Curious about (lack of) mat leave in USA. How do women cope?

[Ed1n]

Reading another thread about WFH with a newborn which got me thinking. I’m on mat leave and cannot imagine returning to work at twelve weeks, which is I understand, fairly typical (even best case) in US. Any stateside mumsnetters able to give insight into how long most women really take, what is childcare provision like etc?

It seems such a different set up! How do you breast feed, cope with sleep deprivation and decision making.

Googling suggests Estonia is the generous country for paid mat leave. USA the worst.

Is the UKs maternity leave really that generous? I’ve seen quite a few comments say it is. I live in the UK and yes it’s nice to be able to take 12 months off and I was fortunate to be able to do so, but just because you can doesn’t mean a lot of women can afford to, realistically women have only 6 weeks of ‘decent’ pay and for most the £150 per week is a huge deduction in household income, not sure how single mums get by on it, it must be a real struggle.
Of course there are employers that offer more, Im privileged to be able to work for a company that offers 6 months full pay and 3 SMP and the last 3 unpaid. But there are also huge corporations that pay the bare minimum (totally get it for small business but big corporations personally I don’t think it should be allowed, but I digress).

Breastfeeding wise surely it’s how to do with how our healthcare systems are set up? The nhs is incredibly stretched and has been for years, midwives, GPs, health visitors, paediatricians all have minimal breastfeeding training combine that with the fact that there is very little community support when there are breastfeeding challenges and an expensive private sector that many just cannot afford to access. Formula is often more supported and often cheaper. Then we have quite backwards cultural attitudes to breastfeeding on top of that. From the American influencers I follow on social media it seems breastfeeding support is more readily available?

I think it's fair enough to say that you don't want your tax helping someone else if you are American. That's sort of the historical ethos, that the hard-working and clever will provide for themselves and their families and those that fail just didn't try hard enough. Meglameg's parents probably said it to her, and their parents said it to them. It's sort of a frontier vibe. If people can't afford children then they shouldn't have them. That is pretty much what is currently happening, the fertility rate has dropped dramatically and is below replacement rate. Women in the US are either not having children at all or not having as many as they would if they had better financial circumstances. Which probably makes Meglameg very happy.

However, in the modern world there are lots of things that your taxes pay for that you do benefit from, like roads, armed forces, law enforcement, water and sewage etc. If the fertility rate drops too low then around the time that the current parents retire and stop paying taxes there won't be enough new workers to replace them. Fewer workers means less tax paid which in turn can mean cuts in public services. Fewer workers and a shrinking population can also mean a contracting economy, which can lead to sluggish share prices. Most people's retirement funds are invested, so retirees might also find that their incomes are not what they expected.

@BlackAmericanoNoSugar

Except the fertility rate is also (and in some cases even further) down in the countries which have taxpayer funded stand in parenting (daily daycare) and long term maternity leave. And those things literally make no difference to increasing birth levels. Actually they’re probably both a symptom of what is causing low birth levels - lack of value place in family and raising children - in the first place and will never be a solution for them, quite the opposite.

Why even have children you never see? Especially when your probably broken up with the father and so you see them even less (and so does he). What a spiritually empty way to live.

@HanukahMatata

You do you. At this point it’s clear you don’t value SAHM and believe all women should follow your path of a long (funded) maternity leave, then back to work and kids in (funded) daycare or with Dad (or Step Dad).

I’m happy (and safe thank you) in my life and I’m sorry that hits a nerve with you that I won’t bow down before the altar of the high powered working Mother and offer up my family’s money to raise her children.

My boss in the UK, took just 6 weeks off for both her children and then back at work full time.
I wasn't there for the first, but the 2nd.
Not what I would do, (or did), but that was what she preferred. It was her choice.
As my manager she earned lots more than I did.
Was about 30 years ago, now, but women then were still entitled to have around 6 months off, I think

Is the UKs maternity leave really that generous? I’ve seen quite a few comments say it is. I live in the UK and yes it’s nice to be able to take 12 months off and I was fortunate to be able to do so, but just because you can doesn’t mean a lot of women can afford to, realistically women have only 6 weeks of ‘decent’ pay and for most the £150 per week

This thread has continually mixed up maternity leave and maternity pay,

In the Uk women are legally entitled to take 52 weeks maternity leave. What they are paid will vary depending on their employer. Many women are fortunate enough, as I was, to have saved some money to allow them to take a few months unpaid leave.

In USA, as I understand it, women are only legally entitled to 12 weeks maternity leave. Again, what they are paid will vary depending on their employer.
However if they are fortunate to be able to afford to take longer they are reliant on their employer allowing it.

@Classica Because her husband does and since we seem to have 1950s tradwife, what the husband thinsk and does is what the wife does.

Absolute 'surrendered wife' vibes.

