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 :)

Understaffing issues are to blame, not the most natural process in the world ie having children.

Oooh I love this! It needs up be printed out on a poster ❤️

Yabu.
This is a management incompetency, working women will always be having babies and what they choose to do after is really non of your buisness.
I worked part time after my babies were born, it was a mutual decision and not once did my husband suggest we weren't sharing the work load, he appreciated my work load !!!
For many women after having a baby work is no longer their priority believe it or not.
Although I understand how leaving a role can cause disruption for a short while if management fill the gap with a suitable replacement promptly and timely then I can't see what your problem is.

Shared parental leave is a good mechanism to give both parents time with the new baby, and share the loss of employee between both employers. But hardly anyone does it.

Surely you should be angry at the managers who are failing to cover leave rather than the women producing children who will grow up to pay your pension?

Still not the woman’s problem when she wants to have children though.

I guess its a question of do you want the human race to continue? If so people have to be supported to have babies. Babies are actual human being that need to be cared for and prioritised. Yes there should be much much more equal split in care between men and women. But for now there isnt. Getting frustrated at parents just trying to care for the next generation of humans is not quite right. Someone needs to have babies if we want to have someone to support us in aged care.

This.

Completely agree. Now even maternity leave can’t be our own. Yes there should be a choice to share but there shouldn’t be pressure. I had traumatic births and took a while to recover. I didn’t want to have to go back to work while my dh got to swan around baby groups just after I recovered and the baby got interesting! And he was in full agreement.

I'm surprised by this because it's not my experience at all for anything except very routine jobs where people can be up to speed quickly - it's always the expectation that work done by specialists, anyone professionally qualified and/or management level is shared out amongst existing staff, there is no attempt to find additional.

Plus public sector recruitment simply doesn't move fast enough to recruit people as maternity cover - the postholder would be nearly back in work before a replacement could be found and onboarded.

Colour me shocked
OP never came back
🙄

We don't "need" all these older people we're currently paying state pension for and who cost the NHS billions a year either, if you look at society this way.

Birth rates have fallen hugely and there is no incentive to have children as it is.

Had her misogynist arse rightly handed to her.

I have worked in the public sector for most of my career including some spells in the NHS.

It is hard to recruit people to the jobs because the working conditions are tough. However, people still feel interest in becoming doctors, nurses, paramedics, lab techs etc. There is camaraderie. Sometimes people thank you.

You know what NO-ONE wants to do? HR!

Therefore there is no proper workforce planning, people are recruited into HR jobs who shouldn't be and things like planning for vacancies are done poorly, late or not at all.

Plus the NHS doesn't even competently do something really obvious which is to run nurseries that serve staff hours.

The government could also help the public sector parents by making it easier for them to access school places and wraparound convenient for work.

There is a total lack of joined up thinking.

I actually don't blame the OP for feeling resentment. Whether she has children herself or not doesn't actually affect the difficulty of managing without a key person. It just means she never personally gets the leave.

By extrapolation you are saying that the lives of those of us who don’t have kids are meaningless- bollocks. I find this line of argument incredibly insulting and demeaning, especially to women who don’t have kids. You are basically saying we are “less than”.
Life has no intrinsic meaning, it is what you make it. You don’t get to dismiss mine for not having sprogs.

It’s fine to be pissed off about the outcome whilst accepting that the leave itself is essential.

There simply aren’t spare doctors/chiropodists/accountants/solicitors knocking around, waiting for the opportunity to work as a temp for a year or so. The rest of us have to suck it up with no choice in the matter.

I agree with the OP.

You’ve got a management problem not a maternity leave problem.

Yes, it’s easier to cover up for poor management if no one takes any kind of leave, no one changes role and everyone has a fixed 9-5 work pattern. However that gives you no evolution and can make meaningful change unlikely.

You point out that a more equal split between parenting between men and women would help. That means more people working part time, not less.

Well you could easily solve this by just asking women not to have children.

We will then die out as a species and thus the problem is solved.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist that little dig. Yes it is really difficult and I agree with you, but like others have said, YABU because your organisation will employ HR professionals whose job it is to minimise disruption and impact while supporting everyone. But maybe they are all on mat leave too!

Men are more likely to move jobs for a better position than women. People with families are more likely to stay put.
While it's not great for roles that mainly employ women to have repeated maternity leaves, when the mums come back to work they will stay if the job and conditions are good.
If they don't stay then that's an HR issue.

You obviously have never worked in the NHS!

Nobody needs to breed children, we can bring in as many grown ups as we like, have you not noticed they are queuing up to live here?

Women staying in jobs after having children does not help those that have to cover their work while they’re on maternity leave!

No.. it’s an NHS problem… not enough staff.

Maternity and paternity leave can be shared. Nothing stopping couples doing this.