hi, im a sahm to a 5yo,really want another baby, would i be able to claim ma? or would i have to get a job 1st?

[broodymummy]

hi dd is now 5 and i miss her so much since she started school, i feel really broody for another baby, although money is a bit tight and i need to convice dh.

what i wondered if any of you mums knew was, even as a sahm would i be entitled to claim anything like maternity allowence?
as that would make my dream possible?

or if i returned to work, how long would i need to work for, before trying for a baby
to either get employers materanity leave or maternity allowence

or what about if i did some sort of self employed work, how long would i need to do that for before being able to claim maternaty allowence

please,please help me make my dreams come true

as an employer this attitude makes me really depressed. Of course some women will get pregnant in the early stages of a job. However in some cases it is becoming common for women to apply for jobs knowing they were trying to get pregnant and in fact don't need the job at all but are just doing it for the maternity benefits. In those cases (as my friend that I quoted) employers are trying to avoid recruiting women under 45 where possible becasue of the cost of training and recruiting them. Women who really need the job to support themselves are losing out.

If you can earn £112 a week for 6 months self-employed broodymummy then good luck. Personally I don't see why you would only do it because you want the benefits, who wouldn't want an extra £6,000 a year to spend?

Motivation makes no difference to the employer but that doesn't mean it's fair. Whole different thing imho.

If every SAHM took a job for 6 months just to get MA then the employment market would go right up shit creek for any woman of childbearing age.

I'm "lucky", I work in an industry with very few women and only have to deal with the good old-fashioned sexism caused by men and not the sexism generated by my fellow mothers.

Oh, and fwiw I started a new job a week before getting married, knowing that I would actively be TTC after the wedding. I was lucky enough to conceive dd fairly quickly and went on ML at 38 weeks almost a year to the day after I started the job. I also went back to the same job after ML. IMHO there is no problem with that approach, but the OP's situation is completely different.

and (my last word honest) its a bloody pain in the arse and a big bloody waste of time recruiting staff. If I had recruited you fallenmadonna and you announced you were pregnant three motnsh later, I would have smiled nicely and congratulated you and we would have stayed on good terms because whats the point doing anything else, and legally thats all thats safe for me to do.

I may well however have looked more favorably on the next young man who turned up for an interview.

If you go on ML at 29 weeks that is less time after the baby arrives that you get "paid" than if you earn for longer before stopping. What are you thinking of self employing as btw ?

I don't think the OP wants to earn more LIZ - she wants her £100 for 26 weeks the easiest way possible.

but i agree with the others, if you already have all your baby stuff from the first time round, and breastfeed, how much will another baby really cost you? You don't have to think about loss of income, or childcare, all of the material things are provided.. Once the child is older and needs more new things, you'd be able to go to work if you needed more money. And even if you didn't want to go back to work, the 100 quid you'd get would be long gone by then anyway.

It just seems like a waste of time for what you'll get out of it..

thought you'd said your last word Kewc

I did i did - bloody hell I'm going to be looking for a job if I don't get off here and do some work soon. Never mind Tigerfeet - you pay taxes I'm sure you won't mind paying me unemployment pay [wink[

So what should I have done instead? I needed a job, as you said Kewcumber, to pay the mortgage. Would it really have been better to claim state benefits rather than work? Or should I have just given up on the plan for another child for, well, how long would have been acceptable?

But TFM I think the point most people are making is that getting a job because you need one/ want one, and then falling pregnant etc etc is fundamentally different from getting a job because you want to get pregnant, and get SMP.

I have a friend, my former boss who refuses to employ women between the ages of 25 and 35 as she doesn't want them going on maternity leave. I have argued with her many times that this attitude is outrageous and that I'm a prime example of someone who is committed to her job and wouldn't want to be ruled out just because potentially at a certain age I may have a child. I may be being a little harsh on the OP, however, she's not worked for 5 years and now wants money from the state to finance her next child? It just seems like a bit of a cheek really.

Broodymummy might get a job and find that the broodiness disappears. She might stay in the job for years. Also, becoming pg isn't a precise art and might take longer than expected.

Although going out to work with the sole intention of claiming ma might not sit well with most people, surely this needs addressing in some way and not condemning Broodymummy for trying to work out what she sees as best for her and her family.

Broodymummy - Are you sure it's real broodiness and not just loneliness and a touch of nostalgia now that your dd has gone to school?
If you really don't want to go out to work is this just an exercise in appeasing your dh so that he would be agreeable to trying for another baby?

But it has the same outcome for the employer. And kewcumber has said that it could well skew her subsequent recruitment. So is there any difference apart from in my own motivation? Of course my motivation is probably what made me work to 37 weeks rather than 29, but that's pretty small in the grand scheme of things.

So, what is an acceptable gap between starting a job (or finishing one maternity leave) and starting another?

Message withdrawn

madonna - I'm not addressing my remarks at you - you would have been one of the smallish proportion of women who get pregnant a short while after getting a job (though I don't necessarily think that a year is a short time).

I wouldn't have (and didn't do) anything different in your position.

In OP's position I would be ashamed to admit that I was looking for a way to do the minimum possible amount of work just in order to get maternity allowance. Do you think with that attitude she will be a dedicated employee. In fact she seems to have decided that shes going to be self employed. Would love to know what she's going to do self-employed to earn enough to qualify for MA.

TFM - this is probably a whole other thread - whilst I don't have a problem with what you did, I think you did the only thing you could in the circs - I do find it quite upsetting that my plans for ttc no.2 have been delayed by finances whereas others don't pay any heed to this and just go ahead and TTC even though there isn't the money for another child and then the taxpayer takes up the slack. Sorry, but I find that very difficult to live with.

Well, no. I wouldn't do what the OP wants to do either. I read it and thought . And then it occured to me that I might be a tiny bit hypocritical because I did something not entirely dissimilar myself.

I disagree TFM. I think what you did was completely different in that your family needed the income. I'm not convinced that the OP's does.

Ah now, by the time dd arrived we were back where we were, with DH earning enough for us to live on. I suppose I could have refused my SMP, but I didn't...

you haven't answered thet question of why you would need more money when you are already a SAHM

£100 doesn't sound right at all...

Is your dh putting pressure on you to work and that is why you are trying to bring in money another way so tat you can convince him to have no 2?

tiger "I do find it quite upsetting that my plans for ttc no.2 have been delayed by finances whereas others don't pay any heed to this and just go ahead and TTC even though there isn't the money for another child and then the taxpayer takes up the slack. Sorry, but I find that very difficult to live with." With you there and the knowledge that if every woman worked for 6 months then took 6 months maternity pay and didn't bother to go back the work, then the maternity pay system would quickly become unviable. It relies on the majority not to abuse it in order to work.

I'm also a tad bitter that adopters don't get the 90% of pay for the first 6 weeks. So a bit cheesed off all round!

TFM - but when you took the job you were looking to support your family, not just get some lovely SMP for a few months. Completely different. As we've already said, it's all about your motivation for taking the job in the first place.