To think maternity leave should be capped at 6 months to protect small businesses?

Another thing is that returning earlier the baby was often settled with the caregiver before they hit the clingy stage which usually is around 7 months to a year.

Umm no most didn't. I and all my friends kept working as did my acquaintances, uni peers and so on. I know ONE contemporary who didn't work throughout primary years and one other who stopped for 5 years.

Running an SME is running a business. You have to build certain things into your budget and if you can’t make it work it’s not viable.

We are always encouraged to support SMEs and I certainly prefer to do so than supporting Amazon etc but they are not charities.

My cousin owns her own business and won't employ women of child bearing age

My eldest didn't sleep all night until she was 3.5 YEARS!! I got 16 weeks maternity leave. Managed to still work.

I think maternity leave seems very long now but I don't think there's any good reason for shortening it. If people want to return earlier than that shouldn't be an issue

I do think it takes the piss though when women return already pregnant again , work a few months then take another year off.

In my experience, I’m fed up of seeing people that own and run a “small business” act so entitled on every level. I will never work for one again, it was like working for a small dictator.
If you chose to run a business you have to run it by the rules and treat your staff fairly. Don’t expect them to treat you like you’re doing them a favour. If you can’t run a business properly then don’t run one. Maternity leave is a basic right.

“it’s that the temp rarely has the same level of investment, experience, or adaptability.“

How would this be fixed if maternity leave was six months? Sounds like you have a problem with recruitment and training.

@0ohLarLarthere isn’t a wealth of evidence that children under 2 are better off at home with a parent. That’s simply not true.

And the current generation of young people are the ones who’s mums had long mat leave since it was extended to a year about 18 years ago!!

fine that you don’t want to work until your children are several years old, but don’t invent spurious arguments!

Anyone with a child aged over 18 today managed to return to work at 6 months or less, or had to stop work. Yes it was worse, and yes we managed it. But this thread with people saying "how on earth would that be possible with a breast fed baby or one who doesn't sleep?" - just be aware, my generation of women did it and we survived.

Well no most simply stopped. I am 40. My mother and all her friends simply didn't work for 5+ years (longer if you had more children. She went back part time when i (youngest) went to playgroup at about 3.5 and probably had around 8-9 years off entirely across 3 children.

I am a big advocate of women working- the period when children are very young is a fraction of a 46 year working life from 22 - 68. We need to simply build it in as an interlude and support parents to retain skills etc to enable them to return when children are 3 or4.

But what a nasty attitude to have towards mums who had their babies years ago.

no one is judging anyone who did the best they could with what was available to them at the time!

It doesn't change that absent other factors, across a population, putting little babies in nurseries does not lead to the best outcomes.

That doesn't mean lots of children don't turn out fine. It does mean that on a population level, it has an impact.

Look at the current generation of young people. They suffer from a lack of resilience, a lot of mental health issues including anxiety. Maybe we've got it all a bit wrong.

Having the leave as unpaid wouldn't reduce your hassle of juggling temps etc. It would just save you money.

Unless you think it would force people back to work quicker. Do you think thats in the children's best interest?

There's a wealth of evidence that babies under 2 are better off at home with a parent than in a nursery. If anything we should be trying to provide longer paid leave as in Sweden etc.

I've been on all sides of this argument: a mother of 3 dcs, a small business owner, and a manager in a slightly bigger business. I'm in my sixties and I had little paid maternity leave for one dc,and none for the other two. I was self employed when I.had dc3 and back at work after a month.
In my current role I have had the same member of staff take 3 lots of maternity leave almost back to back. I barely remember what she looks like tbh,but remember the 3 temps we have had to employ and train,only to lose each time she briefly returned. There IS an impact on business,and I say this as a mother myself!
And before I get blamed for "abandoning" my offspring at way before they were 12 months old I now have 3 healthy adults,2 first class degrees and 1 professional.musician so I don't think they have been too damaged. There is no easy solution to this and turning on each other doesn't help.

It depends doesn't it on the type of birth you have. Both mine were traumatic.

I'm my previous posts I described my baby. He had to be held upright all day long. A nursery couldn't possibly have met his needs. I apologise as he was my frame of reference.

Wow.

My children went to a childminder but friends of mine used nurseries, which often took babies from 3 months old.

like I say, I’m not advocating a step backwards. I think it’s great that maternity legislation is now way better. But what a nasty attitude to have towards mums who had their babies years ago.

Perhaps you’ll be relieved to hear that my 3 children are now all happy, well adjusted successful adults, so being in childcare from a few months old certainly hasn’t done them any harm! As I said, it’s physically hard work for a bf mum like I was, but emotionally, probably easier than leaving them after a whole year.

Only on very few occasions does it take a year!

Agree. I think it’s a troll and thus I can’t be bothered to engage further with the OP.

Nurseries generally took babies from 3 months. Mine took them from 12 weeks.

My children's grandparents live 200 miles away (I stayed in my uni city).

As a society we need to encourage people to have babies.

You are being unreasonable. I think statutory maternity pay should be paid for the full year and all employers should be offering enhanced maternity pay (and sick pay but that's a different argument). The needs of the Mum and baby come before work.

Who looked after these 3-6 month old babies? Were there nurseries full of babies who barely got their needs met, or did grandparents step in?

I’m an oldie who actually went back to work with a 3 months old because that’s how long paid mat leave was. I breast fed too and it was damn hard returning to work - not that I regret it though, I wanted to keep up with my career.

However, we can’t move backwards, it’s good that mat leave is more reasonable now. That said; the two big advantages of returning to work earlier were that separation anxiety was non existent, whereas I see quite a few mums now who have a real struggle settling one year olds in childcare for the first time. Also, I didn’t feel at all out of the loop with work - it felt more like an extended break whereas a year out of it might have felt harder to settle back into.

so all in all, I don’t think mat leave should be shortened, I think although many of us years ago just got on with it, we didn’t know any different whereas to shorten it now would feel like a very backwards step for many.

What I really do wish (and which I and many of my friends back in the day would have given our right arm for) is that transferable leave would be more widely used. I think it’s brilliant that now, mums have the option of transferring some leave to the dad. So good for the child and dad.

Children and mothers matter more than your business.

I think modern women are lucky and privileged compared with my generation to get a year's maternity leave. And that is a good thing. On the other hand I think my generation was lucky and privileged in terms of relative housing costs and student loans. I think counting your blessings is ok to do. You don't have to agree of course.

On the contrary, most women returned when it was 6 months.
That doesn't mean it was better that way.