Unpaid leave

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I would ask. A job is a just a job. If you’re not ready to go back, you should advocate for yourself, whether that means asking for unpaid leave or quitting.

I took maternity leave with every intention of coming back at the end of it, but a combination of PPD, Covid, and difficulty finding childcare led me to quit at the end of it. The place I left was a toxic dump anyway. Do I wish things had worked out differently? Yes, partially because I don’t want to give moms on leave a bad name. But I had to prioritize my own well-being and that of my baby.

Can I ask why you think this gives moms on leave a bad name? I think I understand but want to clarify. It’s so hard that people think this.

PP. I think some people probably think this was my plan all along, to game the system and get paid for several months of not working and then quit. In reality, it was an agonizing decision that I only came to after experiencing panic attacks and breakdowns and realizing that I wasn’t going to be able to return to work. But for a lot of reasons, I think some people don’t give parents (usually moms) on leave a lot of grace or benefit of the doubt.

Ha! You knew from the get go that you planned to game the system I've known too many employees like you and burned too many times.

I will give PP the benefit of the doubt that she didn't know what would happen when she was due to come back from leave, but unfortunately, people like PP do ruin it for the rest of the new parents who need a little more grace in their return to office plans.

No one has ruined anything for anyone except the people posting in this forum about greed and discouraging moms from what they need after baby.

WTH literally no one has told OP to go back to work against her will. No one. She has options - she can quit her job if she doesn’t want to work which is what it sounds like. Most sane people realize employers can’t hold jobs open for moms who don’t want to work.

OP did not say she doesn’t want to work. She said she’s not ready to leave her baby. Which is totally understandable. Some of these comments are literally insane. This country will never move the needle on leave and a better life for parents/families with people like this out there. What a shame.

We absolutely need universal paid maternity leave, but this is a policy decision that probably everyone women posting on this board supports and has very little ability to move the needle on save for calling their reps and demanding change and/or speaking to their company's HR department. Most women tell their boss how much leave they plan to take before going out and then coverage is found accordingly. If OP's dept. found coverage for six months it might not be easy to re-up the coverage for an additional X months while OP takes more time. Add to that OP probably quitting in the end ("I realized I'm not ready to go back after 9 months after all!") and it just feels gross. What many of us are trying to tell her is that it will probably come off as gross to her company and that will treat her accordingly and that given her current stance she may want to seriously consider quitting. OP needs to ask herself what will make her feel ready? Is she OK not feeling ready and going back anyway if she takes a few more months off? I worked for a giant healthcare company previously (healthcare is notorious, ironically, for bad benefits) and I needed to be there for two years before I could get 100% STD. I saved up all my vacation and took 13 weeks with my third. I had this fortune 15 company's corporate secretary tell me that 13 weeks was a lot of time. I see nothing wrong with going against the grain, but it's preferable to say something up front if you plan to take off more time so suitable coverage can be arranged and if your company has a very generous policy it's likely that they'll frown on extensions. I say this after being in Tech with my first two and getting 22 weeks off with both babies -- it's not common to take more than the paid time you are given if it's very generous and it rubs people the wrong way.

The assumption that I didn’t plan for this is inaccurate. Sorry you think this feels gross and glad you had a good experience with your three kids. Might it be possible for someone to feel differently? This is not my first child. I agonized over planning my leave and took every available option so that I could maximize time home with my family. At great sacrifice to my finances, let me add. Every day of life is different, let alone every birthing experience - I’m not ready to leave my baby. How could I have known six months ago what I would feel like today when feelings and emotions change all the time? It’s so sad people, mothers even, can’t have empathy in these situations.

I don't believe this is your second child. If you had been through this before you would have a good understanding of how you would feel coming back from maternity leave and you would be able to psych yourself up and do it, like those of us who have gone back to work. I think this is your first and you have no idea what you're doing and are generally scared, all of which is fine. But speak to a therapist and figure out what your going to do instead of dragging this out with your employer and then quitting after 9 months of paid/unpaid maternity leave.

Whether you believe OP or not is irrelevant. Women can have vastly different experiences with childbirth between kids. You might have an easy vaginal birth with one kid and feel great a month out and raring to get back in the office. And then you might have another baby a few years later, experience complications and have a c-section that puts you in bed recovering for weeks. You might get PPD and not even realize what it is at first because, after all, you remember some hormonal baby blues with the last baby and surely it's just that. Maybe your older child struggles with the new baby so you are dealing not only with new baby adjustments but a toddler having sleep regressions or meltdowns due to losing attention to the new baby, and feel significantly more overwhelmed.

Having a baby is not like taking money out of an ATM. The idea that all new baby experiences are identical and that we should expect women to recover from them on a regular schedule with no deviations or complications is super unrealistic. There's a huge range of experiences plus women are themselves different and might even respond to the same experience in different ways. And also people's support systems can vary greatly.

