MNHQ here: We want to know all about your return to work experience.

[PeggyMumsnet]

Hi Mumsnetters,

Our Planning team is currently doing some research for a potential partnership and we wanted to know about your returning to work experiences.

Getting back to work after maternity leave can be an emotional rollercoaster, whether it’s your first, second or tenth baby.

For some of us, returning to work is an exciting opportunity to drink a hot cup of tea, have grown-up conversations and feel vaguely like our old selves again. For others it can be a much harder transition. Many of us feel the pressure of new deadlines, financial burdens, the ‘mum guilt’ of leaving the kids at nursery, and the overwhelming sense that you can’t do everything at once. It’s important to remember, you’re not alone.

But even though being a working parent is challenging at times, it can also be filled with comedy gold moments that make the hard times easier - you might even look back, years later, after several nights of unbroken sleep and laugh about it. Yes, even that time you stayed up until midnight to make a costume for Dress Like a Pharaoh Day because you only found out about it on the train home. (Schools send a LOT of emails, in your defence.)

We want to hear your stories about the funny side of juggling kids, a career and a social life - cos if you don’t laugh you’ll cry right?

From the unfortunate baby items you pull out of your bag in meetings, to sneaking in some shut-eye during your lunch hour or your kids merrily dancing their way into your zoom background - we want to know your experiences.

Thanks!
MNHQ

@MintJulia

I returned to work after mat leave to be 'made redundant' first morning. My employer of 4 years had given my job and my team to the new sales director's wife. I was the only redundancy. They then threatened me for 10 months while I brought an unfair dismissal case, said they'd make sure I'd never work in the industry again. I'd had a problem free pregnancy, hadn't been off sick at all, had my antenatal appts outside work hours etc. I hadn't missed a target or dropped a beat. They finally paid me a year's salary the week before the tribunal date. Made me sign a non-disclosure agreement. This is a company that supplies local govt and nhs.

I was only able to fight them because I had family legal insurance which paid for an employment solicitor and a barrister. £15 on my house insurance saved me £60,000. No legal aid is available for such cases.
Now every time I hear someone is pregnant or trying for a baby, I tell them to check they have legal insurance first. It really should be on the mumsnet checklist.

Thank you! Didn't even know legal insurance was a thing I'll have to look it up

What really got to me at the time was the fact that my job had changed but the "changes" weren't something particularly obvious that I could've complained about. I knew they'd be able to say "well you're only here 3 days a week so it's not the best use of your time to do x,y,z"

Well, this thread is noticeably absent the 'comedy gold' moments that MNHQ were making up in their heads.

It's almost like women really want to talk about sex-based discrimination. And actually not find that discrimination a hilarious thing to discuss.

MintJulia makes a good point - a lot of people will not have the financial ability to do anything about discrimination. And that's before you even get to the emotional toll of taking a company to court when very vulnerable and often exhausted (during or post pregnancy)

Spent a week just crying in toilets on my return, I'd just lost a pregnancy, my manager kept telling me how much easier his life would be if I quit and he could hire a FT childless person.

1st baby I returned to get my long overdue promotion (I’d effectively been doing the job before I left anyway) to be told by massively sexist Line Manager that “you’re a mum now, you shouldn’t be looking for a promotion “. I promptly resigned and had to pay back all my mat pay. Bastards.

Me too - although I wasn't smart enough to resign and was bullied out a year later. I still haven't forgiven them.

How about the time that I was told I needed to work away from home 4 nights per week when my DS was 18 months. When I said that I didn't want to be away for that long/every week I was told "that's not our problem". That was the catalyst for them bullying me out.

(The norm in my role is 3-4 nights away a month, which I was prepared to do).

I dropped to 4 days a week after having children (one who was extremely poor & continues to need extra support). The MD refused to give me a pay rise/promotion because he thought "part-timers were too costly" and he "didn't want to encourage them" (me).

I left but it took a lot of doing as my confidence had been completely eroded.

Not exactly about return to work after maternity leave, but my 7 year career as a midwife ended when my manager bullied me out because I had a miscarriage at 13 weeks (had to go to theatre to have a d and c after a truly awful day and night on the gynae ward) and took a few days off work. I had let the team down and was unprofessional apparently.

Yeah the first time my team had been slashed from 20 to 3. I was defacto denoted from senior management to being back on the job. Then made redundant within a year of being back. Second time around, the job has been fine but the nursery has closed for 8 days in my first month and I'm close to a break down trying to juggle a new very senior job and caring for two pre schoolers. Basically ime it's a shit show.

