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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think it's sexist to complain about women taking maternity leave?

116 replies

novemberblue · 03/11/2014 18:37

Name changed.

I'm a teacher. Quite a few women have gone off on maternity leave.

I'm shocked by the responses colleagues make! They regularly complain and say things like, she's only just had one, wish I got paid to be off for a year and one woman has four children and they say she's out more than she's in.

Aibu to think it's sexist and out of order?

OP posts:

curlyweasel · 04/11/2014 11:48

OO - yes that's right - still the same, but extended to all workers now. My point was that just because someone asks for it, they won't necessarily get it because employers don't have to give it.

Yonic - no, he got it but that wasn't really my point. His employment rights are not equal to those of a woman in terms of paternity leave and pay. He got 2 weeks full pay and 2 weeks half pay when he took PL.

He left his job because I was paid more (and I returned after 12 weeks), his salary would have been pretty much wiped out by childcare costs, he worked shifts so even if he stayed he'd rarely see his family... and so on.

It might have been manageable if he had a year's paternity leave (or even 6 months), but as it is, we now live on one salary because he 'chose' to leave his job for the above reasons. Therefore, he has been disadvantaged as a man.

I think.

YonicScrewdriver · 04/11/2014 12:01

Ah, I see. The shared parental leave pay will be better, I think (and 2 weeks full, 2 weeks half paternity pay is much better than statutory so I assume women at his work got enhanced maternity pay too)

curlyweasel · 04/11/2014 12:06

Probably. Damned ovaries couldn't wait a year or so could they?

carlsonrichards · 04/11/2014 12:20

I think these long mat leaves and then flexible and part-time working requests cause a lot of sex discrimination in employment.

YonicScrewdriver · 04/11/2014 12:54

Flexible working requests are equally available to either parent and I wish their use was more balanced.

OOAOML · 04/11/2014 13:14

My husband went part time when we had children - if more men did we might have a more equal playing field. He's still very much in the minority though.

Chunderella · 04/11/2014 13:26

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BeGhoul · 04/11/2014 13:31

It is sexist and also shows how tiny their minds actually are.

It makes me sad to think these tiny thinkers are teaching our children.

YonicScrewdriver · 04/11/2014 13:35

As it happens, I'm done having kids, but I'm still of childbearing age.

I'm in a line of work where there are long term projects but there aren't jobs for life. Approx one job every 2-3 months comes up at my level of seniority. If I were still wanting to have kids, but I needed a new job (maybe my current project only had a year or so left to run), I could easily be looking for a year or more before I found something. Every interview process I go through might take a month or more.

But if I stay where I am and TTC, I might be made redundant shortly before I get PG. And maybe I haven't met my life partner until mid-30s, just in case you were going to suggest I TTC'd earlier.

What's the correct etiquette, Brenda?

PhaedraIsMyName · 04/11/2014 15:56

Do you work in a field that is relatively low paid for the amount of education / qualification you need to be in it?

I can't begin to imagine how you made that conclusion. Quite the contrary. I work in a field which is highly paid and very specialised.

Any one working it would need their head examined to leave a permanent job to provide short term maternity cover. It just doesn't happen.

Any one wanting to join us will be looking for a permanent post and an expectation of career development.

Again I'm just amazed at the assumption there is a pool of available short term workers for every job.

PhaedraIsMyName · 04/11/2014 16:01

I would suggest some attractive govt funding for training for those who are looking to career change

You really have no grasp of what I'm talking about.

slug · 04/11/2014 16:08

I work in a small, specialised industry. Because it's so small it's borderline impossible to get into. Maternity leave cover offers one of the very few routes into the industry for those with enough transferable skills. It's what is always advised for those keen to gain a foothold i.e. make sure you have the desired transferable skills then go for a maternity cover to gain experience.

rosdearg · 05/11/2014 10:53

No, Phaedra, I don't. I have no idea what you do or how it works, because you haven't told us. However, I don't really care that much how or why your field has no short term workers, as it isn't relevant to the fact that I still don't believe women in your field shouldn't have maternity leave for this reason. I still don't believe that women should not have babies, or not have more than one, or hurry back to work before they are ready or before they legally have to, just because there is no one to do maternity leave.

rosdearg · 05/11/2014 10:57

The snotty tone in which you respond to the idea that isn't well paid relative to the education / training / skills required implies that you are heavily invested in it being a high status skill that makes it feel exclusive. I suspect that this sense of being special and excellent and elite is a huge part of the reward (however high the monetary rewards are in addition to this) and I bet a lot of people who do this job are subconsciously undergoing great inconvenience which they feel is compensated by feeling Special. Including feeling bad about maternity leave.

PhaedraIsMyName · 05/11/2014 18:02

Where did I say women should not have maternity leave?

I am questioning the assumption that doing so makes no difference at all to employers and other employees. It does , it has to be dealt with and we deal with it.

Your last post is simply nonsense. I work in a very niche area which for various reasons is not considered attractive/exciting. There are a small number of firms in this field, probably no more than 6 major players. I am not prepared to go into specific details but at the moment we are looking to recruit. Our preferred candidate was speaking to 2 other firms. The balance is so much in the employee's favour that of the 3 firms was speaking to she chose not to bother taking up a second interview with one and of the other 2 both offered her a job. We didn't get her.

So far as being exclusive or special, it is a recognised specialism by the Law Society who currently list less than 25 accredited specialists.

zeezeek · 05/11/2014 18:28

rosdearg - no-one is saying any of that. As Phaedra says, there are some professions where it is difficult to recruit someone on a short term contract. A couple of years ago I had a researcher go on ML in the middle of a 3 year grant, at a very inconvenient time in terms of that piece of work. It took us 6 months to find someone to replace her (again very specialist skills) - then could only offer a 6 month contract. That person lasted 2 months before she left to take up a better offer. We ended up having the grant pulled - which then meant that the women who was on ML was made redundant shortly after returning as there was no money to pay her and no projects for her to work on.

We need to be realistic. That's all I'm saying.

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