Stella Creasy think maternity leave is like retirement

Wow, astonishingly offensive and out of touch.

How can a woman who campaigned so hard for HER OWN RIGHT TO HAVE MATERNITY LEAVE AS AN MP and to be able to appoint someone to take on her MP workload while she was on maternity leave - so presumably realising how impossible it is to combine paid work outside the home with looking after a newborn full-time - not understand that maternity leave does not leave anyone 'unoccupied'?

Anyone who is genuinely 'unoccupied' while on maternity leave must either have an army of staff or be a seriously neglectful parent.

Which category does Stella fall into? Which category does she think most voters fall into?

What does she think nannies and nursery staff do all day, as well as other mothers? Absolutely nothing, apparently.😡

So deeply regret voting for as deputy Labour leader back in the day. She gave the impression of being a feminist once. Such a disappointment.

God, it was a major achievement if I managed to put a wash on when I was on maternity leave. I had a difficult time (PND) and a baby who would every time I put her down. Volunteering was not an option!

I think sometimes parental leave is a useful shorthand if you're talking about maternity, paternity, SPL, and adoption leave. It gets a bit of a mouthful to repeat all of those types of leave over and again (eg. In a policy document) so parental leave is helpful. But it would be nuts to use it instead of maternity leave just to be more 'inclusive'.
But you're right, why is SC only addressing mums, not dad's on SPL/pat leave?

No

Ha! Well spotted. Challenging her on using maternity leave instead of parental leave, and thereby failing to be inclusive, is probably the one response which would have guaranteed a climb down from her.

I agree with you re maternity leave fwiw.

I’m surprised she even used the term ‘maternity leave’. Isn’t the current inclusive way to phrase it ‘parental leave’?

(At the risk of derailing the thread - I’ve heard arguments that saying ‘parental leave’ is good for women because it implies that the burden of looking after a baby doesn’t fall soley on the mother and it helps ensure men pull their weight too. But to me it seems important that ‘maternity leave’ is still the norm as a term because of the specific protections required for pregnant women and women who have just given birth. Am I wrong?)

So is she implying that there was a heatwave yesterday when she shared that tweet? Or that there was a heatwave on the day when whoever it was in her office wrote that publicity material? Or that patronising assumptions about women with a baby under six months being unoccupied shouldn’t be challenged in hot weather? Or is it simply that any opportunity to portray herself as unfairly treated, however tenuous, must not be missed?

Or perhaps comments about being unoccupied whilst on maternity leave have never been directed at her personally, therefore such comments do not count as feminist concerns in her world view, and can be dismissed.

She/he/furry (SC) has tweet back in a rather patronising way. After someone's comment about maternity leave existing because of a baby being in your care, SC has sort of said 'have some goodwill on a hot day'. Would that SC had some good will and had said something like 'of course maternity is not someone just being unoccupied'. Not compared to someone being 'otherwise unoccupied', on garden leave, or retired.

I think SC seems to be self important, privileged and entitled. And the one group she doesn't seem to have any regard, never mind kindness, for are women.

Why does she hate women?

So you can leave her at home alone whilst you volunteer? I don't think you are understanding maternity leave, it is supposed to be for you to be there for your baby, not for volunteering elsewhere.

Depends on the baby. With my second, it's like retirement. I watched so many netflix shows, cooking, gardening, shopping, coffee. She just sleeps and eats.

Well I feel cheated. I want my ‘unoccupied’ maternity leave back as my maternity leave went by in a blur of sleeplessness, painful BREASTFEEDING, anxiety and nonstop care (with a lot of joy in there too).

But I would really like to experience this unoccupied mat leave. Can I have it now my kids are in secondary school?

I don't know why the advert needed to give us examples of why we might have the time or the inclination to get involved. We know if we have the opportunity or not.

it'shink its funny that garden leave gets a bigger billing than retirement and 'in between

Infuriating. Parenting, mothering and caring is utterly devalued, despite the wealth of research into infancy and early years suggesting early relationships impact a person's health and wellbeing for life. What the hell does Stella/the charity think childminders, nannies, nursery workers do all day then? Oh yeah, of course it can't be proper work can it, because they mostly earn peanuts.

Is there anything especially socialist about Stella's views?

Bloody hell, after maternity leave, I was glad to get back to work just for the rest! Unoccupied my arse, what an offensive presumption.

This isn't the first time she's gone public with her detachment from reality. She has quite a back catalogue of bonkers.

"Unoccupied". On maternity leave.

🙄

Just needs to replace with SAHM/P, would cover all people sitting at home doing nothing then 😂 (sarcasm alert)

Hang on. If you do 'work' paid or unpaid, doesn't that end your maternity leave?

Privileged, arrogant, unempathetic. Perhaps with access to staff when baby not being paraded in the H of C? The people of Walthamstow need to do something, she’s making them a laughing stock

I had to google her. Typical head in the clouds labour leftie. Says it all.

She’s trying to pass it off. But all the other things (gardening leave, retirement etc) are examples of having loads of time on your hands because you’re not working, and maternity leave is work.

Unoccupied? Bloody hell.

Meh. She, by implication, referred to maternity leave as being “unoccupied”. Which is different. So out of touch and clueless.

She just gets worse.