Do any parents use 4 weeks unpaid parental leave each year when returning to full time work?

[ThePoisedOpalBird]

I am potentially getting a full time job. I wont lie I am really struggling emotionally with this as I have only worked 2 days a week since ds1 was born but life is expensive and my partner is keen for me to earn more now my mat leave from ds2 is due to end so we can save to buy a house.

I have been looking at holiday allowance, bank holidays etc to see how to optimise my time with the kids.

Has anyone used a large amount of their unpaid parental leave to take extra time off each year?

I am thinking of using 4 weeks a year to boost my holiday total and increase the amount of time I get with the kids.

Does anyone else do this? Do your employers mind? I figured with holiday allowance of 5 weeks and 4 weeks of unpaid parental leave I would be almost doubling the time I get off with the kids which might help alleviate some of the sadness I feel about leaving them.

Not remotely I or my dhs or friends experience. I also don’t care if my colleagues resent me , if they are parents they can take it too and if not then they aren’t juggling parenting and kids which is what the leave is there for obviously.

My partner loves his job and is aiming to move much higher up so no chance he will be wanting to go part time (also not really an option in his job)

In my experience lots do want to especially as dcs get older and a bit easier ! Life is short and he might well want to work a bit less in the future , who wouldn’t !! Everyone would love more time off , working 2 days a week is obviously lovely !

OK, I am aware I am about to get the wrath of women heaped on me here but I think it depends on your workplace and whether there is sufficient cover in the office to cover your role.

I was once refused annual leave for my stepchilds wedding abroad, in July (requested in Jan before anyone else - you could only pre-book leave for the current leave year in the leave year which was Jan - Dec) because my colleague always had the summer holidays off to look after her kids, but hadn't yet booked it - a mixture of paid and unpaid leave and I felt that was unreasonable as I was simply asking for 1 week off in the summer when I have been there for 12years and had always accommodated her and I had been talking to her since the previous year about the July wedding, she had simply not put 2 and 2 together.. I stood my ground and in the end she was denied that same week off so I could go and the atmosphere was terrible.

They told her she could take another week but not that one and she was furious, because Daddy was not available or it would impact his leave so she had to pay for childcare, which in her head, I should have offered to pay to cover. Not that for 12 years, I had been letting her by covering our role and I had young stepkids too.

And to finish the tale for you, things got that bad between us, she was nasty, I complained, she got disciplined and I moved into another dept and the person who replaced me in that role had young kids too and needed time off to cover school holidays and they had to share it. My original colleague was not impressed and seemed to blame me for that too. A little human compassion and understanding would have gone a long way for her if she had not cut her nose off to spite her face.

So it would seem preplanned leave is at the discretion of the employer when it comes to available staff cover.

If thats what he wanted then he would be more than welcome to as long if we could both afford to be part time and he was doing 50% of the parenting.

But considering he has no hobbies or friends I do find it highly unlikely he would want to be part time.

Could you not apply for a term time contract?

Why aren't you married?

Does your partner want you to get a job or do you need it to stay afloat financially, in which case surely you want it too?

I'd change tack and work hard at something with career progession with a view to covering your bills on P/T hours in the future.

What's the long term plan if you're going to your minimum wage job as little as legally possible and not caring how your colleagues or boss view you or your work ethic? Seems a bit short sighted?

I know you've said your finances will be sorted, but we have a way of growing into our paychecks, and will your partner be happy for you to drop hours again, or want to maintain the higher household income?

Term time jobs are like goldust and wouldnt actually gain me that much money over what I earn part time.

I’ve never used it, my company gives us 6 weeks holiday a year so between us we can cover most of the school holidays and use clubs for a few odd weeks through the year. I can imagine if a new starter asked to use it immediately on joining the company it would be a black mark against them, whether it’s their legal right or not.

I dunno why people are answering like op is meant to prioritise a company over her family. They won’t be caring about her if it’s ever time for redundancies. Or why people are acting like op is making a huge mistake taking on parenting responsibilities
obviously some women get pushed into it, but op’s dp would clearly rather she work, she’s the one that wants to be with her children. Some people enjoy that

I agree this seems likley.

