To have not ‘achieved’ anything during mat leave

[Saltyaire]

I am due to go back to work next week after 12 months of maternity leave. I had a quick zoom session last week with some colleagues and one of them asked me what I had done during mat leave and I said I had looked after DD but not got round to painting DS’ room (which I really wanted to do but never found time for).

Said colleague then went on about how some women start businesses/do renovations during mat leave and get loads of stuff done but it was nice that I got a chance to ‘relax’. At the time I laughed it off but the more I think about it the more annoyed I am with colleague and also myself.

I didn’t realise mat leave was meant to be a chance for me to reinvent myself but maybe it was and I’ve just been too lazy. It’s my second child and I feel even more exhausted than I did with DS (although I didn’t achieve anything with DS either during mat leave). Should I have done something?! DS goes to nursery 3 days a week otherwise it’s just me and DH doing childcare and DD hasn’t been the best sleeper until the past few months but maybe I have been making excuses. I do see women on instagram doing all sorts of stuff while they are on mat leave but I wonder how they find the time?! Do they have help??

The clue is in the words 'maternity leave': it's there to recover from the birth and to spend precious time with your baby,.

If you manage to fit a bit of painting in/start a business/whatever then fine. But jeez no-one should be making you feel guilty about focusing on your baby.

I think having a baby and caring for it is the main achievement of mat leave. I thought that's what Mat leave was for?
A career break is usually for reinventing yourself and starting a yoga retreat business or online vegan cosmetics.
Your colleague has missed the point.

I thought i was going to do a distance learning course on my first maternity leave😂

I got crushing PND and a baby that didn't sleep instead. I didn't even get to a baby class until he was 4 months old.

I've just finished my 2nd maternity leave. I was much more realistic this time round. My only "aim" outside of keeping the kids alive was staying on top of the housework basics. Some days i even managed it!

I'm guessing this colleague doesn't have children? Though if they do they're an even bigger twat.

What an idiot your colleague is! Maybe she doesn’t have children?

Having a baby and raising your children is the achievement.

I got work to fund an MBA when DC1 was born as I thought I’d be bored by 6 months when the baby would be sleeping so much. My (female mother of 3) Director nodded as she signed it off. But was also very magnanimous in not pissing herself laughing when it turned out I was rather more busy, tired and in love with my baby at 6 months than I realised!

Nah, the idea that you should have ‘achieved’ on mat leave is just the relentless late-capitalism productivity drive talking. God forbid a person should just exist for a period of time without consuming or producing a commodity or service. Just tell people you were practicing radical anti-capitalism.

I'm generally a pretty motivated and organised person, with a professional job During both mat leaves I 'achieved' very little, aside from keeping the children alive. Perhaps if you have one of those mythical babies who sleep through and have long naps and are happy to play quietly at you feet then you may have a fair bit of free time, but not with one that doesn't do any of the above and prefers to be held or interacted with every minute of the day...

Your colleague is dumb.

Wtf. I'd feel like I wasted time with my baby if I started a bloody business. Honestly some people are just straight up dickheads who sat stupid shit.

Eh I think this is one where experience really varies. With both my DDs I was able to get a lot done on Mat Leave, wrote a manuscript with DD1 and edited it with DD2, did a lot of DIY/renovations with both of them, but then I had very small babies who refused to be put down so they both pretty much lived in the sling and I just got a lot done round them. If you've got babies with different temperaments then I can imagine it would be different. I know lots of women who did lots with their Mat Leave, and lots who didn't. It's personal preference and luck of the draw, I reckon.

This.

Put it in the 'fuck it bucket' beside the twats who asked how many languages you learned in lockdown.

This kind of chat of chat infuriates me. I had fairly bad PND after my DD was born. My achievements were not losing it completely and dragging myself out of that hole! I kept the house relatively clean and tidy and navigated my way through various sleep regressions, dealt with teething, weaned a human being onto solids, dealt with illness in my child, got used to being at least 50% responsible for another human being (arguably more with DH at work), researched developmentally suitable toys etc and all with no help other than my DH. I’d say that’s enough for any woman to ‘achieve’ during mat leave!

Bloody hell my achievement during both my Mat leave was recovering from child birth and managing to brush my hair/teeth every day.

DD refused to be put down and would not nap at all during the day. I celebrated going back to work by actually drinking a hot cup of tea!

DS was a much easier baby but I just about survived keeping two kids alive and fed in 2020!

This!

Maternity leave is to recover from birth and bond with your baby. Nothing else!

If you get anything else done then yay you! If you don’t then yay you anyway!

Birthing and bringing up a small human is hard, I’ve no idea why anyone would need to make it harder.

Bloody Hellfire!! That is a new extreme for competitiveness in two separate ways.

1. As OP says the urge to 'reinvent' oneself. Who says she needs to?
2. The uncontrollable need to comment/criticise/. Sometimes I am glad we are a 'lazy' family.

