Maternity leave is haaaard

What do moos want? Long maternity leave! Full salary!

Oh, but that isn't enough. Maternity leave is isolating and difficult. It's never going to be enough, is it?

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• 27% did not enjoy their maternity leave as much as they thought they would
• 47% felt lonely
• 2 in 5 missed being at work
• 1 in 5 wished they'd gone back to work earlier

Well, it's not supposed to be fun, it's obviously grunt work, and if you miss being at work, I'm sure your employer will be thrilled to have you back and doing what you were paid to do sooner.

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yurble
Well, it's not supposed to be fun, it's obviously grunt work, and if you miss being at work, I'm sure your employer will be thrilled to have you back and doing what you were paid to do sooner.

I thought they wanted the leave so they could take care of an infant and also get rest and that makes sense. After all, it isn't a vacation it is mooternity leave. How do these moos not understand it is almost all grunt work and sleep and that is it? What do moos expect? For their spouses to come home from work and immediately send them to a spa or St. Barts? Should've married into a wealthy family where moo can stay at home and also have round the clock nannies because that is so common.

My employer (which happens to have very few females under the age of 35) offers short term disability as a new benefit. Not sure what it covers for mooternity leave but I like that it also covers unexpected illness and has the potential to benefit anyone, not just moos. For everyone except new moos, short term disability covers involuntary illnesses.

I wonder how much of maternity leave disappointment can be written off as moos discovering (or being reminded, depending on how many kids they've had already) that children and parenthood both suck. I can imagine for new moos especially that the reality vs. the fantasy is a pretty shocking transition.

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kittehpeoples
I wonder how much of maternity leave disappointment can be written off as moos discovering (or being reminded, depending on how many kids they've had already) that children and parenthood both suck. I can imagine for new moos especially that the reality vs. the fantasy is a pretty shocking transition.

Like they are expecting a sabbatical where they are going to get caught up on all the things they have postponed over the years, when the whole maternity leave issue was argued on the physical effects of the birth and the exhaustion of catering to a newborn's needs.

I think a lot of women want to become SAHMoos or take Moo-ternity leave because they think it will give them some kind of break and then they find out the reality: raising kids is mind-numbing drudgery for many women. Some women like it but others do not.

My mom was a bright woman. When I was a sprog myself I PAID ATTENTION and noticed how frustrating she found being a SAHMoo in general. She was always complaining about constant interruptions, being stuck at home, not making money, etc. Even though she likes to paint those days as "the happiest of my life" or some bullshit like that, my siblings and I saw through it. When she had to go back to work due to financial circumstances, she was a much happier person.

I know myself well enough to know that being home with a kid would drive me nuts. I'm an INTJ and I do not like to be interrupted and I need quiet time and time to think each day. Unlike 90% of women, I did NOT tell myself that having kids would be a bed of roses because it would be my OWWWWWWWWWWWWWNNNNNNNN DNA product. When I retire i'm looking forward to doing some things I was not able to do, but in genral I'm glad I did not have kids. I was able to work and apply myself to my job or my hobbies or whatever else I wanted to do, and not feel pulled in 50,000 different directions by having brats. ETA: It was also important for me to be able to provide for myself economically and not be dependent on another person.

Yup, I think that's the crux of it. They thought that mooternity leave would be a great way to escape their work responsibilities, only to find that being at home with the loaf is a hundred times worse.

Mindless, self-imposed drudgery doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun to me. That's why I'm glad that there are articles now that discuss these issues that plague moos. They help people make better-informed decisions. The only problem is that if a moo is unhappy, she will usually blame everyone else for her situation. She doesn't want to accept the reality that sluicing that loaf was her decision (since she's the carrier of said loaf), and that it was probably not a decision made wisely.

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bell_flower
I know myself well enough to know that being home with a kid would drive me nuts. I'm an INTJ and I do not like to be interrupted and I need quiet time and time to think each day.

I'm an introvert as well. I need 1-2 hours alone in the morning to be able to tolerate human interaction, and I like a few hours at night as well. If I go more than a week without getting my personal time, for instance if I'm on holiday with friends, I notice that I get a very short temper. I usually end up taking a day to just sit around the flat alone while my friends go out, to keep my sanity. If I'm not especially stressed I can handle interruptions in my time from people close to me, but if I am under strain I need pure, uninterrupted hours. If I can hear my neighbors I can't relax. I don't even like to consider the hell my life would be with kids in the house.

I tend to be a tad old fashioned. If they have a kid they stay home and raise it. I think it is the better interest of a baby. my opinion. I really don't know what was done with me when I was a kid, I do know I was in child care as mom made a stupid choice (or one to benefit her inherent narcissism). and had to work. I don't bond well with people. I make attachments but I don't think I've ever truly bonded. I am closer to my pets than people. Lost my beloved Tanzi cat a month ago: I think I was more upset over him than when my mom went.

two cents ¢¢

CERTIFIED HOSEHEAD!!!

people (especially women) do not give ONE DAMN about what they inflict on children and I defy anyone to prove me wrong

Dysfunctional relationships almost always have a child. The more dysfunctional, the more children.

