To ask who signed the extension of mat leave and why?

[Tjsmumma]

Self explanatory really..

If you signed it why? Why do you feel you and entitled to more time paid? Do you think being in lockdown is more of a right to more time of PAID than people who have babies who are delivered early or need NICU stays?

I am myself on maternity with a 19 week old and i still do not think its fair to say 'i need more time off paid because i wasnt able to go to a mother and baby group' theres plenty of time to go after.

I can sort of understand if you are due to go back and cant find child care but surely you can be furloughed or claim SSP/Benefits during this time like the rest of the country?

PippaPegg
Loving the race to the bottom on this thread.

It's hardly a race to the bottom, if nothing else, reducing the need for parental leave to a wish to go to playgroups and meet friends is highly damaging to the real issue, and the real need for leave.

I signed it without really thinking about it :/ I am on maternity leave now and am quite emotional. I'm not understanding the justification myself to be honest, small babies don't benefit from interaction with other babies and other adults they are not attached to. So the justification that babies under one will suffer from not going to baby groups is very

@CloudyVanilla i think being on maternity leave at any point would be difficult :) definitely they dont need baby groups tbey need a primary caregiver thats all they care about!

I don’t get it either. My youngest is 9 months old and I went back to work when he was 8 weeks old one day a week. I am currently working from home. I also have 2 other children one of whom has complex additional needs and is being home schooled.

This situation does not stop you bonding with your baby. Baby groups are social groups for adults. They do help parents socially and personally I take my kids to lots of baby and toddler groups so am a big fan of them but given people are dying, companies are collapsing and the NHS is on its knees demanding extra leave just seems grabby to me. If you want to bond better with your baby sign up to online baby classes, cuddle them, hold them, play with them and make sure you put your phone down when you do it (all my kids are sleeping just now before anyone comments on my phone use). If you want an extra 3 months take unpaid leave.

Mumsnet is so far removed from the real world sometimes, it genuinely boggles the mind.

What’s so far removed form the real world and boggles the mind is that there are an estimated 60,000 babies’ born prematurely every year with at least 40% of those who’s parents face losing maternity leave whilst they sit in a hospital for weeks on end unable to even cuddle their child. Many suffer from PTSD, a higher than normal rate from PND, and that’s without even touching on the fathers who have to return to work after two weeks whilst still having to support their partner and having to take annual leave when the baby comes home. And yet despite a campaign that’s been going on for 6 years, they still don’t have an entitlement to additional leave, primarily because so few people put their support behind it. But now we are supposed to feel generous towards mums who have just had to stay indoors for a few weeks? I will use the words selfish and entitled for people who are acting as such.

@TheOneAndOnlyPedroPony but it does affect other women. We are already disadvantaged enough in the workplace for daring to reproduce, self absorbed shit like this doesn't help; especially when the whole planet is struggling at the moment.

@twins2019

Still hearing the phantom monitors I’ll bet too!

Great your two have done well so far. It’s a long road, and a hard one, but seeing them develop will be a joy.

Always here with an ear if you need it. ❤️

Neonatal leave will be introduced in April 2023 after years of campaigning, that's something to get behind and celebrate. Not this crap.

Entitled, entitled and entitled. Maternity leave is surely about physically recovering and bonding with baby. How does lockdown interrupt that

I don't really agree with lots of paid leave to have kids tbh. 1 or 2 months is ample & saving up & using their 4 weeks a year in one go & if required, the following years leave in advance too gives a decent amount of time off without being a drain on society! I know many people won't agree with me, but thats fine. Its just my opinion!

@MintyMabel & @Hampsand

I see both your points, and I struggle to find where I mentioned any of these things in my post- perhaps you can enlighten me to where I said NICU parents shouldn't have extended leave, or women aren't disadvantaged in the workplace.

However, they are completely separate issues to this petition, which, as I said in my post, I don't particularly care either way on. I fully back parents of babies in NICU getting much longer paid maternity leave. Similarly, I fully support any measures that mean that the divide between men, and women, within the workplace, is narrowed down. My opinion on these doesn't have any sway on my opinion on this petition (yes, a petition. It isn't a law about to be passed, it's just a collection of people agreeing on an idea. There's been petitions on fairly trivial things, including Jeremy Clarkson being Prime Minister, so getting your pants in a twist over this is completely non sensical, really).

The simple fact is, you can disagree with something and put your energy into a cause which is much more in line with your lifestyle. Just allow others to do the same, without attacking someone for their opinion which is no less, or more, valid than your own.

We need to be more open minded and listen to each other, rather than just barking at others because you think your opinion is right and everyone else is wrong.

Removed from the world and engaging in a race to the bottom to conclude that given the current pandemic, the worst affected group is not those on maternity leave and in the midst of the impending worst global recession we have ever known, there is a better use of taxpayers money than funding extended maternity leave. Alright huns.

It doesn't mean that you have to agree with everything though, so whenever someone starts a petition those who appose it aren't supposed to say anything? That doesn't really seem particularly progressive, it just implies silent agreement, which is not the case. And those things are linked to this one, women have campaigned for years for neonatal leave, it wasn't just someone sat at home during a pandemic upset at missing some baby classes and expecting it to come to fruition, it's insulting to be honest. And yes, to want to have an additional 3 months off of work paid during a pandemic at the start of a recession when people's jobs are in the air, is extremely shitty for women in the workplace.

