Maternity Leave Equivalent (Wild Speculation)

[NeonSoda]

So I was wildly speculating with a friend last night, and I said that I thought it would be wonderful if child-free people could have the same 52 week x £172 benefit given as maternity leave, but without having to have a child.

If that was something you could opt to receive, as a childfree person, what would you do with your 52 weeks of subsidised break from full-time employment?

(NB - the condition here is that you cannot do your job for those 52 weeks and also receive the money, just like a person on maternity leave can't.)

Study.

I'm working on an OU degree part-time whilst working so would concentrate on that and study full-time.

Incidentally I expect that this thread will make some people absolutely incandescent with rage.
😁

Isn't this a sabbatical? I know quite a few people, with and without children, who have been able to take sabbaticals with some sort of minimal payment built in. Usually to travel or study. One friend used it to set up a micro bakery. I lost contact with her which is a pity as I've often wondered if she still has the bakery now that she's back at work!

You don't actually get paid for 52 weeks, but that's by the by.

I imagine most wouldn't take it up. You'd be at risk of missing out on promotions, things being different when you returned, being made redundant, the right to go back to the exact same job etc. I can't see, even in this fictional setting, that people would be protected from discrimination while off in the same way as you are if you have a baby so I think there would be a few risks with having 39 weeks off.

To play devils advocate, if you were going to do a genuine like-for-like scenario:

What would you do with subsidised 52 weeks off work, whilst ensuring your 7lb-20lb doll that cries, shits and pukes is with you at all times, or is in some form of expensive doll-day care?

I’d go to the gym, read, walk the dog, focus on my hobby. All the things I either don’t have proper time for or are grudgingly squeezed into the week now.

Both the companies my brother and I work for allow you to take sabbaticals after so many years service (can’t remember off hand) but are completely unpaid. Unless, of course, you’re using annual leave for part of it.

After the doll has woken you 3 times in the night for 50 minutes a time 😂

To be fair I would love a crack at 52, blissfully uninterrupted, weeks off. I would:

• learn how to make hollandaise
• try cheesemaking
• do all the odd jobs I’ve been meaning to get around to
• I’ve got a couple of hobbies that could also be professions - I would spend loads of time developing those
• exercise every day.
• possibly start my own business using points 2 and 4.

Write a book. That would be a lovely use of a year for me. Based on what I see in TV and films anyway, the reality would probably be very different 😂

@SecretVictoria I’ve changed my mind - I would just read for a year, with endless cups of tea, and wine on Thursdays.

You are quite right - my workplace gives 52 weeks maternity leave, I hadn't realised that the government was less.

So switch the figure to 39 if you like, or imagine that in my fantasy land everyone gets 52. ;-)

It's not intended to be a 'genuine like for like' - it's a thought experiment to see what you'd do if you were given 39/52 weeks of subsidised leave from the government.

Some people may choose to raise children, others may not. ;-)

I think you need to rework your fantasy land.. think of the possibility.. instead of 39 weeks off at £170ish a week you could fantasize about winning the euromillions instead and take a lot longer off 😂

Yes, I suppose you could call it a sabbatical - in the same way that maternity leave is a sabbatical. But most companies/industries do not pay for sabbaticals so I'm just pondering what people would do if they had the chance.

I started an OU degree when they were very cheap and then moved to brick uni and took the full government student loan - which was wonderful. Sadly I can't afford to go back and finish my OU degree because the fees are now so high, and I don't think £172 a week would help with that!

I actually dont think this is a bad idea! Before I had DC (later in life), I would talk about this with friends and surely it could work?! Like if everyone got 1 or 2 of these in their lifetime to use as they choose if they havent had any parental leave (so guess they would make you wait until a certain age) but like a mat leave in leiu of mat leave... seems only fair!

This is foolproof @Littlegoth

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/hollandaise-sauce

Maternity leave is absolutely integral to ensure we can keep women in the workforce , it isn’t a paid year off- you aren’t off or on annual leave or on sabbatical you are recovering from pregnancy and birth and doing vital bonding with baby.

