AIBU to feel resentful about repeated maternity leave cover at work

The question really is why the NHS doesn’t take account of the fact that they have a large percentage of women in their workplace and have more robust procedures in place to cope with fairly predictable occurrences like maternity leave or long term sickness leave. There’s a lot of money spent on the NHS so running it on a minimum staffing level and then being surprised that women take their hard fought for, perfectly legal, maternity leave is frankly mind boggling. Expecting other staff already working flat out, to just suck up the extra workload is complete nonsense, the issue as many PP’s have said is not the women on maternity leave it is the shit management within the NHS.

In the corporate world where I work, if. Staff member is going on mat leave then a mat leave cover is hired temporarily, work never stops, there is a handover and the full duties and ambitions of the business, the objectives, plans and projects that we’re going to happen still happen, may leave covers get paid a higher wage as they are on contacts, they usually are of the same or higher seniority and experience than the person going on mat leave so that their work can be handled fully and with no gaps. Obviously it doesn’t always work out perfectly but this is usually the expectation and I have never seen a complete disaster. Except my own mat leave cover who was a total arsehole but that’s nothing to do with the actual job which he did do to the level and completeness required.
is this not the case in your field ??

Don't blame the players. Blame the game.

You have a management issue, not a mothers issue.

My work brought in equal parental leave for fathers/non birthing parents about a year ago - both 6 months full pay. It has definitely sparked a change in mindset but I do find it entertaining as those taking it mansplain to me how challenging it is to be off with the baby or phase back to work… I’m a mother of 3, I know pal.

Can I also say I would not want my children’s father to take my mat leave and share it. It is my time to be at home and bond with our child as a mother and it would be unfair to rip my child away from me 6 months in just because Susan on mumsnet said we need to split maternity leave with men- guranteed you’d ask and the majority of men would say they’d prefer to be at work and leave the mother at home

I don’t think you’re unreasonable for being frustrated by inadequate staffing. If colleagues are constantly expected to pick up the workload when someone is on maternity leave, that absolutely needs addressing.
But I think the problem is being aimed at the wrong people. The issue isn’t women taking maternity leave — it’s employers failing to plan and provide adequate cover.
And saying you can understand why employers might prefer men is where I think the argument isn’t great.

Women shouldn’t have to feel guilty for having children because a workplace hasn’t staffed itself properly.
You can absolutely acknowledge the impact on colleagues left behind without blaming the women who are on maternity leave because we as women are entitled to live our lives how we want and have children when and how we want without judgment or worry about your opinion or the impact it’ll have on your employer that’s their job to worry about staffing not the pregnant lady

Your colleagues could just as easily be out for illness or bereavement. Management should not keep staff levels so tight that work can’t continue while people also live their lives.

And I realise it is not womens fault we don't get mat cover- that is an organisational and national funding issue.

You wrote that and you know it’s the only thing to blame.

💯

who do you think helped make the baby that led to the mother requesting part time/flexible working? another woman?

@babyproblems there must just be something in the water at OPs workplace then!

i despair at this 🫠🫠🫠
’they’… really. The population statistics are available for all to see. There isn’t some sort of conspiracy and this isn’t the experience of most people 🫠🫠🫠

I am quoting your post, because absolutely yes this is reality. Men rarely ever willingly request part time/ truly flexible working. They might if they are senior, rarely on the shop floor, and yes if self employed where they are short changing a client on hours worked on a job. Always it is considered women's work to sort childcare/babysitting/whatever. I dont think equal mat/pat leave will solve this discrepancy. And yes on here there will always be the occasional mum whose wonderful DH deals with it or some of it. Great. But not the norm for most. So yes maternity cover will fall to the existing workforce, and yes it will inevitably never be that men need that support. I agree with you 100 %.

You have a huge management issue!!!!
Shocked that you can’t see this…

Its nothing to do with your colleagues, the fact you haven’t had kids, or political maternity policy strategy.
The entire issue is a lack of competence from your management.

