If you have been anywhere near the internet, a television or a national newspaper in the last 10 days you might have heard of the baffling call from an American author for maternity rights to be extended to all women, not just those who are having babies. If her statement were a ploy to stir up publicity for her new novel ‘Meternity’, then it has had the desired effect; it has been discussed everywhere from Radio 4 to ‘This Morning’ with Philip and Holly, all before the book is released in the UK. And look, I’m writing about it too.
Meghann Foye’s novel is about a frazzled magazine editor who fakes a pregnancy in order to get some time off work to figure out what to do with her life. And as she wrote the book, Foy says she became increasingly sympathetic to the plight of her character, who was envious of women who got to go on maternity leave, as it allowed their personal lives to take centre stage.
Foye became so convinced by her own creation’s arguments that she is now calling for all non-parents (and in particular, non-mums) to be given paid leave from work so they can focus on that part of their lives which doesn’t revolve around their jobs.
Paid leave from work – just to have some ‘me-time’, because that’s what women get if they have babies? This argument is so unbelievably flawed that I am struggling to know where to start in my efforts to pick it apart. But let’s start with the obvious; maternity leave, as will be vouched by every woman who has had ever had a baby, is no six month paid holiday. Maternity leave is, if you will excuse my language, bloody hard work.
I can only talk from my own experience, but I found it isolating and exhausting. As much as I loved (and still love) my baby, far from my personal life taking ‘centre stage’ as espoused by Foy, I felt myself disappear in a haze of nappy changes, feeds, visits to the baby clinic and mammoth sessions sorting tiny laundry. I had neither mood nor inclination to consider whether I ought to take my career in a new direction.
As soon as my statutory leave was up I went back to work. In truth, that was easy – being in the office for a few hours a day while someone else dealt with the baby was easier than being at home full time. I got to have adult conversations and finish a cup of coffee while it was hot.
But I have more issues with the argument than just the ‘maternity leave is a holiday’ one. What about the impact on small business owners? Maternity leave can be a burden on employers, who pick up the bulk of maternity pay and need to find someone to fill the role of their absent employee while she is off populating the world. Most employers will accept that the continuance of the species is a justifiable reason for taking paid leave from work; to extend that to female employees who are ‘frazzled’ or need time to ‘find themselves’ is just nonsense.
It is already difficult for employers to balance the competing claims of all staff – both those who do and those who don’t have children – for time off during school holidays and Christmas, without throwing this into the mix. But having said all that, had I not had the ‘benefit’ of a career break after Daughter #2 came along, I wouldn’t have realised that as a solicitor I was a bit of a square peg in a round hole, and that I really needed a change. A year away from the law allowed me to realise that the profession no longer made my heart sing, and so I looked elsewhere. I was lucky enough to manage to carve out a new career in media.
Society needs to support those of us who have children, and to support women to return to work afterwards. But society also needs to recognise the needs of those who can’t become parents or don’t want to have children, to take some time off too.
So here’s an idea – statutory unpaid sabbaticals. All employees, and I include parents in this, should be able to negotiate an unpaid sabbatical – say, six months in every decade worked. That would allow for ‘me-time’, reflection, ‘finding oneself’, or just having a damned good holiday. And I’m not just restricting this to women – men become ‘frazzled’ too.
I’m unlikely to read Foye’s novel; the concept annoys me too much for me to be able to conceive (pun intended) of turning the first page. But as a mother whose unpaid break from work gave me the breathing space to discover a new career, I’m hardly in a position to deny it to anyone else.
This column first appeared in six SPP Group newspapers week ended 13th May 2016.
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