In this solo episode, I'm going to be setting the scene for the mini series ahead. So today we are talking about equity and maternity. My starting point for the season was a story I read about the growing number of women on maternity leave who were being forced to use food banks. I started there, and this episode and this season ahead is where we went.
In this solo episode, I'm going to be setting the scene for the mini series ahead. So today we are talking about equity and maternity. My starting point for the season was a story I read about the growing number of women on maternity leave who were being forced to use food banks. I started there, and this episode and this season ahead is where we went.
A full transcript of this episode can be found at https://nothing-without-us.simplecast.com/episodes/the-maternity-crisis
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Nothing Without Us is presented by Angie Browne from Being Luminary.
It is edited by Big Tent Media and produced by Emily Crosby Media.
The state of maternity leave and pay in the UK really goes beyond just policy. To me it represents a crisis of humanity a crisis in which we are stripping women of the fundamental choice to bond with their newborns and recover physically and emotionally from childbirth.
You are listening to Nothing Without Us, a podcast for the equity committed and the equity curious for the leaders and shakers who have dreamed a world and in that world equity is a tangible reality. I'm Angie Browne, an equity strategist with over 20 years in the field. And each week, I will guide you through topics and conversations that touch on equity, fairness, ethics and social justice. In every episode, you'll have the chance to get equity conscious.
In this solo episode, I'm going to be setting the scene for the mini series ahead. So today we are talking about equity and maternity. My starting point for the season was a story I read about the growing number of women on mat leave who were being forced to use food banks. I started there, and this episode and this season ahead is where we went. About three weeks before she gave birth she realised the enormous weight of responsibility she was about to bear. seems ridiculous in retrospect, she'd been pregnant for eight months. Yeah, only now did it dawned on her that her freedom was about to be significantly curtailed. As a successful woman working in the public sector, working in education, she had had some lofty ideas about a swift return to her job. The education sector she believed would surely be understanding would be supportive, would accommodate the needs of a new mother with open arms. The rush of hormones, the overwhelming love and endorphins that followed childbirth shifted her focus entirely. Those initial months were a blur coloured by her pre committed return to work within just four months. Every moment spent with her newborn served as a painful reminder of her over ambitious promise. She felt she was about to fail on all fronts in motherhood and in her demanding role at work. Returning to her job after a mere four months was not only heartbreaking, but also physically and mentally exhausting. Her body still recovering from the trauma of childbirth, and her mind fogged by sleep deprivation and the constant demands of breastfeeding left her struggling to perform at her previous levels. This was the reality of balancing motherhood and a professional career as a single university educated woman in her 30s. The situation faced by many women returning from maternity leave in the UK, as highlighted in two comprehensive surveys conducted in 2023 sheds light on a range of significant hardships. The surveys conducted by organisations like maternity action and pregnant then screwed, involved around six and a half 1000 women who were on maternity leave or at least 20 weeks pregnant or had children under 12 months old. And the findings reveal a distressing landscape of both economic and social challenges. One of the trends that emerged from the surveys was that many women had to return to work as early as four months postpartum, primarily due to financial constraints. In fact, it was only a quarter of the respondents who could afford to take their for maternity leave entitlements. The financial struggles were also profound. Many of the women who the survey spoke to how to take loans in order to cover their basic household expenses or were relying on credit cards for basic daily needs. Many of those women were battling high interest debts. The plight of Self Employed Women was also particularly acute. Many found themselves compelled to resume work within weeks of having a baby succumbing to the dual pressure of financial and cost of living. Additionally, the existing criteria for maternity pay excluded those in insecure jobs. Women with unplanned pregnancies were also excluded. And those who experienced periods of illness during their pregnancy were experiencing extreme challenges. A significant barrier highlighted in the surveys was the lack of affordable childcare, which restricted many women from continuing their professional roles or pursuing part time employment. This lack of support infrastructure, limited the choices available to new mothers impacting their ability to balance their work and their family life. One of the things that I noticed when I was reading through the feedback from the survey's was the dire consequences of these challenges. So those consequences not just being financial ones, but also really kind of deeply human ones. There were heartbreaking accounts of women co sleeping with their babies not because they chose to, but out of necessity, due to the inability to afford heating. The surveys and these narratives talk to public sector employees, people who were considered the backbone of our communities, people who were considered the backbone of our society, these people were found to be relying on food banks to feed their families. The surveys painted a picture of women exhausting their limited resources, in that they've just had babies. And using that precious energy that they had left available for themselves, to instead, scan the Internet seeking grants for essentials, like fuel, trying to find out about debt support, trying to work out how they could supplement their small incomes, and pay for their increasing housing costs. The state of maternity leave and pay in the UK, as revealed by the surveys really goes beyond just policy. To me, it represents a crisis of humanity, a crisis in which we are stripping women of the fundamental choice to bond with their newborns and recover physically and emotionally from childbirth. I think that the situation really calls us to attention calls us to look at the inequity being experienced by people on maternity leave by people who are about to go on maternity leave by people who've returned too early from maternity leave, because really support at this period should just be a right? Humane right afforded to every every mother, every parent. There are so many complexities about returning to work after maternity leave. When I wanted to spend a little bit of time just exploring some of those. There are some peculiar intersections of societal expectations of mothers and a kind of idealisation that society has also of motherhood and that many of us carry. Returning to the work after maternity leave therefore presents a whole range of complex emotions and challenges. We have to often transition and navigate societal expectations alongside our personal aspirations as well as include the practical realities, I mean, how are men and women going to practically manage returning to the workforce, and the navigation of these things, is something that many people are doing on their own, most people not having access to mentorship or coaching around these issues. So dealing with that transition, dealing with the way that society expects you to manage new motherhood, also contributes to the overall mental and emotional landscape of many new mothers.
