Page 6 | Why shouldn’t life be made easier for pregnant women/mothers?

Duckwithnobill · 2024-04-07T17:18:36+00:00

Read quite a few threads here lately that have really shown vitriol towards advancements in working conditions, pay and other adaptations that make life easier for pregnant women and women with young children, which is bizarre to say the least on a parenting forum. A couple of examples being resentment at the increased ability to work from home or more flexibility from employers around attending meetings/commuting in late pregnancy. I’ve seen women that take advantage of these enhancements be labelled as workshy or as the reason women aren’t respected in the workplace. Full disclosure I am pregnant and my employer has been great at accommodating my pregnancy presumably because they want me to return after maternity leave! Then there’s the whole debate around P&C parking spaces, where some posters seem genuinely angry that there might be small conveniences put in place to make life a little bit easier for parents. AIBU to find this attitude quite baffling? Surely improvements to the way pregnant women/mothers are treated can only be a good thing? Or should we all just suffer and struggle?

0sm0nthus · 08/04/2024 12:12

MuggedByReality · 07/04/2024 18:29

Because having children is a lifestyle choice, and I as a childfree person object to being penalised, inconvenienced or taxed more to allow entitled parents to receive yet more special treatment.

If being a parent is a mere lifestyle choice why are governments all over the world panicking because people no longer want to be parents? If it's just a hobby like taking up knitting so why would it matter if people aren't doing anymore.
Does it not occur to you that without people producing new humans there would be no one to work in businesses and services upon which everyone relies?

EilonwyWithRedGoldHair · 08/04/2024 12:11

MuggedByReality · 07/04/2024 18:29

Because having children is a lifestyle choice, and I as a childfree person object to being penalised, inconvenienced or taxed more to allow entitled parents to receive yet more special treatment.

Lots of things could be called a 'lifestyle choice' by people who don't want to be inconvenienced/have to pay taxes towards others needs.

Caring for elderly parents - your choice, why should anyone else be inconvenienced? Lung cancer from smoking? - you chose to smoke. I've seen anorexia be called, essentially, a lifestyle choice.

YaMuvva · 08/04/2024 12:09

CostelloJones · 08/04/2024 12:01

I have no issue with things being there for people that need it:

P&C parking spaces so parents can get their kids out safely and without damaging someone else’s car.
a seat in the bus being given up for someone who will struggle to stand (a small child/an elderly person/a pregnant woman)

many things absolutely we should have them to make lives easier!

but the unfortunate thing is there is always someone who takes the piss and it makes people tired…

eg) a woman I work with seemed to schedule every possible midwife appointment during working hours when she works three days a week. Did very little while she was in but would spend weekends going away etc… lots of people had to pick up the slack. You could say anything to her she was pregnant.

Theres seems to be a small group who see being pregnant/having small children as an excuse to act like a princess or have allowances made but they aren’t the only person to have needs for some reason. They don’t trump the needs of others.

and this from someone who has had multiple complicated pregnancies, and currently has young children.

But she didn’t schedule the appointments, it’s not a hairdressers you don’t get to choose you bet what you’re given.

Also objecting to a woman having a weekend away is just odd. Was she supposed to stay indoors because she’s pregnant?

I think people don’t realise how much they are perpetuating pregnancy shame, like being pregnant is embarrassing or something to apologise for. It’s like being in a deeply Catholic village in the 1890’s

fitzwilliamdarcy · 08/04/2024 12:06

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fitzwilliamdarcy · 08/04/2024 12:06

KimberleyClark · 08/04/2024 11:33

I don’t think it’s the employer’s fault when colleagues - mums - complain about a childless woman taking time off to be with her dying mother. This has happened to a friend of mine.

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I don’t think it’s my employer’s fault that many of the parents I work with refuse to work Christmas despite it being a rota (no childcare issues). But inevitably anything that can actually be blamed on individual entitlement rather than the employer is being dismissed as a unique experience which is irrelevant to the conversation.

fitzwilliamdarcy · 08/04/2024 12:06

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CostelloJones · 08/04/2024 12:06

I also think a lot of people these days seem to have “main character syndrome” which definitely isn’t helping 😂

poetryandwine · 08/04/2024 12:02

Wooloohooloo · 07/04/2024 20:04

It should be for parents not mothers.

This, and beyond.

Showing care to pregnant women should be part of a greater social and legal commitment to showing care to the physically vulnerable. Carers for their relatives of the young, old and those with disabilities, should be shown consideration and reasonable privilege which they should not abuse.

