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???

Someone said this to me, a woman. I told her to have /adopt a baby then she can have maternity. It was an 'on the spot' response and I felt a bit bad as I didn't know if she was childless by choice. But, if people say silly things then they can expect a silly answer.

Currently on maternity leave and this is hilarious to me.
It’s not about you, it’s about the baby and forming critical attachment in the early weeks and months of life which DOES have a massive impact in that child and their development in later years.
I have a stressful job and I feel it would be easier to be at work.
As PP said, take a sabbatical and devote 24 hours a day to a worthy cause.

Apologies, meant to tag @KellyHall

If every couple had 2 children, opted for public transport and walking when they could (instead of when they felt like it or told themselves they could), ate a largely plant based diet & didn't waste money on purchasing things that are thrown into landfill within 6 months, then we would be well on our way to living more in balance with the planet.

I agree to an extent, but unless humans are prepared to revert to a much more primitive level of existence, we will continue to destroy the planet, albeit possibly more slowly.

public transport and walking when they could - this would need to be walking or nothing - even public transport damages the environment. We'd need to be prepared to give up any form of long-distance travel.

didn't waste money on purchasing things that are thrown into landfill within 6 months - we'd have to stop purchasing anything that wasn't hand-crafted, hand-recycled or second hand.

We'd have to abandon electricity and use of fossil fuels.

Let's face it, it isn't going to happen because we are too used to an existence (I of course include myself in this) which relies on draining the planet's resources.

I told her to have /adopt a baby then she can have maternity. It was an 'on the spot' response and I felt a bit bad as I didn't know if she was childless by choice. But, if people say silly things then they can expect a silly answer.

It wasn't merely silly, it was utterly tactless and cruel. Your colleague might have been suffering from infertility. As for adoption - it's not something you can just decide to do. It's a long and intrusive process and it's very easy to be ruled out for reasons outside your control, e.g. health issues.

I told her to have /adopt a baby then she can have maternity. It was an 'on the spot' response and I felt a bit bad as I didn't know if she was childless by choice. But, if people say silly things then they can expect a silly answer.

Not only was your response rude and overly harsh it also typifies how people who can get pregnant easily view maternity leave as a right of the fertile rather than for the child themselves. If you had told me this while I was struggling to get my ivf leave approved by my old manager despite 12 years of uninterrupted service at the company, I would have shot you down big time.

Everybody should have a bank of 365 days per year to do with what they wanted rather than the current system of days off for specific things, so work-life balance can be better for everyone. In the end non-parents would end up using less of this anyway - companies that already offer unlimited leave in this way have already provided evidence of that.

I told her to have /adopt a baby then she can have maternity. It was an 'on the spot' response and I felt a bit bad as I didn't know if she was childless by choice. But, if people say silly things then they can expect a silly answer.

I don’t think this was rude or cruel at all. It was an appropriate answer to what is frankly a rude question. It seems to be ok to disparage or belittle parents, especially mothers, of the actual hard work they do.

Sotiredbutcannotsleep
Did any of the other mothers here share similar views pre-children and once they gave birth, the reality hit them like a ton of bricks?!

that they agree with the colleague? Ahem yes, I still do. Why wouldn't I?
Not sure why having children would stop considering that other people have other priorities just as important.

I told her to have /adopt a baby then she can have maternity.

stupidest and most ridiculous idiotic comment anyone can come up with, when they haven't got the smallest brain to articulate an argument.

It was an appropriate answer to what is frankly a rude question

How is saying: 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 :

a. rude
b. a question
c. belittling parents?

It's an opinion. There's no suggestion that parents should have their mat/pat leave taken away. It's certainly no excuse to make an insensitive remark to someone who doesn't have children, when the reason for their childless state isn't known.

If the person had stated they were childfree by choice, it might have been a more reasonable reply, but the poster said they didn't know if she was childless by choice so there is no excuse for this insensitivity.

Nah it’s like saying “it’s unfair you get 6 months off work for your medical needs. I want that time off too and I’m entitled to it or it’s unjust.”

Maternity leave is fucking bullshit; I know several women who are timing their pregnancies to just pop back to the office, keep their status and fuck off again. It seems very unfair on the employers.

Nah it’s like saying “it’s unfair you get 6 months off work for your medical needs. I want that time off too and I’m entitled to it or it’s unjust.”