Your employer looking favourably on you is also more than a bit handy if you're requesting time off for sports days / parent teacher meetings / school plays / graduations/ concerts / Dr's and dentists etc.

It isn't just about promotions.

Because I'm not in a rush to get married.

50/50. We can survive with me only working part time but it would take longer to pay off debt and longer to save for deposit for house etc. Yes the extra money to a degree makes me want to work full time but no I would rather be poor and have more time with my babies but there are 2 of us in the relationship and he doesn't like the financial burden mainly on him.

I have no desire to move up in the career. I want to go to work and be paid and take as much time off as I can to spend with my kids.

I have no idea about the future. But my partner knows I have no desire for a proper career again. My focus is my kids.

I took some, although didn't know about it until DS was probably in secondary school! Some years I just took a week, some years 4 weeks. I only took it a week at a time and usually when we had a holiday booked so I could use my annual leave however I wanted. It was particularly helpful when DS was being home educated (years 10 and 11).

Take it, you are entitled to it. They can delay it if there is a business reason but if they would accept annual leave that week they can't really treat parental leave differently. I never had it delayed. I always made sure there was cover for when I booked it, same as I would annual leave.

I wont be requesting until after I pass probation. Ill use my holiday in the meantime.

I have never taken 4 weeks but I have taken between 1 and 3 weeks every year since going back after maternity leave. I usually use it for family holidays since you need to take it in blocks of whole weeks. I then use my ordinary annual leave for the odd day or half day here and there, the times one of my kids is sick, some time at home in school holidays (alongside clubs usually), etc. I understand that leave of any kind needs to be considered around work peaks and other people’s time away but if it’s planned in advance and around when other people are off then it’s no more disruptive than ordinary annual leave and a lot less so than unexpected absences when people are sick etc. My manager is very supportive though and the work culture is pretty flexible as long as the work gets done. I have colleagues reporting to me who have also used some PL over the years - again, I’m very supportive of this though we do talk about timing to ensure not everyone is off at once.

I've dealt with people's leave for 20 years and only remember 1 person asking for it.

Probably mainly because they can't afford too.

Yeah I am lucky I would be able to afford it.

If you can buy leave though, that's a better way of doing it because it spreads the cost. In companies where we could buy leave, I've not used parental leave, only bought extra.

It's actually worse for a company for people to buy it because it's harder to refuse people taking annual leave. At least with parental leave the company can move it and make you wait.

I don't think many people use it due to being unpaid. I fully intend to use it once my kids start school, to help with the school holidays. It is statutory so work do have to allow you to use them, but they do get a say in the timing so there is a risk that if you were using it for holidays they could say there's too many people on annual leave at that time. If you're flexible about the timing, though, go for it - just don't ask until you've actually started as you don't want to give them a reason not to offer you the job!

I wasn't taking about your probationary period, I just meant generally it is helpful to have your boss feel positively towards you as there will be many times in the future when you will request a day off and you will want them to say "yes" rather than start to look for a reason to say "no".

Not being married means you're more financially vulnerable.

This thread is wild! The OP is doing NOTHING wrong. If colleagues don't like her taking parental leave and as a consequence are not nice to her, that is them problem and who needs friends like that anyway. She is talking about an entry level minimum wage job - she won't be paid enough to be worrying about who is covering her when she is off - that is her employers responsibility! They should have contingency for this just like they do when people are on annual leave, sick leave, maternity leave, special leave, jury service etc etc etc. If a business cannot cover these costs they are obligated to by law they are not a viable business.

As for her husband not taking leave she has clearly explained this is something she want to do for her own enjoyment of spending time with her kids.

I used to, I was a lone parent and I literally didn’t have another option.

I guess it's just being conscious of the long term impact. You get a total of 36 weeks for 2 kids. If you use your max of 4 weeks a year, you're good for 9 years and then you're all out of parental leave. What if one of them needs some extra support for a couple of weeks? Being bullied, need support settling into high school, etc. It may be worth seeing if your new employer offers unpaid leave or termtime working instead, that leaves all your parental leave up your sleeve in case you need it.

You sound like you don’t want leave the children, would you consider something else like working as a childminder, my sister did this and she did not want her children she votes four days a week and earns over 60 K a year