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

[TurquoiseKiss]

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

I had six months off with each of my DCs, I used to say I've come to work for a rest

by the time the people have walked away from the water cooler or coffee machine the answers have probably evaporated from their heads because they aren't really invested in your mat leave.
Well, or because they haven't thought before opening their mouths and saying something sexist, whether deliberately or through thoughtlessness.

I am with roar et al on this. This shit really needs challenging.

If someone knowingly applied for that job then whined about it I would have little sympathy.

Christ, I really wish I'd known. Didn't have tonnes of experience of babies before I had my son. My mum, someone I trust and listen to on the whole, told me we were designed to do it...giving giving was sore but not hard, babies start to sleep better at 6 weeks ish etc etc, the horror stories you hear are from a very tiny group of people. She had 4 of us so I thought she must be right.
It's easy to think that everyone knows and understands once you've done it. Actually plenty of first time mums are close to clueless.

I’m asking for tips to change the narrative around maternity leave being viewed by some as a ‘holiday’.

You want to change everyone’s mind?

You can’t. You can only change your mindset in how you deal with arseholes. Because any minute more will be along with other mindsets you can’t change.

I loved maternity leave. For the first time in my adult life I was my own boss.

Jeeeze, some people here make motherhood sound like it's equivalent to working down the mines. It's not. It comes with its frustrations and rewards like any other job. But the freedom is incredible, and that's no other job that gives it.

Anyway, it's casual chit chat that every returning mother I've ever known responds to with a laugh and something like 'it's great to be back and feel like a grown up again'

For goodness sake don't respond with birth details and (as someone else suggested) ' "being tied to a best pump for twenty minutes every four hours". Which made me laugh out loud. The heroics of motherhood, eh?

and that's no other job that gives it.

WTF did I do there?
'And which no other job gives'

Jeeeze, some people here make motherhood sound like it's equivalent to working down the mines. It's not. It comes with its frustrations and rewards like any other job. But the freedom is incredible, and that's no other job that gives it.

My experience couldn't be more different. Freedom is the very last word I'd associate with parenthood, and motherhood in particular.

@roarfeckingroarr

Reading this thread is so depressing. It's low level - or blatant - sexism and shows how little we value caring roles and what's seen as women's work at home. I'm on maternity leave until September and won't put up with any sniff of this bullshit. Fortunately I'm senior enough to make a point and be listened to.

So if someone says the obvious that you have been off work, you're going to challenge them, and because you're senior think that's acceptable? Interesting.

My experience couldn't be more different. Freedom is the very last word I'd associate with parenthood, and motherhood in particular.

Agree. At times I've almost felt imprisoned by motherhood.

Mostly, everyone views everything through their own small lens.

If, they find their job monotonous and boring? It’s easy to view anyone who isn’t there (for whatever reason) as having an imaginary peachy time - they are not interested in your real, lived experience.

Don’t bother to engage.
Hold your experience, with its highs and it’s lows, as too precious to share with people who don’t deserve it.

I am taking my full year’s maternity. I have no baby to care for.

It’s very clear from my manager’s tone that she thinks ‘what on earth is she doing with no baby to actually look after?’. I almost feel guilty actually, sitting about a lot of the time, sleeping and enjoying myself doing sweet F all.

I probably am taking the piddle a little bit, even more so because I hope to return back pregnant again

I think a lot of people think you are actually paid most of your salary for maternity leave. But it's 90% of your salary for six weeks, then the rest of it is maternity benefits. My manager - he was my manager for four of my maternity leaves - actually thought that I was getting most of my salary and was entitled to it for up to a year, though I only took about 3 months each time. He got a bit of a shock when his wife got pregnant.

A few companies offer more generous maternity packages - does yours do that? I can understand people being envious of that if they do not know the reality of caring for a tiny baby.

If your work colleagues want a year off from work, existing on benefits and savings, but do not want a baby, they could try to negotiate a sabbatical from work.

CallMyBucks The very best of luck, I hope you do indeed return pregnant.

