Taking a year off mat leave changes perception of your ambition

[CeCeBloomer]

I am very much getting the impression that anything longer than 6/7 months off is pushing it if you want to be taken seriously in your career?

Hmm in my company I would say not - and it's an overwhelmingly female company where we only get smp so as to encourage us to come back! However, coming back 3 dpw has definitely affected how serious about my career i am perceived to be.

Where I work (school) most people take between 6-12 months off, a lot depends on when they left as we can't take our holidays on top, so if you miss the summer holidays, you miss them - on reduced pay, and can't get them back. With my first baby, I went back 8 weeks after he was born, but only for a day because the holidays started Slightly different though as I am main breadwinner and DH is at home now.

However, if you go back part-time, you will be accommodated but you will never be promoted.

I did as some have mentioned and changed jobs after last mat leave (where I took 13 months) and it worked really well but I really love my job and the company I work for so don't want to do that again.

And again I feel guilty because I could afford to do 3/4 days and my company would probably find a way to accommodate but I feel like I would be writing my career off so then I feel like I am prioritising career over my children

It is like that with my company sadly. I won't be taking more than 6 months - too worried about potentially losing my job. I work in a very old-school male dominated company. Love my job but not the culture!

A lot of women seem to feel guilty if they don't take extended ML... They feel that unless they take the full year then they are somehow short changing their child. It's worth remembering that ML has changed massively over the years and the full year is relatively recent.

When I had my first dc I returned after 12 weeks- pretty much the norm back in the 80s/early 90s. If I'm honest a bit longer would have been perfect- maybe 6 months. Purely because it would have been a lot easier for me (I was still bf) not that I think it had any impact on dc- in fact probably the earlier the better as there's no separation issues.

A year I think would have felt way too long for me personally- I imagine it must feel like you've been out of the loop a long time and I agree with the OP that it probably alters others' perception of how you view your career.

And of course if you opt for the additional ML you aren't automatically entitled to your previous job- the employer may have restructured and may offer you equivalent but not the same.

As someone else said, I've noticed that whereas a few years ago most new mums seemed to take off the whole year, an increasing number now seem to come back earlier. It was as if when the option of a year first came in, mums felt they ought to be jumping at it whereas now they are making a personal decision about whether they really feel they need that long. And of course shared parental leave is now an option.... I barely know anyone who's taken it up but hopefully that will change the landscape and enable couples to have more balanced careers

I think it's inevitable that taking an extended period of leave will have some effect on your career - but I think this is possible whether you have 6/9/12 months off.

I'm pregnant with number 3 and dh and I are taking shared parental leave this time. So i'll be off for the first 7 months and then go back and dh will have the last 5 months off. I think SPL is the best thing the Goverment have done in years, I wish it was around when we had ds1 and ds2.

I think just having a baby does to be honest, BUT if you can be resilient and come back as you left, efficiency and ambition wise, you can recover withing 6mths to a year.

Hear head whateverwillbe - SPL is a great idea, only wish it had been around 20 years ago! Take up so far has been extremely low though which is disappointing

Could you split leave with your partner?

In my profession it doesn't make any difference how long you take off. If someone good is covering your leave everyone manages perfectly well. In fact the two colleagues that covered my role did very well out of it with permanent promotions after their experience.

What does matter is going back part-time. I felt like a second class citizen when I did that for a couple of years.

I also found that it is amazing how much things can change in a year eg new initiatives, new jargon, new people in new roles and I did take some time to catch up. Then before you know it it is as if you have never been away.

Take up so far has been extremely low though which is disappointing

I agree...and when you mention it to someone, they look at you like you have two heads

I get that it wouldn't make sense for dad's to have X months of the leave if they're by far the higher earner - it wouldn't be suitable for everyone. Realistically, if dh earned £20k more than me then he probably wouldn't be taking 5 months off as it would be a huge financial impact.

But there must be a lot of families where earnings aren't too dissimilar surely? Dh earns more than me but not by a huge amount so money-wise it's much of a muchness to us. I don't understand why more people aren't interested.

Senior role
12 months off
Returned to promoted spot
I was suprised too

I agree with edwinbear that a lot depends on your managers. When I had my child, you could only take six months, but the managers were really supportive. I then moved to a post with someone who didn't have kids, and said he and his wife prioritised their careers over children. It was glaringly obvious that he looked down on people with children, especially working mothers.

For various reasons (my health, husband's disability) I have not been hugely ambitious in a conventional sense. I could not commit the time required to be good management material, but that is my choice.

