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'm sort of amazed by some of the comments on this thread to be honest. This is about women not being forced to choose between having children or working. Paid maternity leave (statutory or otherwise) allows them to have those choices. The choices that men don't have to make.

Just take a holiday.

Maternity leave isn’t a break, it’s x2 more work than actual work

I’m quite confused by those saying maternity leave is there because women need to recover from birth.

How does that square with the fact many companies offer enhanced paternity for multiple months. Those men didn’t give birth or need to recover.

The fact many women don’t take 12 months to recover from birth

Adoption leave (no recovery there at all) and many will adopt children that are already in school (yes there is the big adjustment needed but it’s not the same as recovery and looking after a newborn)

Plus some women don’t use their maternity leave to even care for their children themselves, some will have a lot of hired help.

Tbf, men have it worst here. They work 45 years straight without more than a couple of consecutive weeks off during that time.

You spent your maternity leave travelling extensively with a newborn? Surely you realise that your experience was wildly out of the norm?

Hired help on maternity leave? Never met anyone on either of my pregnancies that had that. Nursery/nanny is for going back to work. Unless you're extremely rich I suppose.

Yep! No better time to travel, traveling with toddlers and young children is a pain in the backside.

At least when little they just sleep and are portable.

There are quite a few of us out there, am a member of several groups of women who do just this and share tips on solo travel etc.

And that wouldn't work now as am sure you must agree, unless your organisation isn't following the path we are all supposed to follow these days. I lost my position for exactly the same reason but nothing I could do given organisations mentality these days. I don't still agree with the original poster's comment. Sick to death of females wanting it all and giving nothing back to other females.

I've had two children (and 6 months maternity leave each time) but it wasn't a holiday. If you're getting time off to go travelling, can I have that as well? I could do with a holiday as maternity leave is very hard work! On the other hand, instead of being so entitled, perhaps you could do it the old fashioned way? Save up, Jack in your job, go travelling, come back and start again. That's how I did 4 years of travelling before I got married and had children. 🙄

Well yes

But there are wealthy people who take maternity leave

Its simply not the case that everyone who claims enhanced parental leave is recovering for ages, or even caring for a newborn.

So I can see where the OP is coming from.

Especially companies that offer enhanced paternity leave for long periods of time. They should offer the same amount for all employees to take for 3-6 months off

Maternity leave exists and was fought for because otherwise you'd have a barbaric system where mother's and babies were separated so the mothers could work, or only the wealthy can have children, and men dominate the workforce.

Wanting time off for personal reasons is a positive thing worth fighting for but you can't compare the benefit to that of maternity leave as you cannot compare the negatives of either not existing.

All opinions are welcome ❤& no it doesn’t. I think the same way. There is a massive reason for maternity pay & I think parents should both be allowed the same amount of paid time off or to be able to share the time between them to allow both to care for their young & impressionable offspring.
There is probably something in contracts allowing for some sort of financial
support for those who find themselves needing to take time off work for emergency personal reasons & that time may be able to be taken as paid leave on top of annual leave.

Even maternity pay isn’t a lot of money for most though so they often have to come back to work early then their financial situation is then stretched beyond belief due to the cost of often necessary childcare so they can go back to work.

Only on the first page but disagree we 'need to maintain the birth rate'.

We're only doing it to maintain the already unmanageable amount of humans who are rapidly fucking the planet. Don't mean this as an anti-human sentiment but there's literally no future for the human race if our planet's fucked before we manage to emigrate to Mars.

One child goes on to havr to children, who each go on to have two children, and so on. Each then needs a car/phone/house/etc and the resource requirement will at some point reach breaking point.

As an aside, just wondering why we are so obsessed with populating the planet with more humans anyway? I’m sure all the wildlife and plant life would do perfectly well without us considering the mess we are making of it…

Erm I can't believe people are comparing having a baby Vs caring for a sick relative. The first few months are tiring as a new mum but it tends to get better. Caring for a dying very sick relative is awful and very tiring. I had a lovely time on mat leave it was not horrible

Consumerism is the issue there. Not the people. People don't all NEED those things. The collapse of the intergenerational house and local family unit lead to more consumption, for example. 6 people in one house = 1 fridge, 1 washing machine, one lot of electricity etc vs 1 household of 2 and 4 households of 1 and you've got 5 fridges, washing machines...

The reason you are being unreasonable is because despite acknowledging that maternity leave is for a specific purpose, you go on to compare it to taking time off for any personal reason.

I agree that people should ideally be able to take paid leave or sabbaticals but I see no reason to compare or relate it to maternity leave and turning it into "well she gets it so why can't I"..

But it's time off in service of the recipient's lifestyle choices. No one is forced to have a child so maternity leave is a direct result of a personal, domestic, optional choice. Presumably an informed choice regarding tradeoffs as regards health, finances, physical dangers, etc.

Other personal choices deserve equal respect and accommodation.

@MandalayFray but very much the vast majority need their maternity pay in order to care for their babies while they're too young to go into nursery. Our nursery had a nine month minimum, what's a parent supposed to do before then? And also, if a company offers enhanced maternity (or paternity) pay that's their choice, they could clearly offer the same to people who just want some time off, but there are legitimate business reasons why they want to retain trained and productive people who need time off to take care of babies and that's a good thing for society.

Having children is a biological urge that many people feel. No shame if you don't, but it's not exactly a choice in the way going on holiday is. No one has a biological urge to go trekking across europe

Thank you. I'm exhausted. Why are women (I assume) arguing against this

Because the idea of women supporting women never plays out in reality. Depressing but it is what it is.

@MandalayFray then, as I suggested before, she should suggest it to her employer. it was a naive, superficial and misinformed (ignorant, really) argument from the part of the OP, as she has already somewhat admitted to, when someone pointed out the maternity penalty to her and she said “I didn’t know about that other than it existing as a concept”.

Especially companies that offer enhanced paternity leave for long periods of time. They should offer the same amount for all employees to take for 3-6 months off

And how would that work? How many putative children would each employee have.

They should do as is done in Australia where all employees can have time off for a jolly using long service leave. And where they do not conflate such leave with parental leave. Oh hang on......this means that the breeders get two cracks at leave.

Oh, come on!

We control most of our "biological urges" and it's certainly possible to control this one. What a feeble argument for discrimination.

The urge to see the world, to take an educational course, to volunteer for a good cause, to try something new and different for a few months, is easily equal to the "biological urge" to procreate. Giving in to the urge to reproduce is 100 percent a voluntary lifestyle choice.