@longagonow

Not exactly about return to work after maternity leave, but my 7 year career as a midwife ended when my manager bullied me out because I had a miscarriage at 13 weeks (had to go to theatre to have a d and c after a truly awful day and night on the gynae ward) and took a few days off work. I had let the team down and was unprofessional apparently.

This is shocking. How on earth was your manager deemed fit to run a service for pregnant women if they couldn't support a team member after a miscarriage? Sorry for your loss and sorry such an awful thing happened to you. How horrific.

Typical NHS in the 80s. I understand it is not much better now.

While on maternity leave my HQ decided I needed to cut the office overheads. There was nothing to cut so I suggested I drop to a four day week, reducing my salary by 20 per cent. I did the same job. When I returned to work my baby was still waking multiple times in the night. It was shit. Fun times.

Gosh, it is a barrel of laughs being a biological woman isn't it.

My DC are older now but I don’t remember anything funny about it. In those days we got 6 months maternity leave so I remember dropping 5.5 month old babies at nursery at stupid o’clock in the morning and then doing long commutes. I remember stressing about how I’d stop breastfeeding and get them onto the bottle because there were no facilities or legal rights to express, I remember trying to get by on tiny amounts of sleep with a baby and a toddler, having absolutely no money after we’d paid nursery fees, worrying about how we were going to cover their illnesses without family to help, how we were going to afford extra nursery days if we were needed at meetings. I remember feeling completely and utterly isolated and lonely - we’d just moved to a new area and I knew no-one.

You couldn’t pay me to go back to those days. I split my sides whenever I think back to them. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Sorry no funny stories to add. Only stories of exhaustion, and constantly feeling like I am failing my dc. Got made redundant whilst pregnant. Dd 2 used to cry that much on the way to nursery she would vomit, all over herself, car seat and sometimes me. I would then cry most of the way to work. Now they are at school there is always something I miss or forget to do. The whole school set up assumes there is a stay at home parent. If we could afford it I would be a stay at home mum in a heartbeat.

We never get those years back. Caring for children is just not valued in our society. People who care for children and elderly people are the lowest paid. Our values are all wrong.

Long time ago for me but still impacting my life today. Had to give up studying (post grad) due to pressure from the university afraid I'd drop out now I had a baby. Took a job similar to my preferred career but not quite right, because they offered part time and had no childcare. Got written off for several developmental and career enhancing opportunities due to being part time.
Second BA at and was made to feel guilty as I'd only been there two years: was asked if it was planned.
Had a variety of hard part time jobs where I busted a gut to prove myself whilst caring for three children.
Now have a sh*t pension and regret some of my decisions

This thread has disappeared from active conversations. I wonder why?

Gosh, it is a barrel of laughs being a biological woman isn't it.
This. I’m not being too right on here but I get rather cross when being a woman is considered to be the donning of a frock, and as someone on another thread noted,giving your dress a name and proudly showing off your matching knickers. I’m not sure there would be quite such interest if it involved having a midwife shove her entire arm up you to manually massage clots out, without anaesthetic. Then tripping off to the office after a sleepless night involving sick and poo. Grumble grumble.

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@endofthelinefinally

We never get those years back. Caring for children is just not valued in our society. People who care for children and elderly people are the lowest paid. Our values are all wrong.

Yes this is so true. I've lived in a country where it was better - SAHMs valued, children valued, childcare workers paid properly and trained properly.

Here - Mothers aren't valued, children aren't valued and mothers are routinely discriminated against in the workplace as this thread shows. I know a shocking number of women who were made redundant after mat leave. Childcare is not properly funded either.

Pretty much no postnatal support for women no matter when or whether they return to work.

Truly the stuff of 'comedy gold' according to MNHQ.

@Cleanbedlinen12

Gosh, it is a barrel of laughs being a biological woman isn't it. This. I’m not being too right on here but I get rather cross when being a woman is considered to be the donning of a frock, and as someone on another thread noted,giving your dress a name and proudly showing off your matching knickers. I’m not sure there would be quite such interest if it involved having a midwife shove her entire arm up you to manually massage clots out, without anaesthetic. Then tripping off to the office after a sleepless night involving sick and poo. Grumble grumble.

Agree 100%

Thanks theemporerhasnoclothes

In a way I’m relieved, and of course sad, to read of these terrible experiences. I honestly thought I was the only one and everyone else seemed to be coping. We all suffer in silence, even in front of each other. I am forever grateful I was lucky enough to stick two fingers up at the lot of it, get off the crazy merry go round and stay with my children. Got lots of hate for it at the time, unbelievable. Maybe someone should start a true thread about the misery of leaving your babies and the disgusting way some of you have been treated.