I have noticed though that amongst my contemporaries from university, the only women who have climbed really high on the corporate or academic ladders do not have children. This is probably just coincidence, but it was common enough to be noticed by myself and others.

I took 9 months maternity leave in 2011/12 and again in 2014/15. I work full time but with compressed hours giving me a day off a fortnight. I have been promoted twice since then and now manage the team I was a relatively junior member of in 2011. Having said that I feel very sad that I have had to give one of my team the advice to be prepared to increase her hours to progress career wise.

Don't agree. I work for a US company so to them a year feels like forever. I came back and was promoted within a couple of months and the following year was able to set up a team. I think what's important to most employers is what you're doing when you're there!! When you're out it's a little 'out of sight out of mind'.

exactly whateverwillbe - many couples must earn similar amounts, particularly as more people are likely to partner someone with similar level of educational etc, eg: I met my dh at uni so we were both graduates, both same earning potential. SPL makes perfect sense in these situations. The fact that it's nearly always the woman who has taken the leave and the career hit contributes to the mismatch between men and women's earnings.... Unfortunately until recently we didn't have the option to share leave - I would have jumped at it

I get that it wouldn't make sense for dad's to have X months of the leave if they're by far the higher earner

Well, I don't know about that - in couples where the woman is the higher earner, somehow the couple still find a way for her to take a decent amount of maternity leave. Most couples in that situation wouldn't shrug and say "well, she was the higher earner so she went back to work at 3 months and the father had to take the rest of the leave, it just made financial sense."

It's about the priority level that you put on it, I think. It's still seen very much as optional and a fringe thing to do for a man to take it. It really should be possible for most couples to find the money for the father to take at least a month or two of the leave.

I took a year off and came back to a job that had been completely changed. Instead of working solo I was part of a larger team, had a new manager and lots of the systems had changed so there was loads to adapt to. Which I did really well. My job was made part time which they had to do but definitely is not a part time job as its way too involved.

The longer I worked part time, the more sidelined I felt. I was shifted into an end desk, meetings were organised on days I wasn't in, interviews took place where they invited one of the new starters to sit in and help choose the candidates even though I have the most experience within the team.

Training was held on the days I wasn't in so was constantly playing catch up. I worked really hard to be at the same level as te others but had no recognition. The more isolated I felt, the more isolated I became. I am now on my second maternity leave and can't bear the thought of going back. I will either leave after I've done my compulsory 6 months return or find a new job. I have no vim or anything even approaching a work ethos and will do the bare minimum to scrape by.

Before I left for my first maternity I was soaring. Loved the job, had loads of training courses lined up, had a lot of responsibility and respect. All of this changed, which was both to do with my part time hours and the new management.

I think the dynamic is quite different for a 6 figure job.

I think there might be some trade offs between time off on mat leave, ft vs pt thereafter, and if you intend to have more children. I.e. 12 months off then part time then another mat leave soon after would be really tough to pull off. But if you come back full time and it's probably your last child, 12 month mat leave should be fine.

Unless it's a US firm where having more than 12 wks will probably get you some side-eye.

It might depend on sector too. I'm Big 4 and client facing so work can be reallocated and there's always new clients coming and going. But that fluidity might not apply in a line or client side role.

Comtesse- good point about timings and whether it's your last ML. I've known one person who took 3 ML in fairly quick succession, each a year long. This was in teaching, so in effect for quite a few years of her employment she was only in work for a matter of months altogether. After the 3rd one, she returned to work long enough to not have to pay back her additional Maternity pay- and then left!! All perfectly allowed, but by god, I bet the management were gritting their teeth! And being a teacher, it would have been nigh on impossible to restructure and give her an 'equivalent' job after she'd been off a year.

Comtesse - interesting, Big 4 from my perspective are far more progressive than the industry I work in.

Hmm, for me personally I found that having maternity leave didn't particularly change anyone's perception of my ambitiousness, but what really has is that I have now altered my (still full-time) hours so that I can make it more cost-effective with nursery costs, and have set hours (whereas I used to work ever-changing shifts, often changing at short-notice, which just would have been impossible to plan childcare for). I've ever been told it wasn't worth me going for promotion as they needed someone who could be more flexible.

I know a lot of other Mum's who have gone back part-time as well and that seems to rule then out of a lot of promotion opportunities.

You can have a great career with promotions and happy children, but it's very hard to have both at once. Not all spouses will lean in to help. Is it worth working for years just to pay for childcare to stay ahead in one's field? Most mothers can do a better job raising their children than anyone else. Why subcontract it out?

what if you earn significantly more than childcare costs Erica? And if you don't ypu might just want to work for your own identity and mental stimulation??