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?

That level of sarcasm to my question isn't fair. I don't hang around the childfree boards because I have children (obviously just as well), so I don't know if this question has been asked a lot or what the answers are. I know mumnset towers likes to talk a lot about how this is a PARENTING site (whenever someone says "what are men doing here?") so I am interested that the actual users see it serving a completely different purpose. It's a legit line of questioning. I will never speak again

Honestly, you've had a privileged life so far and assuming you are a decent earner with that level of education, have enormous choice as to how you structure the rest of your life and/or work. Off the top of my head, you could go freelance, do the while digital nomad thing, take a career break, work compressed hours or a 4 day week, choose to really cut your spending to free up time in a way that is much more difficult if you have dependents... you are young, single, educated and financially independent, you are amongst the freest women to ever have lived, you just don't seem to realise it!

I absolutely get what you mean about the unbroken path OP

However, it is perfectly possible to build in breaks and/or changes to your career path, without maternity leave. It does often involve taking some risk to do so though.

For example you could change job, but leave without a new job to go to and only look once you’ve had some time off. Or you could look for a new job but say once offered the job that you are not available to start until, say, 6 months’ time. Both quite risky.

Or you could ask your current employer for an unpaid sabbatical & if they say no, say that you will need to consider resigning in that case (again a risk and they may call your bluff).

Or you could switch to a self employed /contractor model where you can choose to take periods of time off, albeit this may be at the expense of customer relationships.

Or you could work for a large organisation which offers secondments in other departments or even other countries - not a break from work, but a change.

Or you could save up all your leave every year and use it to have a month away from work. Some workplaces let you buy extra leave too.

It’s a question of weighing up career security and maximising earnings/progression, vs your need for change/ some time out. This equation is different for everyone.

Yes, maternity leave is a way to get a career break/ change of scene with the right to your job back at the end, and it’s not available for non parents. However, that right was only introduced due to the tendency of employers to get rid of women having babies, so it’s a “benefit” that comes with a lot of negatives to outweigh it.

an element of quiet quitting is probably the answer

Yes, and that's appalling and discriminatory. I'm not sure what it has to do with what I said, though.

I think the problem is is that this question gets asked over and over again despite the answer being, honestly, pretty obvious. Unless (generic) you religiously determine never to view or post on any thread that doesn't relate to parenting, then MN is already serving (generic) you a completely different purpose. There are dog boards, TV boards, gardening boards which have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with being a parent. The only difference is that, unlike those boards, the rationale behind this board is constantly being queried.

So, yeah, when the question keeps coming up, it irritates people.

OP I have a child but I have no idea why you've been given such a hard time. Your question was a perfectly fair one.

but those aren’t the same. You could say, if mumsnet as a literal name (and I get that it isn’t) that the dogs boards are for mums with dogs, the gardening boards are for mums who like to garden etc . You can’t habe a board for childfree mums.

I am not questioning its right to exist just curious as to why you’d choose to put it here. Which seems a more reasonable question than ever now i find how cross mums make you! I get that after a life of being questioned about not having kids your patience would wear thin. But it’s like being driven mad by wasps your whole life and then setting up a Non Wasps Picnic Zone in a wasp sanctuary. The wasps might not feel like you shouldn’t be there but you know what, you’re gonna see them

@fitzwilliamdarcy because I mentioned that it is possible to take time off paid work without having children. You might assume that all people who have children get paid maternity/adoption leave and have a job to come back to after the leave. But large number don't.

I still think it's possible to take time off work without having children, I've done it myself twice before having DC because I wanted to live abroad and have a different experience.

I don't think that is an attack on childless people I was one for over 40 years so not
like I don't know what it's like!

You could say, if mumsnet as a literal name (and I get that it isn’t) that the dogs boards are for mums with dogs, the gardening boards are for mums who like to garden etc . You can’t habe a board for childfree mums.

You could, but absolutely nobody views those boards like that. There’s an infertility board - would that only be for secondary infertility, then?

What even would be the point of a board that’s only for gardening mums or only for mums who watch TV?

Most people understand that MN has moved beyond just being a parenting forum. Until the idea of a childless/free board comes up and then suddenly all logic flies out the window.

Which seems a more reasonable question than ever now i find how cross mums make you!

Mums don’t make me cross, and you’re being disingenuous in suggesting it. What makes me cross is having to constantly defend why this board is here.

To use your analogy, I don’t care about seeing wasps, but if they’re drowning out the entire conversation being had by the non-wasps in the non-wasp space then it does get wearing. Maybe in your eyes that’s what we get for parking up in the Wasp Sanctuary and you’re not alone in that. I often question what the point is of the board if we can’t talk for having to deal with people derailing us all the time.

I don’t think all mothers get what they’re legally entitled to, because I understand maternity discrimination exists. I think that it is, however, a legal requirement to have the job held upon, and that many women benefit from this. As they should! But there is no similar legal entitlement for a sabbatical, and that’s what makes taking time off from work as a childless person more difficult.

But it’s irrelevant in any case. Women not getting their legal entitlements in one context doesn’t mean that women can’t discuss the fact that some of us aren’t legally entitled to any break from work beyond annual leave.

