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

@GoldenOmber I think that the caring professions are undervalued. I said upthread that I’m not convinced that having babies is important work that needs to be regarded as such by everyone beyond the parents’ immediate family, though.

I don’t think mummies are all entitled, either - just that there’s a lot of disingenuousness about the interpretation of “work”.

Ah I see, it’s important and undervalued work if it’s minimum wage, but not if you’re doing it for free. Cool cool.

@IntermittentParps

How is a weekend at home with DC any different to ML at home with DC?

On most given ordinary weekends people haven't just had to grow and birth a baby or deal with possible post-birth health issues.

Yes but you're not recovering for the entire year! (Well, the majority of women aren't) Yes, it can be very difficult and painful at times, but for most people I know (myself included), maternity leave was lovely! Time away from work to just enjoy being with my baby, snuggles in bed, walks in the park, sitting in the sunshine, meeting up with friends, etc.

It's hardly comparable to being off sick or because of bereavement as a pp suggested.

@GoldenOmber

Ah I see, it’s important and undervalued work if it’s minimum wage, but not if you’re doing it for free. Cool cool.

No, thats not the point. One is a job, and one is your life. One is paid employment, one is not. One you take time off from, one you don't. Follow?

I respond to such utter tripe with

"Yeah it was great. I loved my year off sitting around doing absolutely nothing."

@GoldenOmber Caring for vulnerable people who already exist has a massive and undervalued societal benefit. Caring for your own children who exist solely because you wanted to have them has a societal benefit insofar as not doing it badly avoids societal consequences down the line.

I know the standard line is that babies are necessary to pay taxes for the elderly (as if that’s why people do it), but I don’t think the answer to “ever-expanding elderly population” is “create even bigger group of babies who will one day become an even bigger elderly population requiring an even bigger group of babies...”

So, yeah, I do distinguish between the two. Presumably so do you, unless you expect all parents to be paid a wage for raising their children?

@IntermittentParps

Should we no longer ask parents if they enjoyed their weekend then, or their annual leave? Because on this basis it's not enjoyable, or leave, when you have a baby or small children Doesn't make sense. A weekend and annual leave are holidays. ML isn't.

A coworker of mine had 6 months maternity leave and then took a week holiday when the baby was 10 months old.

Are you saying it's not acceptable to ask if someone had a nice break from work unless that person comes back to work for a few months in the middle?

No, thats not the point. One is a job, and one is your life. One is paid employment, one is not. One you take time off from, one you don't. Follow?

So when it’s paid, it’s undervalued and under appreciated and important work, and when it’s not paid or paid under minimum wage, it’s over-valued and actually nice time off with your family? How does that work?

I’ve done unpaid care work for a terminally ill grandparent. Was that less important or less difficult than when I did paid care work for other people’s terminally ill grandparents?

Caring for vulnerable people who already exist has a massive and undervalued societal benefit. Caring for your own children who exist solely because you wanted to have them has a societal benefit insofar as not doing it badly avoids societal consequences down the line.

Ah, so you can appreciate me caring for someone’s granny even though she’s not a granny in your immediate family? But when said granny was a baby, there would have been no wider social benefit in caring for her, and indeed her mother was probably verging on irresponsible for producing her at all?

My children will probably grow up to pay taxes and pay people’s pensions (including mine), but the elderly people I looked after never will. No wider social benefit at all to your immediate family. Nor to mine. If your only metric for measuring benefit here is ‘is this directly useful to wider society outside the people being cared for’, you presumably don’t think it’s all that important to look after them at all.

Vulnerable people who need care are vulnerable people who need care. They have rights and needs themselves. The benefit to society is having a society that values all of us, not ‘what can I get out of your mat leave’.

Why are a few people making it sound like a year of absolute torture that makes them special and heroic?

I don't think it makes me special or heroic. It was like that though and I am perfectly entitled to talk about it. This whole ridiculous argument is going round and round in circles mainly because so many people insist on repeatedly posting statements saying that mat leave is wonderful and full of snuggles. Not that that's their experience but that empirically mat leave is wonderful. That's why people keep coming back to talk about their experiences. Other than that it's just a semantic argument about time 'off or 'leave'. PP are so right though, that we devalue the work women do so thoroughly that we don't see the work involved in being a mother as something worth anything.

@GoldenOmber You got me. You’re all saints, doing the selfless work of caring for children that you chose to have. The rest of us should recognise the importance of the work you do for the way it enriches all of our lives, and not suggest in any way that the experience of maternity could be relaxing.

That any better?

Why are a few people making it sound like a year of absolute torture that makes them special and heroic?
a) For some people it is exceptionally hard
b) Their point is that people saying, essentially, 'Ooh, I wish I'd had a year off like you' is that these people have no idea what it can be like.
Especially as, again, some people have a particularly hard time of it but still have to go back to their workplace after a few weeks! Well they shouldn't. Equality, as I and others have said, still has a long way to go. And, again, why must it be a race to the bottom?

Blossom, I made my point perfectly coherently. You misconstrued it.

Of course there’s still work to be done, that doesn’t diminish what’s already been achieved. I do agree with that.

