Minefield - OMG - Shared Parental Leave and Shared Parental Pay

[Taishan]

Little bit of a rant.

I am fortunate to earn almost double my husbands salary, which his is already quite good.

We are expecting our little one to join us around middle of January 2024.

My husband will be totally giving up his job, and will be the full time stay at home parent.
But before that, it looks like he can get 2 weeks paternity,

This suits me great, as I love my job, and he hates his.

I want to go back to work as soon as I really can.

From the government website, it looks like I can get 90% of my weekly earning for the the 2 compulsory weeks, and the following 4 weeks.
After that, my benefit is reduced to just £172.48 per week.
So it makes perfect sense to us, if I go back to work after 6 weeks, when my benefit is reduced from around £900 per week to just £172.48 per week.

Sadly my husbands benefit is maxed out at the government cap of £172.48

So if I go back to work after 2 weeks, and if I have read and understand correctly, my husband will always only get the £172,48 and we will lose £727.52 (£900.00 - £172.48) a week for the 4 weeks.
Total money lost 4 x £727.52 = £2910.08

It would be great if my husband could get the missing money somehow.

Looks like he will be eligible for 37 weeks shared parental leave at £172.48 a week.

Hi, at the moment, I like my job.
Fortunatly, even when my husband stops work, and me earning 90% of my salary makes no financial difference at all to us.
We are very financially secure.

Although can someone mid sixties look after a newborn full time?

most Mnetters love to say about how awful the post partum bit is and how they couldn't stand up let alone go to work but i felt fine, expressed milk at work and breast fed baby until she was 5 months

No-one ‘loves to say’ anything @Theredjellybean. There’s a high concentration of posters who had difficult recoveries from births here because MN is a source of support which can be lacking in real life. People don’t talk about birth injuries in real life. I fairly regularly get DMs on here from posters who have found my posts from up to ten years ago about my specific birth injuries and who are hoping to hear about an optimistic ending.

I’m genuinely pleased that you recovered relatively quickly from an instrumental birth and I equally hope that OP has a very straightforward time of it. I never want to be the person in the corner telling pregnant women awful horror stories but at the same time no-one ever warned me what might be in store and what my recovery might need to look like. OP clearly has her head screwed on and is making a good plan but it’s crucial to have contingencies in place for the possible outcomes, so please don’t imply that those urging caution are taking any pleasure in it. Thank you.

You have to talk the first two weeks off.

You cannot work during maternity leave (excluding the KIT days)

If you end your maternity leave, you cannot restart it.

At this point you have no idea what your birth or recovery will be like. I suggest you tell your boss you plan to take 12 weeks maternity leave. You can end you leave earlier if you want or need. This way your boss can plan for 12 weeks gone, you also have some time just in case you need it. From your work’s POV it’s much easier to shorten your leave than extend it.

Really though try not to underestimate what your body goes through and the recovery you need. I had a super easy birth with my second and was back doing the nursery run at 1 week. Physically I was grand, mentally though … those hormones can do a number on you for sure.

So confused as to why you wouldn't take six weeks off at 90% pay when it wouldn't even cause a financial hit, and would rather do a full time job for 10% more pay. Birthing a baby is huge, post partum recovery is huge. I fortunately didn't experience serious injury either time and my recovery was fairly smooth and quick, and even then I didn't do much apart from lie down for the first month. It's really important for a safe recovery that you rest. Please don't risk long term injury by doing too much too quickly.

You may be able to do some work from home in the first few weeks (I did a bit as a freelancer) but you will not want to be doing a full time job when you're recovering from giving birth and exhausted from caring for a baby day and night - even though you'll split it with your partner. Anyway, perhaps just wait and see how you feel. I'd hedge your bets and tell your boss you'll take the first six weeks off. People take longer holidays!

Going back to your original question - could you save some money now whilst you are both working (as you say your salary is enough to live on) and then take as long as you like - maybe 12 weeks, with you both at home? Then your husband could take over as planned.
You’d have 10 kit days or thereabouts so you could even still work one day a week after the initial two weeks if you really wanted to.

Hi Polly peep.
Your quite right.
6 weeks at 90% is the way to go.
Then the remainder to husband.
Makes so much more sense.
Thanks.

Hi all,
Here is some closure on my initial post.
My manager had a sit down chat with me, and explained that if I took all that time off, quite legally, then it would make things very difficult for the company.
He said, "while I am on the pay role, then its difficult for them to recruit for my specific role, for a short 9 month term"
He asked me to work out how much I would get over the 9 month period, ie stat payments, etc, and he will make an improved offer.
So sure enough I added up all the payments that would be due to me, and listed them all in a spreadsheet.
He looked through it all, and agreed, and said he could pay me all that plus a little bit more over a 3 month period. he would "let me go" under some "capabilities smoke screen"
I agreed.
I got over and above £££ if I had stretched it out over the 9 months.
Result.

So how long did you spend with your baby in the end? Did you feel as you expected (to want to go straight back to work)?

He let you go? Do you mean you no longer have your job?

`Let you go' on maternity?! Or sack you?! I'm struggling to see how he's some 'great boss'!

Your boss told you that your work was unwilling to accommodate your taking the maternity leave you're legally entitled to? I agree he really doesn't sound that super at all. How was that a 'result'??

I really can't stay at home more than 4 weeks, I really love my work.

You absolutely could have and should have. Why did you even bother having a baby you weren’t going to prioritise?

Why distress your baby like that? They don’t even know they’re a seperate person to you for many months.

So you've left your job that you love enough to go back to work after 2 weeks of having a baby?

You wouldn't take maternity leave, but have completely left?

Confused

Weird...

”Capabilities smokescreen”? You’re going to pretend to be incompetent for a modest payout? I find this bizarre. I work in a sector where any capability process has to be declared on future job applications and is a huge red mark against a candidate.

I should have said, this was written on behalf of my husband.
He is the full-time stay at home dad.
He let it be known to his manager, that he was going to take shared paternity leave.
No intention of ever going back to work ever again.
Because his manager couldn't recruit anyone else, so to keep the plant running, did a deal with my husband.
So his manager made it all work out for him, and got him a really good pay off.
About half a years full salary.
Hope that explains a little more.

So he is going to pretend to be incompetent?

Sorry Op, I am really not following this or your previous post. I'm lost!

This is getting more confusing