Entitled mothers

[MerryDeath]

mostly trying to avoid getting into it with the local mums on FB but this petition doing the rounds about extending mat leave, paid, by 3 months because of CV19.... AIBU to be incensed by the attitude of some new mothers?? not for the first time either. and i say this as someone on mat leave with a 4 month old.. i am mostly just thankful to be safe, with an income, in my home, with my baby. i couldn't give a flying frog about going to baby sensory. if that's your biggest concern then lucky you 🤯🤯

YANBU

Wow, despite being mothers yourselves and knowing how hard work it can be, especially in the current environment, a lot of you are belittling and ridiculing women who might not be returning to work under the circumstances they left it, without childcare or support. It’s easy to be callous and say “oh they just want to sit on their arses and I’m doing fine so why should they have an easier time?” But you don’t know their situations do you? And in the grand scheme of things, when the unemployed are getting extra support and businesses can either furlough people or go under, do it not make sense to just extend their mat leave and not add the extra complication of people returning to work with no frame work or building to return to?

No wonder we have such social problems when this is the attitude of today’s mums! Try a bit of kindness and give the benefit of the doubt every so often, your life will improve, I guarantee it.

Well, eve, it takes a taxpayer, too. I'm not wanting to pay more to fund your bonding experience.

To all those who have had mat leave and returned to work.

Did your child have settling in days at nursery/grandparents etc or did you just drop them off on a Monday say bye then and hoped for the best?

Ridiculous.

covid19 is going to kickstart an economic depression, thousands are going to lose their jobs, loads of people are going to lose a loved one to this illness and there are people whinging they should have paid maternity leave extended so they can go to baby classes?

I'm a CPN. From next week I'm being redeployed from my normal team to a depot clinic. I have to go to service users homes to give them injections. I've been doing it part time the last couple of weeks and although I enjoy the work and getting out of the team base, it's very difficult to practice social distancing when you're in someone's tiny council flat administering them an injection. I wonder if those mums upset at missing baby yoga would like to swap?

I reckon what will happen is this. Either...

a) it'll be debated for a solid 30 seconds before No is decided as the outcome. Parliament moves swiftly on.

b) it'll be debated - extra leave will be granted, but it will most certainly be unpaid.

These women are delusional.

As a PP said, its taken years for extended leave for NICU parents to become a thing, and I think babies who haven't been held by their parents for months on end trump a mummy who hasn't had the insta-leave she'd been dreaming of.

@sallysparrow157, I understand how it must have been difficult to adapt with twin babies without the support you were expecting. I had my twins pre-Covid, raised them alone with no support from my ex, family or friends. It is feasible, but bloody hard and bloody lonely.

I do feel horrible for new mums right now getting no respite, even in the form of a friend dropping in for half an hour, freeing you up for a shower or just giving the kitchen a wipe down for you
Poor poor mums who woukd normally have other friends and family members to take over for them so they can have a break because it is so so hard to look after children.

Of course there are millions of mums who bring up their kids with no family nearby to help with a partner working long hours and amazingly they managed fine.

It's the privileged who are and feel hard done by when the privilege is not accessible any longer!

@eveoha A village - or tax payers? Sorry. What you're basically saying is "my grandson doesn't recognise me so now I think the government should pay for that." Outstanding.

Unfortunately some people are just greedy...

@sallysparrow157 - no, I haven't got twins. I do think twins are hard. But they are hard for everyone. I currently have a friend who has just given birth to 35-week preemie twins and I do, absolutely, feel very sorry for her having so little support. It is frightening.

But it is also something people do. You can't say 'oh, I bet everyone else has support when there's not coronavirus' because it simply isn't true. It makes you sound ridiculous and entitled. I'm sorry, but it really does.

It's just bringing out the worst in people generally in lots of respects.

Do people have to be so cruel and mean though? YANBU to disagree with the petition, YABVU to be so "incensed" though. Just let it go its obviously not going to happen.

I’m not saying it’s common for families to ‘do nights’ and we didn’t have that pre lockdown apart from a couple of nights where grandparents took over so we could sleep - in the early days of colicky constantly feeding tiny babies we were both up most of the night quite frequently. I’m saying it’s common to be able to pop round to your mum’s or a friends when you’re having a crap day do you can have a drink and some cake and a bit of moral if not practical support. It’s also not uncommon for many of these local friends to be made in baby groups which is why we started going to them!
My experience actually isn’t that unusual - quite a few of my colleagues have twins, stay at home dads not uncommon amongst my colleagues due to our hours. A friend of mine was called back to work early from mat leave due to workload.
We all have our own circumstances to deal with and we all made our plans re when to have kids, how much mat leave to take and what childcare we would arrange based on our circumstances. global pandemics and many other things may then change our circumstances, whatever they are, and if that happens it makes life a bit harder than expected.
Anyway, I have been advised to stop arguing on the internet about a petition I didn’t actually sign as my partner and his enormous penis (he’s pleased!) have taken the babies for a government appointed walk so I can go back to bed!

Sorry...but if a preemie mum has to sit and stare at her baby in an incubator for 6 months to then only have 3 months left of leave, I'm pretty sure your entitled ass can survive without goddam baby sensory

What about those mothers with post natal stress or psychosis. They usually spend all of their mat leave fighting demons and feeling worthless...problems much bigger than if their baby can go to a baby group!!

The whole thing makes me very sad.
I lost my maternity leave (as many have) because my baby was in hospital for most of it. I was thrown out of one baby group because of his reflux. I returned to work full time often having to spend my nights sleeping in a hospital chair.

