Advantages of Going Back to Work Early

[Judy1234]

Coming out of several other threads this is interesting. As I said elsewhere with my first child I went back to work after 2 weeks. I always work up until I went into labour. I think the longest I took off was 5 week with any of the 5. You don't often get parents writing about returning to work quickly so I thought just setting out some of the advantages might be helpful for those who can't decide how much time to take off at home. I don't want this to be seen as me saying all parents should both be back at their desks within 2 weeks however; just food for thought particularly with the new paternity leave rights coming in next April.

1. The baby does not have a huge wrench when you suddenly return at 6 months or a year. At 2 weeks she can get used to her good childcare from the father, relative, nanny or whatever so has continuity and no shock to the system of a later return.

1. You don't have time to get out of the swing of work so it's all less disrupting to your life.

1. You can establish a breastmilk expressing system early on without worrying about how to manage breastfeeding when going back at 3 months.

1. Both parents are equally as involved with the children. The pattern at home isn't established that the mother does everything to do with the baby. The mother isn't better than the father at child things. You may get a more involved husband.

1. You only lose 10% of pay in the few weeks you take off.

1. You don't lose touch with work, lose promotion, position etc.

1. If I'm allowed say it, being at home with babies can be boring (not for everyone, I know) so you can skip all that and concentrate on the fun cuddles bit.

1. You inconvenience an employer or your customers less. No one will like me for saying this but in the real world fathers and mothers taking leave is hard to manage. I can say this having had to manage maternity leave for two of my nannies over the years.

1. You may find the physical recovery from birth easier in an office than managing small children and domestic work at home with heavy lifting, toddlers who kick you, heavy rubbish to put out, floors to scrub etc.I certainly found sitting still at a desk, time to rest, relax, get drinks at my leisure helped me get back to normal. Dressing in office clothes too helps get you back to being your normal self. I loved leaving behind the clothes at home covered in baby sick etc.

10. Sometimes it aids mental health particularly if you hate being home with a baby.

"I'm interested in this natural v cultural thing. Let's look at why more women in Scandinavia and France so back to work, want to get their figures back, look sexy and pretty earlier, want their selves and lives back quicker which is something I felt too but many UK mothers don't who are happy to fall into domesticity and childcare"

I think you answered your own question further on in this thread. France and Scandanavian countries have more family-friendly policies. It's normal for women in Sweden and Norway to take a year's maternity leave. I believe the full year is paid (not sure on the % but I think it is high) France are trying to raise their birthrate, especially within the middle-classes. Not only is childcare highly subsidised but mothers and fathers are discouraged from working long hours and expected to participate in family life.

As for UK mothers preferring domesticity and childcare to looking pretty and regaining their figures - I think you made that bit up

May be but see the many threads about lack of sex and how many threads are about weight perhaps to back up that point.... We are fatter than the French, a lot. To be non sexist French men are much better looking and dressed too.

We won't on this thread solve the mother love is best thing. I think children do not on the whole grow up unloved and dysfunctional because their parents both work. Others won't agree. Some would say it's cruel not to sleep with young children. My sister slept with hers until they were 5, flesh on flesh and that parting at night is cruel and wrong and shows a lack of love so we all draw our own lines.

If both parents had six months each on full pay, not swappable between parents in the first year and then good childcare at £2000 a year I bet we'd be like Scandinavia and France. I'm not sure I'd like to pay the tax for that though.

"May be but see the many threads about lack of sex and how many threads are about weight perhaps to back up that point.."

I know, but it's a message board. People who are happy with their weight and sex life aren't going to bother telling people about it. People who are having problems are going to seek out help and support.

