Why shouldn’t life be made easier for pregnant women/mothers?

This is honestly not meant as goady. But its an observation.

Out local supermarket shares a car park with a large, busy soft play centre. Weekdays mornings, when I shop, it is presumably toddlers.
The parent and child spaces are nearer the supermarket than the soft play, although the footpath connects both.
There are always plenty of parent and child spaces free. But the rows nearest the soft play are full. Its the busiest bit of the car park.
There are no time restrictions in any parking space.

I really do think it’s an employees market now and a lot of job hunters can pick and choose and companies have wised up to the fact that they need a good offer to get good employees. I like to think that if a person caring for their elderly parents doesn’t have a supportive workplace they can soon look elsewhere. My boss’s husband needs round the clock care, she WFH FT and this means she can care for him too. We have a carer’s policy that allows for unspecific working hours. The understanding is that as long as the work is done that’s fine.

I know not all workplaces are like that but I do think many are now wising up!

Caring for an elderly parent. Taking them to hospital appointments. Having to leave because they’ve fallen over. Or caring for a partner with a chronic health condition.

It's maths.

Be as disappointed as you like. Not only does the math remain the same. It's attitudes like yours, not mine, which will prevent long-term disabled people from being promoted or hired. And I have no idea why you're talking about healthy white men. Perhaps you have reading comprehension issues? I already stated that I am disabled too and not only that... this is Mumsnet. I am neither a man, nor white.

Because your position, without any nuance or clarification, appears to be that the long-term disabled should be given the same terms and conditions on people on maternity leave.

Stop and think about what you're saying for a minute. Some organisations have full maternity pay for a year. According to you, the chronically ill should have up to year off on full pay. But then, unlike people coming back from mat leave, they will always be ill, so then the next year, they can also get a full year off.. and where does it end? When are they actually going to work?

This is a completely different position from saying that organisations should work closely with disabled people and put reasonable adjustments in place.
This could also include a reduction in hours, if someone is ill often enough to be unable to do a full-time job effectively. And as a separate point, organisations should have a reasonable amount of paid sick leave that has nothing to do with maternity leave. Most good employers have either LM discretion or company critical illness/income protection policies that make up for the loss of income.

BTW I have hired/trained/promoted quite a few long-term disabled people (and will continue to do so). Including a couple treated horribly by other managers. Whatever you think about me, my conscience is clear and my results speak for themselves.

And as an aside, many orgs have terrible policies all around. Maternity pay, sick pay, none of it beyond the statutory requirements, which makes it a moot point.

This doesn’t really make sense.

What kind of flexibility would a person with no dependants need that would be equivalent to a parent?

Is it preferential treatment to allow a parent to leave early to pick up a sick DC from nursery but deny a childless employee leaving early to go to the gym?

Surely you can see why those two things are not the same.

Pregnancy/motherhood is a CHOICE. I think a lot of people have the mindset of 'well, why should I be put out or have to subsidize your choices'.

The issue really is flexibility for all. Parents and child free people have personal commitments. If everyone was treated the same, then it wouldn't be an issue.
It only becomes an issue when it's deemed one person's choices supersedes another person's and they get preferential treatment.

I'm really disappointed by your response @saltinecrackers - so you think that because pregnancy is temporary that's why mat pay etc is better? It's attitudes like that which keep long-term disabled people from being promoted or hired and them working on despite clearly being ill. This isn't an attack on mothers, who I believe should be granted pay, but just that people with disabilities are hugely overlooked. The sad thing is I - by and large - think your attitude is reflected in society today. The dream is to be a healthy, white man, of course.

And this too, at both sides.

I get your point, but I also needed to get a double seated trolley to put the children and my shopping in (rather than using a buggy which isn’t as practical for shopping for me) so I wasn’t going to park at the back of the carpark and leave them in the car by themselves whilst I retrieved one. Also our local Tesco isn’t actually ever quiet enough (unless you go at 10pm) to be assured of having that much space around you. I wasn’t leaving them in front or behind of the car in the traffic unless I absolutely had to - have you seen how some people drive? My DH worked away a lot then. Internet shopping wasn’t as much of a thing and I liked to get out and about.

