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?

Sorry if I misunderstood, @Sausagedog101 . Perhaps it sounds counterintuitive, but the happier I am outside work, the more work seems to drag. It isn't so much the job, it's being tied to working hours, not being able to do things spontaneously, having to live contrary to my bodyclock (I am a night owl).

Not specifically parental leave - any extended leave period. As pps have said, it is extremely difficult to get unpaid sabbatical leave, let alone any kind of extended paid leave, unless you are an Olympic athlete or the like.

I have got a Dd and had a short maternity leave but that was 23years ago and I have another 20 years before I’m retirement age. So 43 years of work without a break. I have changed jobs including two big career changes. One of which did mean 3 years at uni but I also worked 35 hrs a week in the hospital as part of my degree, so still kind of felt like work.

Guess I was also lucky that when I worked for the nhs it wasn’t a 9-5 job so was different every day. My current job is different every day even if it’s more 9-5 but i genuinely enjoy work. I’m not sure I’ll manage another 20 years doing this as it is a bit full on. So maybe I will have another career change in ten years.

Yeah, that’s my point - if you don’t have kids then you have no legal right to unpaid leave but half the commenters on this thread have suggested we just go take some.

We can’t, that’s the whole point of the thread!

@musixa

OK, that makes a bit more sense. I understand that an extended leave period (even if caring for a demanding infant) adds variety to the landscape of working life, even if for a short period.

It gives individuals an opportunity to take stock/reassess what is important to them and do something a bit different (even if it involves changing nappies etc).

I understand that. My mat leave period made me realise how important work is to me, but also equally I was too focused on work before children and now want more of a balance.

I understand what you are saying that if you don't have that opportunity, it can seem like a long slog!

Are secondments an option?

I get it, a change can be so good. It's a pity your employer doesn't recognise that.

Australia has long service leave which is fab!

Or you are helping to build schools.in Malawi or doing a 10,000k bike ride across Europe for charity. That sort of thing.

OP I started “properly” working at 22, even with my two mat leaves I will be likely be working longer than you. The decision to have a baby and take mat leave is a big one, equally you can decide to take a sabbatical or career break. Most people have to save up for mat leave, you could choose to save up for a sabbatical. My point is that you have similar choices, just a different direction/reason.

equally you can decide to take a sabbatical or career break..

But there is not the same access to sabbaticals or unpaid leave for most people without children because unlike maternity leave it is not a statutory right. It’s not equal at all.

depends on how much you earn, your outgoings and how long you want a break for, doesn't it?

I take a 6 month break roughly every 10 years.

If I just need the money to cover my basic outgoings (mortgage, ctax, food etc) I need about £4k for the 6 months. If I want to do a bit of travelling etc I need about £8k. If I can get a mortgage break and take a lodger in I can nearly cover it without needing any savings. Even the £8k only requires saving £66 p/m for ten years - actually less because if you have it in a high interest account by year 9 you're making about £350 a year interest.

I appreciate if you're on minimum wage you might not afford to save £66 but if you're that close to the bone you'd really be struggling if you had a child/ren to take care of as well...

At the end of mat leave you them have 20 years of spreading yourself thinly trying to parent and manage a career so the only equivalent would be for you to take a sabbatical that starts with major surgery (whatever type of birth, women require recovery time) but no rest during that recovery, then a year of limited sleep but no career type work, then return to work but far harder with more feelings of guilt than previously.

It's a slog whatever your situation. That’s life for most of us.

The thing is, if you don't have dc, then you are much more able to take that risk, or that opportunity and go and do something different.
Whether that is a change of job, or an opportunity to do your job in a different country, or a chance to go for promotion or opportunities that might involve travel or longer hours. Or even just a different part of the country. You have so much more choice.
Then - because you won't have the enormous expense of children - you can either go on exotic holiday or exciting adventure now while you are still young. Or you can pay off your mortgage and retire early. Or take a risk and take a gap year now - depending on your job and skill level, there will be work when you get back, I'm sure.

Because you don't have to look after dc in the evenings / weekends, there are also so many thousands of things you can do, that will make your life slightly less 'the same'.

I mean, most of us have to work throughout life. Many will start younger than you. But, without dc, you have so many more opportunities to make your life less mundane than those with commitments to dc.

