If money was no object how long would you like maternity leave to last?

[Malaleche]

If the gov. paid you 100% of your lost income while you were on maternity leave how many weeks or months or years would you take?

You never say that to men. Go forth and make those comments to as many men as to women and then I'll take them seriously. You can adore your chidlren and I would never have had five if I didn't love children, whilst being happy with 2 hours a day with them. It's a silly point that you somehow don't want them or might not have managed to have them or it's some kind of sacrificial martyr on the cross type of suffering for women that you "give up" something you like like work etc for the chidlren, a sacrifice men don't make. NO one really thinks like that in 2007. You do what is best for your children and family and yourself and most parents balance that out fine but there is no God given rule book in the sky which says child with mother 24 hours a day until it's 3 equals happy life and parents back at work quickly equals psychologically damaged child.

I do enjoy spending time with the children, probably as much as most of your husbands do, those that work full time but that doesn't mean I want to be their childcarer for 5 solid years. That's hugely dull and even women at home who can afford it often get help with that all over the world and at all times in history, not surprisingly.

Work permitting, my DH spends probably more time with our children than I do.

It's a fact though, that DH earns double what I do, (fte), and that is never likely to change. He's always earned more than me, always will do. We fell in love with each other - not the amount of money we earned!

You have a valid argument Xenia, to a point, but the vast majority of us don't have the luxury of being in the position of choosing. In my RL, most parents work because they have to, and if both don't, then it makes sense for the one earning the most money to be the one that works, again in my RL that's usually the men.

And what exactly is wrong with any mother wanting to spend time with their babies, if that's what they want to do? (or fathers if the circumstances are right?)

Ho hum another bun fight (BLW, Breast or Bottle, SAHM or WOHM...)
Have to say I'm with Xenia on this one and am finding that over the past week or so I've agreed with her on quite a few threads .
What none of you have mentioned is that it makes a BIG difference how many kids you have, what the age gaps are etc. We chose to have two close together (16m) but nothing prepared me for how hard it would be with no family support (and section 2nd time) so I was very glad to go back to work. Xenia has 5 so unless you have looked after 5 kids and been blissfully happy doing it, then who are we to comment when, as she says, we all do what is best for us and our families.
And fwiw I ADORE MY BOYS.

If money was no object to who, though?

because it would be great to spend the reast of my life on 100% pay etc - but I would be doing that at the expense of those who are still working.

If you mean - if the government had unlimited funds for maternity, and taxes would not rise, then I would stay at home until teenage years - or at least have that option.

I didn't say it was wrong. It's the comments - why have chidlren if as a woman but presumably not as a man, you go back to work? That's what is to my mind a silly comment. I could retort why bother doing GCSEs, A levels, a degree and hard work in your 20s if you're just going to stay home and wipe bottoms. You can love your children but not want to be with them all the time.

Just reading the Sunday Times magazine, some TV person who abandons his wife and 4 children every week all week, she runs a business from home. He says it's not easy for her but she minds my not being there a lot less since I'm finally earning some money. In relationships mnoey really helps - he says. Your parnter says to you - you know what sweetheart?> I don't mind you being away 4 days a week as lnong as you're bring a load of cash home" When he's not earning much but away she doesn't like it.

You know what i feel the problem is? It's that my choices are incompatible with each other, and some other things are not within my power to change, at present.

I chose to bfeed, i choose not to express and store milk, so i have to be more or less on call for the first 8,9,10 months of my baby's life.
I would prefer to be working part-time but bfeeding my DC and looking after her myself is more important to me. (And I'll bet given the choice she would prefer to be looked after at home by me and breastfed than given bottles by a stranger at a nursery).
I would prefer to have a job i enjoy but i dont and i cant change it right now (im self-employed)so if the choice is SAHM or boring crap job then i take the SAHM. Even tho there are many, many days when being a SAHM is boring and crap too.

I feel we've been sold the idea that we can have it all (and all at the same time)but the truth is we can't. It's good that we have more and more choice but it's still not possible to have it all, be it all and do it all.

In a dream world - forever.

In the real world, I think 4 months full pay, 8 months SMP (only I would raise SMP to £200 a week) and the right to return to the same job within 2 years of the birth would be ideal.

Entitlement to be available to either/both parents for them to split concurrently or consecutively as they see fit.

i get 6 months full pay. would love 12 months full pay though I think my relationship with ds would benefit, he spends more quality time with his granny than me now I've gone back to work.

3 months.

I had eight months off and was really quite bored by the end of it but hung on so that I was off for Christmas and New Year as I didn't want to have to work crappy shifts over the holidays.

I work full-time now and so far it's working pretty well although life's a bit hectic and sometimes I feel that 0.8wte would be easier but that's not really an option at the moment.

You can have it all if you do what sensible girls do when they're 14 years old. They pick careers where they earn a lot, enjoy the work and can afford good people to help them with dull domestic chores. It's something you can cure with your daughters by letting them know career choice X means you can't do Y and career choice Z means you can. Women have this power to be wise but many choose not to be so.

I agree Xenia - there are elements of my career that aren't necessarily something that comes naturally to me but I do enjoy my job and picked it as it was financially rewarding (for the reasons you stated), relatively secure and allowed some flexibility.

Having grown up with a mother who didnt have that luxury of financial security in her career - it was not something that I wanted for myself.