The idea that if you had a different experience or made different choices, OP must be LYING about her experience is unbelievable self-centered.

[Anonymous]

So in my company, they got wise to this scheme and now you have to pay your leave back unless you return on time and work at least as long as you were off.

You are just thinking about yourself, OP. Back at your job, everyone is working harder because you are not there.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:A PP asked but I didn't see an answer: how much more time are we talking? 1-2 additional months, or another 6 months?

I was asking what others may have done in this situation to try to gauge an answer to this question. But instead I got baseless accusations and almost entirely unhelpful nonsense. Just so upsetting.

I’m not sure why you’re attacking me, I was just asking a question that is relevant to what advice I would give. If you just want/need another month, I would think for a job you’ve been at 15 years, a good employer would accommodate. But if you’re looking for another 6 months or more, that puts a different level of strain on your colleagues covering for you.

Wasn’t directed at you as an attack. Very sorry it came off that way. Not my intention. Thanks for the advice. I agree.

Why aren’t you answering how much longer you want for leave?

OP isn't sure how much time she might want or could get. That's why she asked here what other's experience has been. If people came on and said "yes I got an extra month and it was just what I needed to help my feel ready -- babies change so much in a short period" that would have been informative. If people came on and said "I asked for an extra month and my employer said absolutely not and I had to go back right away and this was my experience with that" that would also be informative.

Everyone is acting like OP is asking them, personally, for extended leave. She's not. She's asking on here for feedback on experiences so that she can be more informed as she makes this decision of whether to ask for more leave and if so how much. She's the one gathering info about the landscape. No one is entitled to info about her personal life and she doesn't have to justify her interest in more leave to ANYONE on this forum.

I wonder if the responses to this would be different if OP was taking bereavement leave after losing a spouse and came on here saying "I want to ask my employer for extra time as unpaid leave because I just don't feel ready to be back in the office -- does anyone have experience with this?" For some reason our culture acts like women recovering from childbirth or making the transition to motherhood are trying to pull one over on society and that actually that's just easy and effortless and it's normal for women to be ready to return to their jobs in a short period of time. It's so weird! We were all babies once. We all have mothers. And yet we act like the act of having children and becoming a mom is a horrible imposition on other people, a personal hobby that women use to get out of "real" societal contributions like sitting in offices and sending emails and making corporations incrementally more money.

Our priorities are so f****d.

Oh, OP! It's actually really uncommon to take 6 months of leave and at the end of the leave to ask for more time. You're not getting a lot of "helpful" responses because your situation is uncommon. When people are in the place that you are in, OP, they quit or they go back to work. It's not what you want to hear, but it's the truth.

I'm the PP (not OP) and I'm sure OP is aware that six months leave is unusual in the US -- in fact I'm sure she has noted that in her comments.

But as someone who also had a generous maternity leave by US standards (4 months fully paid) I can tell you something you won't want to hear: companies that offer longer leaves are also often MORE likely to offer additional unpaid leave on a case by case basis, because these are companies that have structured solutions to having workers out on leave. They are also much more likely to offer longer leaves to fathers or to parents of adopted children, as well as paid leave for bereavement or family health emergencies.

Companies like this often also have a highly educated workforce and may know how hard it is to hire experienced people with the proper background, and therefore be more inclined to give a worker a little extra leave if the alternative is having to hire someone into a role that is currently filled by a company veteran with specific skill sets.

Also, and you won't believe this but I mean it: I wish you'd had this experience, I wish everyone did. I think it's a huge bummer that it's mostly only white collar professionals who get this kind of treatment at [some] companies. But the truth is that OP's company has already indicated that they are willing to tolerate longer maternity leaves, so she's probably in a better situation to request additional unpaid leave than the vast majority of women returning to work after having a baby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is so obnoxious. Just quit your job and go back when you’re ready. It sounds like your employer has been generous and you’re exploiting them at that point.

Not op. You are a big problem with what is wrong in this country. GTFOOH

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I would ask. A job is a just a job. If you’re not ready to go back, you should advocate for yourself, whether that means asking for unpaid leave or quitting.

I took maternity leave with every intention of coming back at the end of it, but a combination of PPD, Covid, and difficulty finding childcare led me to quit at the end of it. The place I left was a toxic dump anyway. Do I wish things had worked out differently? Yes, partially because I don’t want to give moms on leave a bad name. But I had to prioritize my own well-being and that of my baby.

Can I ask why you think this gives moms on leave a bad name? I think I understand but want to clarify. It’s so hard that people think this.

PP. I think some people probably think this was my plan all along, to game the system and get paid for several months of not working and then quit. In reality, it was an agonizing decision that I only came to after experiencing panic attacks and breakdowns and realizing that I wasn’t going to be able to return to work. But for a lot of reasons, I think some people don’t give parents (usually moms) on leave a lot of grace or benefit of the doubt.