OP also needs to remember that many women (the older ones) won't have had such a lengthy period of time off work on Mat Leave. In my day I could only dream of having a year off work. I had less than 3 months off then had to juggle full time work as a single parent. So to them, a year off work at home with baby sounds blissful.

@Roboticcarrot not what I said. If people take the piss about it being a holiday etc I'll talk to them, then use my position of seniority to change the narrative and advice to managers about how to speak to colleagues returning from mat leave

Agree. At times I've almost felt imprisoned by motherhood.

Yes, absolutely this. I was and sometimes still am shocked by how trapped I am.

I think the thing about bathing badgers that was written when someone wrote an article asking for time off for non-parents to give them equality with parents having maternity leave was a pretty good explanation of what maternity leave is actually like:

www.huffingtonpost.ca/elizabeth-bromstein/maternity-leave-without-kids_b_9811462.html

Official rules and guidelines for maternity leave without kids:

1. You must gain at least 30 pounds before you leave work. Half of people are required to gain twice that.

1. At the beginning of your leave, you must spend one night getting punched in the abdomen until you feel pain like you've never felt before.

1. A random selection of people are also required to develop a wound of some sort. A sliced opening from your vagina to your anus is one option. Another is a slice through your abdomen and into your uterus. Or just stab yourself in the eye. Whatever.

1. For the first six months, whenever you try to sleep, an alarm will go off somewhere between every 15 minutes to two hours. For the second six months, that time may stretch to six hours. But who knows?

1. No sleeping between the hours of 11 p.m. and six a.m.

1. All of your non-sleeping time must be devoted to some sort of selfless service. Volunteering for a charity doing something like building houses or bathing badgers. There are no specific instructions as to how to carry out your duties in this service, and all the advice you can find online is conflicting. One thing you will know for sure is that you're probably doing everything wrong.

1. Here's a weird thing: A bear or a cougar or something scary will be unleashed in your house and will be threatening everything you love. But you can't see it and you are the only person who knows it's there. Nobody believes you. You know you sound crazy, but IT'S THERE.

1. You must rub sandpaper over your nipples until they are red and bleeding. Once this is achieved, you are required to tug on them 15,000 times a day. You may opt out of this but you are required to feel like a terrible person.

1. You can only shower once a week, max.

10. You may wear clean clothes for 10 minutes out of the day. A bucket of vomit, pee, poop and food scraps will be provided to you from which you must splash the vomit and food on your clothes when the 10 minutes are up.

When you try to explain that it's not as easy as one might imagine, you'll be blasted with the argument that (again) you chose this, so it's your own fault, really.

11. Every task you set out to do must be performed in intervals. If you are washing the dishes, you may only wash three dishes, then go bathe some badgers or build a house. Then three more dishes, then badgers (or house).

12. If you have time to exercise off the extra weight and keep a clean house, you are not doing enough selfless service and more will be assigned to you.

13. If you have a partner, no sex for the first six months.

14. You may not leave the house to see any friends for the first six months unless you take a badger (or a house) with you. If you take it to a restaurant, people will be assigned to look annoyed, because they don't want badgers and houses in their public spaces. If you need them to move to make room for your badger or house, they will be really annoyed. You will be expected to just suck it up because you chose this and you don't deserve special treatment.

15. You may not leave the house at night in the hours during which you are not allowed to sleep.

16. An assortment of assigned strangers will come up to you and tell you how to live and bathe badgers and build houses, and that you're doing it wrong. You are not allowed to tell them to eff off because that would be rude.

17. A government official will come to your house on a monthly basis to make sure you are feeling sufficiently isolated, overwhelmed and confused. If you are not, an additional invisible bear will be released into your home.

18. A random 10 to 15 per cent of you will be selected to suffer from severe depression and/or anxiety.

19. After a few months of this you will be required to listen to some asshat talk about how lucky you are and how they deserve the same super great privileges. When you try to explain that it's not as easy as one might imagine, you'll be blasted with the argument that (again) you chose this, so it's your own fault, really. You will want to explain that people's lives shouldn't really by broken down to those sorts of judgement calls, but you'll realize that this is so outside of the other person's realm of understanding that you won't know where to start, because you might even have thought the same thing before your own super awesome MEternity live. So, you'll just sigh and walk away. Because, forget it.