I've been forced on maternity leave early by my company and will have to go back when my baby is less,than 5 months old. I can't afford to go unpaid. It's a shit situation but I'm counting my blessings . At least me and my husband still have jobs and no-one we're close to has died. It still doesn't mean I'm entitled to more time off.

Ah the classic ‘all opinions are equally valid’, completely disregarding any proper analysis of the veracity of the claims upon which they are founded. It’s like discussing Brexit with my dad who still maintains his position when it is pointed out that every single thing he has based his option on is fundamentally incorrect.

@Sunshineandflipflops exactly. I agree with all that you say

@MintyMabel oh the bing bong of Brady's and apnea alarms....I knew I was a veteran on the ward when the newer mums were looking at me agog when I didn't blink at the amber alerts - I knew when to be worried...I was watching the nurses not the alarms! If they weren't concerned neither was I - I learned that one after seeing what it looks like when they were worried more than once!

Thank you for your kind words. I look for the joy. It's all we have.

This petition is grim and as you've pointed out in your posts it was barely mentioned in the news about the neonatal leave policy finally being passed and no one has kicked off about it being deferred until 2023! Lord knows if it'll get moved out again when we figure out how we as a nation are going to pay for all the needed schemes to secure jobs and pump money into the nhs.

That's at best tens of thousands of scared new mums saying hello through plastic boxes and holding hands through portholes for another three years without the security of knowing that worrying about money they haven't saved (as their maternity leave came sooner than planned) isn't a worry.

There will be massive mental health concerns coming out of the current situation we are in. We have amazing maternity leave laws in this country for the majority of women - I was part of a number of online communities that included American mums - they were back to work before their babies left the nicu. That's something to protest and petition about, not asking for extra paid time off as your 9-12 months of maternity leave (with accruing holidays and job security at the end of it) has been sub-optimal.

It's fucking pathetic and it's such a bizarre mindset to actively want others to be in a shit situation just because you were

Who on earth says that women who oppose this were in a shit position? I was absolutely fine with the amount of maternity leave I had, it wasn't in the least shitty. I can't see that the current situation puts mothers currently on mat leave in any more of a shit position than anyone else.

"I didn't have it and I struggled so so should you." I think this phrase is where the NICU parents believe you were talking about them from as they are the only people who have asked for (and rightly bloody so) extra maternity leave.

However, they are completely separate issues to this petition, which, as I said in my post, I don't particularly care either way on.

Except it is exactly the same issue. About the “loss” of maternity leave.

It's a relief to see people against it. I looked on the comments on the Facebook page where the Commons are asking for feedback and it's 99.9% in support of it. The comments read very 'me me me'. I'm on mat leave at the moment with a 4 month old and am gutted at the loss of the Mat leave I had planned, as I'll be working again within 2 months. But I definitely don't think I should get extended paid time off. If the money was available for that it should be going to NhS workers who haven't seen their families much / at all as they work on the front line.

The comments in the petition commentary about missing out on bonding with the baby don't sit well with me. It's all we are doing as we are home 24/7 with them. I'm homeschooling my 4 year old at the same time and am bonding very well with my baby.

I understand the issues some people are facing with sorting childcare etc, but the sacrifice we as a group have made with not having the mat leave we wanted is nothing compared to what others have lost, key workers for example! They are the ones who deserve compensation if some is available.

I was watching the nurses not the alarms! If they weren't concerned neither was I

@Twins2019 Yes! Or looking at the numbers and knowing it was fine. Or “oh, it’s not us”

I was part of a number of online communities that included American mums - they were back to work before their babies left the nicu.

With an eye watering medical bill to pay for too. This was the first time we had every used the NHS beyond your run of the mill stuff. I’ve never been so glad to have it. And preemie didn’t stop when she came home, she has CP as a result. I dread to think what her ongoing surgeries and therapies would cost us in the US, even though her disability is much less severe than it could have been.

I tend not to get too worked up about people complaining about seemingly minor things when our plate is much more full, but this one has really pissed me off.

Yanbu.
I’d be glad to have 9 months leave lockdown or no lockdown. Unfortunately my job only allows for me to scrap 12 weeks leave and that’s pushing it.
I think they should count themselves lucky.

But it definitely shouldn't be full pay. SMP at most or even unpaid just guarantee that jobs will be kept open.

Why would you get extra SMP?

There still no reason that extra leave will be needed. Or that its actually got an impact above 'we feel cheated from what we though mat leave ws going to be and want it back.

I mean given we don't know how long this will go on for, surly we would still be in some sort of lock down when alot are due to go back.

Parent and baby groups will not be starting again for a long time, surely.

Or is it a case of you got back ASAP and then all new mothers, get 3 months as everything is getting back on their feet?

I think the main thing that irritates me the most is people claiming their either 5 week old or 8/9 month olds are 'missing' out on crucial family time. At 5 weeks they have months of maternity left and at 7/9 months they have had months prior to it. Why is it now an issue? If its the later stage, why didnt they do anything abojt it before lock down? It seems as its just an easy option to sau i need more time at home with DC. If you want more time its simple to take but financially its difficult, but, claiming it from the government only makes things mroe difficult for the rest of the world.

Like PP have stated its going to cause a big financial strain doing this, baby groups are not detrimental to a childs development nor is settling in over months there is many different ways to over come this.

I dont think it will pass anyeay but makes you realise peoole really don't see pass their little bubble nor care about others.