To think the amount of SMP is entirely unreasonable?

[SMPWTF]

I knew the amount prior to TTC but only now at 6 months pregnant is it actually registering.

£184 a week, and it’s taxed. If it weren’t taxed the amount would be £736 for a 4 week month.

How is this even close to enough?

DH and I earn similarly, respected careers but we’ll never be millionaires. Our household bills for our small semi-detached home are just over one of our whole salaries.

I understand that in the ideal you’d save up for maternity leave, but in practice that’s difficult for most people. The start up costs for preparing for baby are very expensive. We have been lucky to have been gifted a lot of big ticket items but even so the costs still add up fast. I can’t imagine even trying to save anything for a second maternity leave if you’re paying childcare fees for your toddler - probably one of the reasons we’ll be one and done.

I don’t think working people should have to save for years per child they have. Nor do I think people should only have children if they can afford to live on one income, because then we create a society where only either end of the wealth spectrum find themselves in a position to start and grow families.

No wonder couples are having fewer or no children.

Why can’t women be paid at least 50% of their wage? So many companies offer 6-12 months full sick pay, so why are so many still reluctant to meet this offer for parental leave?

SMP is shockingly low. There are lots of (professional) jobs where there is no enhanced maternity pay, mine being one of them (this is the norm in my industry unfortunately).

Although I knew this, it was still a shock to suddenly become financially dependent on my dh. And he’s a good one, there are plenty of threads on MN about women who are suffering financial abuse during their mat leave.

While I understand that having children is a choice, it becomes a society issue when women decide to stop having children due to cost.

Why should they?
Pregancy is a lifestyle choice (in such a scenario, not talking about by non-planned mean), illness is not.
also, many companies have to hire maternity cover, which is an extra cost, so why should they pay you more?

It's in the interest of everyone to have well-adjusted kids joining society. Regardless of when the parents came off leave, they need to be adequately financed to afford this.

FYI, in spite of being someone who got Mat Allowance only, I was able to live off this as we're very financially prudent as a couple. However I've worked in the early years and in the prison sector, both of which show the abundant need to invest in the early years. Best provided by direct support to parents, who no, will for the large part no fritter it all away on fags.

Crude maths, but let's say a company sells a product for £95. But they need to fund better parental leave, so it now costs £100. However, the overall picture of less policing, less insurance, more educated and higher paid workforce now means that instead of 40 people spending £95 they now have 45 people spending £100.

But I also think that time is missing from the equation. Everyone focuses on wages, but in my experience, most people want more TIME with their families.

You are taxed on smp if your earnings for the calendar year fall above the threshold.

So if you have your baby in April and have a year maternity with only SMP you won’t be taxed but if you have your baby in November you will likely be taxed for the first 5 months. It’s awful.

It’s shite OP...bit of a warning though, it’s best not to look at it as “getting through the year” but more as a permanent reduction in family income because when you do start earning again, most of it will go on childcare so you won’t have what you had before or you’ll reduce your hours/stop work so you won’t have what you had before.

Thankfully we’ll be entitled to funded hours and we only need 3 days a week, . We’ll be paying for school holidays only so when spread across the year we’ve had it confirmed our monthly bill will be about £200. Really relieved, originally thought it would be more than a thousand

This is tricky because the flip side to paying women more money and giving g longer may leave, is that it makes women an unattractive employment prospect. All things being equal re qualifications/job experience, at interviews the male candidate is seen as a safer bet because they won't be taking mat leave.

Honestly, I think the solution is compulsory shared leave if you want to keep babies out of nursery at 6 months - mum gets the first 6 months, then dad gets the second six months.

Agree.

The amounts paid to people who have disabilities preventing them from working, to single people who can't find work through no fault of their own, and to carers of disabled children are much, much less than the amount quoted in the OP. And those people haven't chosen their circumstances and may be completely unable to change them, so are arguably much more vulnerable.

I'd much rather see those people helped before more money is given to women on mat leave.

My org offers shared leave, which would allow more time at full pay and therefore a better overall income for a household, but take up is lower than 1% as women don't want to share "their" leave.

That’s amazing! Even with the funding mine is £1k a month so you are definitely into a winner there.

This is a really bad idea. Many women are still breastfeeding at 6 months & want to continue (which is supported by national & international guidelines). Why should they be forced to be separate from their babies and back into the workplace just in the name of feminism/equality?

We have shared parental leave as an option. Take up is low because it isn't the right choice for most families. Women should be able to make that choice themselves, it shouldn't be compulsory. Having a baby, nursing etc is biological. Not everyone can split it all 50/50 all the time - mum might just need / want more time off for physical, hormonal, emotional reasons. & how would that work for single parents etc.

Women & their families need to be prioritised, not equality targets.

6 months at 75% then 3 months SMP is pretty good though. I don’t understand why you’re complaining about that when many women have SMP the whole time.

