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 nearly died, couldn’t sit for 5 months, had terrible PND, can’t have anymore children and am awaiting further surgery.
Shuts everyone up quite nicely 😂😢

I nearly died, couldn’t sit for 5 months, had terrible PND, can’t have anymore children and am awaiting further surgery.

That’s unfortunate and I’m sorry that happened. Of course you are free to say this if someone asks whether you enjoyed your time away. Other people who had a luckier run may have a different response to the same question.

I always ask the question, whether it be someone who was off on maternity leave or off on secondment to another position. While both have you occupied in a different way, it’s notwithstanding that the person had time away from their usual position.

If my friend is on maternity leave, I will listen to her talk about how it is going. I will sympathise if she is finding things hard. I’ll meet up with her during her leave and help with baby, take food round, whatever. I will care and I will be there for her.

If a colleague returns after a year and I haven’t made any effort to speak to them during that time, then I’ll make breezy chit chat when I see them back at work. I might say ‘how was your time off?’ In my head, you weren’t in the office, so you were ‘off’. It’s not bitterness that you haven’t even around, it’s mostly just complete indifference. I can imagine you’ve spent lots of that time changing nappies so I know you haven’t been ‘on holiday’. You were away doing your thing, somewhere else that plenty of people before you have done. I don’t need a run down of how hard you slaved looking after the infant that you made a conscious decision to have. I didn’t make you pregnant. In return, I won’t bore you to death with the tedium of hard things that happened in the work place whilst you were away, (unless you need to know to do your job effectively).

I’m childfree by choice. I’m broody and I love babies and children, but I know what parenthood entails and have decided not to have children. I’m assuming you chose to have a child because you are an intelligent human being who was able to evaluate what it might be like and all that it entailed, and decided that was the lifestyle for you.

There is no sexism here, I just don’t have much headspace to be concerned about what my colleagues do in their ‘free time’ (the time when they are not contractually obliged to be doing something for work).

Christ, no one said that we all need a year to recover from a section. It often takes longer than 6 weeks though. Then many things make the rest of that year very difficult. Yes, of course people have it harder, I don't disagree that having to go back to work after weeks must be extremely hard but this was never a discussion on who has had the worst time. It's a discussion on whether it's crazy that people still view mat leave as a jolly holiday and a rest.
I still have problems with my scar and body and my section was 3 years ago, I'm only just getting help with my PTSD. I was basically ignored for years. I can't belive that's been described as self indulgent, mumsnet can be a shit place sometimes.

Been thinking about this. When you’re on annual leave, it’s holiday from work, even if it’s to look after your kids because it’s school holidays, or if you are going away with the baby, or to decorate the house or provide care for a relative or whatever.
When I take a week off during school hols, it’s bloody harder than being at work, I can tell you.
But it’s still holiday. From work.
So yeah, I can’t get worked up about mat leave being called holiday.
(Ps my first mat leave was a holiday, I bloody loved every minute. My second I had severe PND and hated every minute)

I’m assuming you chose to have a child because you are an intelligent human being who was able to evaluate what it might be like and all that it entailed, and decided that was the lifestyle for you.

Once again, is it outside of the realms of your imagination that lots and lots of young women actually don't really know what having a baby is going to be like...that there's a lot of nonsense out there. I had never met anyone who had a non sleeping child (or they didn't talk about it), I got some books from the bloody library when pregnant and they all made out that if you pop them down in a cot they go to sleep! I hadn't ever met anyone who talked about having a section!

I think it’s a bit insensitive to ask if you’ve had nice trips considering we are in a pandemic and lots of women on mat leave have been stuck at home so it’s been harder but I guess your colleagues are just making small talk.
During my maternity leave I went out for lunch with friends, coffee and cake, we had 1 big family holiday and 3 shorter weekend cottage breaks. We went swimming and to baby’s activities but we also sat at home elbow deep in dirty nappies and baby sick, stayed up all night and recovered from a traumatic c section.
Maternity leave has highs and lows and some days I wished I could go to work for some normality in my life but actually living in a country where I am able to take paid leave from to raise my child is a luxury many other woman don’t have.
The reality is you did have a year off work, you didn’t have to stress about deadlines or whatever the normal pressures of your job are. You got to spend a full year at home with your young baby and that is generally quite nice

Woken up today to see a local newsreader on social media noting that her 'Friday feeling will last until July 2022' because it's her last day before Maternity. Should I send her this thread?

@maymaymayl I worked in a factory in a physically demanding job, is that hard enough you? Maybe you should unclench a bit

[quote Youdoyoutoday]@maymaymayl I worked in a factory in a physically demanding job, is that hard enough you? Maybe you should unclench a bit[/quote]
Right, so you didn't understand that post!

