It’s March, evening is falling and it’s my second day at work since the end of my paternity leave. My colleague Camille provokes me in a sarcastic tone: “You think you’re a hero, have you been glorified? » We laugh.
Then I thought about it Junior (1994), Ivan Reitman’s misunderstood masterpiece in which Arnold Schwarzenegger performs a self-experiment that results in him becoming “pregnant.” The aim of this comedy is to confront a man – not just any man, we’re talking about the man who, among other things, was Mister Universe five times – with the physical and social pain of motherhood. Since this is Arnold and he does something literally extraordinary, we can’t help but think of him as a hero.
I admit: I also felt like a hero during my paternity leave. The law, my employer, and a clever calculation in the paid leave management software allowed me to take a total of ninety-seven days. That’s ninety-four days more than my father’s and… ninety-seven days more than my grandfather’s. And on average, fifty-seven more than French fathers, who took twenty days of paternity leave in 2022, according to the Social Security Administration. Most of my colleagues thought my choice was great.
Raphaël also remembers colleagues telling him: “Ah, you’re one of those fathers, that’s good!” » The 42-year-old former employee, now a self-employed graphic designer and father of two children (the eldest of whom was born before the new paternity leave came into effect), supports himself ” happy “. In total it took two months. “I had to be there immediately”he assures.
“reproductive work”
My daughter, let’s call her Junior, like in the movie, was born after 1um July 2021, date on which the new paternity leave came into force with a duration of 25 calendar days plus three compulsory days. This holiday was previously valid for a period of eleven days since 2002. Before these eleven days, the holiday that has long been called “family solidarity leave” applies The regulation lasted three years and was imposed in 1980, the date on which the current maternity leave, i.e. 16 weeks, was established.
From Junior’s birth in December 2022 until mid-March 2023, we, along with his mother D., were in this timeless bubble inflated by the family allowance fund and labor law. This bubble that the government refers to as ” leave “ However, (motherhood, fatherhood or parenthood) is not a moment of rest. For Hélène Périvier, an economist at the French Observatory of Economic Conditions and a specialist in social and family policies and gender inequalities, this period corresponds to the definition of “reproductive work” (as opposed to work “productive”), which she equates with housework in a broader sense (cleaning, cooking, doing laundry, etc.). It is also reminiscent of a INSEE study carried out in 2010who evaluates the value of this work “17% of GDP”.
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