Maternity leave needs to be redesigned

[PlumPudd]

Did you enjoy your maternity leave? Because I’m finding mine a challenge (50% exhaustion and terror, 30% boredom, 20% joy) and I can’t help but feel it’s something to do with the way it’s set up.

No idea what the alternative should be but surely entirely dropping entirely out of society and work for a year and having solo care of a tiny helpless lovely being who is attached to you like an oyster on a rock all the time - then doing a 180 and going back to full on work and life but still caring for your kids is not how it’s supposed to be?

Feel that in some ways (not health, sexism, life expectancy etc) things must have been better in the past, when there would be a bevy of aunties, neighbours, siblings and friends around you in your village, and you’d look after your baby but still spend a bit of your time working / cooking and share a bit of the baby care with the others there would be a bit more of a balance between babies and the rest of life.

Not articulating this very well, but somehow feel this lurching between extremes - a year of nothing but baby then back to normal - is not how it’s meant to be and not really good for anyone.

What would a better alternative look like? Is one even possible now modern society has changed so much and we live and work in different ways?

With kiddo 1 DH took the 13 weeks unpaid. And I did the 6 months full pay and 13 weeks statuatory. But it wasn't really good financially. Plus, my employer at the time was a bit useless! Totally failed to sort out KIT days and then had nothing arranged for my return. It was a mess.

The plus was, DH taking time out as the primary carer has honestly made us much more equal parents. He has been the one at home trying to wrangle everything. He knows some days you fail to get anything done and others are brilliant. He has a realistic understanding of housework/ parenting etc. It means our relationship has grown even better.

Also, it helps remind work places that men too can take time out to look after kids. Helping get rid of some of that mum-stigma and misogyny women face in the work place.

I really think shared parental leave needs to be encouraged and supported more.

The issue is that our statuatory pay levels are pretty poor. We both work with employers who have good parental leave policies including enhanced pay, but so many places do not - and that makes for hard choices based on overall household income.

I do wonder if it was mandated that women take 6 months and the baby's father has to take 6 months, then a lot of inequality in workplaces would suddenly start reconfiguring and more flexibility would suddenly become available.

I don't really recognise your idea of mat leave tbf..

I don't know anyone who dropped all social contact with everyone for a year, did all baby and house care themselves with no help, then returned to work full time and still did everything by themselves.

Where's your baby's father in all of this? Why aren't they helping with childcare and housework? Why aren't you doing baby groups or meeting up with friends with baby? Why aren't you having time away from baby to be alone or see friends?
Is going back on reduced hours an option?

Not if I wanted clients to come back to. Sadly it doesn't work like that.😪

I agree to some extent @PlumPudd. I’m freelance so designed my own Mat leave. I took 3mo off entirely. Then I resumed one job I had that was about 5/6hrs a week - I did the hours at the weekend when dh had ds. At 6mo I started ds in nursery for two short days a week (9:30-4) and increased to 3 days 9-5:30 by around 15 months. I felt that gave our whole family a lot more balance than the more common 12 months off then back to “normal”.

The only way I disagree with your Op is that I was rarely alone in Mat leave. I went to groups and classes and hung out with other new mums most days. Thank goodness!!

Maternity leave of a year sounds like quite a luxury but I'm not sure I could do it. I took a couple of months off and that was plenty.

Yeah it is always sprouted on here not realising in cultures with such villages it means people help the elderly and disabled as well. Day-to-day tasks would fall firmly on the women with children helping out, while the more heavy tasks but occasional tasks e.g. house maintenance were left to the men.

In addition it means that your child could be told off by any adult and older teen, then their misdemeanours would be reported back to you as their parents who would tell them off again. Many of MN hate other people disciplining their children.

Finally if you did something that people in the village in general didn't approve off you would be shunned. So good luck if your marriage wasn't working out as you as the woman would be blamed 95% of the time.