@BlackAmericanoNoSugar

I think it's fair enough to say that you don't want your tax helping someone else if you are American. That's sort of the historical ethos, that the hard-working and clever will provide for themselves and their families and those that fail just didn't try hard enough. Meglameg's parents probably said it to her, and their parents said it to them. It's sort of a frontier vibe. If people can't afford children then they shouldn't have them. That is pretty much what is currently happening, the fertility rate has dropped dramatically and is below replacement rate. Women in the US are either not having children at all or not having as many as they would if they had better financial circumstances. Which probably makes Meglameg very happy.

However, in the modern world there are lots of things that your taxes pay for that you do benefit from, like roads, armed forces, law enforcement, water and sewage etc. If the fertility rate drops too low then around the time that the current parents retire and stop paying taxes there won't be enough new workers to replace them. Fewer workers means less tax paid which in turn can mean cuts in public services. Fewer workers and a shrinking population can also mean a contracting economy, which can lead to sluggish share prices. Most people's retirement funds are invested, so retirees might also find that their incomes are not what they expected.

I agree, @BlackAmericanoNoSugar. I was listening to a radio segment recently (think it was Bloomberg) and they were talking about the baby boomers retiring from certain sectors, for example, engineering, and currently there aren't enough younger workers to replace them.

Immigration is a solution, but it all takes time and USCIS is running massively behind, even more so due to the pandemic.

@megalameg

No, first and foremost I value CHILDREN, all children. And meeting their needs.

You are totally misguided if you think this is about high powered career women and exposing some quite deep seated misogyny.

All the evidence shows that parental leave and subsidised daycare benefit CHILDREN. In particular, the most disadvantaged children. You clearly care not a whit about these children since all you rant about is working mothers. Bizarre and rather 1950s.

All of this "you cope cause you have to" "I went back after 4 weeks so can everyone" rhetoric is depressing and the reason why there is a gender pay gap and glass ceiling for women. We should not be accepting. We should be questioning and challenging.

Personally, I had such bad birth injuries that I couldn't walk for 4 weeks, only crawl on all fours. I'd have been fucked if I was in the US or was around 20 years ago!

I never understand why people talk about babies as being luxury items, fine we love having them - mostly - but society does need them as future earners and tax-payers. (i thing @HanukahMatata put it slightly more eloquently though).

@wooliewoo

Is the UKs maternity leave really that generous? I’ve seen quite a few comments say it is. I live in the UK and yes it’s nice to be able to take 12 months off and I was fortunate to be able to do so, but just because you can doesn’t mean a lot of women can afford to, realistically women have only 6 weeks of ‘decent’ pay and for most the £150 per week

This thread has continually mixed up maternity leave and maternity pay,

In the Uk women are legally entitled to take 52 weeks maternity leave. What they are paid will vary depending on their employer. Many women are fortunate enough, as I was, to have saved some money to allow them to take a few months unpaid leave.

In USA, as I understand it, women are only legally entitled to 12 weeks maternity leave. Again, what they are paid will vary depending on their employer.
However if they are fortunate to be able to afford to take longer they are reliant on their employer allowing it.

I do see your point but in the UK I do think the 2 are inextricably linked. The amount of pay you receive dictates the amount of leave you can take

I’m not too familiar with the US system, i thought you could take more than 12 weeks (happy to be corrected) it might not be termed maternity leave, like my cousin took it as disability.

Cos meg seems so happy . My lucky children are going to have months home with their dad looking after them, if that’s a failed society the kids definitely win in this set up! It’s great to see so many men taking paternity leave, and no indication it means my dh is going to leave me but thanks for your concern

@saddowizca

Yes we’ve got to keep those future earners and taxpayers coming, just have them, stick them in daycare (so someone else can work and pay tax to work looking after them), then back to earning and paying tax yourself. Nothing more than cogs in a machine - that’s a pointless life to me.

@HanukahMatata

There is literally no evidence that having a year or so of Mummy time then jamming the kids in daycare is “what’s best for children”. What is the phrase here used about weekend Dads who don’t really want the kids? Disney Dads? That’s what this is - Disney Mums. Career first, children distant second when it’s convenient just so long as they can be put back away out of sight, family third, actually I guess family simply doesn’t factor at all that’s not important as a factor in children’s welfare in your mind.

The reality is that subsidised maternity leave and daycare benefits Mothers who want their lifestyle choice funded by society and that is why you will do anything to defend it, you only stated talking about the disadvantaged children because excecutive Mummy taking a year off on someone else’s expense doesn’t get the same sympathy.

If you cared so much about disadvantaged children then you should care more about stopping communities getting to the point where it’s necessary to pass your kids off all day just to scrape together enough money to feed them. But hey, that’s probably good to you right? More taxpayers and then the kids can do the same. What a cold cold world you celebrate. Wouldn’t want my kids living in it that’s for sure.

@timeisnotaline

I am happy. Actually it’s not that he’ll leave you - the statistics show your actually more likely to leave him as a stay at home dad. That’s the hard truth.

@Classica

Nope I’m not a “surrended” wife (whatever that is).
Just a wife and another who won’t be bullied into saying I support jamming children into daycare just so we have more “taxpayers”. And one who doesn’t think my family’s money should go to support businesswomen taking a year off then pick up at work where they left off and play Disney Mom with their kids when it suits them.