There is in society a kind of archetype of the ideal mother. And that is so pervasive, the ideal mother is the one who is constantly nurturing and consistently devoted, who is available. I remember hearing things around being a stay at home mum. And for me, that was kind of a really textured set of narratives. There was some versions of it that suggested that being a stay at home mum would be the thing that any good woman would aspire to. And there were other versions of it that suggested that being a stay at home mum was somehow something to be rejected was somehow something that would clash with the identity of a modern, professional woman. And I think there's something in that dichotomy that creates pressure for people who are going into this world of motherhood, often leading to feelings of inadequacy in either or both roles. So we're neither good mothers, nor are we good, non professional women. There is a stigma associated with a very early return to work after maternity leave. And there's also a stigma associated with choosing to stay at home. And this forced evaluation of our principles of our identity, at that particular juncture, like any point within a year of giving birth, I think also significantly contributes to the mental and emotional landscape of new mothers. Some people say don't make any decisions two years after giving birth. And yet, we see hundreds of 1000s of women returning to the workforce making decisions about their life within weeks, within days before they have even navigated the significant change that is giving birth to another human being. And so it's unsurprising that there is, and has been found to be a mental toll on women who returned to work, and who returned to work prematurely because they are forced to return prematurely often because they choose to return as a consequence of some of the complexities of showing up as a professional, modern woman. And I think that these mental burdens are also probably underestimated, certainly, in my case, vastly underestimated. psychotherapists called Emma Hanes talked about transitioning from the nurturing environment of maternity leave to a more demanding professional setting and describe the sort of jarring nature of that describes that jarring experience leading to stress, leading to anxiety, and possibly in some cases leading to postpartum depression. Now, this isn't a one size fits all, because clearly, for many, returning from the environment of maternity leave into the workplace is also experienced, as a really welcome jarring for many people who have been enjoying and who thrive in a demanding workplace setting. It's actually the environment of maternity leave, that is challenging. And what I'm not trying to do is to say that one environment is better than the other that one version of being jarred is better than the other. But to say that that transition, whichever way it is, and however it's experienced, can lead to extremely intense feelings can lead to and further any internal conflict that a woman is experiencing as she traverses this point in her life. For many, there is an internal conflict between fulfilling professional duties and the desire to be with a newborn. And that internal conflict if unchecked, and, if unsupported, if undiscovered, can have lasting effects on mental health. And so let's just talk for a moment about guilt. Because I meet women who experience guilt, maternal guilt, as a kind of regular, everyday presence. For many people returning to work, the guilt can manifest itself because there is now a kind of ambivalence towards a previously enjoyed role. And what if it's the reverse? What if, actually, the experience of returning to work is smoother and much more enjoyable than we had imagined or than society tells us we should be experiencing? Well, then, feelings of guilt may arise, because we don't feel we're fulfilling the archetype of the devoted mother. There may be guilt experience as we miss the key moments in the early stages of our child's life. First time they speak the first time they utter something that sounds like mum, that sounds like Dad. First time they point pick up recognise something. And all of that further complicates the emotional landscape of somebody new to motherhood new to parenthood. A survey conducted in 2020 found that this isn't something that is rare. In fact, it's 31% of mothers returning to the workplace find it much harder than expected, after an average 10 month maternity leave. And so it's important that we recognise that for those who look like they're thriving for those who looked like they are, should we awfully use the term bouncing back, you know, returning with vigour and with great zest and professionalism for those people, they could still be struggling greatly for those who are struggling greatly, that's really to be expected and want to add another layer into this because there is something significant and about maternity leave, and about returning to the work after maternity leave or even planning for our maternity leave, that is impacted upon by our notions of family. To during the COVID crisis, there was a spotlight cast on the issues of the nuclear family unit. It was during this period sort of 2020 to 2022, that people began to experience family life is incredibly overwhelming. Recognising that actually, the nuclear family unit was something that isolated them was something that was exhausting to manage that was symptomatic of a society that has really narrowed the definition of family. It could be argued that it is the impact of poverty that has compelled many people to move away from traditional nuclear family structures. The model of a nuclear family is predicated on the idea that it's a single family unit that can work and be self sufficient. In actual fact, it's really difficult to make that work. The idea that one family can independently manage