It never occurred to me to ask for extra full paid maternity leave. I just sucked it up! I would have given my right arm to have been home with my babies.

It’s the extra pay bit that’s entitled. We’re on the cusp of an actual depression. We’ll have people made redundant on a level we’ve never seen before.

An extra three months of maternity pay to go to baby sensory is a totally inappropriate and self centred request in the circs.

I post this after our daughter (currently on mat leave) called past on her walk - grandson woke and was held up so we could see him properly and the poor soul was so startled at the sight of us promptly burst into tears - very upsetting all around and I imagine it will take a while to reinstate our previously close relationship😡😞I had no hesitation in signing the petition as did many of my family and circle of friends - ‘It takes a village to raise a child’

I'm sorry, that must have been upsetting - but how would the extended mat leave help this situation? It wouldn't lift the lockdown.

Twins are indeed hard for everyone and @Dipi79 you and every other single parent of twins are bloody amazing and I have absolutely no idea how you do it!
Babies in general are frequently very hard work no matter how much support you have. But when you had x level of support for y number of babies so you plan things based on that, then suddenly for whatever reason have significantly less support for the same number of babies, plus additional worries you never expected to have, life suddenly gets harder.
Everyone currently on mat leave has lost some of their support network - be that family, friends, baby groups which mean you have to get dressed and get out of the house, health visitors being able to pop round if needed, making a new circle of local mum friends, being able to go out for more than one walk a day, being able to put a screaming baby in the car seat and go for a drive, treating yourself to a costa coffee, gaining the confidence to breastfeed in public and so on and so on. It’s not just missing out on baby sensory that’s making mat leave crap right now

does it not make sense to just extend their mat leave and not add the extra complication of people returning to work with no frame work or building to return to?

Sure. I agree. But not on a paid basis.

A lot of women are struggling right now, those back at work have, in many cases, had to throw their child into a new nursery with no settling in because their childminder has closed; are working full time without the safety net of support from family and friends; are homeschooling whilst working full time from home; being made redundant and worrying how to pay their bills. So no, I don't think new mums are special and deserve an additional 3 months off.

I see people are debating parental leave in general. This is not what the petition is about. It's asking for a three month PAID extension to maternity leave because babies are missing out on classes like baby sensory. At a time of national crisis, when people are struggling to hold onto their jobs and losing loved ones left and right and centre, it's utterly misguided.

I'm on mat leave, my partner and I work in the frontline NHS, my baby hasn't met it's grandparents, it's lonely and tough but really this does not entitle me to three months PAID leave from where, the money tree?

Spend the money on PPE, research, social care, and getting the country back on feet.

While I feel like I extra paid leave is too much to ask for, optional extended leave would be beneficial to many, and no it's not just about having the 'insta' maternity leave.

How many do you think are struggling with PND or other MH issues because of this? With all the demanding lockdown is relaxed because of MH why are new parents (because it's PARENTAL LEAVE) hauled over the coals like this?

I couldn't give a shit about missing baby groups, but to suddenly be completely without my support network, alone with 2 small children all day every day while dealing with the fallout of a traumatic birth and SCBU stay has been mentally, physically and emotionally draining. The anxiety I've had since the birth of dc2 has increased to a point where I can't sleep because I'm afraid he'll die, but there is zero support. Basically the options are I am allowed to take a little bit more time at the end of mat leave and my job is safe or be signed off sick, which is full pay but I could be phased out (because the company is shit). But yeah selfish, entitled, pathetic while anyone wanting to visit family despite social distancing is perfectly right to do so.

@dontdisturbmenow that was my quote! I will just add, I’m not actually a mum, but am in the midst of a friendship group which has been reproducing en mass for the past 3 years - so, I’m the bloody person who has been popping in and allowing friends to have showers etc so I can have a baby cuddle (or a baby vomit or dodgy nappy!) - many have said how great full they are for the pause. I don’t think I owe mums anything but I know that when someone’s tired a little help means a lot. And that can be applied to any area of life. It doesn’t mean I don’t think parents should take full responsibility for their children or anything like that, but everyone appreciates help.

And I’m saying this as someone who, despite not even being pregnant yet, has already been told by family that they will not commit to child care. Of course they will help out when needed but they won’t for example say “we’ll have them every Monday and Tuesday and one night a week so you can have a rest”. Doesn’t happen for my sister and it won’t happen for me. My dad tells me, they’ve done their turn with parenting. Fair enough.

Can everyone have 3 paid months off to make up for lost time with family and friends and cancelled leave and holidays and social events and access to places that keep people’s mental health ticking over?

@sallysparrow157 May I just apologise for assuming you were a nurse? There’s so much on FB about being grateful to nurses and “other frontline staff” and it starts to make you think that everyone dealing with Covid is a nurse! Doctors don’t seem to get much of a mention - I apologise.

We all have our own circumstances to deal with and we all made our plans re when to have kids, how much mat leave to take and what childcare we would arrange based on our circumstances. global pandemics and many other things may then change our circumstances, whatever they are, and if that happens it makes life a bit harder than expected.

But this is what everyone is trying to tell you - it is common for plans to change when you have a baby. In the list of things that are rough, being home in lockdown undoubtedly is there, but it doesn't compare to spending your leave with a very sick preemie, or all sorts of other truly horrible things.

You can plan all you like, but in the end, no, sorry, plans do change. You could have found that, without the virus, you suffered an injury and couldn't leave the house for six months. Or your mum that you rely on broke her leg. Or you got PND and didn't feel able to ask for help from friends.

All sorts of things happen. And maternity leave isn't extended to cover them, however rough that feels at the time.