Parents - not just mothers, one hopes, but primarily mothers as things currently stand - will be the main beneficiaries. But the others deserve the same consideration

CostelloJones · 08/04/2024 12:01

I have no issue with things being there for people that need it:

P&C parking spaces so parents can get their kids out safely and without damaging someone else’s car.
a seat in the bus being given up for someone who will struggle to stand (a small child/an elderly person/a pregnant woman)

many things absolutely we should have them to make lives easier!

but the unfortunate thing is there is always someone who takes the piss and it makes people tired…

eg) a woman I work with seemed to schedule every possible midwife appointment during working hours when she works three days a week. Did very little while she was in but would spend weekends going away etc… lots of people had to pick up the slack. You could say anything to her she was pregnant.

Theres seems to be a small group who see being pregnant/having small children as an excuse to act like a princess or have allowances made but they aren’t the only person to have needs for some reason. They don’t trump the needs of others.

and this from someone who has had multiple complicated pregnancies, and currently has young children.

KimberleyClark · 08/04/2024 11:58

poetryandwine · 08/04/2024 11:51

Sadly your parents may well become your dependents in all but name. It is pathetically comparable

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This. Speaking from personal experience.

YaMuvva · 08/04/2024 11:54

sashh · 08/04/2024 11:51

I have never wanted children but the perception that I may have them has seem me passed over for promotion for being a female of child baring age.

The point of compulsory paid paternity leave is to level the playing field. Having children, at present, has no impact on men's careers, yet it does for women.

Compulsory paternity leave makes men as inconvenient as women to employ.

What about the benefit to the child of having both parents around?

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So rather than stopping companies discriminating against women, the solution is for men to have MORE maternity rights than women (the ones who actually get pregnant and give birth and breastfeed) and are forced to have paternity leave they may not want or need.

Wouldn’t it just be easier to not discriminate against women rather than use men as pawns and shit all over women to further the apparent agenda of the childless?

poetryandwine · 08/04/2024 11:51

DragonFly98 · 07/04/2024 19:01

Not comparable at all your parents are not your dependents.

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Sadly your parents may well become your dependents in all but name. It is pathetically comparable

sashh · 08/04/2024 11:51

YaMuvva · 08/04/2024 08:51

In which case I’m sure men with decent employers could request to have a half day or day off or even request paid leave to accommodate accompanying their wife. But I don’t think this should be a statutory right. Men aren’t pregnant and therefore don’t need the time off.

Im also surprised so many women are unable to reiterate to their OHs what the MW said to them that day.

Compulsory six months paternity leave?! Not even compulsory maternity leave is that long! Are men getting paid this whole time for that? Because they need to be if it’s compulsory.

Men getting paid for longer than women for taking paternity leave wouldn’t actually surprised me but you just see that’s unfair and ridiculous.

Also not all women want their men hanging around for six months and whilst 2 weeks isn’t enough IMO, six months is way too long. A baby doesn’t need 24 hour care from 2 people at six months unless they have a severe medical need.

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I have never wanted children but the perception that I may have them has seem me passed over for promotion for being a female of child baring age.

The point of compulsory paid paternity leave is to level the playing field. Having children, at present, has no impact on men's careers, yet it does for women.

Compulsory paternity leave makes men as inconvenient as women to employ.

What about the benefit to the child of having both parents around?

YaMuvva · 08/04/2024 11:44

KimberleyClark · 08/04/2024 11:33

I don’t think it’s the employer’s fault when colleagues - mums - complain about a childless woman taking time off to be with her dying mother. This has happened to a friend of mine.

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That’s awful but it’s one specific incident and certainly not a characteristic of all working mothers. Not really relevant to the conversation

YaMuvva · 08/04/2024 11:41

BibbleandSqwauk · 08/04/2024 11:33

Sure..I'll just ask my school to rewrite the entire timetable so that my classes are on a different day. 🙄

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😂😂😂

YaMuvva · 08/04/2024 11:41

oldestboy · 08/04/2024 11:31

It’s telling that this thread about making lives easier has descended into posters denying women their statutory rights (that exist because of decades of discrimination).

How dare you be paid fairly for the work you’ve already done, just because you are going on mat leave?

Lots of hand wringing about imaginary situations about entitlement and how women in the workplace taking the piss, when the reality is usually they are often the most diligent workers because they feel inherently vulnerable to others calling them ineffective.

And the desperate need for people to have colleagues who are pregnant women/new mums actually thank them when they take maternity leave 🤣🤣 and huffing when they dont! there’s a lot more personality disorders going around than we realise I think

YaMuvva · 08/04/2024 11:38

TheBeesBollox · 08/04/2024 11:27

You missed off the first part of what I'd written. That it should be treated the same way as reasonable adjustments for disability.

