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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:
XingMing · 13/05/2021 19:45

Nice to have maternity leave. Mine was three months as my work was on a self-employed basis. The then £97 per week was hardly worth writing home about. And once it finished, I was back out working and paying the nanny I couldn't work without about 40% of everything I earned. Plus HMRC's cut and the admin. Leave................. make me laugh.

Dailywalk · 13/05/2021 19:49

@XingMing

Nice to have maternity leave. Mine was three months as my work was on a self-employed basis. The then £97 per week was hardly worth writing home about. And once it finished, I was back out working and paying the nanny I couldn't work without about 40% of everything I earned. Plus HMRC's cut and the admin. Leave................. make me laugh.
I hear you. Being self employed is tough. Plus anytime away risks your hard won business going elsewhere. Having said that it sounds awful being a colleague these days. Show any interest in a colleague who’s not been in work for a while and you risk rally offending them because you used the term ‘time off!’
XingMing · 13/05/2021 19:52

I found work less stressful simply because I was dealing with rational adults, rather than a baby or a toddler. Loved DC to bits, but how may times can a person play the familiar games that a small child loves and finds comforting before the adult goes doolally. The nanny was brilliant. We loved her, all of us, and when DS went to school all day, she moved jobs to look after a newborn for a friend, and stayed with them for several years.

GoldenOmber · 13/05/2021 19:54

I can bet a lot of money children would be easier than work

You can’t, because much of it depends on factors you couldn’t control or predict, like what kind of baby you get or how you find the emotional turmoil of new parenthood (can be lovely, can also absolutely wreck you).

I have a stressful job and I found my first mat leave much harder than work. Partly because I had a difficult baby, and partly because I hadn’t fully appreciated how much more stressful I would find something I was totally new at, knew was really important, and wasn’t doing remotely well at. On no sleep. It was hard.

But then by my second mat leave, I had an easy baby and knew what I was doing, and it was a lot less stressful than work.

XingMing · 13/05/2021 19:58

@GoldenOmber, trust me -- if you are in any kind of professional work (like working in an office as a filing clerk) then your colleagues no matter how disastrously incompetent, are much less demanding and difficult than even the most docile baby.

Baddit · 13/05/2021 19:58

Chill out

Ussernayme · 13/05/2021 20:00

Nobody suggested to the Op that she was on holiday.

A good few people have definitely said that it's a holiday.

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.

It's not being a martyr to talk about how hard it can be. Anyway, on the contrary, most posts from people who have found it hard have been very clear that they're talking about their own experiences. It's those who insist that mat leave is a lovely telly watching holiday and everyone else is just moaning that are generalising.

NewModelArmyMayhem18 · 13/05/2021 20:00

Isn't it a matter of semantics though? This reminds me of my DC (youngest a mid-teen) who interpret everything literally. I think for many people holiday from work = not actively working but my teens would argue that holiday = having fun and chilling and not at home.

GoldenOmber · 13/05/2021 20:00

[quote XingMing]@GoldenOmber, trust me -- if you are in any kind of professional work (like working in an office as a filing clerk) then your colleagues no matter how disastrously incompetent, are much less demanding and difficult than even the most docile baby.[/quote]
Poss tagged the wrong person there - I’ve had multiple babies, I know Grin

XingMing · 13/05/2021 20:00

The difference is that you adore your child, and would willing move a mountain to make the child happy. For colleagues, probably not.

MildredPuppy · 13/05/2021 20:02

I always found a bad day at home worse than a bad day at work but a good day at home better than a good day at work.

legofootcasualty · 13/05/2021 20:07

Love all the people saying 'well TECHNICALLY it's time off work'. It's still not a holiday. How is this difficult to understand?

Would you tell someone who's been off on bereavement or in hospital 'oh I'd love to have a nice holiday'??

Not a direct comparison because obviously it has its joys and it's something you've chosen, but it's still hard work and not a holiday. Just takes some common sense to understand.

notacooldad · 13/05/2021 20:15

Nobody suggested to the Op that she was on holiday.

A good few people have definitely said that it's a holiday.

I know! The thread has got twisted from what the Op said.

saraclara · 13/05/2021 20:16

@legofootcasualty

Love all the people saying 'well TECHNICALLY it's time off work'. It's still not a holiday. How is this difficult to understand?

Would you tell someone who's been off on bereavement or in hospital 'oh I'd love to have a nice holiday'??

Not a direct comparison because obviously it has its joys and it's something you've chosen, but it's still hard work and not a holiday. Just takes some common sense to understand.

Read the OP. None of the colleagues said she'd been on holiday. Nor has anyone on here.

