Maternity Leave

[StoneHenge]

Did anyone see the news item on GMTV this morning where a woman won her case against her employers for asking her to leave because she became pregnant?

The other women they were interviewing said she purposely does not emply women of child bareing age in case they decide to have a baby. There were a lot of texts sent in (anon surprise, surprise) that said why should employers foot the bill for women having children, women should expect to give up work to have kids, and taxpayers should not have to support them.

Others were saying they took career breaks to have children, but found it hard to get back into work, and that they had lost respect with their colleagues for having kids.

Do you think women should give up work if they have kids? I mean, we are the ones that have to have the babies if we choose to have children (men can't obviously). Should men give up their jobs to look after their kids so women can pursue their careers after children? Do you think there should be more benenfits to women being off whilst on maternity leave, or not pay them at all?

[Noise Stopper]

You should give up work, hand back the right to vote and take the washing down to the river and pound it with rocks! Dear god are we living in the 1700's or 2007? Sometimes I think the world is getting better, then something like this happens, I do genuinely despair at times. :doh:

Ian :nfh1:

[Planet 24]

ooooooh now you've opened up a can of worms...I can feel a Germaine Greer moment coming on :rolleyes:

[Annabel]

tbh, if i could have stayed at home when my daughter was little i would have done so, it would have been much better for us as a family if i had been able to do that. i had to make a lot of compromises that i really wish i hadnt had to do.

however, house prices being what they are, and the fact that we are all encouraged to aspire to owning our own homes and the cost of running a home (dont start me off about council tax :angry: ) means that for basic economic reasons there really isnt much choice but for woment to go out to work, and on that basis there should be no discrimination against them just because they get pregnant. not to mention that women have an immense amount to contribute to the economic well being of this society and even though i would have liked to have stayed at home for longer with my daughter, i am very proud to have worked all my adult life, never been unemployed and i really enjoy what i do and i think i give very good value for money to my company.

the more time the government gives woment off work and the more benefits they can get, is great as far as i am concerned, i had to go back to work when my daughter was 6 months old, that is way too young, if i had my way all woment should be allowed leave until their child is 2 years old, paid or unpaid doesnt really bother me as long as their employment is safeguarded.

[Planet 24]

My youngest son was 6 weeks old when I left him in the care of a full time live in Nanny.
I was lucky and could afford it. I don't regret it and I don't think it did him any harm, in fact he learnt how to be independent from an early age and to think for himself and it has stood him in good stead. When I had my children there was no maternity leave, you got pregnant, you left - that simple. If you wanted to go back to work you had to get another job somewhere else or if you were very lucky your employer would keep you in mind should you decide to come back at a later stage.
There wasnt even any child benefit in those days for the first child as there is today and when my second son came along the CB was the princely sum of £1 per week.

I think its up to each individual to decide whats best for them and what they need to do, not for others to judge in any way shape or form.

[Omega]

I expect there will be someone who will shoot me down but I have to say that I am of the old school; (my kids are 31 & 33) when we had children we gave up our jobs to look after them; it was our decision and the children were planned, yes we also made sacrifices. We never had the opportunity to have our job "held" open for us and we didn't get "maternity leave & pay" just a one off payment and then child benefit. We had to make ends meet because that was how it was.

I eventually went back to work when my boys were 12 & 14 starting with a job at a school so I was there for them; eventually after about 3 years I had worked my way up to a secretarial position similar to where I was when I left to have them :thumbs:

I strongly believe that if a woman falls pregnant their job should not be kept open for them to return. These jobs often advertised to people as "maternity cover" so the company then employs someone else to keep the "wheels" turning only to have to leave when the person whose job it was just walks straight back into her job!

With regards to benefits question Do you think there should be more benenfits to women being off whilst on maternity leave, or not pay them at all?[/b] IMO I do not believe there should be more benefits for these women, they have decided to have the child so they must have gone into the financial side of having a baby. I have read that women get 26 weeks paid maternity leave and then have the right to return to their job afterwards?

I don't think I should say anymore now :shutit:

[StoneHenge]

Interesting view points here.

They are going to introduce 9 months paid maternity leave now rather than the 26 weeks it is currently. My friend is taking full advantage of this. She worked full time before she got pregnant with her first son (who took a long time to get there), and then went back part time. Then she became pregnant with her second, and was off for her alloted time and went back part time again.

Now she is expecting her third (fingers crossed it all goes well), and she intends to take the 9 months off maternity pay and then not come back.

Some European countries pay full pay to mothers for a year.

Some employees who chose not to have children say it's not fair that women get paid for being off having had a baby, as what benefits do they get for not having a child?

I do think it's a dog eat dog world now, and it's difficult when you have both worked to then give up one salary to have children, but then as we all know having children is a huge responsibility to you both emotionally, physically and financially, and I think that you need to prepare for that when you decide to have them.

