Fed up of hearing "you'll feel differently when the baby comes"

[Greeneyegirl]

Just venting really. Is anyone else having this problem related to mat leave? Where i work everyone has always taken 13.5 months off. 12 weeks full pay, 6 months stat pay, 3 months unpaid and then tagged bank holidays and annual leave to the end.

All my friends and family have also taken this amount of time off, albeit with different packages. I know of one person at my work who, 4 years ago, took ten months.

I started saving for maternity pay during the first lockdown, not loads a month but a little maternity fund and have upped my saving in pregnancy. However with cost of living, currently remortgaging, having a newborn in Jan meaning we will have to have our heating on etc. im going to struggle after 10 months. My plan is to take the 12 weeks full pay, 6 months stat pay (adding £1000 a month of my savings to this so i have roughly £1700 but this needs to cover my share of mortgage and bills) and then tagging on bank Holidays and annual leave. When i say this EVERYONE (co workers, friends, my mum, HR at work) laugh and say "oh you'll feel differently when the babies here, you'll want that 13.5 months". Im sure i will! I want it now, doesnt mean i can have it. Its like people havent watched the news. Our mortgage is looking like an extra £500 a month. Plus food and heating going up. Its driving me mad and im struggling to bite my tongue.

The other day i mentioned that i was so glad to remember child benefit as i hadnt thought of that and a friend said 'oh yeah, that will be nice, you can put it aside every week and buy yourself a treat at the end of maternity leave'. Erm, i was thinking yay we might be able to have the heating on so our newborn doesnt freeze but okay!

Anyway rant over. Im just fed up of people being so out of touch.

Yes - I was ready to go back after a month, but then it was lockdown so I was able to work from home. I guess I might have felt differently about having to leave my child with a childminder or nursery or a family member but I enjoyed speaking to fellow adults and having money!!

@deeperthanallroses as i said i hugely out earn DH so i do need to contribute my savings. DH will also be contributing savings but ultimately as the higher earner its something i need to consider. If it was the other way round and DH was the higher earner i dont think people would raise an eye brow.

You will get so much " advice " OP. You honestly can't win with some people.

I was told the same as you. Then after opting to stay at home due to childcare costs, l was constantly harassed when are you going back to work? can you mum look after the baby?

This was mostly from women who had never worked before or after kids as well, which made it even more bizarre.

Hi @Greeneyegirl I've nothing useful to add other than solidarity. I already have a child but am in the same position as you, higher earner so saving to cover the huge salary dip of maternity leave, also taking 10 months off and I already work 4 days a week after my 10 month maternity with our eldest! I've no qualms about taking 10 months again.

You might feel differently, it's true. I thought I'd want at least a year off but by 6 months I was climbing the walls and desperate to get back to work!

I took 8 months both times purely because I wanted to share the leave with DH and didn't want 12 months off. I found being on mat leave with my first lonely and dull, and was happier when back at work PT.

Ignore them OP. Of course you would like 13 months, you would LIKE 15, 18 or even 20. But you can't have it. You can't afford it and those are the rules RE the time you get paid to be off. End of. They can mind their own business.

Congratulations on the baby. Enjoy the time you do have off, and then look forward to special weekends, evenings, AL etc. You will manage, we all do.

The one but that spring out was the part about your share of the mortgage...
Is your husband putting in all his money too?

Currently on mat leave. Will take full year even tho can't afford to. Want to make the most of it and don't want to miss anything. Money comes and goes.

I thought you were going to say you were only taking the two weeks or something!
10 months is fine. I did that for both of mine. I thought that was a decent amount of time. To be honest after that there's no magic time where you don't miss them but I am glad I work.
I didn't want to go through all my savings for that extra couple of months. Keeping a bit allows me to work part time as long as we are frugal. If I had no safety net that would be harder

@Emmamoo89
If you took time off when you couldn't afford to what did you do for money then? Just wondering, did you stop paying the mortgage during those extra months? Or the utilities? Or did you just go without food??
If you genuinely couldn't afford it you would have had to go back to work the same as a lot of mothers.

