Why shouldn’t life be made easier for pregnant women/mothers?

[Duckwithnobill]

Read quite a few threads here lately that have really shown vitriol towards advancements in working conditions, pay and other adaptations that make life easier for pregnant women and women with young children, which is bizarre to say the least on a parenting forum.

A couple of examples being resentment at the increased ability to work from home or more flexibility from employers around attending meetings/commuting in late pregnancy. I’ve seen women that take advantage of these enhancements be labelled as workshy or as the reason women aren’t respected in the workplace. Full disclosure I am pregnant and my employer has been great at accommodating my pregnancy presumably because they want me to return after maternity leave!

Then there’s the whole debate around P&C parking spaces, where some posters seem genuinely angry that there might be small conveniences put in place to make life a little bit easier for parents.

AIBU to find this attitude quite baffling? Surely improvements to the way pregnant women/mothers are treated can only be a good thing? Or should we all just suffer and struggle?

You missed off the first part of what I'd written. That it should be treated the same way as reasonable adjustments for disability

It is and has been for some time.

Pregnancy lasts 40 weeks. And even then, it’s only 36 weeks tops as women don’t have a positive result until week 4. And legislation does dictate that employers can force pregnant woman to take earlier maternity leave (from 24 weeks) if she is unwell to the point of being unable to work.

So really this issue is, in the most extreme circumstances, a 20 week problem. Then it goes away because pregnancy is a temporary state. You could argue that actually pregnancy is a MUCH easier thing to make reasonable adjustments for than a disability or long term illness, because there’s an expiration date.

Can you tell us what is so “unreasonable” about an ill pregnant woman that the only route is to sack her?

And the desperate need for people to have colleagues who are pregnant women/new mums actually thank them when they take maternity leave 🤣🤣 and huffing when they dont! there’s a lot more personality disorders going around than we realise I think

😂😂😂

That’s awful but it’s one specific incident and certainly not a characteristic of all working mothers. Not really relevant to the conversation

I have never wanted children but the perception that I may have them has seem me passed over for promotion for being a female of child baring age.

The point of compulsory paid paternity leave is to level the playing field. Having children, at present, has no impact on men's careers, yet it does for women.

Compulsory paternity leave makes men as inconvenient as women to employ.

What about the benefit to the child of having both parents around?

Sadly your parents may well become your dependents in all but name. It is pathetically comparable

So rather than stopping companies discriminating against women, the solution is for men to have MORE maternity rights than women (the ones who actually get pregnant and give birth and breastfeed) and are forced to have paternity leave they may not want or need.

Wouldn’t it just be easier to not discriminate against women rather than use men as pawns and shit all over women to further the apparent agenda of the childless?

This. Speaking from personal experience.

I have no issue with things being there for people that need it:

• P&C parking spaces so parents can get their kids out safely and without damaging someone else’s car.
• a seat in the bus being given up for someone who will struggle to stand (a small child/an elderly person/a pregnant woman)

many things absolutely we should have them to make lives easier!

but the unfortunate thing is there is always someone who takes the piss and it makes people tired…

eg) a woman I work with seemed to schedule every possible midwife appointment during working hours when she works three days a week. Did very little while she was in but would spend weekends going away etc… lots of people had to pick up the slack. You could say anything to her she was pregnant.

Theres seems to be a small group who see being pregnant/having small children as an excuse to act like a princess or have allowances made but they aren’t the only person to have needs for some reason. They don’t trump the needs of others.

and this from someone who has had multiple complicated pregnancies, and currently has young children.

This, and beyond.

Showing care to pregnant women should be part of a greater social and legal commitment to showing care to the physically vulnerable. Carers for their relatives of the young, old and those with disabilities, should be shown consideration and reasonable privilege which they should not abuse.

Parents - not just mothers, one hopes, but primarily mothers as things currently stand - will be the main beneficiaries. But the others deserve the same consideration

I also think a lot of people these days seem to have “main character syndrome” which definitely isn’t helping 😂

I don’t think it’s my employer’s fault that many of the parents I work with refuse to work Christmas despite it being a rota (no childcare issues). But inevitably anything that can actually be blamed on individual entitlement rather than the employer is being dismissed as a unique experience which is irrelevant to the conversation.