Ha! You knew from the get go that you planned to game the system I've known too many employees like you and burned too many times.

I will give PP the benefit of the doubt that she didn't know what would happen when she was due to come back from leave, but unfortunately, people like PP do ruin it for the rest of the new parents who need a little more grace in their return to office plans.

No one has ruined anything for anyone except the people posting in this forum about greed and discouraging moms from what they need after baby.

WTH literally no one has told OP to go back to work against her will. No one. She has options - she can quit her job if she doesn’t want to work which is what it sounds like. Most sane people realize employers can’t hold jobs open for moms who don’t want to work.

OP did not say she doesn’t want to work. She said she’s not ready to leave her baby. Which is totally understandable. Some of these comments are literally insane. This country will never move the needle on leave and a better life for parents/families with people like this out there. What a shame.

We absolutely need universal paid maternity leave, but this is a policy decision that probably everyone women posting on this board supports and has very little ability to move the needle on save for calling their reps and demanding change and/or speaking to their company's HR department. Most women tell their boss how much leave they plan to take before going out and then coverage is found accordingly. If OP's dept. found coverage for six months it might not be easy to re-up the coverage for an additional X months while OP takes more time. Add to that OP probably quitting in the end ("I realized I'm not ready to go back after 9 months after all!") and it just feels gross. What many of us are trying to tell her is that it will probably come off as gross to her company and that will treat her accordingly and that given her current stance she may want to seriously consider quitting. OP needs to ask herself what will make her feel ready? Is she OK not feeling ready and going back anyway if she takes a few more months off? I worked for a giant healthcare company previously (healthcare is notorious, ironically, for bad benefits) and I needed to be there for two years before I could get 100% STD. I saved up all my vacation and took 13 weeks with my third. I had this fortune 15 company's corporate secretary tell me that 13 weeks was a lot of time. I see nothing wrong with going against the grain, but it's preferable to say something up front if you plan to take off more time so suitable coverage can be arranged and if your company has a very generous policy it's likely that they'll frown on extensions. I say this after being in Tech with my first two and getting 22 weeks off with both babies -- it's not common to take more than the paid time you are given if it's very generous and it rubs people the wrong way.

The assumption that I didn’t plan for this is inaccurate. Sorry you think this feels gross and glad you had a good experience with your three kids. Might it be possible for someone to feel differently? This is not my first child. I agonized over planning my leave and took every available option so that I could maximize time home with my family. At great sacrifice to my finances, let me add. Every day of life is different, let alone every birthing experience - I’m not ready to leave my baby. How could I have known six months ago what I would feel like today when feelings and emotions change all the time? It’s so sad people, mothers even, can’t have empathy in these situations.

I don't believe this is your second child. If you had been through this before you would have a good understanding of how you would feel coming back from maternity leave and you would be able to psych yourself up and do it, like those of us who have gone back to work. I think this is your first and you have no idea what you're doing and are generally scared, all of which is fine. But speak to a therapist and figure out what your going to do instead of dragging this out with your employer and then quitting after 9 months of paid/unpaid maternity leave.

Not OP but I will be more likely to want more leave with my 2nd, should we have a 2nd, then with my 1st. We were totally unprepared for our 1st. I had PPA. No maternity leave. No paternity leave. Etc.
I could see myself doing 6 months and then wanting more because I just wasnt ready. Especially if its your last baby. Especially if you got 6 months to actually ENJOY your child. You realize after your first how fast it goes and how much time you spend away. She may also have a different personality baby. Maybe this one is higher needs.

Give a little grace. At the end it does boil down to stay home or working. Those are the options. There is some wiggle room potentially with PT work or WAH ( so no commute) but it is effectively either/or and that is frustrating.

If you realize after your first that you want more time for your second, you ask for it up front. And you would know this, because you've already gone through this once and presumably, seen the impact on your team. If OP has PPA or PPD and it's a medical issue then she can have a doctor provide documentation to her company about her needs, but after six months the company would also be well within their rights to change her role or hire someone else into her role (FMLA is only 12 weeks). OP works with other people and after six months after maternity leave, they may want a little grace thrown their way too. People may be covering for her and that may be a considerable strain since presumably her colleagues also have children, parents, responsibilities -- not just OP.

Not sure you're making the point you think you are with the second child. With a second you will be more prepared because you've had a first. It's a different experience with each kid, but my second and third were easy compared to my first. While babies are different - by six months your baby is capable physically of sleeping through the night and you are introducing solids. It's a great time to go back. If your baby has a medical issue it's a totally different ballgame when speaking to your company about getting more time. It's not the same as not "feeling ready" to go back to work, which is what OP is asking about. Even then, though, you need to either go back to work at some point and arrange childcare or stay home. What many of us are trying to tell OP is that very few people feel ready. You just have to decide if you're going to do it or if you're going to stay home. OP can also go back and then resign if she really hates it.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This is so obnoxious. Just quit your job and go back when you’re ready. It sounds like your employer has been generous and you’re exploiting them at that point.