I think it would be helpful if people stopped viewing maternity leave as a paid BREAK and started viewing it for what it really is - paid SICK LEAVE (for a specific condition). That is what maternity leave is - time for your body to recover from the trauma of carrying and birthing a baby.

Whether that is a change of job, or an opportunity to do your job in a different country, or a chance to go for promotion or opportunities that might involve travel or longer hours. Or even just a different part of the country. You have so much more choice.

Not necessarily - some of us have other family responsibilities - just not children.

Then - because you won't have the enormous expense of children - you can either go on exotic holiday or exciting adventure now while you are still young.

Do you think the only thing that determines whether or not you have money for exotic holidays or exciting adventures is children? All parents are poor, all childless are rich?

I haven't had a holiday since 2018 - I can't afford it!

(In that time, every one of my parent colleagues and friends has been on an annual exotic family holiday. Not sure why enormous expense of children hasn't caught up with them yet.)

I've worked PT since I was 14 all through school/uni then FT.
I didn't become a parent until I was mid-40s.
I had no idea the freedom I had before I was a parent and how much hard work it is (on top of a FT job).
Maternity (adoption leave in my case) was much harder work than any job I've ever done.

You wanna change your life, change it.
It's an odd thing that you've picked parents/verses non-parents as the reason you can't stop doing the 9-5.
Money, opportunity, creativity of outlook, risk taking, ambition, those are the things you are lacking, not children.

But you would be even worse off financially if you had children, surely?

Non of these unhappiness issues are because you or OP are child free and can’t go on mat leave. They exist because some other part of your life doesn’t suit you - not enough money, a job you don’t enjoy, unsuitable working hours etc. You don’t get handed a whole new life once you have kids. It’s still the same life but not you also have to take care of kids.

After mat leave you legally are supposed to get your job back but in reality this often doesn’t happen. About a 3rd of the women I know came back to reduced responsibilities, got made redundant during their leave or “managed out” shortly after returning. It’s in no way a “safe” option to change the scene with regards to your career. For example, in my husbands job it’s a lot safer for a guy to take 3 months sabbatical to surf in South America than to go on parental leave because the surfer guy will go back to work as normal once he returns but the parent will struggle to do over time and probably need to take leave for when the child is ill because he is now a parent of a young child.

Financially it would be easier to take an unpaid sabbatical than to have children, even for those lucky enough to have a decent maternity leave. The money those with children need to save for childcare etc could be put into a sabbatical.

None of this is remotely relevant to my comment, which was essentially challenging the tiresome and persistent assumption that everyone who hasn't got kids can afford exotic holidays.

I would probably be worse off financially if I had children, but that doesn't mean that every parent is worse off than every childless person. Which is what is assumed when people say "oh but you can go on an exotic holiday every year, you don't have kids".

None of this is remotely relevant to my comment, which was essentially challenging the tiresome and persistent assumption that everyone who hasn't got kids can afford exotic holidays.

No-one has suggested " everyone who hasn't got kids can afford exotic holidays".
But clearly, if 2 people are both earning £34K, and one has 3 dc to support and the other doesn't, then the one without dc is going to be able to save up for whatever their dream is, so much quicker. That is pretty basic maths.

Obviously, if you are working a minimum wage job, then saving for anything is much harder than if you are earning average wage, or if you are in the higher tax bracket, obviously.

You said:

Then - because you won't have the enormous expense of children - you can either go on exotic holiday

You don’t know how much OP (or anyone in that category of “you”) earns, or what their home set up is. You said that it was possible if you don’t have kids. No caveats.

That’s what gets people’s backs up.

The thing is most employers won’t just grant unpaid leave and hold your job open even if you are not expecting to be paid. It doesn’t work like that, Whereas maternity leave = no questions asked.

I've had 3 months off sick this year and last (genuine, recovery from operations)

Obviously the recovery was shit and annoying. However, the thought of not having a 3 month paid break from work next year is shit and annoying, just in a different way!

My DC costs me £1k per month in nursery fees. I have no budget for going out babysitting (single parent) so no time away from my DC apart from I'm working or computing to nursery/work. I earn about average Uk wage. I don't get any benefits apart from £20pw child benefit and some of the cost of nursery is covered by Tax free childcare which gives me £500 tax back over the year to pay towards some of the nursery bill.

You could take a break from work if you were prepared to plough the dough in.
You don't need your employer to keep your job open, you can get a different job when you want to return to work. You might have to pull your finger out though.