But she didn’t schedule the appointments, it’s not a hairdressers you don’t get to choose you bet what you’re given.

Also objecting to a woman having a weekend away is just odd. Was she supposed to stay indoors because she’s pregnant?

I think people don’t realise how much they are perpetuating pregnancy shame, like being pregnant is embarrassing or something to apologise for. It’s like being in a deeply Catholic village in the 1890’s

Lots of things could be called a 'lifestyle choice' by people who don't want to be inconvenienced/have to pay taxes towards others needs.

Caring for elderly parents - your choice, why should anyone else be inconvenienced? Lung cancer from smoking? - you chose to smoke. I've seen anorexia be called, essentially, a lifestyle choice.

If being a parent is a mere lifestyle choice why are governments all over the world panicking because people no longer want to be parents? If it's just a hobby like taking up knitting so why would it matter if people aren't doing anymore.
Does it not occur to you that without people producing new humans there would be no one to work in businesses and services upon which everyone relies?

It's a shame that some posters have made the points come across as "parents vs childless/childfree" because I don't think that was the point of the Op.

Also, many childless/childfree people have made points on this thread in favour of the Op, and some parents have made points against this.

Someone asked further up the thread about why childless people could need flexibility. Some points have already been made on this but another example is going through fertility treatment - intense, time consuming, unpredictable and stressful - but it's not easy for some women to go into work and say you're going through this.

FWIW I'm very pro supporting women and parents in the workplace - if you have a valued member of staff then supporting them when life gets tough hopefully pays in the long run for the business. But, I also think it's really important to recognise that flexibility and understanding is needed for a range of reasons and, ideally, a workplace would be supportive enough to accommodate flexibility and adjustments through the range of challenges that life can sometimes through at us.

(I say this recognising some of the practical challenges for very small teams that a some people have pointed out).

Caring for elderly parents - your choice

Nobody chooses for their parents to become infirm and need care. And opting out of caring for them is not a choice for many. Bringing into the world someone who is wholly dependent on you is more of a choice I would say than caring for an elderly parent.

She lives round the corner from me and literally used the same service as me… I was mostly able to reschedule my appointments by a day or so to be on non working days, even with a high risk pregnancy. It’s a busy maternity hospital not the middle of nowhere with one overstretched midwife.

and as for “is she not allowed to go outside”… I have no objection to anyone going away as much as they like. But when you are so unwell with your pregnancy you can barely do desk work but you can somehow gallivant around Dublin for a weekend with your boyfriend? Come on.

I just think a little acknowledgement that life goes on (and has to for people with chronic conditions for example) doesn’t go amiss and you don’t always see that.

‘Random colleagues’ is perhaps a slightly harsh way to describe the team members who will be picking up your work, as these are usually close colleagues.

But I agree with your larger point. The key problem is that employers try to economise by parceling out the mat leave worker’s to her colleagues rather than hiring in cover as they should. Certainly in my (university) workplace. What is the experience of others?

But maternity policies isn’t about privilege who deserves what, it’s about enshrining women’s rights as a physically pregnant woman to support what her and her baby needs in the temporary state.

Its not as easy to say “carers of elderly parents should have they same they deserve it too” because whilst caring is a temporary state, it could be for 20 years or 20 days and it’s not appropriate to set out a set time for this. Thankfully I’m coming across more and more workplaces that have a carer’s policy that allow employees to take time off or have flexible working arrangements in place if they’re carers.

We live in a patriarchal society. Internalised misogyny is real. So just because an opinion comes from a woman doesn't mean it is fair to women.

The key problem is that employers try to economise by parceling out the mat leave worker’s to her colleagues rather than hiring in cover as they should. Certainly in my (university) workplace. What is the experience of others?

We never get mat cover. Sometimes that’s management trying to save money and not do numerous recruitment rounds (we currently have 5 out on mat leave). Sometimes they will try to recruit but nobody wants a temporary cover job for quite a niche role. I wish we could always have cover as that’d help a lot with burnout of remaining staff.