Not op. You are a big problem with what is wrong in this country. GTFOOH

This is so OP. You are just frustrated with the responses because no one is saying "after I took 6 months off, I requested another 10 months and my employer promoted me two weeks after I got back. It was great being there for Larla in her first 16 months but never actually needing to leave the workforce because my company let me take as much time as I needed to be mentally and physically and emotionally ready to leave her with a nanny."

Unfortunately, our country doesn't have good maternity leave policies but OP is so lucky that her company gives employees 6 months of paid leave. She is not the person I feel bad for when it comes to maternity leave. Even some type of universal leave will likely only cover 12 weeks.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:OP, I tried to do this after a 4 month leave and it did not work out. It was frustrating and I definitely ran into some of the attitudes on this thread.

HOWEVER, after I quit my job, I wound up talking to someone in our HR department and she gave me a hard time for not pushing harder. Basically she told me I should have come to her and made the request formally through HR instead of just trying to work it out with my department. I had a director in my department who was VERY opposed to it and frankly angry with me for asking (not a parent, if you're wondering) and once I made the initial request, she was never going to change her mind. But my HR friend told me that there was actually blowback about the incident in the company because they view themselves as very family friendly and part of their hiring strategy is to hire people with a lot of experience who are looking for good work-life balance. So apparently people were upset with my director for, in their eyes, forcing me out by not being willing to compromise with a month or two of unpaid leave or some kind of offer to return gradually in a part time capacity.

Too late for me to benefit from this knowledge, but you still can! If you get pushback, talk to HR and also make sure you review all your company's leave policies very closely (my company had a policy of "up to a year" of leave, combining paid and unpaid, a the discretion of your manager, and I should have pushed a lot harder on that). If this matters to you, get what you can! Good luck!

You are either inexperienced, uneducated, or both. I am a mom, extremely pro family friendly policies, and own a small business. There’s zero chance I would survive if I had to hold open a job for every single mom I employ until an unspecified end date, paid or not. I offer generous leave but the deal is that you come back and do your job after it. What you are complaining about will lead to businesses just not hiring women of child-bearing age. Wow, what a women’s-rights activist you are!!

What an unnecessarily hostile response. Your situation is not true for a lot of big businesses. You are ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Why are mothers so hard on eachother? Ugh. Her company had a good maternity leave program. They do that to recruit and retain people, NOT out of the kindness of their hearts. Op has given them 15 years of her life!! Maybe she took that job over a higher paying one because of the benefits she knew she might need. Or maybe she stayed for that reason. The benefits package is part of her compensation. For all we know the company might prefer to keep her via unpaid leave vs have her quit entirely based on her long tenure there and lose her institutional knowledge. To say that it is wrong to even ask is demeaning and frankly part of the reason why women typically don’t get equal pay and benefits in this country.

It’s also hypocritical. If someone goes on vacation leave that they have earned, and then they decide to quit we don’t say ‘oh how dare you abuse the vacation system now we might all lose our vacations.’ In fact, at the fed, many people use their saved vacation to quit early or get paid out for it. I’ve had male coworkers take 6 months unpaid leave to travel the world and no one accused them of cheating. They got pats on the back, and told great job negotiating that!

This company could close tomorrow or layoff 1/3 of its people as is happening to many people right now and no one would be accusing them of cheating the system, Your mental health and well being is more important than your job I guarantee.

I just had a friend struggling with insomnia and ppd who had to quit because her (female)boss was making it hard for her to access fmla and verbally threatening retribution (sudden letter of notice after previous glowing performance reviews) when told she might need fmla . I was so mad for her and wanted her to fight it but in the end she needed to just quit to get her health in order. Its so disturbing to see women do this to other women, it’s an internalized misogyny that is so corrosive. Men who go out on std but aren’t well enough to come back are not accused of cheating the system. This is a burden placed solely on being a woman.

When did the OP say she worked at the company for 15 years. I think this is the OP making up lies. If she's been at the company for 15 years she's likely taken maternity leave at the company before, since she also claims this is not her first child. How did your first maternity leave at the company go, OP? Did you take extra time then? Honestly, OP sounds more and more like a troll or like someone who is upset that people are telling her that she's being a jerk and needs to get her act together. Sorry, OP, this "unhelpful" advice is what everyone at your company will be thinking.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I didn’t mention that my options are to ask for a leave of absence or to quit entirely. But sounds like quitting entirely is what the status quo demands unfortunately.

To those who asked, I am pretty senior and my employer has not hired a temp. I have been there for 15+ years.

On the first page. But sure it’s better to call other mothers liars and cheaters and jerks for taking care of their babies. Of course if op sends her 6 month old to daycare she will also be called a terrible mom. What a toxic mom culture you create, pp.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This is so obnoxious. Just quit your job and go back when you’re ready. It sounds like your employer has been generous and you’re exploiting them at that point.

