Pregnancy/Maternity Questions

[MyUserName]

My wife took the full 12 months off after both of our kids. With the first she went back to teaching 5 days a week and with the second she has gone back to teaching 2 days + 1 supply day. I took two weeks off each time, once as a perm and the second time was the 3rd and 4th weeks of a contract. That works for us and we are getting by, it would not work for everyone but we are not everyone - we have a specific situation with specific people (an autistic daughter and an apparently suicidal son) so other people's advice was always of limited use.

The only way you are going to find out if it works is if you try it, although I would make sure I had plans for what would happen if they immediately cut the contract.

Good luck, I hope things go well.

[formant]

Woah. Calm down and take a deep breath.

Sometimes, you have no choice. Not all jobs are the same; consider those in the forces, or those who *have* to go away Monday to Friday to work.

And you think it's all choice for me? If I was in a normal job that was still going to be there when I get back, I'm sure I'd easily take 3 months off. Probably not much more because that's not how I function, but certainly more than the 2 weeks I am planning for now.

We *could* live off my other half's salary, but what a crappy life that would be - barely covering all outgoings, little extra.

[formant]

The only way you are going to find out if it works is if you try it, although I would make sure I had plans for what would happen if they immediately cut the contract.

Good luck, I hope things go well.

Thank you. If they cut my contract immediately I have 9 months of maternity allowance to claim that I'm entitled to from the previous job. Not what I want to do, but it would give me quite a bit of time to find something else before it gets rather tight financially.

[psychocandy]

I'm close to the upper end of the 25-30 age range.

And I've never been one to 'do anything for an employer'. I'm the sort of person that's not once in her life made her boss coffee, nor do I kiss anyone's bum to get ahead. I never stay late and unless I get a day off in return I certainly won't work weekends. I do my job flawlessly and efficiently as that's what enables me to demand great pay and the working conditions I want. I'm not loyal to employers either. If there is a better opportunity out there I'm off. I work - most of all - for myself, so that outside of work I can have the exact (family) life I want.



I could never be happy living entirely off someone else, so that kind of goes both ways. Also my partner is a university lecturer - whilst stable and flexible, promotions are slow and pay doesn't go all that far. His salary alone doesn't pay for the life I want for my family (and I'm really not asking for outrageous wealth).

LOL. Not suggesting you were a butt kisser :-)
Sounds like you have a decent attitude mind.... At your age I probably still let my employer get away with murder :-(

Still not sure about the money thing though. Yeh its nice to have but hey, its not all about that.

[formant]

Seems this is rolling on let me throw my thoughts in but include the client in this. Remote working takes a huge element of trust regardless of how many KPI's you try and put in place. What do you think the perception of the client will be when you tell them you will be fine working part time WFH 2 weeks after giving birth? You can see that a large number of people have voiced not only concerns but practical examples of this.

Do you really think the client will be comfortable with this and be understanding bearing in mind most on here don't agree? For the record I certainly would not be happy with a contractor doing this to me. I want my pound of flesh and I don't believe I can get it from someone in that situation.

EDIT : Probably answered in previous post that appeared while I was typing this.

The WFH arrangement was the default for this post (not something I specifically asked for) and appears to be pretty normal with this client and others on the product team. I agree that remote working takes trust, but better employers are also aware that home-based workers are normally more efficient than office-based ones. Plenty of studies out there about that.

I do wonder if people question ever new fathers' ability to do their job, considering they'll be just as sleep deprived in the first few weeks. Any guys here had their contracts cancelled for that reason?

A lot of people have offered examples. Interestingly enough a lot of these examples leave all the baby-work entirely to the mother. That's not my situation. I'm not the first person to take 'micro maternity leave' as they call it and it's worked for plenty of mothers in the past.

I have previously had a number of highly invasive surgeries and returned to office and location work within two weeks. Childbirth is unlikely to be considerably worse, even if it'll end up in a c-section.

[psychocandy]

Well, lucky I've got someone much more involved than that.