Which is a perfectly reasonable point of view. You might not agree with it, but you must see that it's not off-the-wall or extremist. There's no way it can deemed offensive enough to justify taunts about childlessness.

For those people who are against non parents taking time off for whatever, why are you against? What kind of effect does it have on you if someone wants leave and come back to the same job? Why is it up to you to take as many maternity leaves as you want to (provided you're fertile), providing the world with more children that we do not need and that might not even be a benefit to society but someone who wants to build a school in africa or whatnot should just forget it. Why is it up to you to decide that your maternity leave is way more important than someone elses reason?

For those people who are against non parents taking time off for whatever, why are you against? What kind of effect does it have on you if someone wants leave and come back to the same job?

But the OP wasn't 'he said that people should have a statutory right to unpaid sabbatical', it was 'he said 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'.

As a taxpayer that would make a big difference to me and I don't support it.

Maternity rights have been fought for and do not exist in many countries. Maybe lobby for the right to take 12 months low pay for any reason you like.

As a taxpayer that would make a big difference to me and I don't support it.

As a taxpayer, my taxes go towards maternity leave and all the other state costs associated with pregnancy, childbirth and educating children - that doesn't stop me believing maternity rights are a good thing and that children deserve an education. We shouldn't reduce everything to money - we should look at what's beneficial to society at large, what will help everyone lead a fulfilling life.

We're all in the same boat and have to make decisions togwther, so I realise that my opinion means zilch, but it does seem unfair that one person can have 6 children with lots of paid leave and another has to pay for leave to work in an orphanage in Ghana. Surely the one who took less leave also paid more in taxes for the multiple leaves? And both reasons are for the good of other people?

Someone recently posted something similar in my work and was pretty much unilaterally told he was being unreasonable.

The problem is that workplaces are so fixated on having 'family friendly' policies that the needs of those whose 'family' doesn't consist of children under 18 are overlooked.

Employers do need to look at the bigger picture. We need to make remaining childfree, or limiting family size, an attractive choice, for the sake of the environment. At the moment, everything is geared towards making it easier for people to have children - that shouldn't change, but we need to stop treating those who make different choices as second-class citizens, because it's those people who are keeping our population within manageable levels - otherwise, those who do have children will end up with descendants who have no viable planet to live on.

Unless your internet access is powered by the wind and made of naturally fallen wood I think it is just a tiny bit hypocritical to come onto a thread and complain about other people's children destroying the planet.

@ScreamingCosArgosHaveNoRavens I agree that there does need to be a change in the thinking of the working life. Many people will be working for 50+ years and possibly not reaching a retirement age in the sense that we understand it now.

Periods of leave from work which allow people to rethink, retrain, reframe as well as support their families in whatever form they take may be very valuable not just to the individual but also to society.

As people age they may be less able to perform heavy physical work but that doesnt mean that they have nothing to offer employers.

Unless your internet access is powered by the wind and made of naturally fallen wood I think it is just a tiny bit hypocritical to come onto a thread and complain about other people's children destroying the planet.

I think that over-simplifies the argument. For one thing, if I didn't have online access, I'd need to receive paper bills, and travel to places to do things I can now do online - such as visiting the bank. I'm a non-driver, but even public transport carries a footprint, so I try to avoid unneeded journeys that I can't make on foot.

For another, to put to frankly, I didn't choose to bring myself to life and add my carbon footprint to the universe. That was my parents' choice - and frankly, my father is a man who never should have had children. I can't change the fact I was born - I can do my utmost to minimise my own environmental footprint, which is all anyone can do. If I had my way, I wouldn't be here at all (in the sense of never having existed - I don't mean that I'm entertaining thoughts of suicide).

Also most companies over a certain size allow staff to take 12 months unpaid as a sabbatical.

Sabbaticals are not just handed out no questions asked. You have to demonstrate that you will be doing something that will benefit the company either directly or indirectly through your personal development or some charitable undertaking - or that you have a pressing personal or family need.

Just to add (lightheartedly) the way the giant wind turbines outside are whizzing round tonight, my internet access probably is wind-powered at this precise moment!

@GrumpyHoonMain you have no idea what injuries I sustained so that’s a bit of a stupid comment.