Not op. You are a big problem with what is wrong in this country. GTFOOH

This is so OP. You are just frustrated with the responses because no one is saying "after I took 6 months off, I requested another 10 months and my employer promoted me two weeks after I got back. It was great being there for Larla in her first 16 months but never actually needing to leave the workforce because my company let me take as much time as I needed to be mentally and physically and emotionally ready to leave her with a nanny."

Unfortunately, our country doesn't have good maternity leave policies but OP is so lucky that her company gives employees 6 months of paid leave. She is not the person I feel bad for when it comes to maternity leave. Even some type of universal leave will likely only cover 12 weeks.

OP here. I didn’t write this. This forum is so f-ing toxic. Accusing me of lying about this being my second kid. JFC. I’m done here. This made everything so much worse.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I would ask. A job is a just a job. If you’re not ready to go back, you should advocate for yourself, whether that means asking for unpaid leave or quitting.

I took maternity leave with every intention of coming back at the end of it, but a combination of PPD, Covid, and difficulty finding childcare led me to quit at the end of it. The place I left was a toxic dump anyway. Do I wish things had worked out differently? Yes, partially because I don’t want to give moms on leave a bad name. But I had to prioritize my own well-being and that of my baby.

Can I ask why you think this gives moms on leave a bad name? I think I understand but want to clarify. It’s so hard that people think this.

PP. I think some people probably think this was my plan all along, to game the system and get paid for several months of not working and then quit. In reality, it was an agonizing decision that I only came to after experiencing panic attacks and breakdowns and realizing that I wasn’t going to be able to return to work. But for a lot of reasons, I think some people don’t give parents (usually moms) on leave a lot of grace or benefit of the doubt.

Ha! You knew from the get go that you planned to game the system I've known too many employees like you and burned too many times.

I will give PP the benefit of the doubt that she didn't know what would happen when she was due to come back from leave, but unfortunately, people like PP do ruin it for the rest of the new parents who need a little more grace in their return to office plans.

No one has ruined anything for anyone except the people posting in this forum about greed and discouraging moms from what they need after baby.

WTH literally no one has told OP to go back to work against her will. No one. She has options - she can quit her job if she doesn’t want to work which is what it sounds like. Most sane people realize employers can’t hold jobs open for moms who don’t want to work.

OP did not say she doesn’t want to work. She said she’s not ready to leave her baby. Which is totally understandable. Some of these comments are literally insane. This country will never move the needle on leave and a better life for parents/families with people like this out there. What a shame.

We absolutely need universal paid maternity leave, but this is a policy decision that probably everyone women posting on this board supports and has very little ability to move the needle on save for calling their reps and demanding change and/or speaking to their company's HR department. Most women tell their boss how much leave they plan to take before going out and then coverage is found accordingly. If OP's dept. found coverage for six months it might not be easy to re-up the coverage for an additional X months while OP takes more time. Add to that OP probably quitting in the end ("I realized I'm not ready to go back after 9 months after all!") and it just feels gross. What many of us are trying to tell her is that it will probably come off as gross to her company and that will treat her accordingly and that given her current stance she may want to seriously consider quitting. OP needs to ask herself what will make her feel ready? Is she OK not feeling ready and going back anyway if she takes a few more months off? I worked for a giant healthcare company previously (healthcare is notorious, ironically, for bad benefits) and I needed to be there for two years before I could get 100% STD. I saved up all my vacation and took 13 weeks with my third. I had this fortune 15 company's corporate secretary tell me that 13 weeks was a lot of time. I see nothing wrong with going against the grain, but it's preferable to say something up front if you plan to take off more time so suitable coverage can be arranged and if your company has a very generous policy it's likely that they'll frown on extensions. I say this after being in Tech with my first two and getting 22 weeks off with both babies -- it's not common to take more than the paid time you are given if it's very generous and it rubs people the wrong way.

The assumption that I didn’t plan for this is inaccurate. Sorry you think this feels gross and glad you had a good experience with your three kids. Might it be possible for someone to feel differently? This is not my first child. I agonized over planning my leave and took every available option so that I could maximize time home with my family. At great sacrifice to my finances, let me add. Every day of life is different, let alone every birthing experience - I’m not ready to leave my baby. How could I have known six months ago what I would feel like today when feelings and emotions change all the time? It’s so sad people, mothers even, can’t have empathy in these situations.

I don't believe this is your second child. If you had been through this before you would have a good understanding of how you would feel coming back from maternity leave and you would be able to psych yourself up and do it, like those of us who have gone back to work. I think this is your first and you have no idea what you're doing and are generally scared, all of which is fine. But speak to a therapist and figure out what your going to do instead of dragging this out with your employer and then quitting after 9 months of paid/unpaid maternity leave.

