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.)

Bingo!

The equivalent of your argument us "Why are you posting on this specific board if you have kids?"

I really don't understand how a thought experiment post of what would you do with a year away from work has upset you so much.

@fitzwilliamdarcy I think you are being deeply disingenuous. A thread title directly referencing maternity pay is going to attract women who've had experiences of maternity pay.. often difficult experiences... and then using the word 'equivalent' is clearly quite controversial. No one is trying to 'fight you'
It's just this thread seems a bit thoughtless. However it's dressed up when you describe basically a sabbatical or holiday then suggest it as a maternity leave equivalent you are suggesting maternity leave is in some way a type of holiday.
And again by saying its something women choose to do.. as tho it's a career choice... you are talking about a minority of very privileged women.
Pregnancy is a biological reality not a lifestyle choice. Some women can live in the illusion they really planned and wished for it.. but for most others it's something that just happened for them.. with a few even being coerced or forced.. and it's not just something you do.. it's something that physically happens to you. No it's not exactly the same as having an illness but there's a varying degree of physical trauma that goes with it.. that women need various lengths of time to recover from.
Surely you can see that if a thread had been titled 'what would you do if you got an equivalent paid leave to your work colleague who got a month's sick pay whilst off with depression' that might set the cat amongst the pigeons because people would get rightly angry you had suggested that an equivalent to that was some kind of holiday or opportunity for personal growth

"You people"?

You're on the childfree board?! How am I coming into your space?

Below the belt @Notinthegroupchats . Way way way below the belt.

Well said @haribosmarties .

Wow. And we’re the horrible goady ones?

Report my post if you like 👍 but let’s be honest, you want to make out mothers on maternity leave are in some kind of jolly getting £150 a week while dealing with a baby, birth injuries and all the trauma of birth you can’t expect sensitivity. This is a parenting forum, go slag off mothers somewhere else.

And you completely undermine that when you make personal comments about people not having children. It's an awful thing to say, much worse than the goady topic of the thread.

Don’t worry, I have.

Not one person on this thread has said anything of the sort. That just doesn’t suit your narrative. We don’t need to go to Reddit. We’re welcome here. The banner at the top of this board tells you to be respectful. If you don’t like it, you can go back to the main boards and leave us be.

Kindly point out where I slagged off mothers? Or complained about them?

Or indeed, even said whether I had kids or not?

I defended the board. If you don't like the fact it exists, email MNHQ. No user here has the power to introduce or to take away a board.

In the meantime, people will continue to use it for its intended purpose, rightly so.

Your response was awful. And no, I don't think that's anything to do with your parental status.

Because new mothers can't do an OU course or travel the world or whatever you might do on a sabbatical

I must tell my sister who did a big chunk of her OU degree whilst she was on maternity leave that she "can't" have done that 🙄

Vile

Whenever there’s a thread on maternity leave there’s always plenty of posters saying they really enjoyed it and it was the happiest time of their lives.

Its also a bit pathetic to come on a space for mothers to complain about "your taxes" being used to provide child benefit for families you don't think deserve it because they should just retrain and earn more like you

And yet here you are, being far more unkind to parents through comments like that than the threads on this board

The problem is that you have no idea whether you'll enjoy it or not until you're in it, you don't know what kind of baby you'll get or what your recovery will be like. I've had two, the first one under normal circumstances, the second was over lockdown and included the death of my dad - the second was still easier and more enjoyable because that baby didn't scream all the time, and slept and could be put down. The first was very difficult.

There's no way of knowing what you'll get.

Breathtakingly nasty. You sound horrible.

@Neitheronethingnortheother she must have been very lucky to have been able to do that. Of course its possible but its not something the majority could do.. you'd need support from family or partner, you'd need to not have bad pnd, you'd need to not be too physically injured or ill, you'd need a high level of energy and focus, you'd need a baby who did not have additional needs of any type... altho I suppose you might be able to do it in some of these circumstances it would be extremely hard and not akin to a sabbatical... some people do OU degrees whilst working full time too. My husband did a masters degree whilst working full time for the NHS... doesnt mean its something you can assume everyone could manage in that circumstance.
Obviously what I meant was that maternity leave isn't just a blank free space where you can do your own thing. You might be able to slot your own things in like you would if you were working full time... but its not a sabbatical is it.

Even so,there are many women posting on this board who would have loved the opportunity to have maternity leave warts and all.

Absolutely.

My whole point is that I don't see why we need to pit ourselves against each other.

Let's all have fantasy sabbaticals. Don't fantasise about reducing other women's employment rights in exchange.

I'd quite like a sabbatical without a screaming baby or dying parent. It would be a great thing for all of us to have the option.

To be fair, that should never be a reason to dismiss that mat leave can be an extremely gruelling period both physically and mentally. I know you’re not saying this, but I think it’s important not to give anyone reason to think we’re all posting from a position of jealousy.

I also know people who joke that they’d like another child to get another year off work, but I’m sure it wasn’t a breeze even so.

I agree. In my fantasy version of this, it’s offered to everyone regardless of whether or not they’ve had 0 or 15 mat leaves. I can’t speak for OP but I don’t believe this thread has ever been about taking away mat leave. More what we’d do if we had an equivalent period of paid time away from salaried employment.

And had you said "some" new mothers can't do an OU course, or even "most" new mothers can't do an OU course I wouldn't have responded

But a sweeping statement of what women can't and cannot achieve based on the fact they have babies is just more of the imposed limitations crap we have to deal with anyway

She didn't have PND. She did have pre natal depression, horrendous anemia and a difficult pregnancy all whilst she was doing the first part of her OU degree. And her son does have additional needs although not necessarily ones that had a massive impact on her (or him) at that point.

But honestly saying that women can't do a degree on maternity as if that's the case for all women is as annoying as saying all women can do a degree on maternity. Everyone's different, everyone has different experiences.