Xenia: "Why would the English love it and the French be keen to get back to work? The English have been known for generations to prefer animals to children, to pack children away etc whereas the Continentals love them and have them about them at evening means - strange contrast. The country that isn't too keen on children has the SAHMs and the countries that love children have more working mothers. "

Xenia, I think you make an assumption in the above copied post that the English culture of "pack[ing] children away, etc." equates to the English having less love for their children. I don't think this is true. The Engliash are a more formal and reserved bunch than the French and this shows in their child rearing methods. But, it does not mean they love their children any less -- just as women who go back to work full time very eaarly also don't love their children less.

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I think that although subsidised childcare is a huge difference, it is likely that the general ethos of "work to live" not "live to work" that enables families to both work and retain a sense of family.

I also believe that many more women would be working here if they weren't made redundant while pregnant. I cannot count the number of highly paid women I know who have been made redundant when they tell their employer they are pregnant (or shortly afterwards). Once out of the workforce, it is much less likely that a woman will go back, having lost the valued job that Xenia has benefitted from.

In addition, the sense of community has been all but lost here. When most working women leave their children in a nursery, they are leaving them with total strangers.

Pitchounette, if we are talking about young children then I would 1- say that isn't very common today and 2- I agree. I'm actually a fan of boarding school if we are talking about teen agers. But, not for 6 year olds.

QuietlyMad, when I told my boss I was pregnant I did it with a formal letter because there were redundancies going on all around me and he could easily have justified it, and so long as he knew I was pregnant, I wanted to be able to prove he knew. Whenever someone asks me for advice about maternity rights, I always tell them to make the notification in writing so it can be proved if needed. They usually think I'm a tad paranoid. But, then I would like to learn the hard way that I was right.

Pit...I like the sound of all that. Very interesting. That fits with how I am. I should have been French then.

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Interesting if cheap childcare and poor maternity rights lead to happy slim well dressed mothers trotting off to work without guilt. Mothers did go back in WWII when childcare was provided and they were told it was the best thing to do. Many found they loved it and didn't want to get back into the home.

I certainly understand the parting from children feelings and like everyone, even adults without children my age who have elderly parents (some of us have both at once - parents and children) and even dogs that need us, all adults are pulled in various directions. It's not a female thing or just something that people with children feel. I'm constantly pulled between the needs of two customers as many people are at work. But I never felt that pull to home was so strong it would prevent my going back to work.

Cultural/national differences are fascinating. I don't know how many Japanese women manage to tolerate the sexism in their society for a start but they do.

Santa "I also believe that many more women would be working here if they weren't made redundant while pregnant. "

Surely not these days. I work in a very large well known company. If that happened there would be outrage - in the press etc etc.....

Ps I myself am pregnant at the moment. They are not even allowed to question you when you are off sick due to pregnancy these days. Ie yes they ask the normal questions, but there is absolutely no procedure in place, you are sick, left alone and that is that. No further action.

ORus, I believe that when they make you redundant because you are pregnant, they don't tell you that pregnancy is the reason.

When I was pregnant the first time I was working contract and due to go staff. I told my boss I was pregnant and in the very same conversation he told me that he would be able to ake me on staff as previously discussed because he could not take someone on knowing they were pregnant. This is terrible and illegal, but I didn't have any ground to stand on. I put up with it. And I went staff after my whopping 2 weeks of maternity leave (I returned because I needed the money I wasn't getting because I wasn't staff).

So, I believe things like this still happen.

Meant to say...

"he told me that he would not be able to take me on staff as previously discussed "

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ORU, you obviously work for an enlightened organisation, with probably a robust HR dept. So do I, and they would be absolutely horrified to think about this.

However, i cannot count the number of times I have been in conversation with a SAHM and she is out of work because of being made redundant or contract not extended, whatever. In all cases when I have asked why they didn't pursue it, it would be because they couldn't prove it was because they were pg, or because they couldn't afford the legal fees.

Some were fatalistic about it - meant to happen etc. Most were peed off and some were tempted to dispute, but it is widespread.