So, what's the difference in these two scenarios?
a) Mother doesn't work, raises kid full-time. Father does f-all relating to the child but does work full-time.
b) Mother and father work flexible part-time hours each (father on full-time pay though in my case), each take care of the child part-time.

In both circumstances the child gets the same amount of parental contact and the same amount of hours are worked in total.

In reality though, its a decision that a couple have to make. Most of the time it ends up that one of the couple does most of the childcare. Most of the time (and not being sexist here but its a fact) its the mother.

Not saying it cant be the father. In fact, if my mrs earned shedloads I'd be more than happy to take time off and stay at home. But the reality is she doesn't so I have to work full time and she works part-time. Another reality that not everyone can have only one wage earner.

But there are people on here who work away mon-fri albeit earning a tidy wedge. Surely in this case, they're only choice is for mother to stay home and they go off to work?

Glad to see that your personal circumstances mean its going to work out like this for you but its not possible always for everyone to do this.

[fullyautomatix]

And you just left that 24/7 job entirely to her?
Nice.
Not.

Where did I say I left it to her ??

I cant breast feed the baby, can I ? I have done my bit where I can and my wife has done her bit. I am just trying to give you my perspective from my vey recent experience so you can benefit from it, seeing that you are about to be a parent for the first time. Reading up some manual in wikipedia does not make you the Miss know all when it comes to babies/parenting.

I think you just want us to say what you want to hear. You think you are the superwoman who can give birth in the morning and then in the afternoon logon to skype and do some video conference with your client. That only happens in movies. Be realistic and pause for a moment and think, you are about to bring a baby in to this world which cant take care of itself for the best part of 4-5 years.

[formant]

LOL. Not suggesting you were a butt kisser :-)
Sounds like you have a decent attitude mind.... At your age I probably still let my employer get away with murder :-(

Still not sure about the money thing though. Yeh its nice to have but hey, its not all about that.

In this case - aside from the money - a big factor is also that I have a niche skill and this job is about as perfect for me as it's going to get . Opportunities like that don't come by frequently, so if I let this slip, I'd probably massively regret it in the long run.

Prior to this role I had a temporary (not contract), mostly unrelated job that bored me to death, despite decent pay. Idea was to aim for a due date near the end of that contract, be off for around 3 months and then start looking for something more permanent. Well, didn't go to plan, getting pregnant took quite a few months longer that I naively expected. So that previous job ended (thank goodness!), but then I didn't find anything new straight away. I was ready to quit looking as even starting a new perm job is a bit rubbish when you know you're going to be off in a few months. But then I came across this one and it was just too awesome not to apply and well, I got the offer straight after the interview. So yeah, this whole situation wasn't meant to pan out like this. So all I can do now is try to do whatever it takes not to lose the contract.

[formant]

In reality though, its a decision that a couple have to make. Most of the time it ends up that one of the couple does most of the childcare. Most of the time (and not being sexist here but its a fact) its the mother.

Not saying it cant be the father. In fact, if my mrs earned shedloads I'd be more than happy to take time off and stay at home. But the reality is she doesn't so I have to work full time and she works part-time. Another reality that not everyone can have only one wage earner.

But there are people on here who work away mon-fri albeit earning a tidy wedge. Surely in this case, they're only choice is for mother to stay home and they go off to work?

Glad to see that your personal circumstances mean its going to work out like this for you but its not possible always for everyone to do this.

True, all I'm saying is that I'm amazed that I get slated for not wanting to be that stay-at-home partner, when clearly there are feasible alternatives. I know it's mostly mothers that stay home with the kids, and for most family's that's what makes most sense. It wouldn't work for me and I wouldn't be having a baby if that's the sort of relationship I found myself in.

[RasputinDude]

True, all I'm saying is that I'm amazed that I get slated for not wanting to be that stay-at-home partner, when clearly there are feasible alternatives. I know it's mostly mothers that stay home with the kids, and for most family's that's what makes most sense. It wouldn't work for me and I wouldn't be having a baby if that's the sort of relationship I found myself in.

Nobody here is slating you. Some people are disagreeing with you, but the only person throwing punches is you.

And even those that have disagreed have wished you luck.