to get a job, just so i can get maternity leave and pay

[doyouthinkthisisok]

or do you think its fair enough, you've paid in for years and your only claiming what you are entitled to, or do you think its a bit off?

my dd is 17 months old and we have decided to try for another i am a sahm at the moment.
perhaps i should of gone back to my old job, 5 months ago?
the extra money we would get from mat leave would make it some much easier for us.
of course if i got a job next week, i have no idea how long it would take to get pg

But not needing the money and and the money coming in handy are two separate issues. Many people work who really don;t need to d do it. Are you suggesting that they shouldn't benefit from maternity benefits either? should they be means tested? Provided she isn't doing anything illegal, and she isn't claiming anything fraudulently, then she is perfectly entitled to do this. She is merely using the system to her advantage,and lets be honest, most of us have done that ourselves at some at some point in our working career.

I will technically be a SAHM after this baby as I'm definately not going back to my old job (too stressful, too much travelling, less than understanding employers about the difficulties of working FT with a young family in a predominantly male dominated environment, excessive childcare costs, coupled with some MH issues) but it is definately NOT a case of not needing the money. Although I was going to resign after my last ML (for all the reasons stated above), when I found out I was pregnant again, I saw the doctor about signing me off until my next ML just so that we could continue to get some amount of money coming in, even if it was only SSP then basic SMP (we are using up very hard earned savings to pay the mortgage for a few years and are pretty broke, even with the extra).....so shoot me too as I'm obviously doing the same as the OP.

and I do feel that as someone who has worked for nearly 20 years, only ever had one claim period for unemployment benefit and has declared all extra earnings from a cash in hand pub job (when I was a badly paid graduate) and any private commissions I got when I was working full time (not many), I kind of do feel, as the OP says, "paid in for years and only claiming what I'm entitled to"

I think the law is the law, Suey. Not all laws seem fair, but they are the way it is. I personally don't have an issue with legitimate accountancy techniques to reduce an individual's tax burden, either.

That is not to say that I agree with "the guard dog called 'Sky'" approach, which in my eyes is plain tax avoidance, and both immoral and illegal. I mean that if the tax rules say that you can claim for x, then of course it makes sense to do so to reduce your tax bill.

Lackadaisycal, you are signed unfit to work by your doctor, a GMC registered professional who has to use his/her judgement as to your fitness to work. If you had asked to be signed off, and your GP considered you fit to work, you would have left your surgery empty handed.

And SMP is your right by virtue of being employed, not working. I take it that in your qualifying weeks are SSP weeks, so you will get £67.86 per week as SMP?

I appreciate that Lou; the doc wouldn;t have just signed me off because I asked for it....I have actually been quite ill and that's why I'm signed off, but I could have resigned after my first maternity leave as originally planned was my point. I chose not to, as, after much discussion, my DH and I (and half of MN ) felt that I had every right to claim those benefits.

Fortunately for me we have company sick pay which meant that I was earning enough through sick pay in the qualifying weeks (just) to be elligible for SMP, otherwise I would have had to claim MA I believe.

Maybe the fact that I have been in the same job for nearly four years without a break in employment (apart from the ML) makes it seem less bad?

But Daisy, you could have resigned at week 24 of your pregnancy, thus rendering you inelligible to your first lot of SMP - but everyone would have told you you were mad.

You haven't twisted a system, you have made a sensible decision.

true enough

Lou you are just really not getting it are you?

I don't know how it works for other companies, i just know what it would be like for myself and dp if someone did what the op want's to do to my dp.

Last year dp had a string of staff problems. A member of staff who had been there a long time left and so we advertised their job in the local paper. It took us 4-5 months to fill their job, going through 5 different people and i had to train every single one which i hate doing but don't have the choice. Plus at £50 a time to advertise the job isn't nice.

I trained someone up and then 2 days later they didn't bother to turn up again. Then i trained another who appeared to be good and then on the Monday morning dp phones me to say she has decided to go back up North so won't be coming back. My heart sank. Then another 2 came and left again. You get messed about so much with people when hiring it really does stress you out and get you down. I remember that being a really tough time for us in our household because when these people didn't turn up, or turned out not be very good, i had to cover meaning i had to also had to find child care at the same time. Dp and i were both stressed and worried the whole time, esspecially (sp?) as dp was coving someone himself who was off on SS at the time. I'm not trying to get anyone to feel sorry for us, i am just saying this is how it is for small employers.

Finding staff is a really tough job, finding good staff is even tougher. So if dp and i had thought yes, we have finally found someone good and then that person announces they are pregnant soon after they started, i can imagine how we would feel. Not only would be know we would have to find someone else when they go on maternity leave, it would be ten times harder because whoever we hired would have to be a temperory position because we have to keep the pregnant womans job open. Finding tempory staff is even harder than finding permanant staff, so then i would fear we would be going through staff, me repeating myself training people again AND all at £50 a time to advertise!

So if dp has been messed around by someone doing what the op wants to do then no, he isn't going to want to hire women of a certain age anymore. When you have been in the shoes of a small employer then you would understand why.

MsSparkle BiL in the same boat. Very small business, gets very stressed to the point of ill health. Sister also working very hard.
I work for a very big organization and get annoyed at training people only to find they were never interested and left with double the work again. Worked in the same job for 21 years only took breaks for 1 child and 2 miscarriages. Sadly because of people like OP, and moaning minnies, womens prospects will now only worsen. If you want to go to work only to claim maternity pay then just keep that info to yourself and don't pat yourself on the back because it's not kosher.

I think we have established that turnover of staff is a problem for large and small companies alike, but that this is not solely the domain of women of child-bearing age and that people take on work short-term and/or leave employers high and dry for many reasons.

I think we have also established that the OP will not be entitled to SMP anyway.

And I have definitely established that, with many things, you are damned if you do and damned if you don't

If the OP needs to earn money at this point in her life, she should work. If she had posted an OP saying 'I want another baby but I don't want to work so that we can afford it', she would have had just as much hassle IMO.

it's every man/woman for himself in the world of employment, small or big business or otherwise. the OP should go out and work and take advantage of the benefits she is entitled to. even if she does want to leave her job after mat leave, who cares, that's up to her.

Blimey. I took a job with every intention of trying to get pregnant pretty soon after I started it. Not specifically for the maternity pay, because that would be pretty daft, but because I had had to leave my previous job after we relocated, and DH had been made redundant. I was paid for the work I did. And I don't think they can bear me too much ill will because they have employed me again 5 years down the line. You don't get maternity pay as soon as you start work. You have to put in the time, and the work first. If I'd left for another reason - a better job elsewhere perhaps, would that be equally castigated?

I did resign pretty smartish though. I don't ike to keep my employers on the hook over my intentions regarding my return to work.