The selfish wants of adults outweigh the needs of the child.

Some mistakes cannot be fixed, but some mistakes can be 'fixed'.

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one. Leo J. Burke

Adoption agencies have strict criteria (usually). Breeders, whose combined IQ's would barely hit triple digits, have none.

Condolences for your loss of Tanzi, and of course, your mother, too.

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yurble

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bell_flower
I know myself well enough to know that being home with a kid would drive me nuts. I'm an INTJ and I do not like to be interrupted and I need quiet time and time to think each day.

I'm an introvert as well. I need 1-2 hours alone in the morning to be able to tolerate human interaction, and I like a few hours at night as well. If I go more than a week without getting my personal time, for instance if I'm on holiday with friends, I notice that I get a very short temper. I usually end up taking a day to just sit around the flat alone while my friends go out, to keep my sanity. If I'm not especially stressed I can handle interruptions in my time from people close to me, but if I am under strain I need pure, uninterrupted hours. If I can hear my neighbors I can't relax. I don't even like to consider the hell my life would be with kids in the house.

Another introvert here and INTJ. I can go days without human contact without an adverse reaction. Being in a large group or party for a few hours will satisfy me for days and I greatly limit those experiences. If there is drama it gets old for me in about 2 minutes and often larger groups of people include a drama queen.

It is very very difficult for anyone to win in parenting IMO. Typically whomever stays at home is undervalued and expected to do more work, perhaps even housekeeping and meal planning. The one who works comes home to relax and is likely guilted into childcare. And often the one who works may use the power play of working and earning income to avoid drudgery work at home. And the sad part is they are both correct and have good points but that doesn't solve anything.

If the couple divorces they each get their own time but the kid has to travel and one if not both partners usually end up having money issues because two households. There just isn't a fair way to slice it and the most egalitarian way would be both spouses working and outsourcing housekeeping and taking care of the kids but it is a valid argument that this option defeats the purpose of having kids in the first place.

The kid doesn't win either if the environment is stressful or the parents divorce. It is almost always going to be a zero-sum game and the people losing are family and include a spouse who is supposed to be the love of your life. No thanks, I have no desire to punish someone I love or myself either. Nearly every decision a parent makes ultimately results in one of two outcomes: the parent pushes the responsibility onto the other spouse and deals with subsequent guilt or the parent does the task and feels like a martyr/exhausted afterwards.

I've been in work/friendship/dating relationships where the other person is a taker and there is no reciprocation. Someone marries at least some of the takers in the world, can you imagine the hell they would put their spouse through if they have any kids?

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mumofsixbirds
Condolences for your loss of Tanzi, and of course, your mother, too.

Yes, hope you are feeling a bit less sad every day twocents.

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twocents
Lost my beloved Tanzi cat a month ago: I think I was more upset over him than when my mom went.

I'm so sorry. I lost one of my cats and my mother two days apart, and I miss the cat more, so I think I know how you feel.

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twocents
I tend to be a tad old fashioned. If they have a kid they stay home and raise it. I think it is the better interest of a baby. my opinion. I really don't know what was done with me when I was a kid, I do know I was in child care as mom made a stupid choice (or one to benefit her inherent narcissism). and had to work. I don't bond well with people. I make attachments but I don't think I've ever truly bonded.

I don't see why the moo should be on the hook for non-stop childcare and the duh should not. One of the reasons I think people shouldn't moan about women doing more at home and subsequently getting less ahead in work is because it is a choice to accept a sexist dynamic in a personal relationship. If there's a responsibility, it lies equally on both parties. Child care has been a reality for most of history. I can accept that baby farms were harmful but I don't think there's evidence that modern daycare is generally bad. (Which is not to say that your personal experience wasn't bad.) It probably even helps with them figuring out that they aren't the center of the world, something few breeders seem inclined to teach them these days.

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freya
Another introvert here and INTJ. I can go days without human contact without an adverse reaction. Being in a large group or party for a few hours will satisfy me for days and I greatly limit those experiences. If there is drama it gets old for me in about 2 minutes and often larger groups of people include a drama queen.

Wonder how many of us are INTJ (I am as well). It's not especially common. I think we had a discussion about this once before.

I'm an INTJ as well. I prefer having a few hours per day as alone time, and I find crowds and being around too many people to be exhausting. I also find that I do better with one-on-one visits with family and friends to be more satisfying than visiting with two or more at the same time.

Being social and super-popular was never my thing. I think that having a small human attached to me 24/7 would be my very own definition of Hell.