"Interesting if cheap childcare and poor maternity rights lead to happy slim well dressed mothers trotting off to work without guilt"

I think you're putting 2 + 2 together and making 5 here

And we only have Pitchounette's viewpoint that French mothers don't feel guilty going back to work full-time whilst putting their babies in childcare at 3 months old. There may be a French messgaeboard out there where working mothers are screaming "I feel guilty!"

Perhaps you're right that the cultural norm is to go back to work hence fewer mums feel guilty. Or perhaps working mothers in the UK don't feel as guilty as you suspect. Who knows. We only have Mumsnet and idiotic newspaper articles to go on.

None of my working friends have ever used the 'Guilt' word. They talk about being over-busy. Not having enough time to do what needs to be done at home. They have a feeling of their feet not touching the ground as they rush about from home to nursery to work to nursery to home. They get stressed when their child is ill and they have to take time off.

I myself gave up work partly for that reason. I couldn't fit the demands of work, homelife, studying and children into my week. Work always had to come first it seemed, which saddened me. But I never felt guilty about leaving my baby in a nursery (p/t) because I was lucky to find a good nursery and my dd appeared to be favoured by one of the babyroom staff. I knew she was never short of attention and cuddles.

Perhaps the SAHM type which Xenia has most condemnation for is scarce. She sounds like a caricature. IME there aren't hoards of women who have chosen to be perpetual SAHM's simply because they cannot bare to be parted from their children or feel too much guilt doing so. For some, work did not fit in with their commitments at home. Some lost their jobs. Some couldn't find childcare to match their hours of work. Some cannot afford childcare for more than one child. But even if someone is a SAHM because they want to be their child's main carer, so what?

There aren't many women in this country who are the perpetual SAHM-types. Most women will return to some kind of paid work, once their children are in school and those who don't (which I think is a minority group) probably devote some of their time to voluntary work, which, IMO, shouldn't be belittled.

Xenia, why don't you go and look for some stats which show how many women do return to work after having children. I think you may be suprised.

Ad, a bit busy to look for states but loads of women go back to work now, many many more than when I returned to work in 1984. It's all getting a lot better and easier as things always do. 200 years ago we'd have been lucky if our children lived to age 5 and many of us would have died in childbirth.

I still don't understand why it's the women who feel pulled and why they choose to do so much at home when they work and their husbands work, why they accept that unfairness. Of if it's fair at home why the men aren't giving up work just as much,men who also have domestic duties, washing to do, meals to cook, family admin to organise, schools to choose.

By the way I do not have contempt for parents who stay at home. I can accept we live in a country where all kinds of lifestyles are tolerated. If I chose to enter a convent of contemplative nuns whose sole role was prayer cut off from the world I have that right. I wouldn't go round saying they ought to be contributing to the economy (as long as I'm not subsidising them I suppose). That would of course shut me up so may be that should be the future life path. You get to live rent free for life too.

Xenia - I think that the fathers of these partuicular friends probably do feel pulled between work and domestic commitments as well. They just don't talk about it to their mates

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The only time my DH feels pulled between work and home commitments is when I specifically ask (or "nag") him to take on a particular domestic chore. Otherwise it doesn't occur to him. And he is so much better than he used to be. When I was pregnant with our first child he swore he wouldn't be seen in public pushing no girly pram. So, I chose a nice blue and tan manly looking one.

At least some men (I suspect a lot of them) still think childcare is women's work. There is incidentally some balance in our house because in return for picking up more of the childcare, I must admit I do leave him with some other less desirable chores (like the dishes and the laundry).

Uwila - is your Dp one of those men who walk along and push the pram with one hand? As if it's not really theirs. Those men always make me laugh when I see them.

LOL. No, don't think he does that. But, I'm going to check and report back. He has improved over the last 4 years. So, I have to give him some credit.

Yes, it should never be men helping, men given credit of praise because they "help". It should be given they do 50% and odn't marry men who aren't like that. In that way we irradicate sexism. My tolerating it women make the lives of their daughters harder.