Do mums actually have a choice about returning to work?

[Chanade]

How is it that so many mums are expected to go back to work so soon after having a baby, even when they don’t feel ready?

I keep seeing women juggling newborns, exhaustion, and work because financially they don’t have a choice. Is this just the norm now?

Genuinely wondering how people are making it work and whether anyone feels like they actually had a real choice in the matter.

They have a choice but as the saying goes, you pays your money and you takes your choices. It's all down to money and life choices - obvious really.

I suspect more people are going back to work sooner as SMP is pitifully small and families can't make ends meet for long. I took 9 months, but only because my mum kindly gave me the difference between SMP and the minimum we could survive on for the last 3 months as our savings would only have got us through to 6 months. She was only able to do this as her own mum had died a few years before and she had a small inheritance squirrelled away. It made a huge difference but many families couldn't do this.

It doesn't matter that yoi have 52 weeks "entitlement" @Ohfudgeoff if you can only access that right when you are wealthy.

No I do not know anyone who went back to work when their baby was a newborn.

Most people I know take 8-15 months off. Some a bit less but not much, others never go back.

I took nine months for one and eleven months for the other, part time for a while after for both. If we had more money I would have stayed off longer.

I will hopefully not be going back to work for the first few years. My husband is an average earner however we will make sacrifices.

We have stayed living in our current house which is on the smaller side and not in the most desirable area because it means not taking on a bigger mortgage.

We both drive older less desirable cars because it means not spending more money on monthly payments just to have the thrill of driving something newer.

We don’t spend money on fancy things and we shop at Aldi or Lidl and stick to meal planning and shopping lists.

Basically we live within our means and don’t do thinks because that are expected of us in society (buying a bigger house when having a baby etc)

I don't know if I'd have wanted to have kids if we hadn't been able to afford for me to have some time off work in their younger years. I can see why more women are choosing not to have them if they'll have to go back to work sooner than they'd want.

For most people, how much money they can access determines all sorts of decisions - what car or house or size of family or anything really. I don’t really understand the question.

For me personally I took 12 months off - 9 were fully paid and we paid for the last 3 months my job would be held for me. It was plenty. Most of my friends took around 9 months off and the majority of my friends work, although several are part time. I am sure that if everyone had total and complete financial freedom they might choose differently - including the fathers who maintain the pressure to stay high earners in the scenario where the mother isn’t working.

I'm older that most on this thread. Very few of my friends and acquaintances were forced back to work because of finances-especially full time work. This is because you more or less run a family home on one income. I find it really sad for the babies born these days that their main carer - usually mum, to whom they are emotionally bonded, suddenly leaves them. I can't get my head around why this is considered acceptable for healthy emotional development. Governments should support mums in every way humanely possible to allow mum to stay at home for as long as possible post partum, or sort the housing crisis out in this country which has been ignored by all parties for decades.

I just wanted to say I really appreciate everyone’s input on this.

Of course, everyone’s circumstances are different, and even when people plan carefully or make what feel like the right choices, life can change quickly and unexpectedly.

I suppose a lot of what I’m thinking about probably applies more in situations where there’s one main income or single parenting involved, where juggling everything can feel especially intense.

I completely understand there isn’t a one-size-fits-all experience here. I think I’m just trying to make sense of how different families manage the pressure in very different situations

Thanks again for sharing your perspectives I genuinely do appreciate it

Eh? Mine are late 20s and I and everyone I know had a years ML then went back.

I was very ready to go back at 12 months but wouldn’t have been earlier.

Totally my choice.

I agree. With my first baby I went back to work when he was 12 months old and I still felt this was too soon. Thankfully I was a nurse so even though I worked full time I only worked 3 days a week (14 hour shift) so I still got 4 full days a week at home with him which meant I still felt I got a lot of quality of time with him.

When I had my second baby I went back when he was 14 months old but did reduce my hours to 25 so I was only working two days a week so I could have 5 days at home.

I had been bought up in a home with two working parents, as had my husband and we’d discussed prior to having the children how much we’d missed having our parents around when we were younger. Thankfully we were on the same page that I wanted to be at home with the children as much as I could be and my husband was in a job that allowed for that.

The vast majority of mums I know took at least 9 months maternity leave and then went back part time. They're mostly not well off either. I'm not sure how a lot of them do it to be honest, probably a mixture of family help, benefits top ups and flexible jobs I think. And careful budgeting.

I agree with you to a point but most women I know work.

Most government subsidies go towards childcare and to enable parents to work. There’s limited support or positive discourse to enable a parent to stay at home.

You’re going to probably be absolutely flamed but I agree with you.

