How do you feel about those who take a paid maternity leave then quit?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yet another good reason to hire workers in their 50s. Babies at 50 ain’t happening.

Right? Every time someone does this I sigh on the inside that those in charge will see it as a red flag against hiring younger women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fine. Plans change. The world keeps turning.

This. If the job is so great, you’ll be able to hire someone new.

[Anonymous]

Tacky.

[Anonymous]

I think this causes some anger because of the way the US system is set up. I've previously worked for multiple companies in Canada (12-18mon mat leave), when someone goes on mat leave they generally hire a contract for the same amt of time. There are no hard feelings because someone else has to cover and do 2x work. The person who just got a new job/promotion/stretch assignment is thrilled! If the person decides not to return to work, that job is basically theirs on a permanent basis.
I don't fault anyone for taking their full, entitled leave, and using that time to decide what they want to do going forward. Maybe thats being a SAHP, maybe it's a different job. Either way, it really doesnt affect me.

[Anonymous]

Unprofessional.

[Anonymous]

I didn’t know I wasn’t returning. Time away helped me realize the toxic soup I’d slowly been boiling in.

If someone did this where I worked it would be tough until we replaced them, then forgotten. And never held against them.

[Anonymous]

D*ck move

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:D*ck move

Oh well.

[Anonymous]

I feel fine. What a weird question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think this causes some anger because of the way the US system is set up. I've previously worked for multiple companies in Canada (12-18mon mat leave), when someone goes on mat leave they generally hire a contract for the same amt of time. There are no hard feelings because someone else has to cover and do 2x work. The person who just got a new job/promotion/stretch assignment is thrilled! If the person decides not to return to work, that job is basically theirs on a permanent basis.
I don't fault anyone for taking their full, entitled leave, and using that time to decide what they want to do going forward. Maybe thats being a SAHP, maybe it's a different job. Either way, it really doesnt affect me.

Ooof, 12-18 months of isolation. I would have killed myself. Literally. The isolation and PPD was so bad that going back to work saved my life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yet another good reason to hire workers in their 50s. Babies at 50 ain’t happening.

Right? Every time someone does this I sigh on the inside that those in charge will see it as a red flag against hiring younger women.

Totally. Because no one has ever left a job to care for elderly parents. Ever! It’s just never happened. Not even once.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think this causes some anger because of the way the US system is set up. I've previously worked for multiple companies in Canada (12-18mon mat leave), when someone goes on mat leave they generally hire a contract for the same amt of time. There are no hard feelings because someone else has to cover and do 2x work. The person who just got a new job/promotion/stretch assignment is thrilled! If the person decides not to return to work, that job is basically theirs on a permanent basis.
I don't fault anyone for taking their full, entitled leave, and using that time to decide what they want to do going forward. Maybe thats being a SAHP, maybe it's a different job. Either way, it really doesnt affect me.

+1, plus in Canada maternity leave is paid for by the Employment Insurance program, from the government, not by your employer. EI is a system everyone pays into and it's not just for parental leave. So it's more obvious that it's a social benefit designed to help families deal with both childcare and the adjustment to a new baby by ensure that parents can stay home with the baby for the first year if they want (not everyone does want to, by the way).

This is also how it is in most other countries with parental leave (which is most countries), it's just that in the US we've created a system where the leave is federally mandated but not federally funded. So some companies offer it as a benefit (similar to health insurance, another program that is publicly funded in sane countries). Plus of course the leave is shorter. So it's this weird hybrid system where really no one's needs are met -- many workers have no paid leave at all, the ones that do may not have enough leave to ensure quality care for the first year (a major reason many moms leave their jobs after maternity leave is cost/availability of childcare -- they stay home because they can't find care or what they can find in budget is awful), companies and employees have to scramble to cover for the duration of the leave, and the length of the leave makes it unlikely that contract workers will be hired to fill in. It's a bad system, but the idea that it's on pregnant women to "fix" it by repaying maternity leave if they decide to leave their jobs is nuts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As other posters have said, the maternity leave was earned/available to them. As long as they are not breaking any policies or contracts, they are fully entitled to quit whenever they want regardless of whether they just took sick time or maternity leave or vacation or personal time or anything else they earned and used.

And +1000 to the corp/firms f-ing the employees when it suits them.

Amen.

Not to mention a lot of people have a baby and realize they need way more money. It’s a big motivator to get another job.

[Anonymous]

No issues with it.
If we had better laws and healthcare it wouldn’t be a topic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this causes some anger because of the way the US system is set up. I've previously worked for multiple companies in Canada (12-18mon mat leave), when someone goes on mat leave they generally hire a contract for the same amt of time. There are no hard feelings because someone else has to cover and do 2x work. The person who just got a new job/promotion/stretch assignment is thrilled! If the person decides not to return to work, that job is basically theirs on a permanent basis.
I don't fault anyone for taking their full, entitled leave, and using that time to decide what they want to do going forward. Maybe thats being a SAHP, maybe it's a different job. Either way, it really doesnt affect me.

Ooof, 12-18 months of isolation. I would have killed myself. Literally. The isolation and PPD was so bad that going back to work saved my life.

It's not 18 months of maternity leave. Moms get 15 weeks of maternity leave, and after that it become parental leave, which can be split between parents, which can last 40-69 weeks depending on how you structure it. None of it is 100% of salary -- it's max 55% of salary up to a salary cap, and if you take extended leave it's less than that. We're talking somewhere in the realm of $400-600 a week. Some companies offer "top up" to make it 100% of salary, but obviously that's going to be for the person actually taking the leave (the mom during maternity leave or either parent during parental leave) and is more time limited.

So it's actually not common for someone to take the total available leave unless they are in fact planning to leave their jobs, whether to SAH or to change jobs/careers. People want to get back to their full salary, and also often want to get back to work, for a wide variety of reasons including feeling it will help with PPD.

For what it's worth, I had awful PPD and it's what led to me quitting my job at the end of my maternity leave (in the US), because my company would not even allow me the flexibility to go to my weekly therapy appointment, much less other accommodations that might have eased that transition (PT for a period, or some hours flexibility to help with childcare restrictions). The nice thing about Canada's system is that it would meet either of our needs, instead of only serving the needs of someone who is better off back in the office.