every aspect of daily living child rearing, caring for elderly relatives, in the family, without any other support is becoming increasingly unrealistic, especially if we look at the way that many of us are engaging with the workforce have jobs that are demanding that require 12 hours of every day, in order for those jobs to be fulfilled. And so people are moving away from it, sometimes because of poverty, that many social commentators are sort of witnessing and observing the rise in multi generational households through choice. These multi generational households have always existed within certain ethnic groups. I grew up in a community in which multi generational households were norm, and I live in a multi generational household now. These living arrangements that have been perceived as economically driven necessities, I feel are actually a return to a much more holistic and realistic way of living. In many cultures, thriving is equated with shared responsibilities, we share our financial contributions with each other, we share the household duties, imagine not having to be the one that Hoover's every single part of the house every single day, or every single week, but having others that share in those duties, too. We all care for the young and we all care for the elderly, within this way of organising a life within this way of organising a family.
The resurgence of multi generational family households is actually a nod to a pre colonised epoch where the concept of family extended beyond two people and a child beyond that paradigm, and encompassed a much broader community network. In these communities, child rearing is then recognised as much more of a collective endeavour. So this is not a role that is confined to parents alone. Children are seen as being part of a larger hole. And their guidance in their care is provided by multiple caregivers, multiple mentors. This approach is in stark contrast to our contemporary, and I would argue colonised view of the family, which puts this massive burden of caregiving, of providing guidance of providing emotional well being and support on to individual parents. And this is to say nothing of how single parents are supposed to manage the lens through which we view our return to work from maternity leave places undue pressure on individuals. It expects parents in a nuclear family to shoulder the entire responsibility of nurturing. And at the same time of managing professional obligations. I just feel like this is a psychological toll that is increasingly detrimental to a human being. I actually think it would be really helpful for many of us to start to map out how our children can be raised in community so that we're not doing this job in isolation. The current model that we have of nuclear family rearing, as it aligns with institutions and their policies on things like maternity and paternity leave, and even shared parental leave really fails to acknowledge the challenge of nuclear family parenting. It's a really narrow perspective. And I think it's one that could do with being deeply examined. Aside from that, there are other challenges. So, if we take an intersectional look at the experiences of maternity leave, we can't help but look at the situation for women of colour in the UK, and maternity leave experiences of black mothers is going to be significantly shaped by systemic racism, as well as socio economic disparities. And there's a lot of research going into the disparities experienced by black women in the maternal health system. And if you're interested in that, and I hope you are, and you're interested in decolonized notions of both childbirth, and maternity care, then do tune in for an episode later in this series with Mars Lord. There are historical roots in health care which which Mars can talk to where discriminatory practices have led to many black women not trusting the healthcare system as a consequence of the unequal treatment they've received. And this context has ongoing implications for black mothers, who then experience access to support during maternity leave in very different ways to their white peers. Economic factors also significantly affect black mothers. Because there are such enormous socio economic disparities in the UK, experienced by different ethnic groups. So many black mothers will be compelled to return to work sooner than they would like due to financial necessity. And the disparities in income are one dimension of this. But employment insecurity is another huge factor in the lives of black mothers. Additionally, the eligibility criteria for maternity pay for benefits may not always align with the realities faced by black women in precarious employment situations. So anyone that is thinking really carefully about the way in which their maternity policy meets women in their workplace must also think about how it is meeting the intersecting identities of women in their workplace. Our reforms of policy in our institutions need to ensure that they don't disproportionately impact negatively on the experiences of certain groups. It's a really complicated way of saying, Do you have a group of people in your organisation who also happen to be women from ethnic minority groups? And are they in the jobs in your organisation that are the lower paid, that are the part time and that will be disproportionately impacted by lack of flexibility in terms of maternity rights? If so, what can you do in your policy to improve the situation for these women? Now, our sector the public sector, has some unique challenges. There are some really great practice out there. There are private sector organisations beginning to take much more luminary approaches to maternity leave through their maternity leave policies, looking at a year of paid full paid maternity leave. In the public sector. There is obviously still a huge financial pressure. Public Sector salaries