Once it stops being "reasonable" is when adjustments should stop being allowed. As you've pointed out, pregnant women already have more protection legally if they're off sick than someone off sick for a different reason. If it means they can't do their job fully then there needs to be cover for them, not a pretence they're still doing it whilst colleagues pick up the slack. Same as for a disabled person - of course there should be adjustments but there's a point at which you just can't do the job! (I say this as someone with a disability who has needed adjustments, but also had to leave or avoid jobs where this is not practical.)

I feel sorry for your friend who had to start maternity leave early. Doesn't seem fair that she has less leave once baby was born. I think pregnancy related illness should be able to be taken as sick leave up to say, 35 weeks. (Obviously with suitable cover sorted not expecting colleagues to cover!)

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You missed off the first part of what I'd written. That it should be treated the same way as reasonable adjustments for disability

It is and has been for some time.

Pregnancy lasts 40 weeks. And even then, it’s only 36 weeks tops as women don’t have a positive result until week 4. And legislation does dictate that employers can force pregnant woman to take earlier maternity leave (from 24 weeks) if she is unwell to the point of being unable to work.

So really this issue is, in the most extreme circumstances, a 20 week problem. Then it goes away because pregnancy is a temporary state. You could argue that actually pregnancy is a MUCH easier thing to make reasonable adjustments for than a disability or long term illness, because there’s an expiration date.

Can you tell us what is so “unreasonable” about an ill pregnant woman that the only route is to sack her?

betterangels · 08/04/2024 11:37

ilovesooty · 07/04/2024 20:27

Because wheelchair spaces were fought for and disability takes precedence.

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And because wheelchair users have no other choice. Babies can be in a sling/on the lap and pram folded.

bluebonnets · 08/04/2024 11:35

I am all in favour of accommodations allowing people to juggle work and other commitments, but focusing on women suggests that men don't or shouldn't carry equal responsibility. Clearly only women can be pregnant, but parenting should fall on both parents (and other caring responsibilities shouldn't fall disproportionately on women either).

BibbleandSqwauk · 08/04/2024 11:34

Herdinggoats · 08/04/2024 09:45

Well in this case as your colleague I would expect you to change that work day to another in the week that did work. I’d be royally pissed to hear that you were “working” two days but the clinic runs when it runs. This to me sounds 100% piss taking. Surely you just move your work day 🤷🏻‍♀️

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Sure..I'll just ask my school to rewrite the entire timetable so that my classes are on a different day. 🙄

BibbleandSqwauk · 08/04/2024 11:33

Herdinggoats · 08/04/2024 09:45

Well in this case as your colleague I would expect you to change that work day to another in the week that did work. I’d be royally pissed to hear that you were “working” two days but the clinic runs when it runs. This to me sounds 100% piss taking. Surely you just move your work day 🤷🏻‍♀️

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Sure..I'll just ask my school to rewrite the entire timetable so that my classes are on a different day. 🙄

KimberleyClark · 08/04/2024 11:33

YaMuvva · 08/04/2024 11:12

But it IS the employers fault. Obviously!

Or do you expect your colleagues to prioritise you and the incompetent management over themselves and their statutory rights and their baby? Genuine question.

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I don’t think it’s the employer’s fault when colleagues - mums - complain about a childless woman taking time off to be with her dying mother. This has happened to a friend of mine.

BibbleandSqwauk · 08/04/2024 11:33

Herdinggoats · 08/04/2024 09:45

Well in this case as your colleague I would expect you to change that work day to another in the week that did work. I’d be royally pissed to hear that you were “working” two days but the clinic runs when it runs. This to me sounds 100% piss taking. Surely you just move your work day 🤷🏻‍♀️

Show quote history

Sure..I'll just ask my school to rewrite the entire timetable so that my classes are on a different day. 🙄

BibbleandSqwauk · 08/04/2024 11:33

Herdinggoats · 08/04/2024 09:45

Well in this case as your colleague I would expect you to change that work day to another in the week that did work. I’d be royally pissed to hear that you were “working” two days but the clinic runs when it runs. This to me sounds 100% piss taking. Surely you just move your work day 🤷🏻‍♀️

Show quote history

Sure..I'll just ask my school to rewrite the entire timetable so that my classes are on a different day. 🙄

oldestboy · 08/04/2024 11:31

It’s telling that this thread about making lives easier has descended into posters denying women their statutory rights (that exist because of decades of discrimination).

How dare you be paid fairly for the work you’ve already done, just because you are going on mat leave?

Lots of hand wringing about imaginary situations about entitlement and how women in the workplace taking the piss, when the reality is usually they are often the most diligent workers because they feel inherently vulnerable to others calling them ineffective.