A more like for like scenario is that you are injured so badly that you are unable to properly care for yourself for 52 weeks, which would be covered by sick pay so what exactly is your point her OP?

OP hasn't got a point, as said in opening post, it's a wild speculation; which interestingly, has got at least a couple of posters riled.

I agree and think @Ellie525 is assuming it would work the same as I am. --

You get two periods in your life where you are paid for a year. You choose to have children in those periods, or write a novel, or open a bakery, or sit on your butt and eat crisps. But the point is, everyone gets the time.

I'd actually hope that this removes the stigma or risk of getting left behind during may leave, career-wise. If everyone takes a year, it becomes normalised and expected, and embraced, and part of the rhythm of life.

I'll definitely join you in your fantasy land, OP!

My point is that in my fantasy land everyone gets 52 weeks off work subsidised by the government - they can spend those weeks how they wish.

If you were childfree, how would you spend those weeks?

I, too, think that it would remove the stigma and feeling of getting left behind by having children.

If childfree women, and also men could take and use these time periods however they wanted (to raise children, to do charity work, to improve themselves, to do DIY, whatever) it would mean that everyone would be don't he same level playing field with potentially taking a year or two out of work during their lifetime and we would normalise the idea of taking a sabbatical rather than working solidly for over five decades.

Someone once posted on a thread saying that some German companies allow people who’ve not taken maternity leave to return a year earlier with a payment equivalent to what they’d pay a person for having one maternity leave. It was in recognition of the fact that said people had never ‘cost’ the employer by taking mat leave and would usually have ended up providing a lot of cover over the years.

I’ve no idea if that was true but if so then there are some places that recognise that the only way to have protected, paid (for some of it) time out of the office and keep your job is to have a child, and which try to redress the balance by offering their childless employees something.

I’d definitely take some time off if I could guarantee a return to my job. My workplace has a generous mat leave policy and I’d be happy to take it on those terms. I’d probably use it to travel or write a book.

But yeah, your post is going to enrage all of the usual suspects who act like mat leave is the worst time of a person’s life, that nobody ever enjoys it, and that everyone who takes it sits in a baby-induced medical hell for months on end. And that they didn’t choose any of it because their kids will pay for our pensions so we should shut up, work 50 years with no breaks of longer than a fortnight, and be damned grateful for their sacrifice.

(I remember someone posting on AIBU suggesting that all people get a year sabbatical entitlement, including those who’d taken maternity leave, and half the posters started screaming that the only people who should be entitled to a sabbatical was the mums because only they had sacrificed for the nation or whatever.)

At a practical level, it's not really feasible unless we suddenly get an economy and society that is much more able to financially support it.

As a fantasy though, I love it and if I still worked for ac company that offered sabbaticals, I would have looked at it (I'm pretty sure my old company did offer "paid" sabbaticals, but I think it was maybe a month pay and accrued annual leave or something like that and you only got 6 months in total for every 10 years with the company).

But in fantasy land, I'd use it to learn things. Not full time study. But maybe a cooking class, a language class, a more advanced yoga class etc. I'd also use al to of the time to just sit on my butt and enjoy not having to be rushed all the time.

Hey! I'm currently on my third mat leave, but if I may indulge in my own pre-child fantasy land, I'd relocate to Argentina for the 9 months, rent out my house, and live like a queen on steak and Malbec where my government paycheck would presumably permit a modest apartment with rooftop pool in the inflation capital of Buenas Aires. I would most likely be hospitalised with gout before the final govenment pay check came through.

It’s an interesting idea that everyone should get two periods of paid sabbatical during their working lives, to be used either for infant care or something else. There’d no longer be any justification for fathers NOT to take paternity leave and share the childcare more equally. But can you imagine the outrage from men forced to take time off to look after their own children when child free women got the same time for free?!

Er, no.