I’ve saved for years before children, no financed cars, no holidays for 10 years, don’t smoke, don’t drink, cut our finances to the bone, second hand clothes etc and am now hoping to stay off with my second after feeling miserable leaving my first.

I’ve been told by many how lucky I am but it’s actually taken some sacrifice to do it. I hope it goes well for you too.

Everyone you knew must have had companies with generous maternity policies then. If your children are late 20s, statutory maternity leave and pay was only for 18 weeks when they were born.

When my children were born it was 26 weeks. Hence many parents went back to work when their babies were 4-6 months old.

Now there is 39 weeks of pay and 52 weeks statutory entitlement.

My DD is nearly 27, I went back when she was four months old because paid leave was only 16 weeks. Dh was a cab driver so we needed my salaried income. Needs must.

The way these posts are written are very very journalisty

Why not save before having a baby? We all make our own choices and if you chose to ignore the obvious then you have to live with the consequence. Might sound harsh but it is true. I have never paid for childcare ( other than Playgroup) but even i know how high childcare bills are.

Same here

I only know one woman who went back with a baby under two months old. And that was because her husband wasn’t earning.
Everyone else I know has taken 9-14 months, often using some annual leave too. I was bored and frustrated on maternity leave, returning to part time work with nursery as the support we didn’t have from extended family made such a difference.

It isn’t a great comparison with the past either - when I was born many women stayed at home until the children were school age. My mother really wasn’t cut out for being at home with small children and I still bear the consequences of that. I’d have been much better off in childcare whilst she went to work.

I had to remortgage my house to afford 9 months maternity leave last time round - I’m the breadwinner & DH is a TA. I got 6 weeks full pay then SMP thereafter so there was no other option. Obviously it would have made financial sense for DH to take paternity leave but to be frank I would have hated that! I consider myself lucky I was able to afford it, otherwise I would have been back to work very early.

It’s a good point you have made - I had to return to work at 6 months with my eldest and I wasn’t ready at all - I suppose I did feel forced at the time.

I think it’s often really difficult for women to juggle these things, especially if they are the main earner in the household and end up being a “victim of their own success” (this is how my DSis described herself in a similar situation). It’s not something I’d want to see my DD go through in the future.

I really struggled both times as both kids were awful sleepers (one still is) but tbh i hated maternity leave both times and was happy to go back to work. I took 12 months both times.

I don't wanna go all Four Yorkshiremen, but when I had my 2 DC (mid 1990s) I got 14 weeks maternity leave in total. 14 WEEKS! So I finished work when I was 8 months pregnant, and went back when they were 10 weeks old. I would have given my left arm to have had a full year off.

It wasn't just a matter of affordability, (although we did need my salary as well,) my employer would never have allowed me to stay off any longer. I was allowed 14 weeks maternity leave and that was it. A temp covered my position for the 14 weeks, and then I had to go back. (It was the same for all women in the mid 1990s.)

It was horrible, I didn't love the job anyway, it was high stress, my boss was a lecherous cunt, and one particular woman above me in rank slightly was a bully, and she fucking hated me. (It emerged some time later that she was very jealous of me.) I was suffering from PND, and I was very weepy, and I went back to work 28 hours a week. (3 days one week/four the next etc,) and I basically still had 5 days work to do! I just got 'you've had a baby, you're not ill!' barked at me.

I deeply envied women who were able to be full time stay-at-home-mums.

NO woman had a full year's maternity leave in the mid 1990s. (Or earlier.) Not in the UK. The leave was 14-18 weeks up until the 21st century. It was well into the 2000s before maternity leave was increased. It was increased to 26 weeks around 2003-2004, and then 39 weeks around 2007. A couple of years after women were allowed to stay off a full year (but didn't get full pay for the last quarter of the time they were off.)

But yeah, no women was allowed to be away from their job for a full year in the 1990s on maternity leave. Any woman who was off a full year, must have left their job, and then applied for/started a new one when they baby was a year old. No employer - in the 1990s - would have held your job open whilst you had a full YEAR maternity leave.

Those who are working and taking full responsibility for themselves almost certainly have to go back to work as they can’t afford financially not too.

Those on benefits getting everything paid. Child
under 1 no need to work. Child 1-2, may need to attend some planning to go back to work
interviews. Child 3-12, expected to look for a job but with reduced hours, no more than 30 a week. And repeat for baby 2, 3 …….

and they wonder why people aren’t happy and are only having 1 child!

My SIL’s mother went back to work as a conveyancing solicitor when her first baby was 8 weeks old. Had a nanny. Baby used to come into the offices sometimes. They needed the money and also she liked her career.