Why should my family pay for that? Make better choices, don’t try to force other people to pay for your selfishness.

Megalameg

I truly don’t understand where you are going with this. Is it that you believe the message to boys and girls through school years is that you can either have a career or a family but not both? If that’s your intent that’s fine but it’s just not clear from what you write.

Also, your posts focus on women in a child rearing sense, is that intentional or are you meaning women or men? Both myself and DH worked when ours were kids but we took a different route of opposing shifts/hours/days/holidays to enable both full time work and childcare. Nearly killed us but we managed. Wasn’t due to any objection to childcare, we just took it as an opportunity to financially save that output and get ahead at that stage of life while our bodies were still physically capable. DH was just as able to ‘sole parent’ in this capacity as I was. The only exception was he couldn’t breastfeed/express but he could give bottles of EBM to babies.

I also think the term businesswomen is misleading. There are lots of working women, including myself, I wouldn’t class as businesswomen yet have careers.

@Megalameg
Hope your kids are homeschooled and you don't expect the taxpayer to pay for your kids' education.
This obsession with mothers and women is weird too. Fathers are parents.
And, yes, all the evidence shows that quality and subsidised daycare and parental leave benefits children. And that's what's important - meeting children's needs. I've linked to a couple of studies. I can link to more. In the meantime, you've just ranted and shouted and provoked but provided no evidence of your outlandish claims, nothing to back up your points. And you've been offensive to the point that stay at home mums are begging you to stop giving them a bad name (you don't, you only represent yourself and other tradwives)

[quote Megalameg]@timeisnotaline

I am happy. Actually it’s not that he’ll leave you - the statistics show your actually more likely to leave him as a stay at home dad. That’s the hard truth.[/quote]
What statistics? Link please. That's totally made up. I call bullshit. You have zero evidence to back up your claims.

If I'd chosen to be a SAHM when I had my children I hope I'd have been happier than megalameg appears to be. So much anger and resentment flying off the page!

@HanukahMatata

Google the Harvard studies by Professor Killewald - I have no idea how to post links by phone. This isn’t the only study either.
That is a study which actually investigated whether or not men who stay home are more likely to be divorce and whether it’s likely it will be their wives who leave them. They are and it is.

Meanwhile you have linked to studies which show nothing which you claim they do - your supposed child “happiness” chart is nothing more than a listing of well off countries where children are less likely to be in poverty. Something which would happen regardless of whether high powered Mothers go back to work and stuff their kids in daycare or not.

As usual you hide behind “what’s best for the children” when the truth is what started this was you wanting long Maternity leave and Daycare subsidised by those who don’t use them, not out of concern for children - but because it suits the lifestyle You want to live and the one you think other women should.

The truth is you chose the lifestyle you wanted of long maternity leave and then kids in daycare because it worked for you - you didn’t chose it thinking over all the options and selflessly choosing the best one for the kids like your making out, it was simply what you wanted. All your doing now is grasping at straws posting studies which supposedly “prove” your right (they don’t prove anything like what your claiming) and attempting to justify a choice made for yourself as somehow being better for children, when we both know that wasn’t why you choose it in the first place.

You can kid yourself that you chose to put your kids in daycare “for the children”, but we both know that’s not the reality. Sorry if that upsets you sweetie.

@HoppingPavlova

I absolutely have no problem with what you’ve done, or with one parent working and the other staying home exclusively (or mostly). What you’ve done is great.

The point is that I believe it’s wrong to have tax payer funded daycare for basically everyone other than those single mothers where the fathers run out and they’re only choice is work (although in that case I think some kind of benefits in addition would be healthier so they didn’t have to work all the time and could raise their children and since it’s costing either way why not do that?) and to have long long maternity leave payed for by the tax payer on the basis that it’s “better for the economy” (which I don’t believe for a second, it’s absurd).

On a very basic level, I don’t believe children in daycares day in day out is actually good for them, actually I think it’s very wrong - so why should my family pay for something I fundamentally find wrong for women who can either afford it themselves if they cut down on other things, or provide it themselves by working less (or have their DH provide it)? I don’t agree with the blasé attitude some of those posting take to family itself and I truly believe the more time children spend with family the better for them.

But other people can think different and can live how they want - just don’t expect someone else to pay for it - that’s all.

@Megalameg well, to follow your argument logically, we could equally well say you chose the lifestyle you wanted because you didn't want to work/ had a crap job pre-kids so staying home was a more attractive option/ couldn't afford quality childcare/ believe you need to stay home to facilitate your dh having a job .... or indeed any other reason we want to invent!

You seem terribly angry at those of us who raise happy, healthy, well adjusted children while also managing to work

@Megalameg

Let me help you out
Here is professor Killewalds (a woman ) research
scholar.harvard.edu/akillewald/publications
Which article are you referring to specifically as I don't see anything remotely supporting what you say (surprised!)