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?

BTW DD1 has been in full-time (10am - 4pm)nursery since she was 2 and DD2, now 9 mo, will start at 2 as well, so since there's exactly 3 yrs between them it'll be a total of 5 yrs off although i did work the year in the middle after DD1 started nursery and i was preg with DD2...It seems a lot but it passes so quickly, only another year and 3 months to go!
If i had a cut-throat job in a competitive sector and lots of cash perhaps i'd have employed a nanny after the first 10 months. But i still think spending a lot of (hopefully quality) time with LOs is an investment in their health and happiness, sorry.

a year.

any more than that and i'd be way out of the loop at work. i took 10 months with dd, that was when it was 6 months paid. any less than that i don't think i would have been able to bf as long as i did (8.5 months), and i wouldn't have wanted to leave dd in any sort of childcare any younger. my annual bonus saw us through the unpaid and £100 a week bit. i made sure i went to work for a family friendly company before we had dd, so i can do flexible hours, have good benefits, bonuses etc.

Malaleche & Xenia - personally I think qualifications aren't always relevant. I stayed in education, I've got A-levels and a degree, but they're irrelevant in every job I've done.
As for being able to look ahead I went to uni because from being 7 years old I wanted to be a teacher. When I was 20 and about to apply for a PGCE I decided to delay it for a year and get a job in the real world before spending the whole of my life in education. I've never looked back.

The best thing university did for me (as well as teaching me to be independent and meeting DP) was to give me the opportunity to do voluntary work in the same field as I currently work. It's frustrating though that I could have got this job at 16 and by now I'd be earning far more. Instead I'm having to do NVQ's to even be considered for management level.

b, good points. You don't need qualifications for lots of businesses of course. A lot of parents know that overall those with the better qualifications then to do better than those who leave shcool at 16 with non, however, on average.It's like being an actress or professional footballer - yes, you can make a huge fortune but most people don't; whereas some jobs like say accountant most of those earn more than the average road sweeper or shop girl. So you can apply averages but accept there are exceptions - the road sweeper who goes on to own the biggest recycling company in the UK etc. He's usually the brightest roadsweeper in his area.

What troubles me is people the age of my older children doing a degree in some fairly useless subject (career wise) leaving at 21 or 22 with £20k of debt and getting the job they could have got at 16 as personal assistance to Mr XYZ.

University to enhance career prospects might well be a waste of time. BUT if you enjoy learning, do a degree. If you want time and space to work out want you want to do, do a degree. If you want to leave professional careers open, do a degree. All roads lead to degrees.

In fact, Xenia, when you went to university, probably around 12% of the population did degrees, well over half of those at polytechnics. Degrees did have some rarity value. But with around 40% of the population now having a degree, it has become a new benchmark.

Ideally, you say....about 2 weeks.Providing all is medically ok, I am raring to get back into my normal routine by then.It is what I am planning to do with DC6.

I know degrees increase future income and can be a good staging post between work and home and yes they're a new entry level barrier for some jobs that previously would have taken on the pleasant 16 year old typist who had all her certificates but children do need to think about the debt they can incur and if those clear advantages you set out apply to them, that's all.

Ideally - I'd have liked to be able to wake up & see whether i was in the mood towork or stay home with dd. some days i want to get to work & have loads of ideas, other days i'm tired (so's she) and a quiet day at home, just getting things done & seeing some friends would be a lovely rest, but after a few days i's be bored with it.
so, does anyone know of a career where i can just pop in & out as and when i choose?

seriuosly - i went back when dd was 4 months. i started on 3 days a week then went ft after a month, just so i could ease myself back in. problem was, although mentally i was ready for work, physically my immune system was wiped out (bad pregnancy, lots of operations & ill after dd born) so i was off sick LOADS, e.g. in for one day, then signed off for 2 weeks. it would have been better for my work if i'd stayed home a bit longer until i was better.

I think in norway they get a year and it can be spilt with mom and dad. Its a great family country. about like 99% breast feed and every restaurant has a facility for moms and babys near the restrooms

That's what Blair is introducing in 2009 I think - can be 6 months mother and 6 months father. I believe Norway does cap the salary though, so if you're on say £150k a year you don't get that in your year off.

I still think that if you're bfeeding and want to do it exclusively till 6 months and continue to a year then the option of 8 or 9 months for the mother would be my ideal.

You CAN breastfeed and work...I have done it with all 5.....why do people persist in saying,' if you want to breastfeed you have to be on leave/sahm...not true.

I'm lazy. I like to do one thing at a time.

Most women are good at multi-tasking malaleche....

I'm a bit sick of multi-tasking to be honest (and do far more of it at home than at work) but mostly just out of the habit of 'work'...

Shame.

I wasn't well enough after any of the births to be fit enough to be back at work after a fortnight (all three different experiences/conditions).

And alhtough I did carry on breastfeeding after I returned to work, I didn't work in the kind of job/career where baby could be bought to me whenever they needed feeding at that age.

DS2 in particular needed far more attention with regard to feeding than a working mother could have given him in his first few weeks.

What was so luxurious with the twins and my working from home then was I could do the feeds which I really enjoy and then hand them back to the nanny to change, comfort, clear sick off clothes etc. Sometimes they wouldn't settle and wanted another feed and I'd continue but it was much easier and also easier than expressing.

Anyway parents differ as to when they want to get back to work.

mozhe - have the feeling you were itching to complete that with '...on you'

Have just worked out how much time off work I am due in 'compensation' for lost weekends after working a 7-day week for 13 years - 3 years and 9 months....

Actually, what I'd really like to do is study.

If you can take a job which has a studying element (mine does) then that's the best of all worlds. Not easy to study with babies around at home.