Not OP but I will be more likely to want more leave with my 2nd, should we have a 2nd, then with my 1st. We were totally unprepared for our 1st. I had PPA. No maternity leave. No paternity leave. Etc.
I could see myself doing 6 months and then wanting more because I just wasnt ready. Especially if its your last baby. Especially if you got 6 months to actually ENJOY your child. You realize after your first how fast it goes and how much time you spend away. She may also have a different personality baby. Maybe this one is higher needs.

Give a little grace. At the end it does boil down to stay home or working. Those are the options. There is some wiggle room potentially with PT work or WAH ( so no commute) but it is effectively either/or and that is frustrating.

If you realize after your first that you want more time for your second, you ask for it up front. And you would know this, because you've already gone through this once and presumably, seen the impact on your team. If OP has PPA or PPD and it's a medical issue then she can have a doctor provide documentation to her company about her needs, but after six months the company would also be well within their rights to change her role or hire someone else into her role (FMLA is only 12 weeks). OP works with other people and after six months after maternity leave, they may want a little grace thrown their way too. People may be covering for her and that may be a considerable strain since presumably her colleagues also have children, parents, responsibilities -- not just OP.

Not sure you're making the point you think you are with the second child. With a second you will be more prepared because you've had a first. It's a different experience with each kid, but my second and third were easy compared to my first. While babies are different - by six months your baby is capable physically of sleeping through the night and you are introducing solids. It's a great time to go back. If your baby has a medical issue it's a totally different ballgame when speaking to your company about getting more time. It's not the same as not "feeling ready" to go back to work, which is what OP is asking about. Even then, though, you need to either go back to work at some point and arrange childcare or stay home. What many of us are trying to tell OP is that very few people feel ready. You just have to decide if you're going to do it or if you're going to stay home. OP can also go back and then resign if she really hates it.

Thank you for repeating what I said....and I recognize that you are only in your limited bubble when you stay stuff like the bolded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I tried to do this after a 4 month leave and it did not work out. It was frustrating and I definitely ran into some of the attitudes on this thread.

HOWEVER, after I quit my job, I wound up talking to someone in our HR department and she gave me a hard time for not pushing harder. Basically she told me I should have come to her and made the request formally through HR instead of just trying to work it out with my department. I had a director in my department who was VERY opposed to it and frankly angry with me for asking (not a parent, if you're wondering) and once I made the initial request, she was never going to change her mind. But my HR friend told me that there was actually blowback about the incident in the company because they view themselves as very family friendly and part of their hiring strategy is to hire people with a lot of experience who are looking for good work-life balance. So apparently people were upset with my director for, in their eyes, forcing me out by not being willing to compromise with a month or two of unpaid leave or some kind of offer to return gradually in a part time capacity.

Too late for me to benefit from this knowledge, but you still can! If you get pushback, talk to HR and also make sure you review all your company's leave policies very closely (my company had a policy of "up to a year" of leave, combining paid and unpaid, a the discretion of your manager, and I should have pushed a lot harder on that). If this matters to you, get what you can! Good luck!

You are either inexperienced, uneducated, or both. I am a mom, extremely pro family friendly policies, and own a small business. There’s zero chance I would survive if I had to hold open a job for every single mom I employ until an unspecified end date, paid or not. I offer generous leave but the deal is that you come back and do your job after it. What you are complaining about will lead to businesses just not hiring women of child-bearing age. Wow, what a women’s-rights activist you are!!

What an unnecessarily hostile response. Your situation is not true for a lot of big businesses. You are ridiculous.

No, but it is true of big business because hiring managers are people (like the mom/business owner above) and once they get burned by something like this it's unlikely they'll be up for getting burned again. Many companies have flat budgets in FY23 and FY24 and many departments don't have excess funds to cover more than 6+ months of maternity leave or employees who are willing to pick up the slack for moms who aren't ready to return after 6 months. And for those saying that there is something wrong with everyone responding, you get 6 months in Canada and many other countries..6 months is a very reasonable amount of time. It's not as generous as many European countries but then again we don't pay the same high taxes as many Europeans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A PP asked but I didn't see an answer: how much more time are we talking? 1-2 additional months, or another 6 months?

I was asking what others may have done in this situation to try to gauge an answer to this question. But instead I got baseless accusations and almost entirely unhelpful nonsense. Just so upsetting.

I’m not sure why you’re attacking me, I was just asking a question that is relevant to what advice I would give. If you just want/need another month, I would think for a job you’ve been at 15 years, a good employer would accommodate. But if you’re looking for another 6 months or more, that puts a different level of strain on your colleagues covering for you.

Wasn’t directed at you as an attack. Very sorry it came off that way. Not my intention. Thanks for the advice. I agree.

Why aren’t you answering how much longer you want for leave?

