As expected I've clearly stirred up a lot of emotions. I actually completely agree with most of the comments here. I was venting frustration, which I think I'm allowed to feel. And I would never in my wildest dreams actually act on employing a man over a woman or discriminate on this basis or not allow someone to come back part time.
But there is a reality that it isn't as straightforward as some of you make out. There are some high-level jobs which are just simply extremely difficult to do well, or certainly to the same standard, on a part-time basis. For example as a hypothetical, what if your child had 3 teachers, each working 1-2 days a week and job sharing, I doubt the teachers would be able to get to grips with your child's needs in the same way as 1 full-time teacher and it probably wouldn't be a satisfactory experience. Yes this is a hypothetical and somewhat extreme example but I'm just demonstrating the point. Yes the school could have a fantastic plan in place to support this and make it work well with funding etc, but we all know the reality.
A lot of you say I'm expressing frustration at the wrong people and the issue is with management. Yes that's correct. But herein lies the issue - you assume that management can just fix and sort this problem, there isn't a huge amount of consideration for how this works. I am management and I can't fix it! Hands are tied by higher ups in huge organisations like NHS and ultimately tied by the government and spending. Even if we put out mat cover, the child would be 2 before someone is employed! And some jobs are just so specialist, it is nigh on impossible to recruit on a temporary basis. I am thinking outside the box in every way to try to prevent this becoming such an issue in future. It is really really difficult in the public sector.
Some of you say that you wanted a year off with baby, it's not just the finances. Fair enough, but this does mean your partner had to sacrifice potentially his desire to have a year off with baby. I am totally fine with that being the choice, but I just wish it were an equal choice. If I had a child, I would want all options on the table with my partner- I go back to work, he goes back to work, split it. And this is the issue I probably have with equal rights. I believe in equal rights, but and perhaps naively, to me this means equality in every way. I want all the options available to men but I also believe they should have equal access and expectation to be able to do the options more typically chosen by women. This is true equality. I have never believed that men and women are fundamentally different and have different roles to play, we all have individual personalities. How much of the expectations of a man compared to a woman is due to nature or nurture could be debated endlessly. I suppose I am frustrated by more people (men &women) not 'going against the grain' of the typical gender roles. But maybe that's just me, I've never felt compelled to do anything simply because it was typical or expected of a woman, and I've never had much care for tradition or conformity.
There was a final theme I wanted to respond to which was someone saying that carrying on the species is literally the meaning of life, not work. OK so by saying this, someone could infer it to mean that everyone without children has less meaning in their life. I think at this stage of the modern world, we have somewhat transcended the purpose of life being solely procreation. No one choose this as their only goal in life if they have the means to have other things. There are many ways to have meaning in one's life and this is individual. It could be work, friends, family, travel, spirituality, voluntary work, hobbies etc etc. I do personally get a huge amount of fulfilment from my work, present frustrations aside.
So I expected to get a lot of disagreement, but let's not pretend this isn't a complicated issue with a lot of nuances :)