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

@XingMing Ha ha yes, it's certainly not easy but I love it! Nothing like working with kids and I wouldn't change it for the world

Ultimately it was the Ops choice to have a baby and take time off from work. Other colleagues will have had to cover her workload, or the business recruit replacement cover.

I have 3 DCs so know how hard a new baby can be, but a year off from work and paid would have been the ultimate luxury. So yeah, OP needs to get over herself

@FrangipaniBlue

But for some people (myself included) it IS a holiday! No way was looking after newborn DS on a par with how difficult and stressful my job at the time was.

I did laze around watching tv, sitting in a local cafe eating cake, reading books, walks in the park/on the beach and we went on several long weekends away. I even went on a hen party abroad

Couldn't do all that if I was also working as a childminder........ so no, those two things are not even remotely comparable.

But I do agree that people shouldn't just assume that everyone has an easy maternity leave.

I agree with this. People's leave is different. How they respond is different. It depends on what they did before, how well they survive on little sleep, if they had surgery, how their child is, what support they have, etc. I took 4 months and I was bored. My child rarely slept but I have always needed little sleep and my job is mental. For me, I found I was doing too much having had surgery and it was mainly because I was bored. When I went back to work, and lockdown hit, I balanced work with then doing alot of care for my child too. That was hard because I was trying to do a full time job alongside it. Being off work and my only focus being my daughter was actually quite easy if I am honest. BUT I acknowledge everyone is different and it will be a completely different experience for other people. Some days, even with me being good with a lack of sleep, the pain and the sleep deprivation was too much. I can only imagine how awful it would feel if you're an 8 hours a night person.

@saraclara

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?

Freedom is the last word I'd use - you can't even pee in peace! And exclusively pumping is awful. So much pressure to produce, which you can only do whilst your baby is sleeping (which in my experience was a rare event) plus the time spent doing that rather than any of the other million things you need to do. It's not as though you can say "do you know what, I'm having a day off from cracked nipples & poo, I'm off to the beach, see you tomorrow!' is it?!

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.

I'm fairly sure that's rubbish tbh, having done this. Yes, there is a lot of feeding, and cluster feeding etc in the early period, I don't think the maths works for this. And anyway, feeds usually get spaced out and quicker, so by the time you're at 9m or so, it'll be less feeds and often more like 10m.

And anyway, even if the maths is right, you can do a lot more at the same time as breastfeeding than you can with work. I've played in the garden, baked, watched TV, wandered round the shops, travelled in a plane, gone on funfair rides and filed a tax return whilst breastfeeding. Some women even can sleep whilst feeding (which I never managed). I even saw a thread in here years ago about whether it was ok to have sex whilst simultaneously breastfeeding!! I'm not saying it's necessarily easy at first, but isn't one of the major benefits of breastfeeding they it becomes easy after a while, so I'm not sure why it's being compared to work.

@GoldenOmber

Yes, I really enjoyed my holiday in hospital on morphine. I know technically it was sick leave, but I wasn’t at work, so it was a holiday really wasn’t it? Couldn’t move for people asking me what a nice relaxing time I’d had and saying “wish I could have time off like that” when I got back to the office.

Oh no, wait. Mysteriously, my sick leave was not seen as “a holiday” and “time off” that people should envy. How strange!

Are you deliberately trying to be thick? Sick leave and maternity leave are not the same things.

Are you deliberately trying to be thick? Sick leave and maternity leave are not the same things.

Well, no. Obviously. But a lot of women are unwell on mat leave. Have you ever heard of a c section?

Whatever side posters are on this semantic argument it's really bloody awful that any posters think it's acceptable to tell OP to 'get over herself' or call women who struggle martyrs. All the nastiness and negativity comes from the 'well I was fine' brigade. Why are they so angry at other mothers?

Even though technically having children is a choice, if you strip away work, holidays, the perceived unfairness and get a little philosophical about it - humans are kind of supposed to have kids. Not all humans of course and children should be wanted - but people who say "haVInG KidS iS a ChOiCe" should stop acting like it's the same as spending a year going backpacking just because it doesn't impact them. It's not just a choice it's a whole lifestyle change, and one that should be supported if anybody wants the human race to advance and have a half decent world to live in.

There a lot of people on here who you can just tell are one of those snippy nosey work weirdos who get obsessively bitter about other people who they perceive to be having a better deal than them - be it someone who goes on maternity leave, works part time, has unpaid leave, takes time off to look after a sick kid. They always harp on about picking up their work (whilst spending half their time not working but bitching). Or complain because somebody on sick leave went on for a drink and it's on Facebook.

Those people are utterly, utterly exhausting to work with. No one likes them. They drain the life out of a team and I'd rather have 10 people who have the habit of having babies or going off sick than one of these bloody mood hoovers

Have you ever heard of a c section?

I've had 2. I was still sat in a beach by 6w pp with my second. I was 90% recovered in a week.

A c section doesn't necessarily mean a long recovery, everyone is different. For office work, I'd have been fit to return after a week given I'd been happily wandering round the shops with baby in a sling by then.

[quote Fixitup2]@GoldenOmber if women only had 6 weeks off after having a baby they wouldn’t get the same reaction. Most women have recovered from giving birth after 6 weeks which leaves the rest of maternity leave to enjoy baby, or not. No one forces anyone to have more leave than the 6 weeks, it’s optional. So of course people can ask what you’ve done, if you enjoyed your time off etc.[/quote]
Where's the 6 week stat from? Does that include mental as well as physical recovery? On average, parents are sleep deprived for the first 6 years of a child's life, not just the first 6 weeks!

