Unpaid leave
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
Not a troll but your accusation is a lazy response when you know someone else is making valid points and you’ve got nothing left to rebut them. |
Anonymous
Great you won’t mind if we check with Jeff then… |
Anonymous
|
OP. you have a very generous employer. My employer would have opened up my job for grabs if I had taken even a day over my 12 weeks.
Just quit for a few years. You can apparently afford it, which I could not. |
Anonymous
The truth is not a troll or sock puppet! |
Anonymous
America wouldn’t be the successful country it is if people didn’t go to work. That’s the problem. You had a child and you also want to do both. Eventually you have to go back. Sure European countries offer longer leaves but you also don’t have the opportunities you have here. An extra 6 months of leave to make 30% less my entire career? No thanks. I get it’s frustrating that you want to be home and also have a rewarding career but something eventually has to give. Just own it that you want to be home and stay home for a while. Or don’t. But stop blaming it on your country. It’s a GOOD thing that you’ll miss out of opportunities at work by not going to work. |
Anonymous
Would happily give up pay for a year of leave. I’d rather make less and spend time with my kids. What’s the point of 30 percent more if it means I’m not with them? |
Anonymous
| this thread is bizarre and i'm convinced it's the same small business owner/woman who comments on multiple threads about women wanting leave. I had zero paid leave and had to return at 12 weeks but was very not ready-- so i returned gradually part time, working from home. I'm almost 7 months post partum-- my kid has horrible reflux and still only does max 3 hour stretches of sleep at night but at 12 weeks i was lucky if I got 90 minutes total all night. I wildly disagree with those people saying if you don't feel ready at first you'll never feel ready. I'm in a wildly different headspace now than 4 months ago and i imagine in another month or two will feel even more ready to take on additional work as my kid gains more predictable sleep and eating schedule. i think this obviously depends on the type of job if an employer can make it work. i have no salary/ am only paid a percentage of what i bill for the company so it's easier than someone who has set health benefits, salary, etc. |
Anonymous
Actually, OP needs therapy. She went on anonymous forum and asked other working moms for advice on how much extra maternity leave to take (how can anyone really give her helpful advice on this topic without knowing her, her employer, her role at work, if she gets solid reviews, etc.) and then got angry when she received advice she didn't like. Now in her mind the advice she received represents what's wrong with America, the people providing the advice must be jealous of her or don't understand they are not her boss (we're definitely not jealous and rest assured, we understand we're not your employer), and the people providing the advice must not understand she is a highly paid white collar worker, etc. 
OP needs therapy because she has no idea what she needs, quite clearly. Her question is unclear and doesn't even make sense. If I took six months of paid maternity leave and then asked my employer for two weeks of additional leave and my employer said no why would it mean that OP's employer would say no? Why would it mean that if OP took two more weeks of leave that she would be ready to return to work? OP doesn't know how much extra time she wants (she's crowdsourcing this, which is bizarre) and OP can't articulate what would make her feel ready/what made her feel ready the last time she returned to work. She likely doesn't know what would make her feel ready to go back and this is why she sounds like a first time mom to me. OP also seems genuinely surprised about not feeling ready to go back to work and that screams first time mom to me because almost no one feels ready to go back to work after their maternity leave and you would know this if you had more than one kid and you would have figured out how to navigate these feelings with your first or you would have quit and become a SAHM. It's hard to be a working mom and staying at home for a week or two or a month more likely won't change that, but it may jeopardize OP's job. That's the message that many of us are trying to get across to OP. In many cases your employer will probably be displeased and your colleagues will definitely be displeased. As for examples, there aren't a ton of examples out there because most women in the US don't get six months of paid maternity leave and after taking it - especially with their second - turn around and say to their employer 'I'm not ready to come back yet.. How about I take X more weeks/months off. Thanks!' I know one person, a friend, who took additional leave on top of her employer's 24 weeks of leave and that person had been at her company (in the same role, no upward movement) for around five or six years. She used her vacation time - no unpaid time - and took 28 or 29 weeks with her first and around the same amount of time with her second, who was three years younger than her first. She arranged all of this in advance though - so her employer had appropriate coverage - and at 39 she has not been promoted in the intervening period and is still a manger-level individual contributor. I will say that she was very stressed coming back from both leaves about taking any vacation or time off because she took so much maternity leave (she also didn't have any vacation to burn as she'd used it all) so that's an important consideration. You use a lot of social capital up with maternity leave and more so if you extend it, even if you plan to do so in advance and your employer gets coverage in place. OP's biggest mistake in all of this was not seeking therapy prior to her maternity leave and figuring out prior to her maternity leave what she needed to ask for. Her second biggest mistake was not getting therapy while on maternity leave to figure out what she needs and what she wants. Her third biggest mistake was not trying to find a WFH job while on maternity leave. And her fourth biggest mistake will probably be asking her employer for more time - thereby p*ssing her employer off and then taking that time and going back to work bitter and angry despite the fact that she's taken 28 weeks off and p*ssed off her employer. |
Anonymous
How in the literal f do you know OP hasn’t done any of those things? Your response could have been extremely helpful if you shared the information on your friends leave, but instead you are assuming and attacking OP for zero reason. just wow. |
Anonymous
What.Is.Stopping.You?? I swear people just complain to complain. |
Anonymous
|
OP, I am sorry this thread has devolved in this way. Please know that some of us on here absolutely support you and I hope you get the sane and supportive return to work you need. I'm really sorry about your experience with your first maternity leave -- that sounds really hard. Take it from someone who had PPD and also cried every day for a long time after having a baby -- you are not alone.
But at this point my advice to you is to ask Jeff to delete this thread because I'm not sure it's possible to stop the one or maybe two vicious posters on this thread who are determined to tear you down. I can't tell if it's just angry trolls or if it's people just harboring a ton of resentment about their own experiences with leave and taking it out on you or what. Please understand that even though they are posting a lot (I really suspect it's one of two posters only), they don't represent all of us. If I knew you, I'd sit down and help you hash out exactly what your plan is and how to approach your employer to negotiate what you need. But I have faith you will figure it out. Good job listening to your gut and looking for a situation that actually works for you instead of just sucking it up like last time. |
Anonymous
Omg, so much sanctimony.... TL;DR |
Anonymous
And what exactly did Jeff say?? Oh, so no troll or sockpuppeting established... Funny how you didn't rush right back to update us all. |
Anonymous
Ugh, that "definite" no tells me that your employer most likely wants you back in the office... at all costs, OP. I don't know who you work for, but after having to make it mandatory that everyone comes back after covid (and probably dealing with some of your colleagues being extreme holdouts) management is most likely sick & tired of (in their view) employees making personalized ala cart requests for where they want to work and only thinking of themselves, and not at all what's best for the company too. I'm not saying thats how they feel about you... I'm saying that most companies who required employees to be back in the office, had to deal with many employees not wanting to return and trying to extend WAH for as long as they possibly could. I imagine they probably had people that had to be threatened to come back to the office? After going through the time, energy and mental frustration of mandating everyone back into the office, I cannot imagine that they'll be open to granting this request, as that "definite" no means that a) you weren't the first person to ask to WFH, b) they were most likely sick of all the requests and c) they were trying to tell you that is was a hard NO, no matter what you say. If that's the case, they'll definitely be worried about starting a precedent with you, as that would leave them open to others trying to do something similar. They may be concerned about the optics of allowing it.🤷♀️ |
Anonymous
They are correct. |