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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask for a polite way to explain maternity leave is not ‘a year off’?

779 replies

TurquoiseKiss · 12/05/2021 23:25

Returned to work this week after maternity leave of 1 year. All my colleagues are nice people so I don’t think this has been meant maliciously but a few have followed “welcome back” with “I wish I could take a year off” / “what did you get up to? Any nice trips?” / “you’re looking well, must have been nice to have a year break from work” (obviously this is what happened but the tone was as if I’d gone to lay on a beach somewhere and had ‘me time’ for 12 months!).

Suggestions please of the nicest way to say: “I birthed a baby, spent 5 fairly traumatic nights on a postnatal ward with no visitors allowed, haven’t had a full nights sleep since last April, didn’t go on any trips because y’know I took the time away from work to start raising a tiny person not seek out cheap last minute jollys…Comprende!?”

Yours,
Tired Mum

OP posts:
Tomatobear · 13/05/2021 08:47

British culture really doesn't respect mothers or mother's work.

Unfortunately it's all about the money, combined with plenty of competitive hard-done-by ness.

Ussernayme · 13/05/2021 08:48

Exactly. I sometimes wish I could shake new 1st time mums and say ‘come on, enjoy it and stop moaning

Ha ha ha. Ha ha. Fucking hell if you'd done that to me...!! My first year after I'd given birth was day in day out pure hell. Absolute darkness. I wasn't there, I wasn't even me. I was so fucking ill that I can't ever risk having another child. When I had a tiny baby I wasn't 'moaning,' I was screaming out for help and no-one was listening. Believe me, having a toddler, whilst exhausting, is joyous compared to that. Have you not ever heard of PND?

SteelMack · 13/05/2021 08:48

I really don't get what all the fuss is about. You haven't attended work (either in person or remotely) for a year therefore you have been off work.

Why is everyone overthinking it?!

Dailywalk · 13/05/2021 08:49

Assuming you didn’t do any work for them on your mat leave it was a year off. Let it go.

Aprilx · 13/05/2021 08:50

You don’t need to explain anything to anyone. Everybody you work with knows what maternity leave it, knows what a new baby is, goodness some of them might have even had one themselves sometime. You are not the first person to have a baby, your question suggests that you think you are.

People are referring to the fact that you have had a year off work and to probably are not even thinking about it but are simply making light hearted, polite conversation. You need to try and not be so uptight.

ittakes2 · 13/05/2021 08:51

I think you are overthinking this - just say you don't consider sleepless nights a holiday and leave it at that. They are just bantering with you.
The maternity leave in the Uk is much better than any other country I know except Sweden which is another level.

SunflowersAndLavender · 13/05/2021 08:52

(If someone had had some other medical and/or caring need and had to take time off I'm not sure people would be saying to them it must have been great to have had time off work.*

Other medical and/or caring needs are usually as a result of something unwelcome or unfortunate having happened though. Time off work due to the disability or serious illness of yourself, your child, your partner, or your parent can't really be compared to the life choice of having a baby, which usually a welcome joy.

GoldenOmber · 13/05/2021 08:53

You are not the first person to have a baby, your question suggests that you think you are.

No it fucking doesn’t. Where did you get that? What are you talking about?

Ussernayme · 13/05/2021 08:53

They really, really won’t. Plenty of people think it’s a lovely long relaxing time that women get as some kind of unfair personal workplace perk. We are not obliged to simper along with that lest someone regard us as ‘chippy’.

This, absolutely. A woman at my workplace came back from mat leave as I was pregnant. She was very honest and clear about what a difficult time she'd had. At the time I remember thinking that she was being a bit moany, I was so excited to meet my baby that I couldn't understand not feeling overjoyed to be at home with him. (I never said anything though) After I'd had my son I changed my tune. She was the only bloody person to be honest with me about how hard it could be. The only one. I'm really grateful that she was honest. Fortunately we were in a workplace with lots of women who had had children and who were very sympathetic to her.

merrygoround88 · 13/05/2021 08:57

Oh @Ussernayme I clearly said in an earlier post that I was referring to easyish babies which past a certain stage , the majority are.

For almost every generally nice situation , there will be some people who have a terrible experience and I am sorry you had that.

However I wasn’t referring to you personally I am referring to the narrative (often on MN) that having your first baby is this awful terrible slog. For most it’s not, it’s enjoyable and I was saying that it was really would be better for these parents if they just lent in to the enjoyment of it.

Couchbettato · 13/05/2021 08:58

I'd just tell them you and your infant had a fantastic time backpacking through Thailand, kayaking in Malaysia, spent 6 weeks climbing Everest with only one pair of underpants on, and had a glorious 2 month retreat in the Florida keys.

SunflowersAndLavender · 13/05/2021 08:59

They really, really won’t. Plenty of people think it’s a lovely long relaxing time that women get as some kind of unfair personal workplace perk. We are not obliged to simper along with that lest someone regard us as ‘chippy’

Well I think that depends. if you are one of those women who has had seven kids and has spent much more time out of the workplace on full pay than in it, they might have a point.

But that's not the norm.

