The asymmetry of experience is actually caused by child bearing, which can only be done by women. Maternal leave is downstream from that.
So minus breastfeeding, the asymmetry has a large component of "it was always done like this", plus the mistaken idea some employers have that the leave is some sort of "vacation".
As a new father: quality time with my baby is a huge deal and it's unfair that society expects the mom to do all the work (and spend all that time). I think this should be a concern for all fathers; I find my friends who don't prioritize this and dump it on the mother are behaving in an insensitive way. They get to work on "real stuff" and interact with other adults -- even commuting to work can feel like a respite from caring for a newborn -- and when they get home they don't understand why the mother is burned out and grumpy: "but you stayed at home while I worked, why are you so tired and upset?"
It also helped us as a couple because I could understand what mom was going through in earlier months and also mom could understand that I am not useless at home and I can take care of our daughter.
I don't know your friend and I don't know the particulars. I'll just say one thing: of course it's difficult -- for the mother too!
I manage with the bottle, by the way. And play, and change diapers, and soothe my baby when she's upset. It's tiring, but also rewarding.
It's not possible to generalize about what will happen, but probably all fathers should at least give it an honest try.
I don't think employers think or care that it's a "vacation" (the experience of the person taking the leave) but rather that it's "paid time off" (the experience of the business paying the leave).
I don't buy this narrative, sorry.
Also, of course women who want to stay at home taking care of the babies while the father is less involved in child-rearing are perfectly welcome to do it. It's just that I think it's unfair that society expects this to be the norm.
edit: I also think you're conflating "women who want to have a career and be entrepreneurs" with "mothers and fathers who want to share the load (and joy) of being parents". It's not necessary for the mother to want to be an entrepreneur for this; it's just necessary for the father to take his share of the load.
And that aside, what’s the alternative? Relegate women to work only as teachers and secretaries because some of them want to be stay at home moms?
I'm also not sure there has been wage erosion. Since I've been alive, wages have only been going up. However, cost of living has also been going up, and at a faster rate than wages. So while I don't have any source to support my hunch, I'd guess the problem is that living is more expensive than it ever was, not that women entered the workforce.
If wages erode, that's a failing of capitalism, not of the idea that more people should have more options. You could restrict supply by having people not work completely at random and get the same effect on wages. I don't know what the best way to fix things is, but making employment based on gender is a dumb way to do it.
The effects of spending 9 months in the body of the mother never go away. No more profound experience is imaginable. Nothing else that happens to a human being will ever come close. So, vitally important as fathers are, the asymmetry is fundamental and permanent.
(I'm talking about the typical developmental experience here; I know there are exceptions.)
Yes, pregnancy is a unique experience. For some women it goes away magically after birth; others have lasting physical and mental changes. Whether this is the most profound experience imaginable in human existence is arguable, though I'm inclined to think it's pretty powerful.
However, the "asymmetry" of pregnancy and child birth is neither fundamental nor permanent for the issue under discussion: sharing the load in child raising more equally, and fathers getting to spend more time with their babies. After breastfeeding is over, fathers are perfectly capable of raising a kid without a mother. It's not magic.
Men do not produce milk.
Besides, some women don't produce milk either, or not enough of it. Bonding with a parent is not exclusive to breastfeeding, either (though of course it helps!).
If months of parental leave are granted to mothers but not to fathers (something not decided by who has the womb), we should expect to see motherhood being more damaging to a career than fatherhood.
If parental leave is offered equally to mothers and fathers, we should expect the disparity to shrink, though probably not disappear entirely as the womb thing does still remain.
The implication that gender, family, and children begin and end with mechanical differences like 'womb' is really reductionist. That we are trying to make things fairer for people is a good thing, but it's become so dogmatic we can't consider other ways of looking at it ... is bad.
My prediction is that in 500 years, no matter what we do, we will still see quite substantial gender differentiation, particularly with respect to early childhood.
And it's also bad for the fathers. Why wouldn't you want to spend more time with your kid? You made him/her, after all.
Effectively it does away a implicit pressure that the mother needs to be home and the father needs to work, i.e., the contrary you suggest. Celebration does nothing to help any side of this, if facing reality when bringing up a child. Such improvements for equal chances allow to do that though.
As said, nobody is forced too, if they do want to keep the "old fashioned roles", for whatever reason, sensible or not, they may still do so.
> AMONG OTHER THINGS, the asymmetry of experience is actually IN PART caused by child bearing
