AIBU to feel resentful about repeated maternity leave cover at work

[Kedgey55]

Posting this here to get a different perspective and I'm aware this may sound controversial.

I'm 39 F no kids (by choice), never really felt any desire to have them. I'm a healthcare professional. Lately I've found myself getting more and more frustrated by what seems like an endless conveyerbelt of maternity leave to sort and cover for. Since I'm in healthcare it's challenging to get cover so often staff left behind including myself are left to pick up the slack. In my department we've barely been able to do much development work in over 5 years as a result. In an extreme case, an entire service is on hold basically until the manager returns from mat leave. I really don't want to feel like this but it is really hard to not feel resentful of women for this. I know it's awful but I can see why people would prefer to employ men. And I'm frustrated by the fact that women then seemingly always return part time while the husband/partner remains full time. Returning part time creates a whole host of other issues. And it disappoints me that there is not more sharing of the work/childcare split between men and women. And then of course when so many women return part time, obviously this limits future opportunities so this probably goes some way to explain the gender pay gap.

I realise that there needs to be equal mat and pat leave to encourage this to be shared more equally between men and women and until we have that, of course it makes financial sense for the woman to stay off work for longer. And I realise it is not womens fault we don't get mat cover- that is an organisational and national funding issue.

But it sometimes feels like the challenges the staff not on mat leave face are unacknowledged and I think this is what irritates me the most. It feels like there is a whole load of noise surrounding women's rights regarding mat cover, flexible working, childcare, equal pay etc etc, but there is never any acknowledgment of the significant challenges linked to all this, which unfortunately are a reality. I'm not saying these things should go (ofc they shouldn't) but some acknowledgment of the complexities of the issues and the burden placed on other staff would be nice sometimes.

Just needed to rant and tell me if I'm being unreasonable :)

This is a management problem not a women problem

Well, if no one has Kids because there’s no potential leave your staffing problem will be a REALLY big one in 20 years time

Men earn more in a lot of cases hence women end up pt plus do less childcare wise hence the women have to do everything for the children. Women shouldn’t pay with their jobs because men don’t step up!! As someone said you’re angry at the wrong people- and agree it’s the managers/ top tier fault for not covering

Instead of Mumsnet you should go and speak with your managers. I can say the same about long sick leave. I was in totally sh*t when my colleague had a heart surgery (because our bosses didn't organise cover properly) but it doesn't mean everyone needed surgery should die because someone will struggle at work without them.

I voted YANBU for the main and last point of not having issue with the current situation of Mat rights etc but wanting it more acknowledged that it has a huge impact on remaining staff.
I also work in NHS.
The reality is that these days trusts are saving money everywhere and mat leave cover is extremely rare. Therefore in non front line roles especially, other staff are expected to cover and there is an unreasonable expectation that most work still gets done somehow.
Also, mat cover is not a miracle fix as it takes a fair bit of time to learn a role in a new Trust/department and become proficient at it. Often difficult to recruit to a fixed term role of 12 months and a secondment just creates a vacancy to fill elsewhere.
so YANBU to be frustrated at a system that doesn’t adequately support women to take mat leave whilst also supporting the wider team’s workload and wellbeing.

Completely agree

go and work with older women out of child bearing age

I hear your frustration with trying to find replacement staff when they are very hard to find.
Often it is the financial situation of each family that decides who goes back to work.
And the baby gets a say too. The fbf baby will usually prefer it's mother.

Mothers who come back to work part time but require three hourly pump time offs are hard to work with in business where the work is mainly hands on. Some tasks need two people working together.

Not much you can do except hope more young people wish to train for your career and that managers hire 50/50 men and women.

I can acknowledge your frustration, but wanted to say as someone who employs I’d rather have a part time women over a full time man.

i do think we have a huge issue as a society where men aren’t dropping to part time, not taking their paternity leave but one man I know that did take 6 months for each child lost his role 2 years later when his wife was pregnant and without doubt it was due to him taking 6 months leave.

I echo the others it’s not fair on you and your anger needs to be directed at senior management for poor arrangements that leave you felling like this.

