It’s Mat Leave Monday! Throughout this series I’ve talked about how maternity leave works, why it’s very important, and how moms might spend their time on maternity leave. I’ve talked about planning your leave, and finding childcare when you return. But I haven’t talked about how maternity leave is viewed in the workplace.
Ideally, having a baby and going on leave would be non-issues. Certainly there are arrangements to be made when you’re going to be away from your job for a long stretch. But you would hope that no one views your leave as a liability. That your loyalty or worth as an employee isn’t called into question because you’re procreating.
For the most part people do take maternity leave in stride. People have families of their own, and they understand how it works. They realize that your decision to have a baby usually bears no relationship to how you feel about your job. All the same, I have heard a surprising number of negative comments, or at least less-than-glowing responses.
For instance, I have heard people say, “You’re abandoning us!” or, “I’m happy for you but I’m disappointed all the same,” or, “I keep hiring women but then they have a baby and leave me.” Losing a valued employee, even temporarily, is not something most employers would be excited about. Why would they? All of the time and money they’ve invested is waddling out the door with the heavily pregnant woman going on leave. And there are logistical issues that come with that.
Here’s the thing, though. People leave their jobs all the time. For personal or career reasons, people move on. And with much shorter notice than you get before a new mom goes on leave. Expectant moms are able to give months of notice, to train replacements and make sure any skills or information they have are shared. Most do their very best to make the transition as easy as possible. After all, if there’s a horrible mess they’ll be coming back to it when their leave is over.
I did a little bit of research. There are approximately 17 million employees in Canada. The quit rate varies by region and industry, but in 1999 it averaged a little over 10 percent. This means that approximately 1.7 million Canadians leave their jobs every year. In 2006, a total of 354,617 births were registered in Canada. This figure doesn’t factor in adoptions, but it also doesn’t tell us how many twins or higher order multiples there were, so let’s just use this number as a rough estimate. Since around 60% of new mothers take maternity leave, this means that approximately 213,000 moms take maternity leave in any given year.
If you’re far more likely to lose an employee for reasons other than new parenthood, why is maternity leave viewed as such an inconvenience, or even a betrayal? Why are young women still occasionally regarded as ticking time bombs who may turn up pregnant at any moment? The fact is that you are more likely to lose a man because he gets a better offer or wants to travel and find himself. But we don’t really worry about that.
I think there are still some old ideas kicking around in society. Ideas that say a mom shouldn’t work. Ideas that say pregnancy is indecent and ought to be hidden. Ideas that say a mother won’t do a good job because her attention is divided. Yet fathers are viewed as more stable employees than non-fathers. This is reflected in studies that show women incur a wage penalty when they have children, but men receive a wage premium. These ideas colour the way people respond to maternity leave.
In my opinion the dismay over maternity (or paternity) leave is inappropriate. An employee’s personal life is not an inconvenience. It is not evidence of disloyalty. I think we need to remember that. Let’s be careful about the language we use and the message we communicate. It’s well past time.
I’d love to hear your stories. How was the news of your impending leave handled? I’m curious to hear your impressions of how maternity leave is viewed in the workplace.
I think it may have to do with the fact that mat leave is so uncertain. Employers have to hold the job, and finding a temporary person is complicated and I am sure annoying. Then the mother may or may not come back. If someone outright quits, it’s much, much easier to simply replace him or her.
When I was getting ready to go on mat. leave with Emma, my employer changed their hiring policy to be a 1 year temp contract to start that stated that an employees job would not be held if they left their job for a mat. or parental leave during this first year of employment, and that Komex would not extend their health benifits during the mat. leave.
I was so shocked! Good thing I wasn’t a new employee…don’t know if I would have signed on with the company if that had of been presented to me at the time.
They were finding that because our office was such a young one (average age was 27) that they were constantly loosing staff to mat and parental leaves. Still shitty though, if you ask me.
I have no experience in handling mat leave/pregnancy at work issues cos I was an unemployed new immigrant when I became ‘in the family way’.
…. but I have heard of some biased interviewing regarding a woman’s possible fertility and work. One involved an aspiring female surgeon who was being held up in career progression simply because ‘she might leave to have a family’. Before her next interview she paid a visit to the hospital pathology museum. As she sat down before the interviewers she bent down to retrieve something from her bag on the floor. She plonked down a heavy glass specimen jar on the table in front of the bemused academics with the words, “Well, I guess that takes care of that question! Shall we continue?”
On closer inspection, the glass dish held a fairly fresh human uterus.
Sometimes being taken seriously as a woman takes humour as well as hard work, more skill, etc.
As a different aside though, although it’s never happened to me, my husband did get passed over for promotion – the position went to a woman who almost immediately went on maternity leave. How did that make me feel? It made me feel cheated on behalf of my husband – the woman already knew she was pregnant when she interviewed, did she really have to have it all? I guess this is one of the big questions in life right now but sometimes I think you do have to make a choice between family and career. Although it’s never been an issue for men in the workforce, and that is an injustice in itself, bringing up children does require commitment and maybe it’s time to start thinking of commitment longer than traditional mat leave and start pushing for better job-sharing/part time/family friendly career opportunities for all humans who choose to raise the next generation.
I found out I was pregnant the same week that I was transferred to another location, as a promotion. When I informed my employer, his exact response was, “I’m happy for you but it sucks for me”.
At 30 weeks, I was having strong contractions and was scheduled to 2 weeks of bed rest. When my employer found out, he told me, “I thought you told me that you were having a healthy pregnancy and see no problem working till 38 weeks.” Yes, I did it on purpose.
I don’t think we are there yet with the perception of women in the workforce having babies. But, as a business woman, I understand. However, employers must understand that if they back their employee throughout their pregnancy and mat. leave, she will more likely be more loyal to returning to the same place of employment.
Very thought-provoking, that part about how it’s more likely that someone would leave the job for another reason than for maternity leave.
I had a hugely supportive boss when I had my first, which was important since I was very nervous about the whole parenthood thing. She moved to a different role while I was gone (during those short ten weeks!), and I was moved to a much lesser role upon my return.
The second time, I had a boss who was kind of supportive, but I was much more certain about myself and knew what I was in for, so it went fine. He also moved to a different role while I was gone (14 weeks this time), but I came back to my exact same position and had a very good transition back.
People were generally supportive both times (at the same company), but the second experience went much better.
With my second pregnancy I had already warned my boss that it would be happening at some point so she wasn’t surprised. It may sound strange to have told her to expect it before it happened but I was up for a promotion and I didn’t want to get the promotion and then have to deal with any negative fallout. I still got the promotion and felt a bit bad for her that I was then leaving in 9 months but I was really the best person for the job and I worked harder in those 9 months then others probably would have.
When I actually told my boss I was pregnant she did a great job of being happy and supportive. She even bought me a congratulations gift. But she kind of has to be supportive. I work for the federal government and there are policies stating that family life and pregnancies are to be supported. And they are, I am so lucky.
My maternity leaves were 30, 24 and 21 years ago so I honestly don’t remember too much except that I was able to combine all possible paid time to extend as long as possible with the positive encouragement of my bosses. I think this is an interesting perspective and important part of your series. I Stumbled it!