AIBU to feel resentful about repeated maternity leave cover at work

And women/families still bear the overwhelming work and money cost of having the kids, not society.

I think also OP it’s easy to forget that women going on mat leave are also the people who have been overstretched by covering for others in the past and will be in the future. I started working at 18 and had done 20 years before going on mat leave and if I am lucky I will have the best part of 30 years work afterwards. There isn’t some world where only the childless are in the fix you’re in. YABU.

@Kedgey55 the reason your opinion on hiring men over women is "controversial" is because it's misogynistic: you are of childbearing age yourself, so your opinion would do you out of a job if it became policy, even though you aren't like other girls. Women would start their careers at 45, if at all.

You resenting women who have babies isn't controversial, it's embarrassing. As lots of people have pointed out, who's going to be paying your pension? And that's not just for the public sector. The entire economy and in fact everything we'd call civilisation needs a workforce - someone to bury you so the seagulls don't eat you, at the very least. From one of those frustrating mothers who is also in part time paid work, you're - sort of - welcome.

And btw, if you think mothers working part time while bringing up children makes life hard for you, spare a thought for those of us who are doing it.

Once upon a time you were born and babies born today will pay your pension. Your issue is with the employer, not these parents.

@Kedgey55 your version of misogyny is now a relic. The modern version of misogyny is for the right wing men to slag off women such as yourself who won’t breed for them. For gods sake if you are going to do misogyny can’t you at least get with the programme and self flagellate instead.

This is all on the employers not women having babies.

Also NHS, our mat leave is generally covered adequately. That said, it is ALWAYS the female staff that take carers leave for the kids when they are sick.
and don’t get me started on the repeated sick leave for questionable reasons that puts huge pressure on the remaining staff. - I’m not referring to genuine illness but the repeat offenders. It’s not something that the corporate world would tolerate.

I can acknowledge your frustration, but wanted to say as someone who employs I’d rather have a part time women over a full time man.

i do think we have a huge issue as a society where men aren’t dropping to part time, not taking their paternity leave but one man I know that did take 6 months for each child lost his role 2 years later when his wife was pregnant and without doubt it was due to him taking 6 months leave.

I echo the others it’s not fair on you and your anger needs to be directed at senior management for poor arrangements that leave you felling like this.

I hear your frustration with trying to find replacement staff when they are very hard to find.
Often it is the financial situation of each family that decides who goes back to work.
And the baby gets a say too. The fbf baby will usually prefer it's mother.

Mothers who come back to work part time but require three hourly pump time offs are hard to work with in business where the work is mainly hands on. Some tasks need two people working together.

Not much you can do except hope more young people wish to train for your career and that managers hire 50/50 men and women.

go and work with older women out of child bearing age

Completely agree

I voted YANBU for the main and last point of not having issue with the current situation of Mat rights etc but wanting it more acknowledged that it has a huge impact on remaining staff.
I also work in NHS.
The reality is that these days trusts are saving money everywhere and mat leave cover is extremely rare. Therefore in non front line roles especially, other staff are expected to cover and there is an unreasonable expectation that most work still gets done somehow.
Also, mat cover is not a miracle fix as it takes a fair bit of time to learn a role in a new Trust/department and become proficient at it. Often difficult to recruit to a fixed term role of 12 months and a secondment just creates a vacancy to fill elsewhere.
so YANBU to be frustrated at a system that doesn’t adequately support women to take mat leave whilst also supporting the wider team’s workload and wellbeing.

Instead of Mumsnet you should go and speak with your managers. I can say the same about long sick leave. I was in totally sh*t when my colleague had a heart surgery (because our bosses didn't organise cover properly) but it doesn't mean everyone needed surgery should die because someone will struggle at work without them.

Men earn more in a lot of cases hence women end up pt plus do less childcare wise hence the women have to do everything for the children. Women shouldn’t pay with their jobs because men don’t step up!! As someone said you’re angry at the wrong people- and agree it’s the managers/ top tier fault for not covering

Well, if no one has Kids because there’s no potential leave your staffing problem will be a REALLY big one in 20 years time

This is a management problem not a women problem

As someone in a managerial role in another public service I agree with you to an extent. Not so much about the maternity leave, but about the part-time work afterwards, as well as the fact that it always seems to be women and not their husbands who take time off when kids are ill.

We have regular training where I work and every day there is someone off due to working part-time and it's an absolute nightmare. The main issue is the employer gives people any days they request, whereas I think people should be told there is one day everyone has to work. It's a logistical nightmare but, in all fairness, it isn't the women's fault, though I know many would kick right off if they were told no one could be off on a Monday, for example, anymore.

You mention the gender pay gap like it’s a justifiable punishment for women who have babies!
The pay gap is very often one of the reasons mothers are the ones who go part time - because their male partners earn more, meaning it makes more financial sense for them to maximise their income…

Years ago when I was first diagnosed with RA, I had a lot off time of sick.
My new manager , ( who was a horrible bastard) ,put me on a warning. The woman from HR was sitting with him and she had worked for 5 years and had 3 seperate years off maternity leave in those 5 years. I was annoyed because I couldnt9 chose my illness but she chose to have 3 babies.
In the end I had a referral to Occupational Health and they wrote back to my boss to say that I had a disability and that he should stop threatening me.
I didnt care that the woman had 3 babies by choice in 5 years, but I did care that I was victimised for something which wasnt my choice.

You need to redirect your annoyance towards managers and their poor handling of staffing. Women have had babies forever and the vast majority would probably want to stay at home with baby. There would have been little point my husband giving up a very generous six figure salary and all the perks for me to return to a part time admin role. If your managers know someone is going on mat leave they have months to arrange alternative cover.

I wanted to go back part time after having DC as I wanted to be around for our children. I resent your implication that I’ve somehow contributed to the gender pay gap by doing this. The point of womens rights was to have choice. Part time is my choice. And I did not want to share any of my mat leaves with DH, even though both of our employers support this. You seem to be looking at this completely from a workplace perspective only.

The issue is your employer, as everyone else has said.

YABU because the exact same happens in my health service program. Not for maternity leave but for staff going on secondment. The nature of the work, lack of workforce sustainability planning and glacial place of recruitment for cover causes everything to grind to a halt. It is nothing to do maternity leave but poor workforce planning and protection.

Women are (obviously) more likely to go on maternity leave than men, but in my experience men are more likely to move on and leave the company every few years whereas women are more likely to be loyal and stay. So if you employ men you have to recruit and train replacements. I know it's a generalisation, but that's been my experience.

It doesn't have to be that way OP. In my industry it's normal to bring in a contract person to cover mat leave and if they are a good fit they often stay on in another capacity when the mat cover is over - so it's a win for both the new hire and the employer. Woman taking mat leave is just part of the ebb and flow of office life and nothing to get all riled up about.

I’d say that if you had a policy of recruiting and supporting older staff and perhaps recruiting more male staff members, you’d have a better balanced team who could manage better? If you are only recruiting women of childbearing age, then that is a problem. Older women and men bring their own skills, experience and perspective that is being excluded here.

Why are you angry at women for having babies? You need to take it up with management. They’re the ones who need to be better organised.

I moved jobs because of continued maternity leave. I moved after 3 continuous years of it and just before the 4th one started.

I don't resent the women being off at all, it was the replacements they had that made my job insufferable.

I now, not necessarily by design, just the way it ended up, work with women past child baring age and a man.