Also NHS, our mat leave is generally covered adequately. That said, it is ALWAYS the female staff that take carers leave for the kids when they are sick.
and don’t get me started on the repeated sick leave for questionable reasons that puts huge pressure on the remaining staff. - I’m not referring to genuine illness but the repeat offenders. It’s not something that the corporate world would tolerate.

@Kedgey55 your version of misogyny is now a relic. The modern version of misogyny is for the right wing men to slag off women such as yourself who won’t breed for them. For gods sake if you are going to do misogyny can’t you at least get with the programme and self flagellate instead.

This is all on the employers not women having babies.

Once upon a time you were born and babies born today will pay your pension. Your issue is with the employer, not these parents.

@Kedgey55 the reason your opinion on hiring men over women is "controversial" is because it's misogynistic: you are of childbearing age yourself, so your opinion would do you out of a job if it became policy, even though you aren't like other girls. Women would start their careers at 45, if at all.

You resenting women who have babies isn't controversial, it's embarrassing. As lots of people have pointed out, who's going to be paying your pension? And that's not just for the public sector. The entire economy and in fact everything we'd call civilisation needs a workforce - someone to bury you so the seagulls don't eat you, at the very least. From one of those frustrating mothers who is also in part time paid work, you're - sort of - welcome.

And btw, if you think mothers working part time while bringing up children makes life hard for you, spare a thought for those of us who are doing it.

And women/families still bear the overwhelming work and money cost of having the kids, not society.

I think also OP it’s easy to forget that women going on mat leave are also the people who have been overstretched by covering for others in the past and will be in the future. I started working at 18 and had done 20 years before going on mat leave and if I am lucky I will have the best part of 30 years work afterwards. There isn’t some world where only the childless are in the fix you’re in. YABU.

You're angry at the wrong people - this is your work place who has not sorted this out.
Why should maternity and paternity time off be equal? Did the dad grow a person in them for 9 months? Or give birth? Or breastfeed? Maternity leave is very much needed by the mum, as she has more to recover from - which can be many, many months.

First response has it in one

This is an employer/workplace issue, not a woman issue.
Do yourself a favour and turn your resentment to the correct party.

So I guess suck it up for your own greater good. plus those people’s kids will be paying your state pension when you retire, so that’s nice of them.

A hopelessly old fashioned view. The future of the welfare state supported by taxing labour is doomed and we are living in the final days. An ageing society, decreasing birthrate, AI taking more and more jobs is remorselessly shrinking the taxpayer base. This is happening across the developed world. Wake up and smell the coffee!

It’s really as simple as this.
I’ve worked in female dominated teams and this has never been an issue because we’ve always covered maternity leave properly.

If we want women to have equal access to the workplace ( and we absolutely should!) then we need to acknowledge that women have periods, can get pregnant, breastfeed, go through menopause etc.

I was thinking similar. In fact, the physical complications I had after giving birth meant I needed my year of maternity to recover and have further surgeries.

Yes the global population has doubled in 50 years. That’s not a crisis.
Nearly 20% of 18-25 years olds are NEETS. This will increase as AI takes hold. We don’t need all these children. That age group will become net users of benefits very quickly having contributed nothing.
We need to disincentive child bearing not encourage it including work place benefits. And if only the wealthy have kids well so be it. The planet is not a free for all.

But it does contribute to the gender pay gap, doesn’t it? That’s just an objective fact.

You are a woman who is child-free by choice, but if your attitude here was reflected in how your work place runs then you wouldn’t have a job either - you are a woman who in theory could have a baby (regardless of your individual decisions or fertility) so they would hire a man instead.

It's down to bad management and pressure to save money. I remember it could take over 3 months to recruit someone into a basic NHS role and it had to get really desperate for them to be willing to pay for any sort of temporary cover. This inevitably made things harder for the staff left behind to cover everything.

I am more cynical about people coming back part time, it just doesn't work in all jobs. You'd get a situation where only Sarah could sign something off but she's back part time so if you need it signed on a Thursday you have to wait until Monday. Some of these cases should have been job shares but management didn't want to fund the second employee. Job shares don't always work well either as some first employees struggle to delegate or the rest of the team teats the first one like the real employee and waits for them to be available.

My point is it's tricky but could be managed better.

It's really not that easy in some sectors that need experienced staff they can depend on.
Often you can't find cover at all.