I’m 6m into mat leave with my 3rd. This is outing but a few weeks ago ds1 got covid. Then ds2 got croup. Then the baby got croup and was poorly for a week. As soon as she’d picked up I had my booster shot and was in bed for a day afterwards with a fever and dh home. That evening ds1 was vomiting. He seemed ok the next day so dh & I went out for the first time in months, taking the baby with us, and took everyone on a day out the next day. Ds1 then had gastro for about 5 days, as he got better I got it and Dh home again for a day. One day me recovering and everyone well, ds2 has gone to bed with a slight temp and a sore tummy and the baby is not settling and might have conjunctivitis. Seriously fml, and in case you were wondering I’m not achieving anything on my mat leave beyond keeping everyone alive and that’s only by the skin of my teeth… dh is doing most of the cooking atm. If you can relax and enjoy yourself on mat leave seize the day op- enjoy away!

This ^^

"What did you do on maternity leave?"
"I had a baby, a new human being who I have gotten to know .."

Either your colleague has no DCs so is unrealistic at how exhausting and demanding it is to have a new baby (+ if you already have any other DCs)
OR

They are competitive parenting you... ignore and walk away fast from those people - they are awful people ... avoid avoid avoid and stuck with us normal folk (who don't exaggerate nor feel the need to boast)

Does your colleague follow a lot of mummy bloggers on social media, by any chance? It sounds like that may be her only impression of motherhood.

Also, is she American? Is she in a country where 52 weeks of mat leave would be impossible to comprehend because the mat leave she could access herself is maybe just 6 weeks of disability?

If my guess is more correct than not, a polite reminder to your colleague that most social media accounts are marketing vehicles. Soft advertising for products. Those women work with PR teams: either the client's or their own. Their glossy looking posts about being on mat leave with a baby, and maybe "hustling" like the "girl boss" they are, tend to be, in other words, "professional bullshit".

And if she is indeed American (I am too) in "does not compute" mode about 52 weeks ... a baby is still very high needs at age 1. A different arrangement of needs, but still very high. If the childminder, nanny, grandma, or daycare staff aren't meeting those needs, then it has to be the parent on leave from work.

Honestly, the only way I could envision starting my own business on mat leave would be if I'd been made redundant, needed income beyond SMP to survive, and had very few employment options available (because of recently having a baby). That's not the same as a 52-week period where your job is waiting for you by law.

"Starting your own business" can be limited to registering an LLC and doing nothing much more than that as well. Because hey, you've started.

Considering how many people actually starting their own businesses work crazy hours in the early years developing plans, getting finance in place, marketing, launching, and applying lessons learned to the original plans and financing structure.... I don't think many of us would do that with an infant unless we had to.

A friend of mine started a business during mat leave. She was lucky in that she had a full time nanny from the first month. So she had the time spare. She doesn’t tell most people this though.

I achieved keeping a baby alive and myself relatively sane. I also kept a toddler fed and watered and dealt with potty training said toddler. That’s enough. It was a relief and a break to get back to work.

Your colleague is an idiot! Maternity leave is for exactly what you did. Spending time with a newborn and recovering.

I'd say time well spent

OP, I've just returned from mat leave with DC3. Work is a pleasant break where I get to go to the toilet alone, no one screams at me and I attempt to make brain cells which haven't had more than 3 hours sleep at a stretch in more than 5 years partly function. Mat leave is a blur where my biggest achievement was collecting/dropping DC1 at school on the days DH couldn't work from home.

When I was on mat leave with DC1 (prem non-sleeper who has some additional needs) two of the mums from my NCT group started a business together. Another began a lifestyle type blog, finished redecorating her what seemed to me immaculate house and organised a house move. Another took up bake-off level cake making, because she was 'bored' because her baby napped so much. I can't describe how miserable and inadequate this all made me feel, almost ill with sleep deprivation and assuming they were normal and I was hopelessly underachieving, I barely kept myself and baby going and the house was a wreck.

Fast forward a few years and two more children I now realise how crazy and unusual they were. Maybe your colleague is/knows parents like that, maybe they just have no idea and assume mat leave is some sort of sabbatical with a free tiny human thrown in. But as someone with the mental health scars to prove it, I can assure you worrying about what others expect or think or might be judging you for does not lead to a happy place. Before your colleague commented, it sounds like you were happy with the time spent on mat leave with your baby - focus on that, and don't give anything else one millimetre of headspace. Hope the return to work goes well.

I only had 3 months off for maternity leave but I achieved nothing. Actually that’s a lie, I managed to cry almost every day of it.

That comment is infuriating. Maybe some women want to use the time to do other things. My dc is 3.5 now, and if I have another then I’ll use the time to enjoy my baby. Given you can only have so many babies in a lifetime (usually 2), is understandable you might want to use your maternity leave to actually focus on the baby.

My DD is 18 and I've still not achieved anything since having her

What a knobhead comment from your colleague - don't give it any more headspace OP!

I was going to start a novel during mat leave 🤣🤣🤣 Showering and getting out of the house was achievement enough.

Your colleague hasn’t actually experienced mat leave and looking after a baby have they?