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?

In my very high pressured work environment, women with young children are the most focused, efficient members of the team bar none.

I know! Bizarre mindset

Ultimately if you can't do the job and others are having to pick up the slack to an unreasonable degree, you can't continue working there.

Not really because pregnancy is a temporary state, and to sack a pregnant woman because for example she has severe morning sickness is discrimination.
I did once work with a poor woman who had severe HG, and she was forced to start maternity leave at 24 weeks due to the sickness. It seemed a pretty fair way to handle a horrible lose-lose situation

I don’t agree with that - I’m about to go on mat leave and have just been awarded a payrise, it’s a direct result of my performance for the year just gone - are you saying people shouldn’t be rewarded for the work they have done already? If I didn’t get the payrise this year I would need to wait until next April, when I would rightly be awarded a lower performance descriptor, meaning I would potentially have two years with no or a lower payrise?

My employer has made adjustments for my pregnancy complications, in just the same way they made adjustments for my various disabilities before I was pregnant.

There's not always much choice over appointments either. I'm under an obstetrician and that clinic only runs on Friday afternoons. Similarly I can only see the midwife on a Tuesday. I can only have my growth scans on a Friday, the regular scans are on Wednesdays.

Due to a high risk pregnancy and my underlying disabilities, one of which is very rare and affects my pregnancy care and birth, I have had a lot of pregnancy appointments. I also have a lot of standard appointments for my various conditions which have continued as normal during my pregnancy.

DH has attended all 6 scans so far and most of my other appointments (think he's only missed 5 so far). He needs to be at as many as possible so he can advocate for me during the birth and explain my rare condition to the doctors and midwives (many medical professionals haven't encountered it before). His employer has no problem with this. Perhaps our colleagues secretly think we're taking the piss, or perhaps they don't.

Pregnancy can be serious at all stages. My first pregnancy almost killed me (ruptured ectopic) and I needed time off work for emergency surgery and recovery. An old school friend died from childbirth complications (heart attack, she had an underlying heart problem and a 3 day labour). Not everyone sails through with no complications.

How many people are actually schedule to work til 5 and leave at 3 though?

I was part time when my kids were little and a couple of days a week I would leave before lunch (1pm). Because that’s when I stopped getting paid. I got to the point where I loudly and slowly corrected people every time they referred to me ‘leaving early’. I even had to say to one person “Do you think I’m paid after 1pm or something?”

It might also be considered illegal.

Maternity protection laws at so stringent precisely because if they weren’t employers would take the piss.

This.

I agree. You always get the 'we just had to get on with it in my day' comments. The classic being folding the buggy on the bus. Except not everyone could 'just get on with it' and those people were just isolated at home. Making things easier for parents is a good thing.

It's the lack of recognition of the pressure it puts on other parts of the team.

Ive never considered this or seen it as my problem when I’ve gone on maternity leave. I find it odd that women should be grateful or apologetic to her colleagues for having a baby. I figured, I’m having a baby, taking the time away I’m entitled to and what happens at work is no longer my problem once I start my maternity leave.

Everything else is part and parcel of running an organisation. If anyone thinks humans should always be in work or thinking about work isn’t fit to run a company. These things happen - people go on sick for six months, people dieD and rather than huffing and finger pointing at others perhaps look at the processes better equipped companies use to prepare for these eventualities.

With maternity leave employers are given several months notice to get their house in order and if you don’t do this adequately it’s entirely down to your organisational skills rather than individuals placing their own welfare above that of random colleagues.

But iTs a ChoIce so we should probably just flog women in the street for having babies, i think we’d be surprised how many people would be happy with that.

But it IS the employers fault. Obviously!

Or do you expect your colleagues to prioritise you and the incompetent management over themselves and their statutory rights and their baby? Genuine question.

I agree.

And all this ‘taking one for the team by coming into the office while lazy homeworkers have naps’ guff is BS too. I WFH FT now and I’m 1000x more efficient because I haven’t got 14 chatterboxes trying to ask me if I watch love island or telling me about their weekend. I’m totally focussed and uninterrupted and I do believe my output is far higher than if I worked in an office.

Wait until these people find out you also build up annual leave whilst on maternity leave. Their heads will spin!

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

Once it stops being "reasonable" is when adjustments should stop being allowed. As you've pointed out, pregnant women already have more protection legally if they're off sick than someone off sick for a different reason. If it means they can't do their job fully then there needs to be cover for them, not a pretence they're still doing it whilst colleagues pick up the slack. Same as for a disabled person - of course there should be adjustments but there's a point at which you just can't do the job! (I say this as someone with a disability who has needed adjustments, but also had to leave or avoid jobs where this is not practical.)

I feel sorry for your friend who had to start maternity leave early. Doesn't seem fair that she has less leave once baby was born. I think pregnancy related illness should be able to be taken as sick leave up to say, 35 weeks. (Obviously with suitable cover sorted not expecting colleagues to cover!)

It’s telling that this thread about making lives easier has descended into posters denying women their statutory rights (that exist because of decades of discrimination).

How dare you be paid fairly for the work you’ve already done, just because you are going on mat leave?

Lots of hand wringing about imaginary situations about entitlement and how women in the workplace taking the piss, when the reality is usually they are often the most diligent workers because they feel inherently vulnerable to others calling them ineffective.

It’s telling that this thread about making lives easier has descended into posters denying women their statutory rights (that exist because of decades of discrimination).

How dare you be paid fairly for the work you’ve already done, just because you are going on mat leave?

Lots of hand wringing about imaginary situations about entitlement and how women in the workplace taking the piss, when the reality is usually they are often the most diligent workers because they feel inherently vulnerable to others calling them ineffective.

It’s telling that this thread about making lives easier has descended into posters denying women their statutory rights (that exist because of decades of discrimination).

How dare you be paid fairly for the work you’ve already done, just because you are going on mat leave?

Lots of hand wringing about imaginary situations about entitlement and how women in the workplace taking the piss, when the reality is usually they are often the most diligent workers because they feel inherently vulnerable to others calling them ineffective.

Sure..I'll just ask my school to rewrite the entire timetable so that my classes are on a different day. 🙄

Sure..I'll just ask my school to rewrite the entire timetable so that my classes are on a different day. 🙄

I don’t think it’s the employer’s fault when colleagues - mums - complain about a childless woman taking time off to be with her dying mother. This has happened to a friend of mine.

Sure..I'll just ask my school to rewrite the entire timetable so that my classes are on a different day. 🙄

Sure..I'll just ask my school to rewrite the entire timetable so that my classes are on a different day. 🙄

I am all in favour of accommodations allowing people to juggle work and other commitments, but focusing on women suggests that men don't or shouldn't carry equal responsibility. Clearly only women can be pregnant, but parenting should fall on both parents (and other caring responsibilities shouldn't fall disproportionately on women either).

And because wheelchair users have no other choice. Babies can be in a sling/on the lap and pram folded.