I couldn't agree more with everything said above.
Staying at home with a howling, everything-consuming shitbanshee is 1000x worse than the worst (at least paid) job possible. And obviosuly the moo's (and sometimes duh's) have the rude awakening from the romantibullshit babbie fairytales, realize that it sucks, but dont have the guts to admit their crappy decision and blame everybody else.

It may be a little off topic, but I guess since moo-leave came up here so conveniently, I might as well get it off my chest.
Today, just a few hours ago, I got the whole glorification of moo-ternity (actually parhuntal, because males were involved too) leave shoved right into my face, where I least expected it.
There was a presentation held by my institute, where the main topics of research were to be presented infront of an audience including some external professors.
And as soon as it came to introducing the personel, right there, on the FIRST slide: a proud remark on how many people took a parhuntal leave during the research project. Connected to that came a very tasteless and gross remark on how "fertile" the research department is (yes, he really said it, you cant make that shit up). I couldnt believe my fucking eyes&ears!!
Instead of scientifically relevant numbers, like number of finished PhD's, MSc's, publications, patents, awards: NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO WERENT CONTRIBUTING SHIT TO SCIENCE FOR 10 MONTHS DUE TO SPROGGING on the 1st page! WTF really!
And the following 3 out of 4 speakers, proudly proclaimed that they "enjoyed parhuntal leave", right when they were introducing themselves.
I seriously lose the faith in humanity day by day. I seriously thought that at least the scientific community would leave their private lives, including their privatly manufactured, lab-irrelevant DNA clumps at home. But NOOOO. Even here, the fucktrophies, including connected absence (and cleaning up bodyfluids-) time, must be worshipped like a golden calf. Barf.
My faith was restored a little bit, when one professor at the end finally spoke up and told the speakers not to mention the parhuntal crud henceforth. Oh well. At least the glimpse of a happy end.

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bastet-the-bass-cat
My faith was restored a little bit, when one professor at the end finally spoke up and told the speakers not to mention the parhuntal crud henceforth. Oh well. At least the glimpse of a happy end.

Good for that professor, who is now of course going to be shunned and considered a fossil. I remember a similar event which focused on how many people had taken advantage of some breeder re-integration scheme. It seemed like completely the wrong metrics to be tracking. From the business perspective surely the metric of interest is not how many people availed themselves to the scheme, but whether it delivered the expected results of transitioning people out of leave and back into work?

I'm INTJ also but I think I've changed after 1.5 decades.

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yurble

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freya
Another introvert here and INTJ. I can go days without human contact without an adverse reaction. Being in a large group or party for a few hours will satisfy me for days and I greatly limit those experiences. If there is drama it gets old for me in about 2 minutes and often larger groups of people include a drama queen.

Wonder how many of us are INTJ (I am as well). It's not especially common. I think we had a discussion about this once before.

I think so too and it seems like a high number of us are INTJ. I would guess the more extreme the introversion and thinking oriented a person is the less chance of kids, especially for a couple that are both introverted and thinking. I would guess less INTJ women have kids than INTJ men, since women are typically the ones who do most of the child rearing. An INTJ man may marry a woman with more dominant extroversion and feeling and let her do most of the kid stuff. The thing that seems most disruptive to parents about kids is not ever having any alone time, which is something introverts highly value.

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yurble

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bastet-the-bass-cat
My faith was restored a little bit, when one professor at the end finally spoke up and told the speakers not to mention the parhuntal crud henceforth. Oh well. At least the glimpse of a happy end.

Good for that professor, who is now of course going to be shunned and considered a fossil. I remember a similar event which focused on how many people had taken advantage of some breeder re-integration scheme. It seemed like completely the wrong metrics to be tracking. From the business perspective surely the metric of interest is not how many people availed themselves to the scheme, but whether it delivered the expected results of transitioning people out of leave and back into work?

Makes me think of the "production babies" lists at the end of some movie credits. Barf. I don't care who committed what biological acts during the making of a movie. I don't need to know how many bathroom breaks there were during production, either. Nobody fucking cares. (I wonder sometimes if lists like that are there to appease the partners who are raising the kids while their significant other is spending ridiculous hours at the studio..."We know production almost ended your marriage, so we stuck your sprog's name in the credits to calm you down. Did it work?")

I straddle the line between INTJ and INFJ. I also need plenty of alone time. I had to train somebody today and she decided to come in at the same time I do, which I don’t like because I would have liked to have at least an hour to myself before I had to spend my entire shift talking to somebody and teaching them the ropes. I was kind of annoyed all day.

I just could not deal with having a child. I love coming home from work, showering, having dinner, and just resting in bed on the Internet and watching TV until it’s time to sleep. If I had to come home from work where there are people to come home and have to deal with a child, I would go insane.

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Oh whatever. Abortion doctors are crimestoppers."
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Whats so hard about sitting at home and taking care of a kid you chose to have? Then again I don't understand breeders. Though the childrearing part sounds more tedious than hard.