And you’re wrong. Oh am I? OK then, that's me telt

Focusing on trivia that makes people roll their eyes is what impedes progress because it means you’re not taken seriously.
Again, it is not 'trivia' when colleagues equate ML with a holiday or year 'off'.
People 'roll their eyes' because of internalised sexism and inequality and a worldview that is still patriarchal. People who apologise for those of us pointing out the negative implications of the way women and equal/women's rights issue are talked about and framed (many seemingly women, going by this thread, which is depressing) are the ones impeding progress.

My children will probably grow up to pay taxes and pay people’s pensions (including mine), but the elderly people I looked after never will

They paid for your education though. And, as taxpayers, were probably still paying for your children’s. This thread has become ridiculous.

That any better?

Not remotely what I said, but if it helps you feel like you put me in my place, then go you.

Like I said earlier, though, it’s nice of you to stand up for the right of carers to paid care leave no matter the age of the person they’re caring for. Maybe one day you can find a way to express your theoretical support of carers without being all sneery about the people doing the actual practical caring.

@Aneley

While it may not correspond to how you imagine a year off should look like - it was technically still a year away from work. Sure, you had other stuff to deal with, but you didn't have to commute, do 9-5, deal with projects, colleagues, office politics - all that stuff.

No, that stuff is much easier in comparison.

@Blossomtoes

My children will probably grow up to pay taxes and pay people’s pensions (including mine), but the elderly people I looked after never will

They paid for your education though. And, as taxpayers, were probably still paying for your children’s. This thread has become ridiculous.

How did you read my posts about the importance of care work, and my own work looking after dying elderly people, and conclude “this person needs a good telling off about why old people are important!” Seriously, how?

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

I loved maternity leave. There were a couple of phases where it was harder, including 2 weeks of nicu, then later on two spells in hospital, but there were also many months where both the baby and I slept well and then we had lovely relaxing days playing in the garden or having lunch with friends. It was very much a year off work. Even the people I knew with babies that were worse sleepers still had plenty of phases where it was lovely.

Overall it may be wonderful, lovely, everything you ever dreamed of - it's still not a holiday.

Again, it is not 'trivia' when colleagues equate ML with a holiday or year 'off'

People 'roll their eyes' because of internalised sexism and inequality and a worldview that is still patriarchal. People who apologise for those of us pointing out the negative implications of the way women and equal/women's rights issue are talked about and framed (many seemingly women, going by this thread, which is depressing) are the ones impeding progress

No people roll their eyes because it doesn’t matter. Progress is impeded by failure to influence those in a position to effect change. If you’re working with a world view that’s patriarchal, you frame your arguments in a way that’s likely to persuade and influence those with that view. What you don’t do - if you’ve got an atom of sense - is make them think women’s concerns are puerile. This kind of thing puts us back decades.

@lavenderandwisteria

It isn’t about whether babies are lovely or unlovely, whether being a parent is hard or easy, or whether it’s the best of times or the worst of times, to paraphrase dickens.

It’s all the above, but that is not the point.

Working parents and disproportionately mothers, are disadvantaged in the workplace for precisely this reason. Maternity leave is seen as being a year ‘off’, ‘dossing’, inconveniencing colleagues and employers and the sign of not being committed to your career.

That is wrong and it’s sad to see those very attitudes being upheld here.

Well said. For those saying that having a baby is a purely selfish lifestyle choice, not sure who will be working to fund your pension when you're older.

Overall it may be wonderful, lovely, everything you ever dreamed of - it's still not a holiday

But it is a year off work, which is literally the point of the thread!!

I'm bemused at how people don't get this. It doesn't matter if ML was a piece of piss or the worst year of your life. It doesn't matter if having babies is an important thing for society or self indulengent choice. None of that matters: a year in which you do not go to your place of work is a year off work, end of story.

I'm not sure SAHP's would describe looking after a child/children as a holiday?

I've just gone back to work in education four days a week after mat leave. For me, mat leave was definitely easier. I'm much more exhausted at work than I was at home!!

Nobody suggested to the Op that she was on holiday.

But you did have a year 'off' your usual day to day job, regardless of the reason. A friend of mine is currently on a year's sabbatical while she does a masters degree. Everyone knows she's working harder than she ever has but she's still 'out of office' for the year.

I work for a travel company and in normal times plenty of people come to me to book jolly trips away during their maternity leave, often several of them. It might not be for everyone, but it's definitely a thing for some.

...or indeed a year "off work."

@Dontknowowt

I'm not sure SAHP's would describe looking after a child/children as a holiday?

I've just gone back to work in education four days a week after mat leave. For me, mat leave was definitely easier. I'm much more exhausted at work than I was at home!!

In response to this post - I'm pleased to see it as too many mothers play the martyr after babies, and don't understand that not everyone finds the same things difficult as the next person.

I have a highly stressful job - I can bet a lot of money children would be easier than work. Not easy, but easier and demanding in a different way. I think it depends what you do for a living as to how much of a 'holiday' it feels.

Someone that has a non stressful job with few responsibilities is likely to find it more challenging in comparison to their work