OP isn't sure how much time she might want or could get. That's why she asked here what other's experience has been. If people came on and said "yes I got an extra month and it was just what I needed to help my feel ready -- babies change so much in a short period" that would have been informative. If people came on and said "I asked for an extra month and my employer said absolutely not and I had to go back right away and this was my experience with that" that would also be informative.

Everyone is acting like OP is asking them, personally, for extended leave. She's not. She's asking on here for feedback on experiences so that she can be more informed as she makes this decision of whether to ask for more leave and if so how much. She's the one gathering info about the landscape. No one is entitled to info about her personal life and she doesn't have to justify her interest in more leave to ANYONE on this forum.

I wonder if the responses to this would be different if OP was taking bereavement leave after losing a spouse and came on here saying "I want to ask my employer for extra time as unpaid leave because I just don't feel ready to be back in the office -- does anyone have experience with this?" For some reason our culture acts like women recovering from childbirth or making the transition to motherhood are trying to pull one over on society and that actually that's just easy and effortless and it's normal for women to be ready to return to their jobs in a short period of time. It's so weird! We were all babies once. We all have mothers. And yet we act like the act of having children and becoming a mom is a horrible imposition on other people, a personal hobby that women use to get out of "real" societal contributions like sitting in offices and sending emails and making corporations incrementally more money.

Our priorities are so f****d.

Oh, OP! It's actually really uncommon to take 6 months of leave and at the end of the leave to ask for more time. You're not getting a lot of "helpful" responses because your situation is uncommon. When people are in the place that you are in, OP, they quit or they go back to work. It's not what you want to hear, but it's the truth.

I'm the PP (not OP) and I'm sure OP is aware that six months leave is unusual in the US -- in fact I'm sure she has noted that in her comments.

But as someone who also had a generous maternity leave by US standards (4 months fully paid) I can tell you something you won't want to hear: companies that offer longer leaves are also often MORE likely to offer additional unpaid leave on a case by case basis, because these are companies that have structured solutions to having workers out on leave. They are also much more likely to offer longer leaves to fathers or to parents of adopted children, as well as paid leave for bereavement or family health emergencies.

Companies like this often also have a highly educated workforce and may know how hard it is to hire experienced people with the proper background, and therefore be more inclined to give a worker a little extra leave if the alternative is having to hire someone into a role that is currently filled by a company veteran with specific skill sets.

Also, and you won't believe this but I mean it: I wish you'd had this experience, I wish everyone did. I think it's a huge bummer that it's mostly only white collar professionals who get this kind of treatment at [some] companies. But the truth is that OP's company has already indicated that they are willing to tolerate longer maternity leaves, so she's probably in a better situation to request additional unpaid leave than the vast majority of women returning to work after having a baby.

NP, I would add one thing here - as someone who designed and ran a generous leave program for a tech company (since moved on). The jobs that offer these types of leave also are generally remote friendly, OK with a level of asynchronous work, and you might also have a partner with similar benefits so there can be stacking of leave before baby heads off to daycare or nanny comes into play. 6 months away from the role is on the high end of any tech companies I spoke to.

So to come back with “I’ve been out for 6 months, know you are flexible with WFH and I want to be off for another say, 3-6 months with no timeframe of coming back”, that’s going to get a big eye roll from HR and your team since the feeling is that they are already family friendly. My ex-company was also a company where they didn’t hire temps, the workload was redistributed and the people covering for the worker on leave were awarded spot bonuses for picking up the slack. So for the people who have been working hard throughout the leave, it’s a little like Lucy pulling the football out from Charlie Brown if the person doesn’t come back when they say they will. Not that THAT matters (nor should it) to someone in OP’s shoes but I do think it’s worth understanding the other side of it and coming up with a reasonable ask.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I tried to do this after a 4 month leave and it did not work out. It was frustrating and I definitely ran into some of the attitudes on this thread.

HOWEVER, after I quit my job, I wound up talking to someone in our HR department and she gave me a hard time for not pushing harder. Basically she told me I should have come to her and made the request formally through HR instead of just trying to work it out with my department. I had a director in my department who was VERY opposed to it and frankly angry with me for asking (not a parent, if you're wondering) and once I made the initial request, she was never going to change her mind. But my HR friend told me that there was actually blowback about the incident in the company because they view themselves as very family friendly and part of their hiring strategy is to hire people with a lot of experience who are looking for good work-life balance. So apparently people were upset with my director for, in their eyes, forcing me out by not being willing to compromise with a month or two of unpaid leave or some kind of offer to return gradually in a part time capacity.

Too late for me to benefit from this knowledge, but you still can! If you get pushback, talk to HR and also make sure you review all your company's leave policies very closely (my company had a policy of "up to a year" of leave, combining paid and unpaid, a the discretion of your manager, and I should have pushed a lot harder on that). If this matters to you, get what you can! Good luck!