FFS people are just making things up now.

theDudesmummy · 13/05/2021 20:19

@Changechangychange and @Fixitup2 when I went on maternity leave I had been with the NHS for over twenty years and a consultant for ten. Still only got 12 weeks paid, so went back to work when baby was 3 months old...no idea how others have managed to do it differently?

chopc · 13/05/2021 20:19

Hmm if you have a baby with no special needs etc after the first few weeks it is like break from work though. Plus how often does a person get to have a year out of work with a job to go back to. I enjoyed all my maternity leave - just wished I had taken my full allowance with my DS1 and not be in a rush to return to work in order to finish my training ASAP

Blossomtoes · 13/05/2021 20:19

FFS people are just making things up now

There’s been a fair bit of that on this thread.

trixies · 13/05/2021 20:26

If anyone has said it’s a holiday it’s the people who’ve been describing their own blissful mat leaves. I don’t believe that anyone genuinely considers that someone else raising a baby is akin to a beach holiday.

What we’re saying (again) is that it is not being in the workplace. That is not to say that it doesn’t involve work - just that, quite literally, time away from the workplace. I wouldn’t want to raise a child so I wouldn’t do it. Have I joked in the past about trying to have a baby to avoid a particular work project? Sure. I don’t think that’s putting back the feminist movement but who knows.

blubberyboo · 13/05/2021 20:28

Well if you think about it next time you take a holiday from work you are going to spend it with and looking after your kid so in that respect your period of maternity is going to resemble all your holidays for the next 18 years.

But in the context of your original post you shouldn’t get arsey with colleagues. Many of them will have experienced maternity leave in the past with much fewer benefits and much less time off than you have had.

You have had a full year off work so no matter how tired you have been with your baby you haven’t had to do that AND work at the same time which is what normal parenting is like, so I can understand people saying it.

So sorry YABU.

KarmaKarma · 13/05/2021 20:28

I once read that if a woman breastfeeds for a year, she will over the course of the year spend about the same amount of time breastfeeding as she would working in a full time job, but with three weeks’ annual leave rather than five.

And I always wonder about people who say things like ‘can’t talk to anyone nowadaaaays, always got to worry about offending people, blah blah’. Yes, you should think about the effect your words have on others. And it’s honestly the easiest thing to make small talk with a mother who’s returned from maternity leave without implying she’s been on holiday. Ask how she is. Ask how her baby is. Ask how she’s finding her return to work.

Unless of course you couldn’t give a shit about those things and you fully intend to imply that her maternity leave was a holiday while you were slogging your guts out doing something worthwhile, but in that case she’s allowed to be offended, isn’t she?

Dontknowowt · 13/05/2021 20:32

@XingMing The people I work with in my job I would argue are waaaaaay more demanding than my one year-old...32 lively 9/10 year-olds!!!! Grin

Malin52 · 13/05/2021 20:33

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

Hahahah! As if anyone had a kid in order to provide the middle aged of today a pension. There will be no pensions by the time these children start work. Of course it's a self indulgent choice. The world doesn't need your kid.

Fact is the OP has has a year off work, paid, to undertake the activity of their choice. No one else gets that option. Spare the 'woe is me' martyrdom

XingMing · 13/05/2021 20:37

@Dontknowowt, that trumps a FTSE100 board full of egos! Nice age to be teaching though. Most of them are so much fun, and generally easy to interest in all sorts.

Fixitup2 · 13/05/2021 20:38

[quote theDudesmummy]**@Changechangychange* and @Fixitup2* when I went on maternity leave I had been with the NHS for over twenty years and a consultant for ten. Still only got 12 weeks paid, so went back to work when baby was 3 months old...no idea how others have managed to do it differently?[/quote]
I was only a band 5 nurse and part time. I think I have remembered it wrong looking at what someone else posted but it looks like 8 weeks full pay, then 18 weeks at smp plus half pay which would have made up to my normal wage so it felt like full pay, then 12 weeks smp and 12 weeks without. Although I seem to think it worked out more than that big must be wrong.
I know I had 15 months with my first child including 3 months annual leave and 11 months with my 2nd including 2 months leave.

BluebellsInSpring · 13/05/2021 20:40

I've had two maternity leaves, both 9 months.

The first was great and DD was a dream! I got married, went on honeymoon and lots of mini breaks with DH and the baby (off peak!). Spent time at baby groups and made new friends. Also went out for lunch often and spent time with family.

Second I had a 2yo and newborn, so I found it more of a slog. However I still enjoyed time OFF from my stressful job (a job that I love) and having that time with my babies.

I'd be jealous too!

However, babies are physically and mentally draining. People either get that or they don't, no amount of explaining will change their minds.