And a lovely, long relaxing time is probably what it is in comparison to going back to full time work six or twelve post partum. It's not that a year long maternity leave is relaxing in and of itself, it's that it's relaxing comparatively speaking.

Fixitup2 · 13/05/2021 09:00

@PomegranateQueen

All those agreeing with the OP, what do you say to parents who take time off in the school holidays? They are off work, but give me a squishy newborn over two hyper primary age children in a crowded soft play in the holidays Grin It's hard work, but it's not being 'at work'.
I’d ask if they went anywhere nice and what they got up to in their time off. 😁

This thread is another load of martyrs moaning. Yes having a baby is hard work but you can still do nice things and return to work and be pleasant.

Ussernayme · 13/05/2021 09:02

For most it’s not, it’s enjoyable and I was saying that it was really would be better for these parents if they just lent in to the enjoyment of it.

My baby was an easyish baby, didn't sleep well but perfectly healthy and to any observers I was completely fine. I struggle to ask for help, and the reason I didn't get any help at all is because people thought I was just normal moaning. Even I didn't understand how unwell I was, it was just an absence of anything. So yeah, I totally came across like just a normal moaning new mum. I really don't actually think that 'most' new mums are completely fine, I think it's far more normal to really struggle than people accept.

GoldenOmber · 13/05/2021 09:02

And a lovely, long relaxing time is probably what it is in comparison to going back to full time work six or twelve post partum.

And working a 40-hour week is probably relaxing in comparison to being a factory apprentice in the industrial revolution, but I bet the OP’s colleagues don’t regard their jobs as a lovely long relaxing break.

helpfulperson · 13/05/2021 09:03

Were any of these mothers who had children when 3 months was the normal? I can understand why they would feel a year was time off.

ExConstance · 13/05/2021 09:03

I had my children over 20 years ago and in those days you usually got 3 months off after the birth, if you were lucky you got 6 months and if you were self employed, like me, you were back at work 6 weeks later while you still had some work to do. a year off does seem, perhaps illogically, like a very good deal to me.

Cindersrellie · 13/05/2021 09:03

But it is a year off! They're just being polite, just be honest and say it was quite difficult and no you didn't do anything nice.

MrsMiddleMother · 13/05/2021 09:05

I just say yes it I loved having a year off to nurse and raise my baby and I'm so grateful we have a great maternity leave system in this country

Tal45 · 13/05/2021 09:05

@Ussernayme

Exactly. I sometimes wish I could shake new 1st time mums and say ‘come on, enjoy it and stop moaning

Ha ha ha. Ha ha. Fucking hell if you'd done that to me...!! My first year after I'd given birth was day in day out pure hell. Absolute darkness. I wasn't there, I wasn't even me. I was so fucking ill that I can't ever risk having another child. When I had a tiny baby I wasn't 'moaning,' I was screaming out for help and no-one was listening. Believe me, having a toddler, whilst exhausting, is joyous compared to that. Have you not ever heard of PND?

Yeah I wouldn't have appreciated that either, unknown to me mine had asd and dyspraxia and was a very unhappy baby and didn't sleep for more than 30 minutes ever due to very (I now know) narrow airways/sleep apnea but at the time was fobbed off by docs as normal.
Namechangeme1 · 13/05/2021 09:05

I actually think a year off is excessive unless you support yourself financially. It should not be an expectation or entitlement

NameChange2PostThis · 13/05/2021 09:06

Ah @TurquoiseKiss I’m sorry you’ve had such an obtuse response on MN and such an (un)welcome back to work. Many workplaces are packed to the gunnels with misogynists who like to promote a narrative that denigrates women. This is just one of those examples. Silly spoilt women take a year’s paid holiday off work and place extra burden on them to carry the can. Then she waltzes back in expecting a medal.

You can’t argue with stupid. Yes you could explain the reality. But they will ignore it. So just smile and go on the offensive; tell them stories about extended coffee mornings, beach breaks, yoga classes, spa days, how easy and relaxing it all was.

For the record I spent most of one of my maternity leaves in NICU, then SCBU, then between specialist medical appointments for baby and surgery for me, all accompanied by severe PND. And I was greeted back at work in the same way.

RaiseTheBeastie · 13/05/2021 09:09

In the context they were using, of course it was a year off Hmm

It doesn't matter whether you had the easiest baby ever and a complete break or had non-sleeping triplets and horrendous PND. You still had a year off work.

Don't make yourself look like a tit by insisting you haven't to people because of xyz, my life as a mummy is so hard reasons.

It's still a year off!

andivfmakes3 · 13/05/2021 09:10

@MrsMiddleMother

I just say yes it I loved having a year off to nurse and raise my baby and I'm so grateful we have a great maternity leave system in this country

It's only a great maternity leave system In the U.K. if you are the lowest earner

The SMP system is archaic - No professional woman I know could afford to live on £150 per week

It completely ignores the fact that 30% of women in a relationship earn more than their male partners now

I'm only able to take 20 weeks with my twins

merrygoround88 · 13/05/2021 09:10

@Tal45 As per previous post, aimed at the general not the few who had an awful time.