meeting plotting future directions for the Howard Government. It is uncertain whether the 14-week maternity leave proposal will win support, but there are possibilities of longer-term financial support for parents who choose to take more extended parental leave.

Unlike the maternity leave proposal - which would be available only to employed women - all parents choosing to care for their children would be eligible for this home-care allowance.

Federal cabinet is attracted to proposals giving parents choice about care for their young children, such as the highly popular policy implemented three years ago in Norway, which gives parents of children under the age of three a subsidy they can choose to use to pay for child care or take as a home-care allowance to provide care themselves for their children.

Cabinet has commissioned work examining options for changing our family payment and tax systems to provide this type of choice for parents. Many believe it is a smart move - one that could cater to the real needs of children, as well as their parents.

Family Update, September-October 2002, p. 4