What’s the point in getting angry about it? That’s how it is. It is possible to save up in advance, and it’s totally up to you how much you spend on baby stuff. We’ve barely spent anything, due in a few weeks. It’s a choice to have a baby, you make sacrifices if you want that. If it takes one of your salaries to pay your necessary expenses, surely you have the whole other salary to save?

My DD went back to work when her child was 4.5 months old and breastfed until 20 months. It's doable. And only 1% of mothers are exclusively breastfeeding at 6 months anyway so would hardly call that " many"

@Gogogo12345 going back to work while BF is very hard for most women. Breastfeeding should be made as easy & accessible as possible.

Genuinely glad your daughter was able to do it though, kudos to her.

My criticism isn't with women only taking 6 months, but forcing everyone into the same regulations when families, women, babies & jobs are different.

I see the ‘well, what did you expect?’ And ‘In my day…’ brigade are here already. YANBU, OP. It’s a paltry amount that turns having children into a luxury life choice, and we wonder why the birth rate is dwindling.

You are being unreasonable. SMP is a minimum in line with contribution based maternity allowance (state benefit) to be below tax thresholds. Your employer is not obligated to pay any enhanced maternity pay, but decent ones do to retain valuable staff.

UK maternity rules are pretty decent when compared to some countries (there are some far better of course) and there are protections for pregnant workers’ rights and job security. The US is pitifully bad in this and any other employment rights.

I agree it would be nicer to have more paid time at home with child but you can take up to a year before having to return to work - you could’ve saved to cover this or just cut your cloth and live on one income for a short time.
I’m assuming you knew your company’s maternity pay rates and leave periods before planning your pregnancy?

You could start a political campaign to improve maternity rights but won’t help right now!

Have the nursery confirmed that?

Ours did, initially, but then introduced a supplement per funded hour and then a daily consumables charge, so we now pay £240 less per month than we did before the 15 hours free came in, which is still around £480 per month - and that's one 2.5 year old, for 2 days a week.

Some nurseries are cheaper, though! And the funded hours kick in earlier now.

SMP is impossible to live on, as is MA. It's just not enough.

I’d make it compulsory too. Use it or lose it so it can’t be carried over to mothers.

I'd say it can be used at the same time or at different times during the first year.

The vast majority of women aren’t breastfeeding at 6 months.

I've just done a calculation for my niece, whose baby is due in 8 weeks.

With her partner earning and her on SMP, they will get £742.12 a month in UC in addition to their income. But if they weren't paying rent, they'd get sod all.

Lots of nurseries are doing the top ups on 2+ and leaving babies funded, since there are fewer trips and consumables, and it gets a family in young.

@anonhop it's not the employer's (or state's) responsibility to support women who want to stay home for extended periods of time to breastfeed. In the end, an employer has hired someone to do a job and it's not unreasonable to expect them to return to work in a reasonable amount of time to do it! There's a lot of pressure put on other employees and smallish businesses, in covering maternity leave and the end result of women insisting they need a whole year off (with good pay) is that employers will quietly decide not to employ younger women where they can avoid it.
Breastfeeding once established, can be done through expressed milk - it may not be as convenient but it's not impossible. It's not the employers responsibility to make your life easy and convenient at their own expense.

I think we have to consider the wider problems we are causing for women if we make ourselves too risky to employ. And we do need to make fathers more responsible for their own children's care because mum being the default parent all the time is hindering women's career prospects and quality of life.

@SouthLondonMum22 are you talking about paid leave or leave in general? Do you want to remove a woman's right to have months 6-12 off with her baby??
Not saying they should be paid, but surely she should have the choice

@ABirdsEyeView I understand the pressures on especially small businesses. & I'm in no way saying mat leave beyond 6 months should be paid, just available as unpaid leave if the mother chooses.

However, I think many women want those additional months off, it's good for them, it's good for baby. Many men in my business support it as their wives have benefitted from it, allowing them to keep working! Equally, shared parental leave is a great option.

Totally think small businesses should be better supported with this kind of thing. 100%.

we had our first in 1984 and then it was 6 weeks at 90% of pay and then falls off a cliff and in 2024 it is just as bad unless you are lucky enough to have a good employer. I too two weeks of annual leave to have those 1980s babies and because I was at a new employer for each of the three i did not even get the 6 weeks at 90% pay (and it was awful having to express breast milk at work with such a tiny baby at home).
It annoys me that in 2024 so many people think after the 6 weeks you have loads of money still coming in whereas only PAYE employees get the 6 weeks and after that get very little, not enough to keep paying childcare for an older child, not enough to pay London rents etc. All I can say to younger women is I went back to work very quickly and it HAS worked out okay. With our 4th/5th (twins) I was self employed so was taking work calls from home the very next day as no 6 weeks of 90% pay in the 90s for me either as was a sole trader.

Well ‘most large companies offer good packages’ has been demonstrably untrue for me. They don’t necessarily and as people, including me, have pointed out, an ‘enhanced package’ is not necessarily very good and you won’t find out until you are in situ.

and unfortunately I’ve never seen mat pay discussed on glass door for anywhere I’ve worked 🤷🏻‍♀️