To think that women without children should be able to take time off work too?

[Playfair]

Firstly I will say that I am 100% supportive of good maternity leave (and paternity / shared), and understand the importance of supporting women to maintain a career, care for children or whatever else they wish.

I also acknowledge that maintaining birth rates is critical for society. And that maternity leave is spent doing work in raising a child.

Reflecting on my company's good maternity policy (about 6 months paid) and also some other institutions that have announced paid time off for those undergoing fertility treatment, it leaves me wondering about those of us without children (by choice or otherwise).

I'm in my thirties and will never have children. I'd love to have a small amount of paid time off (in addition to usual annual leave) to do some lengthy travel for example. I can't see why we can't have access to something similar if you haven't used any maternity benefit by a certain point.

There would obviously be benefits for society & business from developing new skills, morale etc. As well as women in work contributing to economy and through taxation.

So,

YABU - Women who choose not to have children shouldn't be entitled to anything else

YANBU - Women should be able to claim a small amount of extra paid time off if they stay in a career and contribute to business and societies success

I guess it's less appealing knowing that after your lovely six month holiday you'll come back to between a 11-15% pay gap for the rest of your working life, doing the same job as a man or a chdless woman. You'll have missing pension payments. You'd have a high chance of not being able to hold down a full time job and/ or you'll hand over most of your cash for childcare. If you are coped with all of that you'll run a much higher risk of being made redundant. Was the holiday worth it??

I won't be having kids. But I don't think maternity leave is any kind of holiday, that's why maternity leave is a thing. A few of my friends couldn't wait to get back to work after having babies.

There are already numerous financial benefits to not having children. You can take holidays in term time, you don't have to pay up to 100% of your salary to childcare providers, you can be more flexible about the size and location of your house. My child free friends already have much better, more interesting hidays than me because they can afford to and aren't restricted at all.

Oh the voice of the child free and oblivious. I’d have said the exact same as you at one point, one thing we have all been is child free.

You won’t listen but it really isn’t the same thing as having a holiday. At all.

Is it the vast majority?

As I said out of our NCT group only 2 had tough babies and didn’t enjoy their Mat leave. Same applies to friends with kids who are a bit older than mine.

It’s only on here people seem to ham up how bad it is.

You can already take time off work. Depending on what you want to do, you can take annual leave, a career break, a sabbatical...

Maternity leave, adoption leave, etc. is completely different from that.

Society often tries to divide women against each other, weakening our arguments for our rights. Women should have the right to protected maternity leave, women should also have rights to good working conditions. The two shouldn't be placed in opposition to each other when they are completely separate issues.

"But what about the childless" batshit 🤣

Was having a child worth it?

Oh come on no employer offers lower paid staff paid sabbaticals

It’s silly posts like this that don’t help.

You might have suffered in terms of pay gap when going back to work, it doesn’t mean it happens to all women who take maternity leave.

Missing pension payments? Not if you keep up the payments you won’t have

And if you’re paid enough you won’t be handing over most of your cash for child care.

What a bloody great idea! Get six months off work paid at the rate of stat maternity pay then when you go back you sacrifice at leat £1000 per month towards pretend childcare, this would be irrespective of what you earn of course. I think it’s a marvellous idea.
Oh and then you can pay in to a virtual pot for all the other stuff you won’t ever need to pay for like school uniforms, loss of pay through taking sick days because your child is off ill, imaginary child hobbies, clothes etc etc etc it will be great!

Because for many on this site having children is their only achievement so they need to make it sound a lot harder than it is.

Yes, @MeganCrossing - never was there a truer word spoke!!! (Looks at degree. Looks at MA. Looks at PHD.)

🤣🤣🤣

The downside of your argument here is that all the women commenting have previously been in the position of being childless woman at work in the past. You know, prior to becoming a mum. So everyone can empathise entirely with this.

However, from the other side it is very difficult to fully understand how very very demanding mat leave can be (as well as fun, granted) and how severe the discrimination can be.

Having been in both places, I guarantee I have been discriminated against far more as a parent than I was before (and that includes things like longer hours, working over Xmas etc) - I was also free to take holidays whatever time of year I fancied and not pay the whopping premium of school holiday travel!

this won’t go down well as it sounds very holier than thou but here goes… I have just had a baby. Ask me six months ago and I would have fully agreed with you - in fact I would have been right at the front waving my
placard!

now however…I just don’t think this anymore. It’s not a holiday, it certainly isn’t paid well (I’m on £560 a month and that’s it) and it’s a full time, often lonely, job.

@JanetSally it was a joke 🤣

So the NHS (not sure if it's just NHS Scotland or nationwide, I'd imagine the latter) offer 18 weeks parental leave, 4 of which are on full pay. It is basically time to allow you to spend with your child. I think it's 18 weeks per child. So you could spend two of those weeks in Disneyland if you wish! It's up to you what you do with them.

Yes, I think everyone should get a specific amount of paid leave in their career. What you chose to do with it is up to you.

I can see how my comment could be taken the wrong way. I did have children out of choice, however maternity leave is a societal burden because we need future workers and carers for the older generation. So i didn't have children because I felt obligated to, I wanted to have them, but at the same time society wouldn't exist without children being born so society needs to invest in it.

Sure thing, on the basis that when you come back from your nice holiday the majority of your pay check gets taken off you and you're passed over for several promotions. I pay £1,200 in nursery fees per month for one child to be in nursery for only 60% of the time.

Women who have children pay for that maternity leave with their bodies, careers, financial stability and freedom. Would you like to give that all of this up in exchange for your nice holiday?

*some women

not women in general

YA completely NBU. Completely not! Sory of off topic but it would also be lovely to get some annual leave in school holiday time too, IE peak summer period but I haven't been able to for years. I also am in a profession that works Christmas Day etc. and again, the people with kids never work it. There is a rota but they are priority. I know children need looking after but it seems if you're a childless adult your life outside of work means sod all to your employer or anyone around you that does have kids really.

when I say 60% of the time, I mean three days a week. So that's about £2,000 a month. Would you like to pay that, OP?

Completely agree with this

@OliveKitten so men get 12 months off and women get to look after a newborn, get sucked dry and recover from a horrific pressure on the body whilst being sleep deprived? Sounds fair and completely unsexist