Do you take all of your parental leave each year?

[Woeisme99]

Shortly returning to work from 2nd mat leave, and I've recently become aware of parental leave.

Juts wondering do some of you take it every year and factor it in like annual leave, or do you keep it for illnesses / settling in to school etc?

I imagine my request is going to go down like a shit sandwich (NHS), I don't think anyone else in my team takes it. Is it generally OK with your employer or do they make it difficult for you?

I took it once when ds got chicken pox so obviously couldn't go to childcare.

strawberry That’s not the parental leave that is being discussed here. It’s booked in advance.

I’m also NHS and get 5 days (paid)a year of carers leave. I only use it if DC are too ill to be in school/at grandparents, or if schools close due to bad weather. This year I’ve used 1 day, previous 2 years I didn’t take any but the year before that used all 5 plus annual leave.
We also get 5 weeks paid paternal leave per child until the child is 14 (total, not per year!) so I have 15 weeks I could take. I used 4 weeks to extend maternity leave and 1 week when DC was competing with the school and I wanted to travel with them to watch it. Nobody has ever complained about me taking it, but I wouldn’t take advantage with it.

I’ve never taken it. Can’t afford unpaid leave.

My youngest is disabled which means I can take it in individual days if I want so that might make it an option if I ever need it for him.

I'm planning to take a couple of weeks this year to cover one week of the summer and then half term for October. Not a problem where I work and I might even suggest they use the summer saving to give our PT admin some extra hours (they are a student and always keen for extra hours in the holidays).

It means I can keep holiday allowance for inset days ect.

I’ve never known anyone take parental leave, and that’s within a couple of different sectors and several different employers.

I’ve never used it-weeks of pre-booked unpaid time off wouldn’t be terribly useful to us.

I wonder what would be most useful for employees? The main issue for people on here certainly seems to be time off for their children’s illnesses.

If you could take days off last minute and unpaid for children’s illnesses, would that be helpful in encouraging people back to work?

I have never taken it and don't know anyone who has ever taken it either.

I have never had to take unpaid emergency carer leave either fortunately - I have been paid for the odd day I have taken off when DD has been ill, as has DH so we've managed without having too. Fortunately DD has never really had any big illnesses.

Yep I take it every year.

3 weeks in the summer, 4 if I can.

I save up throughout the year to pay for it and love it. Not many others take it though. When I first applied my boss was terrified it would open floodgates of everyone wanting it but it didn’t.

Obviously as it is unpaid it’s not hugely popular but if you can afford it, or save up to cover it like I do, then it’s amazing.

It's not so much that its unpaid but that there is no one to cover me when I'm off, the work waits for me to come back. 5 weeks leave in a year is manageable but I'd be forever playing catchup if I took unpaid as well.

I have to say though in my company of 200 odd people I am the only employee who has ever taken it! I will take all of mine until I use it up for each child. I work full time so it means that I end up averaging about 4.5 days per week over the year. I’m lucky in that I can book it whenever I need to - so half terms and school holidays, I’ve never been refused. The others in my dept don’t have young children , apart from one chap and his wife covers school holidays. So they never want school holidays off - they prefer term time holidays so it’s cheaper and no kids around.

Expletive Ditto, granted my workload would be get any bigger but I would be way behind. And other colleagues are off throughout the year and it wouldn’t be fair for me to monopolise the holidays,

Wouldn’t get bigger!!

I've never used it as couldn't afford it to be unpaid. But I am allowed to accrue toil when doing overtime so usually manage to accrue around 3 weeks toil during our busy time, which I then use in the holidays.

Well I feel very lucky indeed reading this! I'm also an NHS staff member. Our local policy states we get the first 6 weeks of parental leave fully paid as long as we've worked for NHS continuously for a minimum of 18 months. It must be used before the child is 14. Then the remaining 12 weeks are unpaid and need to be used before the child is 18. My manager actively encourages us to use up our paid parental leave and sends out reminders about the policy to all staff at least twice a year then will give a verbal reminder to those of us with older kids/tweens who still have paid parental leave left to take.

Those paid 6 weeks are definitely viewed as being similar to AL except you can't take it if your child is at school unless very young/part time school goers and you're needing time to help them to settle. I've only used three of my weeks so far and put another request in today to take another paid week in the summer so I can take DD on holiday.

Again, never realised how lucky I was until now!

I've never taken it, nor have any of my colleagues. Entitled to it or not, I'm not sure it would go down very well, even if it is unpaid.

No never it's unpaid and I can't afford that never have.
If I need time off childcare problems child ill Me or dh will use annual leave . If I need to leave early come in late for school run I make time up.
I had a dilemma this week dc was ill I had no annual leave so was contemplating having a day unpaid but dh managed to use a day annual leave.

Gosh you are lucky @BombayTricycleClub I've always worked for companies that yes sympathetic to childcare but you always get the odd colleague rolling eyes because you have to do the school run once in a blue moon even though I always have made the time up . I have only ever taken the day off with a ill child as a last resort too .
It's a shame more employers don't give more paid parental leave but I suppose it's like sick pay a lot of employers don't pay that either .

Me and DP working the same nhs trust. All our parental leave is unpaid (we get 1 week paid for emergency carers leave). Dp was going to take some last year when his mum couldn't do childcare however his.mangager worked out an arrangement with his shifts so he didnt need to.

I've never known anyone else take it. I know some people have applied to take it over the summer holidays but since they were already taken up by annual leave it was postponed to September.

To those that work in nhs trusts where it is paid. Does it cause resentment amongst those without children? I know pre children I would have been welp miffed that you essentially had 4 week extra annual leave just for having a child.

I took a block of 3 weeks when DS was younger - private school so long summer holidays, and at another time I took a week at Christmas. However as we can buy an extra week as standard, and our department is fine with working from home once or twice a week, I'm not sure if i'll use it again unless I decide to take a couple of weeks when DS has his Nat5s.

I'm surprised by some of the sneery responses about the leave on here. It's a real godsend for school holidays for those of us with no family support.

To those that work in nhs trusts where it is paid. Does it cause resentment amongst those without children? I know pre children I would have been welp miffed that you essentially had 4 week extra annual leave just for having a child.

I have a very small team. All female and most (bar two) are mums with young kids. The two older women with grown kids do say they wish they had the same entitlement to 6 weeks paid parental leave when their kids were young, but it's never said in a way that is bitter. I think it helps that our manager - also female and mum of young kids - is extremely family orientated. She has 4 kids so is entitled to 24 weeks of paid leave before they are 14 (6 weeks paid per child) and uses several weeks of paid PL alongside her AL each year. I think the fact the boss is doing it reduces any tension among us mere minions about doing the same!

My manager is also very good at telling us about domestic leave and emergency carers' leave if we can't make it into work due to sick children or something else such as car problems. E.g. my colleague got three days' paid domestic leave last year because her boiler burst and she needed to be at home to deal with the repairs and damage. I got one day paid domestic leave when my car broke down and I had to get towed to the garage.

This thread has made me really appreciate my team my job and certainly my manager so much more!

I don’t have family support so I use a childminder during the holidays when I’m working.

I have taken a week so I could have extra time in the summer holidays, my boss was unhappy until he realised it was unpaid then they decided all fine!

Just wondering where those who get paid parental leave (not carers leave) are based? Is it Scotland?
I thought in England nhs trusts would offer the same benefits?

I actually don’t even know if my work offer it paid or unpaid!