Multiple maternity leaves... Would you be annoyed with your colleague?

[ChikiTIKI]

I started working somewhere in 2016 and am just finishing up my second maternity leave since starting there.

If you were a colleague or manager of mine would you be annoyed that I had taken this time off?

And if I took a third and final maternity leave any time soon... Would you be furious?

Not at all.
My only issue would be with the company- mine refuses to cover for maternity leave. However, that is not the person on leaves problem, it's an issue with management being tight.

It’s disappointing but not surprising that several people seem to disapprove of this. What’s the alternative- women shouldn’t have 3 children? Should have bigger gaps between children (maybe not possible depending on age?) Should move jobs between children (would likely miss out on enhanced maternity pay..)???

I’ve worked for my employer since 2012. I had a year off 2018-19, came back for 18 months and am 6 months into mat leave 2. I’m planning a 3rd and would like a similar age gap (2.5 years), am mid 30s so can’t really afford to leave it much more than that. I’ve worked my arse off for my employer and my team and hate to think that my colleagues would think less of me essentially just because I’m a woman (most of my male colleagues have 2+ kids).

OP I think you should disregard what people may think and just do what’s best for your family.

No, of course not. Women get pregnant and go on Mat leave, this is life!

I think if I did take another mat leave I would put a lot of work in to sorting out my cover and push for it to be arranged earlier in case it doesn't work out so we have time to start recruitment again.

I was thinking if we did have another baby, waiting until end of this year to try, and last time it took over a year to get pregnant. Husband thinks we should just try now though 😁

I returned back to the NHS as a staff nurse when I was 16 weeks pregnant with my first. I had another two babies with year long maternity leaves on the same ward within 4 years. No one seemed upset.

No I totally love it and fiercely defend any criticism I hear about repeated pregnancies. I think my fave is when people return from maternity leave pregnant - and I’m a manager!

I would be to be honest but it mostly depends on staffing issues caused

Well it would depend on the circumstances. If it was the big multi national I worked for as a young woman I'd not care, as cover was always arranged, and the business could afford it. I'd probably think you didn't care about your career and would be the first in line for redundancy should that become an issue, but other than that it would be irrelevant to me.

In a small business on very tight margins I'd feel very sorry for the owner.

I wouldn’t mind, it’s one of those things and it’s your life. I’d be pleased for you.

I do think though that, even with the best intentions, multiple Mat leaves in quick succession probably causes unconscious bias in a lot of people/places and why women are still not quite equal in the workplace.

If it impacted on my workload, I might be annoyed but that annoyance would be aimed at management for not sorting proper cover. As I work in a school, that’s unlikely.

My friend is on maternity leave and pregnant with her second. DC2 is due the month before her DD’s 1st birthday. I can’t imagine her workplace will be thrilled but it is what it is.

I’m on mat leave now. With DD1, I didn’t need to take maternity leave. I’ve been working at my school for 5 years and this is my first maternity leave. I’m hoping to have a third at some point in the not too distant future so hopefully I don’t annoy anyone.

I think there are some uses of maternity leave which strike me as milking the system (especially where enhanced maternity pay is concerned) but just having two babies in the span of four years or even three in the span of six certainly isn’t one of them, it’s completely normal behaviour.

@BeingATwatItsABingThing I love your username 😅

I kind of think your friend having two back to back mat leaves might be easier for their employer, if they could get her cover to stay another year. Easier than coming back for a few months I mean.

If I were in your team yes I’d probably be pissed off that you were hardly there. BUT women have children, it’s a fact of life and really it’s no one else’s business how many kids you have, or how close together you have them.

It can’t be easy being a small firm employing young women but it’s just a fact of life.

[quote ChikiTIKI]@BeingATwatItsABingThing I love your username 😅

I kind of think your friend having two back to back mat leaves might be easier for their employer, if they could get her cover to stay another year. Easier than coming back for a few months I mean.[/quote]
Thanks.

She’s planning to go back for enough time to be entitled to maternity pay again. She got 6m full pay this time.

The thing is, you're perfectly entitled to do it. It just may annoy colleagues who have to cover for you, even if they don't say so.

I work for the NHs and they are notorious for not providing cover for people's maternity leave as they pay people in full for the majority of their maternity leave anyway so there's not usually any money in the budget
In our team we've had to all do ambit extra because of this but I'd never make it difficult of awkward for a colleague on maternity leave - we all agreed but said we want overtime paying and they paid us all overtime for any extra we did.
The only worrying thing is tho senior managers have said in other areas if someone goes on maternity leave and the post isn't covered and the department
Can "manage"
Is it viable and good use of money to have that many people in the department if it's not necessary.

Actually, that's a good point from pp, I only ever stayed in my roles 18 months - 2 years when I was single and ploughing through the career stages, but once I was at a decent level, and then pregnant, I stayed put for years at both the jobs that had to provide maternity leave.

I realise it won't be an exact science, but I bet that there's a lot more turnover in other groups, for other reasons, than among pg women.

I gave a friend who accepted a job several months pg, without telling them, and I was really surprised. I can't see what else she could've done, but she had 3 children in 4 years, and then left.

I wouldn't judge you for being off- I'd be taking up any additional workload issues with the management if I were another employee.

But I would raise my eyebrows at you having a third to be honest, given the state of the world we are in, overpopulation, climate change etc. I appreciate it's not what you asked though...

I took 3 mat leaves within 4.5 years. It was certainly not an indication of my focus not being on my career (as a pp said they might think), it was merely an indication that i wanted children as well as a career.

Op i dont think you can worry too much about what your colleagues think. It's nothing to do with them and if you're at a workplace where someone going on mat leave means others pick up the slack then that is an issue they should be raising with the company, it's a management issue - not yours.

No, not at all. In fact, I took two back to back years of maternity - my baby died neonatally and I got pregnant again as soon as I could. In total I had 3.5 years of maternity leave off in the first 15 years of working there - massive employer in the U.K.

@VettiyaIruken

I wouldn't give a shot. I'd be furious with management if they didn't ensure they had staff to cover and as a result I ended up with your work.

As a manager I support women who take maternity leave, of course I do. But I do not have the resources to pay for maternity cover, so you will end up with the work to do, because the work has to be done. You could be as furious as you like but it wouldn't change a thing.

Ha @ChikiTIKI I could have written this about me! Started with company in 2016 and on my second mat leave and thinking about how a third one would go down. Company is huge and I intend on staying there for a long time, but I did get a few tongue in cheek comments when I announced my second pregnancy only a few weeks of being back in!

I'm a manager and have had to manage multiple mat leave covers at the same time and also shared parental leave - I always encourage them to take as long as they can afford to take off, work will still be here when they're back and they won't get the time back with their babies so don't feel guilty at all!

I wouldn't care but then again with both my pregnancies I had complications and was signed off around five/six months before maternity leave kicked. So each pregnancy meant I was off work around 18 months each time.

If anyone had issue with it, they haven't mentioned it and I really wouldn't care they did.

I do not police my colleagues maternity leave. That is between them, and their line manager. End of.

I had 3 maternity leaves in 3 years. I didn't ever think about what my colleagues thought because my manager was superb in arranging cover for mat leave so nobody was left overworked covering for others.