Just from my personal point of view, despite Mr S being the larger earner out of the both of us, we decided to do it the other way round. I would come back to work, and he would become a full time father. He got to leave a stressful job he had been in over 20 years, and got to do something a lot of dads don't, which is spending more time with their kids.

I do think we need to support mothers though, even if that is to safeguard their careers should they wish to come back to them. If this means that after 2 years they qualify to do a refresh for example in computer skills etc, then that would be good. So many women get worried they will be too 'out of the loop' having been off to bring up their kids that it would be nice to have them supported for when they do want to return to work.

I am not old school, so I don't believe it always has to be the mother that stays at home. Nice to have a parent, but that's a luxury some can't afford, so I think there should be more options for fathers to be allowed to leave and do the same thing to.

[Annabel]

Obviously I dont agree with your point of view Omega but I can appreciate it.

For me this issue is that a man would not have to make the decisions of carrying on working or not after the birth of their child and as I do believe that in the workplace men and women should be treated equally, it would not be acceptable to me that awoman would have to make a decision between having a kid or losing their job. society as a whole has decided that women shouldnt be disadvantaged and so legislation exists to protect women.

i can bet my life if it were a man who got pregnant, maternity/paternity leave would be a lot more generous!.

[quote]Some employees who chose not to have children say it's not fair that women get paid for being off having had a baby, as what benefits do they get for not having a child?[quote]

who's to say they wont be in that position one day themseves? people who say stuff like that are really just showing their ignorance, i think.

as to whether women should be working as much as they do and the impact this has had on family life in this country is almost a different discussion, and i am quite a bit more old fashioned when it comes to that!

[StoneHenge]

I wonder if modern medicine made it so either parent could carry a child and give birth (to a degree) whether any would be fathers would take on this role? Be interesting to see, although I know highly unlikely to ever happen of course.

Me having maternity leave gave me and Mr S the time to decide what we wanted to do in regards to:

1) Would I give up work
2) Would he give up work
3) Would we both continue to work and have a nursery for little one

We decided that because our daughter was at a pre and after school club already doing our hours, and hubby was in a stressful job he wasn't keen on carrying on, and despite the difference in earnings, we could manage, then it was easier for us to swap roles.

If we were very short of money, we would have both needed to have worked to provide for the kids. I think it would have been difficult to do it any other way if financially things were different.

Of course you can't always account for every eventuality either (if I lost my job for example), but it really is going to be a personal choice for that family as to what they do, and I think whatever they decide they should get support for it.

I mean, the children of today are going to be the ones who contribute to the economy in the furture, and without anyone having kids, there would be no-one to carry it on. I think they should support both the mother and father to have a choice of how they can stay at home if they wanted to, or both work if they wanted to.

I wouldn't like to be 'forced' to stop working because I had a baby. I would feel as if all my rights as a human being and free choice had been taken away.

[Annabel]

thats exactly it stoney women should not be 'forced' to choose like that, when men dont have to.

my hubby also gave up his job to look after our daughter for a while, it gave him some breathing space to think about what he might like to do instead, so that was a good move. but it could only ever be for a short spce of time before plain economics meant he needed to start earning again! otherwise i am sure he would love to be at home all day doing what he liked!

[marieuk]

HI all


SH the increased amount of maternity time is already in place for some pregnant women babies who are born after 1st April 2007 get 9 months instead of 6.






Love Muk xxxxxxxxxx

[c1rcle]

Good questions & good answers :D

When we (me & missus) first got together we discussed all this sort of thing & between us we decided that she would give up work until the youngest (if we had more than one) was in full time school then she'd go back to work, we decided this because I was earning the largest wage between us at the time & not because of any sexist "it's a woman's job" type of thing, if she'd been earning more I'd have done it instead. As it turned out she couldn't go back to work in the end & the company she was at when she did give up working wasn't there any more anyway.

[Planet 24]

I'd just like to add that Choice is the main issue here, I chose to go back to work at a time when women simply didnt, and boy was I berated for it, mostly by women I might add, who thought I was a terrible person to leave my baby with a nanny and indulge in my selfishness!
Honest to God, even now I get the odd crack from people, who say I should have stayed at home. It's freedom of choice that counts in this world, I didnt know we still had to tug our forelock, say thank you and be grateful for our place in the world.
If women have more choice now I'd glad, but it seems there are still those who think a womans place is under the thumb, or better still tied to the kitchen sink.

[Annabel]

People still make cracks like that nowadays, P24, and I have to say some of them come from women in the same peer group as me who have had the privilege of staying at home with their kids, and like to rub your nose in it that you didnt.

comments like ' whats the point of having kids if you dont want to look after them' or ' i would never hand my kids over to a nanny/nursery'' etc etc. :(