I think you aren’t suited to the (shit) culture of the place you’re working. Rightly so. You should vote with you feet! I also think you should make a complaint to higher up about his maternity cover is being handled.

I never minded except the ones who played it-claimed to be too sick to work, but were at nightclubs at weekends. Really not fair on people like you, or women who had genuine sickness in pregnancy.
And the fact that women off with things like ovarian cancer had limited paid time off, and had to go through absence stages. Separate issue, but not fair that they had to go through that while women saying they had too much morning sickness to work (while clubbing and posting days out eating) didn't.
The men thing-sometimes the woman wants to be the one to stay home more, and sometimes men are still judged for being "weird" if they want to look after children. And obviously single parents are more likely to be women, while there are single dads, of course.

Aside from you trying to blame women for the mismanagement of your dept, YABU for assuming that all women want their partners to equally share the parental leave. Many women want the time off with their babies to bond and be a mother. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to go back to work and have DH home with the baby. If you are arguing for choices for women remember that choosing to be home with baby is also a valid choice.

So you want women to stop having kids? So you have zero healthcare and zero pension in your old age?

Alright then.

PS. You're angry at the wrong people. You should be angry at your employers for not covering mat leaves properly

As others have said you are resentful and annoyed at the wrong people. The issue is your management and recruitment issues, not with women exercising their rights. Those rights also benefit you whether you realise it or not.

There is also room to be annoyed at a society which still socially and culturally results in women being the ones to move into part time work when both parents could share the burden of childcare. Or, the lack of properly high quality but low cost childcare to enable women to stay full time if they want to.

I know that when I went part time I did (and still do) substantially more work than what would actually represent my part time hours. I think a lot of workplaces, perhaps not NHS ones, get a lot of value from part time women workers that isn’t acknowledged

Even childless people would be stuffed if women stopped having children. That will become more obvious to you as you get older and the people you rely on for essential services are younger than you (i.e. other people's children). Or read Children of Men if you want to get up to speed on that more quickly.

“They” make out there is a fertility crisis because that is what the statistics show. Anecdote isn’t data and all that.

This.
youre being totally unreasonable.
you’d just complain about men going part time if childrearing was equally shared more often.
way to champion women.
workinf mothers already have it hard enough trying to put family first and do what’s best for their children, struggling with mum guilt and mental loads and also trying to retain some semblance of a personality, independence and career.
if your whole service has been on hold for 5 years because of mat leave, your service is badly organised.
sincerely a working professional single mother in healthcare trying to keep everyone and my own career afloat.

I do agree with this, everyone should have equal access to holiday time etc.
A baby doesn't know if it's Christmas Day or Boxing Day etc even though adults do.

Having kids isn't part and parcel of being a woman though-it's a choice. One OP hasn't made.

Another NHS professional, who unexpectedly announced a pregnancy to my department in my forties. This is a management issue. There is a very fine line between being sympathetic and taking the . Those with children should not get preferential access to Christmas leave etc as this is a time people often want to spend with families themselves.
I try and do an additional on call for my closest colleague, who I know will help if he possibly can, and try very hard to be accomodating for swaps etc.

I realise that there needs to be equal mat and pat leave to encourage this to be shared more equally between men and women and until we have that, of course it makes financial sense for the woman to stay off work for longer.

I did not want equal maternity and paternity leave. I wanted a year off with my baby. I wanted to be with them most of the time on maternity leave and to breastfeed at least to one year (which yes you can do whilst returning to work but I didn't want to start faffing with pumping etc).
DH was happy to support with this.
He also tool a lot of leave when I was on maternity leave so we could have family time but I would not have wanted to share my leave so he could be off work and I would return earlier than planned. For many women the early weeks or months are a time of recovery, and sleep deprivation can go on for months (years in some cases including with DC1).

Duration of maternity leave was not decided thinking of what makes financial sense in my case. I spent tens of thousands of pounds (which I worked bloody hard for) to get pregnant. I have also taken periods of unpaid leave to spend additional time with DC.