No people roll their eyes because it doesn’t matter.
It does matter. Everything, from thoughtless comments on being on 'a year off' to legal and fiscal inequalities, is on a continuum. A patriarchal world view allows for both lack of legally protected rights and a workplace culture where the leaders do not show, by example and/or by formal provisions like equality guidelines, that they are working to effect the change you mention.

I'll say it again: the argument that things are 'trivial' or 'don't matter' is what shuts down conversation and impedes progress.

Hard job. Easy job. Lots of responsibility/autonomy at work vs none. Hard baby. Easy baby. Physical recovery vs no physical recovery. It's all different for everyone and we cannot assume people find work harder than children or vice versa.

But this is still all just an epic derail, as the thread is about people thinking that caring for a baby for a year is "the same as a holiday". Can we all agree that it isn't? Or do some of you genuinely think it is?

because people disagreeing with that is what's blowing my mind about this thread!

the thread is about people thinking that caring for a baby for a year is "the same as a holiday

No it isn't. The word holiday was never mentioned in the OP. The colleagues talked about time off. Which is what it was. Time off from the workplace.

@whitegrapewine Thank you for the apology. I'm sorry, too, for being short with you. This thread has not brought out the best in me.

The only people on this thread describing mat leave as a holiday have been previous posters talking about their own mat leaves. I've not seen a single person here, or in the OP's post, which indicates that they think someone else's mat leave is a holiday.

It does matter. Everything, from thoughtless comments on being on 'a year off' to legal and fiscal inequalities, is on a continuum

No, thats not on the continuum, at all. It's not a thoughtless comment calling in a year off because it is in fact a year off.

But this is still all just an epic derail, as the thread is about people thinking that caring for a baby for a year is "the same as a holiday". Can we all agree that it isn't? Or do some of you genuinely think it is

It's not about that at all. It's about having a year away from work. Which it absolutely is. If the OP was actually still working as many on this thread have claimed, it would be fine to call her up and ask where the Smith file is located, or what the current situation is with the warehouse refurbishment project or whatever else is going on at work but obviously it isn't as she's not at work and has a get out of jail free card to completely ignore work for an entire year.

People have gone way off point.

OP wanted to know a polite way to tell people that a year off work on maternity leave was not a year off work. As there is no polite way to say it as it is patently untrue, people wandered off into rants on how hard maternity leave is, which is a different point entirely.

If you don't go to your place of employment for X amount of time, and you don't do any work for them, you have been "off work" for X time. We ALL know this. We all know that "working" hard at home does not change the fact.

Don't really think there's point doing anything other than laughing along tbh. It's just shitty office banter. I work three days a week and look after my toddler DD alone on the other two days. People ask me if I "enjoyed my days off". I just say "haha er what days off?". It does get rather tiresome.

People ask me if I "enjoyed my days off". I just say "haha er what days off?". It does get rather tiresome.

For them you mean? As you're pretending not to have had days off when you did. So weird of you.

There is something of this thread that makes me wonder whether many posters are of the 'we didn't have the ML we expected (because of the pandemic), can it be extended?' school of thought too?

@OrangeRug

Don't really think there's point doing anything other than laughing along tbh. It's just shitty office banter. I work three days a week and look after my toddler DD alone on the other two days. People ask me if I "enjoyed my days off". I just say "haha er what days off?". It does get rather tiresome.

So nobody with a child ever has days off?

No, thats not on the continuum, at all. It's not a thoughtless comment calling in a year off because it is in fact a year off.
The phrase 'year off' very much implies that the person thinks the OP has had a year off doing anything that could be called work.
Evidenced by her colleagues saying things like 'I wish I could take a year off' and asking about the 'nice trips?' they imagine she's been on.

@IntermittentParps A year off from the workplace. Not a year off work. Are you seriously suggesting that the person asking this question thinks that a new parent has done absolutely no work of any description for an entire year?

People can be so arsey and jealous if you have time away from the workplace for any reason, even when sanctioned by the employer. All you co workers see is that they are at the sharp end and you were off somewhere else.

Years back I was on a sandwich course in which periods of work alternated with periods of study. During my "work" periods I had a study day when I attended contact classes in the morning and was allowed to study in the staff library pm (I had to sign in). When I explained this to the staff member who did the timesheet she said, in a terse tone that "It must be very nice to get paid for five days a week when you only worked four".

She did not understand that it was not a "day off" to lie on the beach or go shopping.

Personally I'm sick of hearing about how tough that year of maternity leave is. There are staff here with 3 kids under 5 working full time because they have to.
I work in the NHS, there are 4 off for a year that haven't been replaced so the rest of us are working hours of overtime every single day to cover their work.
Having kids is a choice. It isn't something that just happens like appendicitis.
I had 4 weeks off back in the 80's and then went right back. I just had to manage because I was a single mum.
Anyone having a baby now you'd think nobody had ever had a baby before - it's not actually that hard for a normal birth and a baby without medical problems. People have been doing it for centuries.