Honestly, those sort of comments annoy the shit out of me. How you feel is completely irrelevant if there are financial or other decisions to be made and I don't b lame you for being annoyed.

I got similar comments. But as I earned 80% of our income, 6 months was all we could afford for me to take (and we did the shared parental leave so when I went back to work at 6 months, DH then took a couple of months, albeit largely unpaid).

I will also say that actually, i didn't want any more time. Personally, I wish I could have saved my parental leave to take when the DC started primary and now again when they start high school. That's time I could really do with.

It certainly goes when you don't work or earn anything. 🤔

I'm on month 12 and we just got a 0% credit card. 🤷 Go back to work in Jan

I went back to work after 6 months with my first and 9 months with my youngest. Wanted to go back to work then.

OP - It sounds like you made all of the right moves by saving when you could etc. and I am sorry that the cost of living has scuppered your plans and people around you seem a bit tone deaf over it.
I returned to work after 10 months and faced a wrath of comments about leaving my son before he was "even a year old", I felt terrible about it but couldn't afford to not earn anything for a few months so had no choice. With hindsight it was the best thing for my family in more ways than financially.
I am curious though, are you explaining to people that the sums just don't add up so you need to return to work in order to earn money? Surely people can't argue with that. Most of my friends had good maternity packages and it had never occurred to them that I was only receiving a fraction of my pay for the majority of my leave (savings wiped out by fertility treatment too) - it might be that the people speaking to you are assuming the same?
Strap in though, once the baby does come people will be giving you advice and opinions you haven't asked for left, right and centre!! Especially older women who lived in a world where the husband's wages covered all household expenditure and women went out to work because they were "that ambitious sort" or just for a bit of extra pin money....

Maybe OP doesn't want to borrow her way out of going back to work?

@GerbilsForever24 thats good to know, i earn almost 70% of our income so thats a similar problem to us but im glad you felt 6 months was enough.

It seems a lot of people here havent taken 12/13 months and found it fine. I think its just shocked people because it isnt the norm in my area.

Try not to worry and just see how you feel.
I went back after 10 months and we were all very ready. It wasn't even based on finances, I was just ready to get my life back. I love working and baby loves nursery. It's a win win for everyone.

Do what suits you. Don't rush back if your not ready. Don't stay off just because you feel you should.

Completely agree - I went back after 7 months as my may leave plus holiday had finished and I would have been non nil pay.

So not unusual not to have 13.5 whole months off!!

@mrsbadcrumble i have said that financially we cant afford it and people just say "oh you make it work" or "no one has any money when they have kids" but dont seem to understand it would be a real struggle. I suppose we could make it work but it would be very, very difficult. Perhaps others just take out loans/credit cards and we are weird for not wanting to

I had to go back to work when DC1 was 5 months. His dad worked shifts and financially I had no choice. DC2 i had 11 months of and it was great. DC3 was a total surprise and I went back when he was 8 weeks old one day a week. DH was home with the 3 kids that day. It was fine and financially me working that day a week made the difference between us doing ok and ending up in debt. I didn't want to but it was fine and he is now a happy, health, loving 3 year old.
Financially you have to do what you have to do to pay the bills.

Very odd to get that response, in my opinion. Also I always thought you can extend mat leave with the appropriate amount of notice? That's what most of my colleagues have done, planned to take 9 months and then extended. Your colleagues have obv been in fortunate financial position to have all that time off.

Ha I react the opposite way when people tell me they’re taking a year. I would never say anything but I am pretty sure my face says “reallyyyyy are you sure you want a whole year?”. I did 7 months and I was absolutely done by then. Admittedly covid impacted it but I’m doing the same now with no2. We’re all different, do what is right for you.

I don’t think it’s unusual at all, I know a lot of mums who have just taken 9-10 months of mat leave. I felt a bit guilty sending my little one off to nursery but I probably would have felt that no matter what age they were! And honestly once I got into the routine of going back to work I was quite glad to have a bit of my old life back.