Some employers would suddenly want women over 45 as employees rather than younger women and men of any age.

But that seems more about society/culture than maternity leave. To have lots of people (presumably women) around to help take care of others children. How would changing maternity leave enable that?

I think more paternity leave is needed, plus maternity support leave - a local organisation offers this if you are supporting a mother but are not the other parent of her baby, and functions the same as paternity leave. Although I accept this is open to abuse in some cases.

Combine parental leave with your partner. DH and I took a year between us at different times.

But you can take as little leave as you want. No one is forcing you to take the full year. I had two years out with my first and then the full year with two and three and I needed that.

I didn't enjoy maternity leave. I was incredibly bored and went back to work after 3 months. A long maternity leave wasn't for me at all.

I think 6 months parental leave for both parents is the most realistic ideal if something had to change. Full pay, use it or lose it to encourage fathers to take it too.

I think paternity leave should be a year. It gives a chance for fathers and families to bond together too. It also takes a lot of pressure off the mum and reduces professional discrimination against women and inequality. Due to his job/seniority my partner had an extended paternity leave of 3 months and it was so lovely. I was so sad when he went back to work.

I'm currently on my third (and final) maternity leave and I've loved them all. I think it depends a lot of your personality (I love being at home) and your job (mine is pretty dull). I have made an effort to go out to baby groups, make friends, take walks etc as that is what makes all the difference. Not saying I've found it easy at all though, definitely a full time job, but just one that I love more than my regular job.

People suggesting 6months is ideal, did you exclusively breastfeed? Both my babies were having plenty of milk at that stage. I understand 6m is enough for some women, but I'm not at all convinced it's in the baby's best interests. (I've worked close to full time hours since my children were 1, so I'm not some massive advocate of SAHPing).

I didn't. Though by 6 months, most babies aren't exclusively breastfeeding.

Going back to work before a year was definitely in my baby's best interests. I'm not sure how it would be in his bests interests to have a bored, miserable mum at home with him.

It's not fair on employers to have an employee missing for a whole year because they want to bf their baby!
In the end, people are hired to do a job and it's not unreasonable for the employer to want you there, doing it!

It’s pretty unreasonable for an employer to be against it considering entitlement to maternity leave in the uk is 52 weeks. It doesn’t really matter what the mother’s motivation is.

Maternity leave has been some of the most sociable periods of my life - I met so many people... I am so sad I'll probably never have another one. I agree it should be different.

I don't think it should be limited to 6 months - would be very detrimental to breastfeeding for those that want to and even if not breastfeeding I think its best for babies to be with their mother in most circumstances when that small.

Breastfeeding is recommended for public health benefits - if we went a healthy population society should be supporting women who want to breastfeed to do so. And even if not breastfeeding we should be supporting mothers who want to stay with their small babies to do so.

It's not like employers pay women who take the full year either.

There are ways to give breast milk that don't involve sah for an entire year. By 6 months babies will be starting to eat other foods anyway.
Yes, sah is a legal entitlement but I do think it disadvantages women in some ways - it essentially makes a personal life choice a problem for employers. Which then makes them wary of women of childbearing age.
And there are some jobs where it's just not that easy to absorb the year's loss of an employee without negatively impacting other workers. What happens in smaller businesses with skilled workers if several women are pregnant simultaneously?
I think 6 months is a reasonable time to ask employers to absorb but a year is a long time.

I loved my maternity leave. Baby cuddles, watching tv, etc.
Also I only got 9 months, would have loved loved a year. Full pay till 6 months then a couple SMP.

This is why I'd give fathers 6 months at full pay too. It then just wouldn't be something only mothers do when they have a baby, not to mention the benefits of father also bonding with baby, taking a more active role instead of just going back to work after only 2 weeks etc.

In response to @LadyBird1973

I had children in the early 80s.

No maternity pay. Yes they held your job open but as mine involved travel I couldn't return. No obligation to offer anything else.