You are either inexperienced, uneducated, or both. I am a mom, extremely pro family friendly policies, and own a small business. There’s zero chance I would survive if I had to hold open a job for every single mom I employ until an unspecified end date, paid or not. I offer generous leave but the deal is that you come back and do your job after it. What you are complaining about will lead to businesses just not hiring women of child-bearing age. Wow, what a women’s-rights activist you are!!

What an unnecessarily hostile response. Your situation is not true for a lot of big businesses. You are ridiculous.

No, but it is true of big business because hiring managers are people (like the mom/business owner above) and once they get burned by something like this it's unlikely they'll be up for getting burned again. Many companies have flat budgets in FY23 and FY24 and many departments don't have excess funds to cover more than 6+ months of maternity leave or employees who are willing to pick up the slack for moms who aren't ready to return after 6 months. And for those saying that there is something wrong with everyone responding, you get 6 months in Canada and many other countries..6 months is a very reasonable amount of time. It's not as generous as many European countries but then again we don't pay the same high taxes as many Europeans.

nonsense. They retained a senior employee for 15 years. They made out great. Frankly if they gave her another year of unpaid leave and hired a temp for a year and got her back for another 10 year that would great for the company. What you are saying makes no business sense. You just want to punish her for no reason I can see except maybe sour grapes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I tried to do this after a 4 month leave and it did not work out. It was frustrating and I definitely ran into some of the attitudes on this thread.

HOWEVER, after I quit my job, I wound up talking to someone in our HR department and she gave me a hard time for not pushing harder. Basically she told me I should have come to her and made the request formally through HR instead of just trying to work it out with my department. I had a director in my department who was VERY opposed to it and frankly angry with me for asking (not a parent, if you're wondering) and once I made the initial request, she was never going to change her mind. But my HR friend told me that there was actually blowback about the incident in the company because they view themselves as very family friendly and part of their hiring strategy is to hire people with a lot of experience who are looking for good work-life balance. So apparently people were upset with my director for, in their eyes, forcing me out by not being willing to compromise with a month or two of unpaid leave or some kind of offer to return gradually in a part time capacity.

Too late for me to benefit from this knowledge, but you still can! If you get pushback, talk to HR and also make sure you review all your company's leave policies very closely (my company had a policy of "up to a year" of leave, combining paid and unpaid, a the discretion of your manager, and I should have pushed a lot harder on that). If this matters to you, get what you can! Good luck!

You are either inexperienced, uneducated, or both. I am a mom, extremely pro family friendly policies, and own a small business. There’s zero chance I would survive if I had to hold open a job for every single mom I employ until an unspecified end date, paid or not. I offer generous leave but the deal is that you come back and do your job after it. What you are complaining about will lead to businesses just not hiring women of child-bearing age. Wow, what a women’s-rights activist you are!!

What an unnecessarily hostile response. Your situation is not true for a lot of big businesses. You are ridiculous.

No, but it is true of big business because hiring managers are people (like the mom/business owner above) and once they get burned by something like this it's unlikely they'll be up for getting burned again. Many companies have flat budgets in FY23 and FY24 and many departments don't have excess funds to cover more than 6+ months of maternity leave or employees who are willing to pick up the slack for moms who aren't ready to return after 6 months. And for those saying that there is something wrong with everyone responding, you get 6 months in Canada and many other countries..6 months is a very reasonable amount of time. It's not as generous as many European countries but then again we don't pay the same high taxes as many Europeans.

Canada only pays $638 per week which is less than $500 USD. I would rather go back at like, 4 months and be fully paid for that time than go back at 6 months at $500 per week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is so obnoxious. Just quit your job and go back when you’re ready. It sounds like your employer has been generous and you’re exploiting them at that point.

Not op. You are a big problem with what is wrong in this country. GTFOOH

This is so OP. You are just frustrated with the responses because no one is saying "after I took 6 months off, I requested another 10 months and my employer promoted me two weeks after I got back. It was great being there for Larla in her first 16 months but never actually needing to leave the workforce because my company let me take as much time as I needed to be mentally and physically and emotionally ready to leave her with a nanny."

Unfortunately, our country doesn't have good maternity leave policies but OP is so lucky that her company gives employees 6 months of paid leave. She is not the person I feel bad for when it comes to maternity leave. Even some type of universal leave will likely only cover 12 weeks.

OP here. I didn’t write this. This forum is so f-ing toxic. Accusing me of lying about this being my second kid. JFC. I’m done here. This made everything so much worse.

Well then, how did it go when you took maternity leave the last time at your company? And as a mom of multiple children whose taken multiple leaves, I find it really surprising that you're having trouble going back after six months with your second...but you went back after six months with your first no problem...I'm assuming no problem because if you had trouble going back after six months with your first why wouldn't you have had a conversation about taking more than six months with your employer upfront?

And why won't you just say how much time you plan to take? Why ask about others' experiences and for advice and then refuse to answer a very basic piece of information?