How are you coping with a long working life with no parental leave breaks?

[SorryAswad]

I've been working since I was 25.
I'm now 40.
Retirement age is likely to be at least 70 by the time I get there.
So I'm looking at another 30 years of work.

I won't have children. So, aside from annual leave allowance and unless I take unpaid sabbatical, the coming 30 years is just a long old unbroken stretch of sameness.

While parental leave is very hard work, it's still a fracture and change in that monotony of a long working life. Without the prospect of children, and so without the prospect of that change, working life feels long and overwhelming.

I know I could change jobs but that's not my point. I quite like my job. Even if I did change jobs, the fundamental is still the same - 9 to 5, week after week, month after month for the next thirty years with nothing different, no temporary change, on the horizon.

I wonder how others feel about this and cope with it?

I've worked since I was 14. I had two children very late in life but didn't take any maternity leave with either because I had my own business and worked from home. So things just carried on but with a baby and then toddler in the mix. I started using childcare from 14 months with each of them.

So, no I didn't benefit from any type of career break. I finally retired at 57 but that was due to a mental and physical breakdown. Clearly, I did too much and it caught up with me eventually.

@SorryAswad
I have 2 DCs in their mid late 20s. With DC1 my mat leave entitlement was only 12 weeks and with my DC2 it was 20 weeks total. Both times I went back to work full time. I didn't take any additional unpaid leave.
Most men take very little, if any parental leave so you're pretty much in the same boat as them.

I find the comparisons with men unhelpful. Men don’t have periods every month for a large chunk of their working life which can be exhausting and or painful, nor do they have menopause and the symptoms that go along with that or PCOS or any other common aspects of our hormonal cycle which means that women in general - require more rest.

Women who don’t have kids do not equal men.

FYI - as an aside, you are entitled to parental leave. Up to 18 weeks per child until they turn 18. It is unpaid, but is something you can use to cover school holidays - or if you want a bit of extra time with your children.

Sorry, an aside. Not to derail from the purpose of the thread.

Also OP I think you perhaps have an inaccurate perception of mat leave.

Yes it is lovely to spend time with your baby but it is gruelling and isolating. Not to mention the impact on the gender pay gap after women have children. Pregnant then screwed have showed that statistically women without children earn more than those with. So for many reasons it isn't this wonderfully positive experience you perceive it to be.

If you want a break, save up and take a sabbatical. I had to save up for my maternity leaves as only got statutory pay which isn't enough to survive on!

@Sausagedog101 I'm not at all saying it's a wonderfully positive experience. I've made that clear. I know its hard and grueling. I know its not a 'break' in the sense of a holiday. But it is a break from the routine of work. It is a change in routine. It is a change in priorities. It is something different. It is spending a few weeks or months at with your family.

Yes, but for many it is time away from a career they value and have worked hard for.

Those who have come through maternity leave will say that for many, work is easier.

It is also not spending time with family in the way you describe. I am on leave currently and spend most of my days alone with a young baby. It isn't glorious family time.

It is getting no sleep. It is changing nappies constantly. Spending a day with a baby who cries with no adults for company. A shift in your identity and forgetting the professional person you once were.

Yes it is a change in pace but it is gruelling and for 9 months, a pin drop in the grand scheme of things.

If you want a break, take a sabbatical.

A further thought that has occurred to me.

If most women have their children by 35, then conceivably they will have 30 plus years of working before retirement, without any 'breaks'? So a majority will be in a similar camp to those without children, from that respect.

I don't think it's the breaks of maternity leave you are missing, but just that adult life is, frankly, just one bloody day after another for most of it. My maternity leaves were a long time ago, and they were a break from the usual routine most of the time. I went out for lunches, went to playgroups, wsndered around in the afternoon. But they were less than 2 years, over a decade ago. Maybe take up a new hobby, go on some short breaks, do a course in something frivolrous. There is a lot that you can do that a 40 year old with children can't, because childcare/money/time.

I’m in my 60s been working since age 16. Two grown up children. Parental leave wasn’t ‘a thing’ when mine were young. Also
thought I would get State Pension at 60. I hear where you’re coming from.

@SorryAswad I have children so please excuse my presumption in replying.

Looking ahead with 25-30 years of everything being the same is daunting and if you don't have joy in your work it's also quite negative.

Work to live though, not the other way around. Make your life what you would like it to be and use work to pay for that.

Also what about volunteering?
Check out the policies of your employer you might find something that you can use.
Could you go on secondment somewhere? So still working but trying something new out
Training, flexing hours etc, etc.

