Maternity/Paternity Leave

The moment I found out I was pregnant with my first baby I started looking into my maternity entitlements. I work for a small company so discovered that our maternity leave was the minimum that we had to be awarded by law. However some companies are more generous than this, so always make sure you check this with your HR department. The current statutory maternity leave is that every Mother is entitled to take a full year off work when you have a baby. However you are paid 90% of your wage for the first six weeks and then you are paid for upto 39 weeks at statutory maternity pay which is currently £117.18 per week (this rises to £123.06 from the 5th April ...  Read the complete review

Eek! It's a baby. It writhes, it cries, it smells funny... I've changed my mind! Ok - so these are fairly stereotypical musings on your first few seconds as a new dad when the nurse hands you the bundle of blankets containing your small and wrinkly offspring. I was prepared for the birth - especially as it was 2 weeks late, but not the method of arrival. The sprog clearly has its Mum's sense of direction and pottered about aimlessly until deciding to head for the largest exit. I shall spare you all the emotional wibble now, it'll only embarrass me and other dads who need to pretend they coped fine, but in reality had to choke back the tears. ...  Read the complete review

Having recently waved a colleague off on the start of her maternity leave, I couldn't help the feelings of envy and memories of my own maternity leave, having returned to work on a part-time basis last July. With both of my boys, I took as much maternity leave as I was legally able to and didn't regret a moment of it. In the unlikely event that I have any more children (sigh!) I would again take the maximum leave that I could. If you're thinking about maternity leave and aren't sure about how long to have off, I'd say have as much time off as you can afford - and then a little bit longer! When my oldest son was born in 2002, maternity entitlements weren't as ...  Read the complete review

Ok I am not a mother, although would like to be one day and so I am going to look at this from an employer point of view. In the past, women on maternity leave did not have to give an employer advance notice of their return date, this caused severe difficulties within smaller firms. Changes to maternity regulations in 2006/07 mean that an employer now has access to ‘Keep in touch days', to communication with an employee during their maternity leave, allowing the company to plan ahead. However I am still concerned that there is still an incentive for women who reach the end of their maternity leave to then take time off sick for a further 28 weeks. ...  Read the complete review

Currently, paternity leave is a bit of a joke, but at least some effort has been made to acknowledge the fact that dads need to be with the new baby as much as mums do. At time of writing, paternity rights are thus - during the first five years of a child's life, you are entitled to a certain amount of UNPAID leave. The amount of time is nigh on irrelevant, because most of us cannot afford to have dad off unpaid, especially not when a new little person has arrived. However, with a bit of care and wrangling, you can get a better deal. Firstly, find out what policy your company has - some are more friendly than others. Secondly, use your holiday time ...  Read the complete review