AIBU to ask for your best comeback to this work colleague...

[Seraphina77]

A male work colleague today said to me that employed women/men who choose not to have children should still be entitled to take 12 months off, paid at the equivalent of maternity/paternity pay because "then it's fair".

I was completely sidelined and apart from explaining to him that maternity/paternity leave is not a holiday, I couldn't get my brain in gear quick enough to come up with a cogent argument in response!

Help me out mumsnet... how would you have responded???

Also I honestly believe it’s better for the child to be with a loving parent for their first year than in a nursery.
Working is not conducive to breast feeding especially for the first 6 months.
Now there are lots of health benefits to breast feeding (if you can, not knockong people who don’t for whatever reason) and lots of attachment and mental health benefits to remaining with a parent for the first year of life. I’m pretty sure that those reasons will save the NHS money on the long term so probably financially beneficial for the government to fund a parent staying home for a bit than to pay for treatment later in life.

Maternity pay is no more than jobseekers I don’t think?? So if he wants some time off tell him to quit his job and go on jobseekers for a year - maternity pay is hardly survivable on!

Maternity isn’t for the benefit of the mother but rather for the benefit of the child. Plus where does he think all these newborn nursery places are going to come from? You’d need a higher ratio of adults to babies, more specialist equipment, and young babies don’t keep to a routine!

In some jobs they do (e.g sabbaticals in universities).

An academic sabbatical is nothing like parental leave - it's working, just doing a different work than the rest of the time and you get fully paid for it.

Well I haven’t taken any sick days in the past 4 years. My friend has had 6 months off long term sick (justifiable and not a slight on her at all) so should I not be able to also take 6 months sick leave even though I’m not sick?

There's a difference between being stuck and having a child. One is a choice, the other isn't

mollpop who will look after you when you need help in your elderly years, and your kids in theirs if people don’t provide the next generation? Surely that’s a value to society

Not another frothy, goady thread to bitch about and insult people without children, oh no. Not at all.

children is viewed as valuable to society. It's not like parents are providing a service to society. They're providing a service to themselves....

This is not why maternity/ paternity pay and leave are given . It is because having babies disproportionately affected the earning power of women.

Since the biological drive to have children is strong and is an essential one for the human race as a whole ( climate change and population growth notwithstanding), why should women be financially penalised for this ?

The financial.and economic system we organise ourselves by ( ie capitalism) should not create a situation where 50%of re population are very likely to be seriously negatively affected financially if they have children. Since we can't yet change the biology of the human race ( when. It comes.to having children anyway) we need to accomodate this basic fact of life in our financial system

Maternity leave and pay has not effectively addressed this but at least or is a start

I agree with him. And I have 4 kids!

Why couldn't an employee decide to take a sabbatical with guarantee that her/his job is safe, the way a parent can take a parental leave?
Of course, it's better for the baby and most mothers physically need some of it before the father can even take over, but so what? For the sake of their mental health, many non parents would also benefit from a long break. (so would parents, but let's not get carried away )

Not practical for small businesses at all, but in theory? Just read about reducing a week to 4 days recently. Many people would benefit from a break.

So yes, I am with him. he just need to know that maternity "pay" is bugger all!

@Mollpop i think the many many women who have tears and stitches and prolapses and c-section wounds and many other complications from childbirth would disagree that the time they need to take to recover is a choice.
Having a child is a choice but if everyone chose not to have kids everything would soon grind to a halt!!

2. As a PP said, what's to stop someone taking loads of statutory sabbaticals and then family leave as well

Well in theory nothing, just like maternity leave isn’t limited to an amount of children.

Non parents carry on picking up on diminished staffing during maternity leave. the person returns, next pregnancy is announced and the circle continues.

Non parents carry on picking up on diminished staffing during maternity leave. the person returns, next pregnancy is announced and the circle continues.

I always find it extraordinary when people blame colleagues who have babies when their employer is too shitty to hire a maternity cover.

@Careylisa spot on.
People get paid to look after babies/children. SAHP don’t. The argument is skewed and incomparable.

It’s admirable that some are viewing their children to be the carers of the future.