As you are childfree you have more flexibility than those with children. You could (should) exploit that. Cheaper holidays in term time, visit museums when they are quieter.

There's so much out there - please investigate and grab something that captures your imagination. Good luck.

This is why a lot of people have more than one career. They get bored.
When I had my DC I only had 6 unpaid weeks off work for each as I had no maternity leave and the bills don’t stop coming.

So not really a break ha! Had more time off, and was paid when I broke a few bones in a car accident…not recommending a hospital bed as a way to get a break.

Yes I agree with SpiritAdder.
I got bored with one job so retrained into something else. I dont do 9-5 either. It's all over the place.

Worked from 16.
Early twenties I decided I wanted to retire at 55 so started to put extra into my pension - intermittently depending on life's demands.
At 48 took an unpaid sabbatical to travel a bit.
Final year of work put half my salary into my pension pot and withdrew it as a lump sum tax free.
Retired at 57.
You need a plan if you don't want to work until you're 70!

I have one child. I got 9 months off with no paid maternity leave as I conveniently got pregnant just after o got made redundant. It's been a very expensive hard slog ever since.

You don't have children and don't plan to, so why haven't you paid into your pension fund to retire early? That's what I would have done. I could have bought a Porsche with the money I've spent on childcare! If I'd remained childless I'd be retiring at a much more respectable age than 70!

You also don't have to take your holidays during school holidays, so your holidays can be cheaper and quieter!

It's a slog for everyone. You can choose when you want the slog to be!

You don't have to work Monday to Friday 9-5.
That would be soul destroying to me.

My point about not having maternity leaves for my 5 is that not all of us have had them and in fact in a sense it is just the rich who can afford them as 90% pay for 6 weeks for those lucky enough to get it and then pay falling off a cliff means many people cannot afford longer as they have mortgage or rent to pay

I hear you and agree completely. I'm childfree and have often thought if I had time off on maternity that it's a break from the routine and the pressure of working and earning money. Women with kids get to do this or have that time off. We don't. I acknowledge raising kids is hard but it's living personal choices/passions outside of work, which is what I think you're referring to. Just the getting to follow other dreams beyond the "wage slave" life. I'd love months off at work to write my own novel and sometimes when I see women go into the workplace showing their babies, I kind of wish I had the same opportunity. Like imagine a world where I could take months out and I can bring my finished book into work and people would ooh and ahh over my finished novel over not being in work for months lol. Not going to happen but as well I think the biggest issue is the world where life still is having to work so many hours and work/life balance overall.

I don't think having a baby is like having time off to write a book.

I couldn't afford Mat Leave. I didn't get a long break

When I had 2 weeks off of annual leave for a baby I used to say I went back to work for a rest! (and it's true). Until you have a baby yo don't know how much 24/7 domestic work it is - some of the nicest times of breastfeeding and release of oxytocin which I will never forget and was some of the best experience of my entire life and some of the hardest - G Bay type lack of sleep and the day time job being in effect clean up sick and hold someone you love who is screaming and you cannot make it stop.

The whole 'not having kids thing' is a red herring. By 40 most women are done with mat leave (yes women are having kids later but still most are done by 40). So most are facing what you're facing anyway.

I've worked since I was 21 (proper qualified work). I've been at the same company since I was 22. I was done having kids and finished with mat leave when I was 35 (I only had a combined total of 18 months for two kids). I'm 44 now and presuming that retirement will not be a thing in 30 years time.

The grass isn't necessarily greener either. I can't even afford to go travelling and would have to take my kids with me if I did (which triples the cost!). I need to save my annual leave for school holidays etc. Someone without kids could quite feasibly spunk their entire annual leave allowance on a round the world trip in the middle of term time. Everyone has hard in their lives.

But yes, the idea of working for the next 30+ years is fucking miserable.

Isn’t it though.

I bet you're glad you posted this so that all the parents could come and whinge at you OP.

I totally get you OP. My mat leaves were busy times, but something completely different (and personally- wonderful and and filled with fun, I don't know why people have to act like all of life is relentlessly hard and miserable). I also used the gap to reevaluate, retrain and come back to something completely different. I don't know if I would have done that if I was just plugging away.

Sounds like you're pretty much at a turning point- with a PhD is there the scope to do casual academic work for an online uni (even just marking) and take a good period of LWOP to recharge?

Kids cost £250k each.

You could save that up and take time off.