20. You can actually take more than one MEternity leave. With each subsequent leave, you must do all the same things while looking after an untrained primate of some sort -- say an affectionate but obstinate adolescent baboon, adding one additional primate per leave. So, two leaves, one baboon. Three leaves, two baboons. You must not lose your patience with the baboons. (Of course, maternity is way better with actual kids because kids are better to have around the house than baboons. [Or so I imagine. I've never had a baboon in my house.] But you're the one who doesn't want the kids.)

@TurquoiseKiss

I feel some posters have misinterpreted my original post/request for advice. I don’t deny I had a year away from work - this is a fact!

I have no desire to go into any details with colleagues of sleepless nights, feeding, teething blah blah blah - the 2nd paragraph of my post was intended to be jovial, as was the sign off!

My take home message from all is to probably have a reactive line in my locker along the lines of: “my maternity leave period was great, thanks for asking, incredibly grateful for my baby son. Parts of raising a child for the first time are challenging, especially in a pandemic. It’s a hard job but the best job! Glad to be back to work however!” End with BIG SMILE!

I hope some of the content of this thread is helpful for anyone out there feeling in a similar position.

Jeez. Your right up yourself aren't you. You do realise millions of other women have babies and juggle this stuff don't you....including probably your colleagues.

You had a year off OP, what's the issue?

I was in education. I actually had to still work. Same with people who are self employed and have no other choice.

Sure, it was tiring for you, but you still had a year off. I can't imagine being wound up by colleagues making lighthearted small talk.

People say similar in my office whenever anyone has been out of office for any period of time for whatever.

I wouldn't really explain anything. You've been 'off' from the job for a year. Even if it's maternity leave, is it now not ok to ask whether you've been up to anything interesting or have gone anywhere? I asked similar of a friend who had a baby last year - just making conversation, some people did get out and about when they were permitted to do so, pandemic or not. Would you rather they said you look like crap?

@Fauvist oh that’s brilliant and oh so true!

It is a year off though. You still have to be a parent now you are back at work.

My maternity leave was like a holiday compared to my job. I loved it, but appreciate that other people's experience is different. Suppose it depends what you're comparing it to.

I work term time only now, but will be with the dc for the entire 8 weeks. I still call it a holiday though as I won't have the stress and daily grind of work.

I agree with the people who say it’s low level sexism and needs to be challenged because it’s rooted in a belief that only paid work (ie men’s work) is work and anything else is valueless.

I got those comments when I returned to work after maternity leave and I didn’t put up with it. I wasn’t unpleasant about it but just said something like ‘it was a year away from the office but definitely wasn’t a year off work.’

@fluffedup

I think a lot of people think you are actually paid most of your salary for maternity leave. But it's 90% of your salary for six weeks, then the rest of it is maternity benefits. My manager - he was my manager for four of my maternity leaves - actually thought that I was getting most of my salary and was entitled to it for up to a year, though I only took about 3 months each time. He got a bit of a shock when his wife got pregnant.

A few companies offer more generous maternity packages - does yours do that? I can understand people being envious of that if they do not know the reality of caring for a tiny baby.

If your work colleagues want a year off from work, existing on benefits and savings, but do not want a baby, they could try to negotiate a sabbatical from work.

I’m NHS so it worked out that I actually got full pay for 9 months, then half for 3 months. I finished work at 7 months and returned when my son was 13 months. I didn’t resent anyone asking if I’d had fun on my year off. Because I did. I also went to nice places and did some nice things. Whilst they were covering my shifts because maternity cover doesn’t really exist in the nhs. I don’t see anything sexist about it. I chose to have a year off, I didn’t need to but wanted to. And whilst yes I was caring for my baby I was also having lots of days out, lots of lunches with friends, holidays whenever I wanted rather than fitting it around everyone else at work and the holy grail in nursing - 2 Christmasses off. I spent a lot of time sitting on my backside, eating chocolate and bingeing box sets too in the first 6 months. Baby would have a 2 hour afternoon boob nap which was bliss!