Child spaces, without a doubt, made my life a lot easier and I’m not going to apologise for that. It’s good to make things easier for most families is it not? Yes I could have done things differently and sometimes I did when the spaces were taken - wasn’t as safe for my children though, especially when they were babies. It was certainly easier once they were walking and could climb into their seats etc.

The problem is getting the child in and out. The spaces aren’t wide enough to allow you to open the door sufficiently. Car seats these days, particularly since the recommendation to keep children rear facing until they are 4 or 5, are very large and unwieldy!

I can only speak for my employer but we get six months of sick leave on full pay and full pay for the first 6 months of maternity leave.

My employer isn't perfect, some of my reasonable adjustments for my disabilities have taken a long time to put in place (6 months plus) but they've also made adjustments for my pregnancy. I WFH for most of the first trimester due to bad morning sickness and am WFH in my third trimester due to PGP.

One of my disabilities requires a lot more WFH than we get as standard and that disability has been worsened by my pregnancy and that hasn't been an issue with work at all.

I do feel I've had less bother about my WFH since the pregnancy (there's been a push to get people in the office more) but I think that's less about pregnancy being treated more seriously than disability and more because I now have an additional protected characteristic.

This is nonsense.

Firstly, if you park at the back of the car park, there are less likely to be other cars around to impact you.

Also, get out the car, get your pram/buggy out, put it infront or behind your car, wherever is better, get one child out, strap them in then get the other one out.

If they are too big for a buggy but cant stand next to you without running off, then you need reigns.

Its hardly rocket science.

I actually could give you specific examples in the NHS department I work in, BUT there are many people who are not pregnant taking the piss with sick leave as well.

People also love to say 'well you chose to get pregnant' as if that means you deserve to suffer and have a hard life. A lot of people lack compassion.

A lot of people have a crabs in a bucket mentality. Especially if they had to suffer. They hate seeing things get easier for people. They want them to suffer too - like they did.

I hope you reported her, what a c*

When you’ve managed to get infant twins out of a car (on your own) in a normal space without leaving one child in oncoming traffic come back to me…

I think parents need wider spaces for safety alone. I appreciate that other groups in society would benefit too, but where do we draw the line?

@MsCactus totally agree. My former psychopath of a manager was a total cunt to me during my last pregnancy. I had crippling PGP to the point I needed a wheelchair, yet she refused to let me work from home even though my productivity was excellent!

"Pregnancy isn't an illness" was one of her favourite lines to trot out. I had GDM and she told me to inject my insulin in the toilet, as she said the empty meeting rooms were for "important things" and "nobody else gives a shit about your pregnancy."

It caused a ridiculous level of stress and I'm still angry about it.

There is a bill for statutory fertility treatment going through the House of Commons right now https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3235
It certainly has my support.

It is according to this - see the highlighted bit in the abstract.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6532053/#:~:text=Specifically%2C%20estimates%20from%20multivariate%20logistic,by%20transfers%20to%20elderly%20mothers.

It’s very unfair, it’s like having kids is a lifestyle choice if you happen to need fertility treatments but not if you are fertile.

I imagine if you're someone who like me is childless and not through choice, being on the shitty end of the stick to accommodate preferences of parents is like being punished twice.

VERY much this. My employer doesn’t give employees any flexibility for attending and enduring fertility treatments, either, which I think only makes it worse.

Well I am disabled too - neurodiverse. Also managed and worked with a lot of disabled staff.
It's already the law to consider reasonable adjustments but because disability is so varied and can last very long , unlike pregnancy it's difficult to put in a 'one-sized fits all'.
A good workplace will have generous sick leave and flexible working that can also be used by disable staff. But equating it to maternity is a stretch!
We have 2 months sick leave, most people won't need even a month a year. Maternity is full pay for 6 months, than tapered off until a year.
6 months sick leave is a lot IMO. If people have chronic illnesses arrangements are made for them to work PT. But to say they need to be kept like FT and given paid time off for appointments, plus illness, longer than 2 months worth makes it extremely difficult.
And if made the law will result in less disabled people being hired as employers just don't want to do that.