Of course it’s possible to take time off, but it’s more difficult, Quitting your job when you’re young is one thing. Doing so when you have commitments, dependants other than kids, mortgage etc. is entirely another. And it’d be much better if we didn’t have to quit but had a legal right to have our jobs held open instead.

Also, nobody has said you’re attacking childless people. You are derailing, though.

Most people are parents on MN but I certainly don't mind anyone posting if they want to. In fact on the internet I like to go to places where people very different from how I am are so I can hear different views. I am a mother of 5 but I never had more than two weeks (not months) off to have a baby and have worked full time without a break other than 2 weeks of holiday since I was 21. So don't assume all mothers have a year off in which to have a baby!

Id rather work than have children tbh.

Unless you become a SAHM it’s the same for anyone who has kids. It’s literally like being on sick leave 6months-1 year with less rest.

Sabbatical? Year out between career change? 2 of my child free plans plan to go permanently part time from a certain age, another planned to change to ‘easier’ hobby career, another had sabbatical, easier option of early retirement as not spent years out earning less money.

Why would it be any different if you had kids though? One could argue that it would be worse because kids are incredibly expensive and anything you could have saved up for retirement will be going to school fees, uni, etc.

OMG, I recently suggested on MN, that those who did not want children/were childfree had a sabbatical to be funded in the same way mat leave is - as an equivalent for the same reasons you have pointed out.
It didn't go down well as 'mat pay is because parenting is work', or somesuch other daft response

For many women mat pay isn't even that good. If all you get is statutory maternity leave then the reality is that your income will be drastically reduced at a time when you realistically can't go back to work even if you want to because no nursery or childminder will take a baby that young and even if they did the cost of it would wipe out your salary.

That's why so many women in the UK are forced to save up to afford maternity leave, or are entirely reliant on the goodwill of their male partner to support them financially.

If people without children are depressed about the prospect of working for 45 years without a break, there is nothing actually stopping them from taking a break. But expecting that break to be paid for by the taxpayer so that they can have the same "perk" as people who have children seems unreasonable to me. My friend saved a little money each month for several years and then announced to her boss that she was quitting to travel for four months. Her boss then offered to hold her job open for her, which she accepted.

If you want a gap year in your thirties there's really nothing stopping you from planning and saving for it, just like women plan and save for maternity leave. The difference is that there isn't a very tiny vulnerable human who will be disadvantaged if the taxpayer doesn't chip in.

But mat pay is still pay; your employer is paying you not to be there. Why can't they do the same for a sabbatical

If it's statutory maternity pay they're not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, but because they have to. Because it's public policy that in order to maintain a stable birth rate and give children the best start in life, mothers must be financially supported to recover from childbirth and take care of their newborns.

If it's enhanced maternity pay then they're doing it because they want to attract and retain female talent, and probably because their competitors are also doing it. Most people see children as necessary to enable society to keep functioning in future generations, and having children as more or less a human right, whereas they're less likely to see extended paid time off work for leisure purposes as a human right. But perhaps with more and more young people deciding not to have children there will be more pressure on employers to offer paid sabbaticals to child free employees.

Some employers do actually already do this, but usually only after a very significant length of service. I know someone who got 6 months' paid leave after 25 years working for her employer (a major household name). She had also had two maternity leaves towards the beginning of her career. But that demonstrates another issue: length of service. How long should you have to work for the same employer in order to get this paid sabbatical? It clearly can't be on equal terms to maternity leave for many reasons. Firstly, the time during which women are at risk of going on maternity leave is finite. Even a woman who has a baby every two and a half years, perfectly calculated to get the enhanced maternity pay, return to work and go on maternity leave again, will eventually stop having babies. There's a limit to how many young children you can have before working outside the home becomes unsustainable, and there's obviously a hard time limit on your fertility. Realistically a woman will still be of working age for 20-30 years after she's had her last baby. But she can't afford to wait until she's worked for the same employer for 10/20/25 years before she's entitled to take maternity leave. If a child free person could take several months' paid leave every couple of years with no minimum length of service, businesses would collapse. Some of them struggle to pay for maternity leaves enough as it is, and they have no choice about that. So it's really difficult to see how this could work in practice.

The other thing to note is that women who are hoping to have children often stay in the same job for far too long even if they hate it or are severely underpaid, because if they move and then they get pregnant they won't qualify for enhanced maternity pay. So whilst it is a nice perk to have, it is a blocker on professional mobility and may not actually be worth it in the long run compared to moving for a big promotion and pay rise and then taking the hit on maternity pay if they get pregnant soon afterwards. Men, and women who are child free by choice, don't have that constraint. They can keep chasing better paid jobs without having to worry about hypothetical maternity leaves, and if they do so successfully they will have more disposable income to save for a sabbatical.

The employer can reclaim most of the statutory mat pay from the government.
So for a statutory sabbatical pay we'd need to persaude the government that there was some kind of social need for sabbaticals, like keeping the childfree in work or there was some benefit to not having children at a society level.

Oh, of course, I forgot the social benefit children, but I have no doubt social benefits for a sabbatical can be found to equalise things

I take few months between jobs. At least a month.
I budget for this so it's ok.