To feel sad some women are forced to go back to work

[JTT95]

I think it is messed up that these days a lot of women have to go back to work after maternity leave whether they like it or not. It seems like everyone is sending their babies to nursery at 1 or even earlier. I know that some women want to and are happy to go back but there are many women who are heartbroken to leave their babies so young. I wish it was like the olden days where a man’s wage was enough to suport the whole family.

Instead I'm told I'm sponging off my husband, lacking ambition and letting women down. Can't win.

I'm told I'm selfish, materialistic and why did I bother having DC in the first place?

You really can't win.

I think that is the answer. No matter what we do, we cant win.

Do you realise how much employment costs have been rising in the UK and how companies are therefore not hiring and/or investing outside of the UK? And you want to burden them with 6 weeks of PAID paternity leave in addition to paid maternity leave?

Which is all very well IF AGREED . No issues with that all all

What i was asking is what happens if someone breaks the agreement. Previously the agreement suited both partners but it changes to only suiting one

YANBU - I’m so thankful I had time off when mine were babies even though I’ve since gone back to work full time. Those years were precious. I don’t agree that both (or the sole) parent should be forced back to work when they have a baby or toddler. It should be a genuine choice if you love your job. Not everyone has an amazing, fabulously paid job. Many would prefer to be with their children when they are little.

Some other countries seem to manage it just fine.

Fathers deserve to bond with their babies too.

And many would stay at home DESPITE having a fabulous and well paid job, because spending time with their children is far more rewarding to them!

Absolutely. It should be a genuine choice for everyone from whatever background in my view.

I did actually have a career I really loved. But I have zero regrets at taking a significant chunk of time out until my children were both in school, when I went back part time and then when they were older primary I went back full time. Although by choice I would have stayed part time. Cost of living has forced me to work more hours than I would like.

Sigh. Regardless of whether they’re a despairing backroom IT drone or a bored shelf stacker, or have a ‘fabulous and well paid job’, the responsibility to support themselves does not evaporate once they have a child, rather the reverse.

@BluePeril I agree. I see a part of my role as a mum (especially of a daughter) is to be a good working role model and to provide financially for her (alongside my husband). I would never want her to put herself in the incredibly vulnerable position of giving up a career so I try to lead by example.

Yes. By having the sort of taxation system most MNers would be horrified by. Everybody wants this sort of thing until it comes to putting their hands in their pockets.

They can be absolutely.

I'd be willing to pay more for it but I agree.

Though if people are wanting to cover SAHM's so women get a choice then that is going to cost money too.

Work decides family status

I agree that this is a true statement but I do not agree that it is how we should define either work or unemployment. All work, paid and unpaid, needs to be counted as work/employment and counted as part of GDP (as some countries count childrearing and breastfeeding as part of GDP). Until this is the case there can be no equality for women since their biology makes them be the full-time or part-time carers of at least children - though I believe that this work (at least past the first year of life) can be equally shared with men as fathers and carers. We cannot outsource child-bearing (unless we wish to live in a transhuman dystopia such as Huxley posits in Brave New World) or allow some women to become living incubators for the rest of society i.e. men and women with wealth outsource childbearing to those less well off (examples of this can be found in Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and in a short story by John Windham).

I agree. ALL work, paid or unpaid, adds to our society and should be counted!

I agree this would be much better and funding parents to look after their own children would be no more expensive. However, funding parents thus would not add to the GDP or add income to other people - unless, of course, you include childrearing, breastfeeding etc as part of GDP - Invisible Women (I think - read it a while back) by Caroline Criado Perez, makes this point.

I think longer paid paternity leave would be an absolute game changer

So women should have a choice yet men have to just get on with it? apart from women's sole purpose in life should not constantly be centred around what they can provide a household and children, whether it is their own or having to help the 'village' then as grandparents

Men shouldn't be used as a bank, but they make that choice

@PollyBell I agree, but I do think some women attempt to change the goalposts once they have had a baby e.g. they agreed with their husband/partner they would return to work after mat leave/when child is in school but then change their minds.

What if a woman wants that to be her life purpose? What if that what makes her happy? Same with a woman who wants to dedicate her life to a career. I don’t see anything from with either.as long as it makes them happy.

That’s pretty common. None of know how we are going to feel. I was pretty sure our lives wouldn’t change that much when we had our babies! How wrong we were. I didn’t realise how physically pained I would feel to be away from my babies. I had to go back to work at 5 months but I cried constantly after drop off and I was literally counting the minutes until I could pick them up. My DH is a wonderful father but he definitely just got up and went to work and came home again- was absolutely thrilled to see the kids at the end of the day but he didn’t have the extreme physical pull I had to get back to them. I used to get off the bus and run as fast as I could to get to them. If I could have stayed at home with them I would have absolutely.

Bloody hell, you seem to have an unrealistic view of what ‘the olden days’ were for most people.

One of my grandmothers had to work to feed/house/clothe the family because her DH was fond of pissing his pay packet away (literally) on pay day each week. He’d come home and bash her up if he didn’t have a nice hot meal on the table or if he had rips etc in his clothes that hadn’t been mended. So, she spent her days doing washing for ‘rich folk’ and whatever work she could get her hands on to get money to pay the rent, get coal for the stove, food for the family etc. Meanwhile the kids were left with other people. Oh, and so she didn’t add more kids to that shitshow she had to have several backyard abortions, that thankfully she lived through, although no ‘time off’ for her from work to recover. Couldn’t get divorced as was basically illegal, she had no right to do so, and he just likely would have killed her for it anyway.

My other grandmother had the ‘joy’ of being forced to leave school at our current Yr6 equivalent, so that they could assist with the younger children (13 younger than herself) and the housework. No point her going on in education as she’d just get married and have kids and do the same thing as her mum. Dirt poor as one labourers wage didn’t go far with 14 kids so the mum took in washing, ironing, mending, which have less time again for her kids, who were primarily looked after by the older ones.

Yes, weren’t the old days fantastic. Let’s go back there.

Realistically, they were absolutely no different to today, in that relatively, a small subset of women could afford to stay home and enjoy being with their kids. The rest of them were really just like women today, and had to leave their kids to others and work.