There will be few jobs that require humans in the future. The divide between high earners and low earners is increasing. Technology Advancements and also lack of funding from local authorities Is diminishing job opportunities for the middle earners. Its not great now, but it will be worse.

I think you should be granted caternity leave when you get a new cat 😻

I always find it extraordinary when people blame colleagues who have babies when their employer is too shitty to hire a maternity cover.

Quite, but it’s not great on the staff who are only employed for maternity cover. They may want more security at work too, in an ideal world employers could over employ - but that’s not financially viable. Although I’m not an employer so may be they can spend on extra wages 🤷🏻‍♀️

I think everybody should be allowed something like 2 years legal "unpaid leave" - to take as maternity leave, to get a new cat , to renovate your home, to travel, to study, to care after a dying relative... with the safety of a job waiting for you.
If you need more than that, the business doesn't have to keep your job open. Nothing stops you from finding another one anyway.

It couldn't apply to small businesses obviously, but would it be such a bad concept?

but it’s not great on the staff who are only employed for maternity cover.
Why not? it's a contract job like any other, nothing wrong with that. It builds your CV, there's always a possibility of a perm job at the end. It's not a negative thing at all.

People without children are at an economic advantage individually compared to those who do (benefits aside) so why should they get further state support?

People without children may be paying taxes that support your maternity pay and child benefit as well as your child’s education and healthcare.

I agree with him, isn't that why we have flexible working and sabbaticals

Tell him to pass a water melon through his bum, be woken up every other hour for months and produce milk to keep another being alive

But this isn’t compulsory. You chose to do this for your own selfish reasons because you wanted a child. It wasn’t a selfless act for the benefit of society.

Why not? it's a contract job like any other, nothing wrong with that. It builds your CV, there's always a possibility of a perm job at the end. It's not a negative thing at all.

Sometimes it is a negative. It’s not a guarantee of a job. Yes there’s a chance of a permanent role, but not always. The job does belong to someone else. Plus the contract length isn’t set in stone as the person on maternity leave may want to come back sooner.

If i was covering maternity leave I would not be confident that I had any security.

The laws protecting maternity leave are very much needed, I am glad they exist. However it doesn’t provide a perfect solution for all problems.

Obviously, it's a complete myth that ML means sitting in front of the telly eating biscuits all day long, but it's hard work for your family as a result of your own choices and doesn't directly help your employer.

Of course, the main reason for the majority of the time on ML is for the baby to be cared for rather than for YOU to get to spend time with the baby, if that distinction makes sense, but I can completely see why those who will never qualify for ML (whether by choice or not) would see colleagues qualifying for up to a year away from work, still receiving a percentage of their normal pay for some of the time and their job guaranteed to be held open for them, and start to think how attractive that option would be to them to spend an extended period doing something they chose to do.

As long as you don't miss out on your legal entitlements, what difference would it make to you if somebody else also qualified for a similar leave package on reduced pay for a different reason?

I don't see why there has to be a competition between parents and non-parents - can't we just respect that people have made different but still perfectly normal and equally valid life choices (or had to make the best of their own personal circumstances) and just look after our own business?

Maternity pay doesn't just appear from thin air, it comes from the government which we all pay in to.

I've worked since I was 16 and had my dd when I was 33 so I'm pretty certain the pittance of maternity pay I received was more than covered by the years of taxes I'd already paid!

I hope your colleague never needs to use the NHS that we've all funded, or plans on drawing a state pension or driving on a road which is collectively maintained by everyone's road tax - what a prick.

I hope your colleague never needs to use the NHS that we've all funded, or plans on drawing a state pension or driving on a road which is collectively maintained by everyone's road tax - what a prick

He may need the NhS, but you may also need it for non pregnancy related reasons. People who have been in ML don’t give up their right to further health treatments, pensions. Unless I have missed the memo that you cash in your contributions at child birth.

Actually in Denmark in certain sectors, non pregnant people can take the equivalent of maternity leave, precisely to address a perceived place of fairness

I’d be happy for non-mothers to have a year off if they also had to have their vaginas ripped open, bleed for two months and not sleep for the next five years. Ain’t nobody going to sign up for that deal!

Oh my god, I'm so sorry. You were FORCED to give birth? That's absolutely barbaric.