My sister chooose something that was what she wanted to do but doesnt have such financial rewards - thats fine but I do find it irritating that she now complains about this (it wasn't as if she didn't know this or what the financial consequences would be)

'My sister chooose something that was what she wanted to do but doesnt have such financial rewards - thats fine but I do find it irritating that she now complains about this (it wasn't as if she didn't know this or what the financial consequences would be) '

How ridiculous. So people who choose careers such as nursing, teaching, police officers and fire service for example should just shut up and put up.

It's a bloody good job we're not all just driven by ££££ isn't it?!

When we were teenagers our father drove us to school every day in the car. He always said pick work you enjoy first and foremost but we definitely did talk about incomes a little bit. My sister's job, psychologist is not quite so well paid as my brother's and mine but it was a wise and interesting choice and when she had her children on her own she was able to start to work for herself, sets her own hours, charges £80 an hour or whatever psychologists charge etc. I think with my chidlren I will definitely want them to pick something where they can ultimately run it as their own business or be self employed. It's lack of control over your life which most makes people unhappy, having to do what the horrible boss tells you etc. My father was partly self employed. His father was. I am. My brother is a little bit in some of the work he does. Also you keep all your profits rather than 2 hours unpaid overtime lines someone else's pocket.

forever

I'll let you know once I get there!
My company only pays the absolute minimum laid down by law, the tight bastards. One of my colleagues due to go on leave has written to our HR dept. to complain. She's been with the company 11 years, myself nearly 7 and we still only get the basic, despite the fact we are in pretty keen positions in what is a pretty male dominated company in a very male dominated company. Still, DH and I are determine I'm having the full 9 months off evem if it means money will be tight for a while.
It's a shame that it won't be until 2009 that you can transfer ML onto your partner - we would have jumped at the chance to do that especially as I earn slightly more than he does.

'It's lack of control over your life which most makes people unhappy, having to do what the horrible boss tells you etc'

Well I agree with that - that's why I can't see myself being 'employed' again. I pick and choose my work, do what I want to do and don't do what I don't. Charge a decent daily rate so earn a decent full time salary by doing work in my 'spare' time and still doing everything I want with the kids.

I didn't plan that from 14 though. I did what I found interesting, worked hard, did well at work and was lucky enough to find my old employer more than happy to keep me busy in a freelance capacity. I'm lucky though.

I wasn't arguing against going back to work Xenia, I went back to work, but I accept wholeheartedly the concept that some parents want to remain at home, whether it be mum or dad. It's often practical reasons that means mum stays at home.

The majority of people in my local area earn little more than the minimum wage - both men and women, but I guess that's a whole different topic.

Let's just say I appreciate the fact that both DH and myself are on national payscales in a low cost of living area, but really finances aren't the beall and endall for a lot of people.

I personally feel that no matter how many people you have working for you doing the dull stuff, you're not having it all if you go back to work very soon after the baby is born. Lots of parents (including dads) don't consider hands-on child-rearing to be dull.

Forever.

I love my job, but I love being at home more. If I got bored and was missing my job I'd probably do voluntary work in the same field instead.

People just disagree. Many a father and some mothers are keen to get back soon to work and I found that was having it all for me. I did find having the twins and working at home who were brought to me for breastfeeds the best of all worlds and easier than in my early 20s commuting and expressing but that was a small price to pay over a 40 year career/adult life and not something I regret at all. It's just a nuisance to express.

The other traditional route for girls is forget all the exams and career and lassoo the rich man who keeps you in comfort but I find that morally reprehensible.

Two different questions.

1. If money were no object at all, I would stay off work forever, get a nanny for the time off and start my own business doing something interesting. Some kind of design business in the style of Cath Kidston, Caroline zoob, Diarmid Gavin etc.

2. Bearing in mind mine and my husband's salaries (probably wrong punctuation, can't be bothered to think about it), how long would I stay off on maternity leave ideally. Probably less than a year. I think unless I could afford some kind of decent childcare, I would get cabin fever looking after the children forever.

It never ceases to amaze me how much easier it is going to work (even in a tough job) than it is doing the domestic grind.

Sometimes I regret not being the sort of mother that can handle the stay at home role with pleasure, so anyone reading implied criticism into this would be mistaken. But you can only be the person you are, not try to live the life of someone different.

I have always thought that going out to work was the easy option. I KNOW I am right about that. But work keeps me sane, so what can I do?

Mala - rewind about two days - sorry why can't you have it all? You can if you want to. But it's tiring, I warn you.

xenia - what about people like me who weren't (academically) smart enough to get good grades? i dont know many 14 yo that can look that far ahead and plan their career so cooly...Having said that i think being smart in business is a great asset and hope my girls will turn out to be gifted that way.

quattro - tho i havent got it all, i feel quite fortunate in that im self-employed so i can pay someone else to do my job for me, except we had to re-locate last year and its not going too well for other reasons too. am looking at starting something new but too busy scraping poo off nappies at the mo...things are tight but i trust my ability to keep the cash flowing in the long run...

A year would have been ideal. I went back to work after 5 months and felt it was too soon. I had to go back full-time as I'm the main/only wage earner and I remember crying throughout the month before because I couldn't bear the thought of going back. Didn't take me long to adjust though, I must admit . A year would have been long enough for me to be racing back - 9 months even.