Oh and the people who say things like "I had twelvty c-sections and 400,000 stitches and I was back Morris dancing 2 days later" can seriously fuck the fuck off. Can you really not manage to reach inside your tiny little brain and perhaps realise that giving birth make some women very unwell? The reason you weren't unwell is sheer luck, not achievement, so don't pay yourself on the back too hard.

I had retained placenta and ended losing 3.5 pints of blood, i Needed emergency surgery and 2 blood transfusions. Were it not for some very quick and efficient wars staff I'd have died giving birth - the last time I said that on MN someone piped up "God I bet you tell everyone that every single day as well". There's a really sinister sexist side of MN and the arseholes come out the woodwork to brag about the springy vaginas and magical disappearing scars whenever other women try to open up about the difficulties in giving birth. No one is impressed that you were lying on a beach, or doing cartwheels, or building a side extension 4 minutes after giving birth. You just sound like a massive cock TBH.

Oh we are sooooo lucky that we have the bare minimum it takes to recover to not be working. Lucky us ey

Some women need 6 weeks off before birth. 6 weeks is paltry to take care of yourself and a baby

@FrangipaniDeLaSqueegeeMop
That sounds horrific 💐

I wasn't saying that c sections are easy or that there's no recovery, but that it varies. People always wheel out the 'but what about c sections' line, when in reality most stay only 1 night in hospital and recover pretty quickly, and experiences like yours are thankfully in the minority. No one is saying you should be doing cartwheels, but that it isn't always difficult, so shouldn't just be used as an example of where recovery is long, because that's often not people's experiences.

Are you deliberately trying to be thick? Sick leave and maternity leave are not the same things.

Oh wow no shit, really? Next you’ll be saying diverging totally bonkers, like ‘maternity leave and having a holiday are not the same thing either.’

Most only stay 1 night in hospital because they kick you out the next day. Its not long enough for major surgery. I think I recovered fairly well physically after my section, better than many and yes, I could have sat on a beach, but I still would have been recovering from major surgery at the time. I was basically dumped on a ward alone post birth with no cot, no food, no buzzer. I had no postnatal check once discharged and then had issues with my wound on and off. It takes a long time to recover properly.

It's nonsense to say that 'most' women are fine. You only have to look at mumsnet, or our shocking maternity system, or look at the news to see that so so many women have a really awful time.

It’s not a fucking holiday, the severe sleep deprivation and looking after a baby is harder than going to work in my opinion. I think some of you commenters saying mat leave was excellent must of been lucky and had straight forward births and good sleepers. I love my baby but hated matt leave it was soooo difficult. Reply to them & say looking after a baby 24/7 with no sleep is not a holiday, being back at work is much easier thanks.

@FrangipaniDeLaSqueegeeMop

Definitely agree with you. I had a general cat 1 section with a hemmorage and sepsis which then gave me ptsd. I’m sick of people showing off about how easy they found it, it IS just pure luck.

But it doesn't take a year to get over childbirth and breastfeeding. If it does, then you need your Doctor's assistance. .
It's not a job , it's a joy. Many women would love that opportunity.
Many men would love a year off to bond with their baby and bottle feed them.
Women have given birth for millennia.
A year off work to bond with your baby is wonderful.
Enjoy it and stop fussing over what others think. It's their problem not yours.

@Ussernayme

Are you deliberately trying to be thick? Sick leave and maternity leave are not the same things.

Well, no. Obviously. But a lot of women are unwell on mat leave. Have you ever heard of a c section?

Whatever side posters are on this semantic argument it's really bloody awful that any posters think it's acceptable to tell OP to 'get over herself' or call women who struggle martyrs. All the nastiness and negativity comes from the 'well I was fine' brigade. Why are they so angry at other mothers?

How long does it take to get over a c section? Not a year 🙄

@leeds2glasgow

Well it could do, it's major surgery and it depends how traumatic it was.

Same goes for natural birth. In fact, some women never fully recover - and it was even worse in the days before the NHS.

Meh I viewed my mat leave as a year off on both occasions. It is a year off from work. I always joke saying I might have another for the maternity leave.

@Ajl46 It’s quite well known that 6 weeks is the post partum recovery time. Of course sleep deprivation lasts longer than that for most, but the majority of women’s bodies takes 6 weeks. No it doesn’t take into account mental recovery. Also some countries do only take 6 weeks, the US being one where most women take 6 weeks.

[quote TaraR2020]@leeds2glasgow

Well it could do, it's major surgery and it depends how traumatic it was.

Same goes for natural birth. In fact, some women never fully recover - and it was even worse in the days before the NHS.[/quote]
It could but very rare. This op has not mentioned anything about being in pain for a year.

[quote TaraR2020]@leeds2glasgow

Well it could do, it's major surgery and it depends how traumatic it was.

Same goes for natural birth. In fact, some women never fully recover - and it was even worse in the days before the NHS.[/quote]
Posts like this really take the biscuit.

The vast majority of women are pretty much back to normal physically by six weeks. Even after a caesarian, you should be well on the way. I was told I could expect to be recovered from the op by then, and I absolutely was. And back then there was no paternal leave, so I was looking after my baby alone after ten days, despite the op and debilitating carpal tunnel syndrome.

The number of women needing a year to recover must be absolutely minute. Otherwise the human race would no longer exist.

I can't imagine how people who have no choice but to go back to work within a few weeks must feel, reading these self-indulgent posts from women lucky enough not to have to.