often Yes, provide stability, but they don't compete in terms of the salary level with those salaries being offered in the private sector. And so that means that when you then enter into a period of maternity leave and you're on a reduced income, you are already facing significant challenges. In some cases, maternity pay in the public sector doesn't even compensate for the loss of regular income in any way. So many women just have to return to work because they can't afford to make it work in any other way. There is a statutory maternity leave in the UK. But often the terms of statutory maternity leave don't align with the needs of individuals. And the duration of paid leave is often insufficient. Although public sector salaries may provide stability, it is still the case that in certain public sector roles, there is a level of job insecurity. And so for many people returning from maternity leave is also kind of textured is also coloured by the underlying sense that their job could be at risk if they don't return and prove themselves, you know, as a show up worker, constant news stories about government budget cuts about organisational restructuring, about redundancy, are definitely adding to the stress and pressure on new mothers to return to work in our sector. And there is a lack of flexibility very often, in the public sector, it always surprises me that schools, you know, the very sight in which we are being paid to look after children do not really support people who are going to have those very children. Schools are remarkably lacking in flexibility, we have very rigid working hours, and often insufficient support for flexible working. It's impossible to leave out of this conversation, the fact that for many women stepping out of the workforce in the public sector to go on maternity leave, we'll put a full stop often on their career progression. And if not a full stop, then there's certainly a significant pause, and ellipsis perhaps. So career progression could be a factor in many deciding to return to the work place sooner than they might want to. There are a whole host of challenges in the public sector. And you know, I could continue on to talk about childcare costs and the challenge around that, to talk about the lack of you know, signposting and of support for many people. But I think we ought to move on to what we can do. Now one of the things that I'm really passionate about is policies, anyone that knows me or has worked with me knows that I'm really interested in creating a line of merchandise,
around policies, because I think policies have the opportunity to interrupt the lived experience of people out there in the world for good, I think policies can be beneficial. And so I envisage suites of policies around identity. And I think when workplaces can get really intentional about the suite of policies they have around different people's identities, that they can do really luminary work. So at the very least, we're looking for decent, comprehensive maternity and paternity leave policies in which there is an articulation of the amount of fully paid, you know, beyond statutory leave that people can expect, and an articulation of why you're making this commitment in articulation of the desire to support mothers and fathers in bonding with their newborn children, and in sharing childcare responsibilities, so I really I really like to see schools with with comprehensive well written maternity paternity and shared parental leave policies. Likewise, adoption leave policies that provide equitable leave for adoptive parents and recognise the process of adoption recognise the process of bonding with an adopted child, and really take that seriously take that earnestly. IVF and fertility treatment policies or certainly support is something that I like to see an organisation articulate. Again, this policy needs to recognise the huge emotional toll as well as the physical toll that fertility treatment takes on 1000s of our workers in our organisations and needs to articulate the specific leave or flexible working arrangements that the organisation is prepared to make. In this series of podcast episodes, there are a couple of conversations where I talk with my guest about baby loss and miscarriage. These conversations just underscore for me, more so than ever, the need for institutions to have in place baby loss and miscarriage policies certainly have a document that articulates everything, we would want a woman who is experiencing either of those things to also experience in our workplace, how would we want that person to meet our workplace during that time in her life? So if that means that you rewrite your compassionate leave policy so that it has a reference to baby loss and miscarriage then do that. But if it means that you could sit down and spend the time really coming up with a policy that can be left as a legacy in your instance. Duchenne, that would mean that when a woman is dealing with baby loss or miscarriage, she's not just hoping for a good boss, but she can be reliant on a great policy, then please spend the time doing that. And in addition to that, conversations I have later on in this series with both Laura and Katie, make me really think that most of our line managers in organisations need training on how to implement the policy. They need miscarried awareness training, they need training on how to talk to people about baby loss. They need training on how to talk to people about their emotions, and ensure that those affected employees are going to receive appropriate levels of support. Other policies I want to see are policies that recognise the unique challenges and responsibilities involved in fostering children. And sometimes those responsibilities require being able to leave the school and go and have additional meetings about the children that you are fostering about the child you have fostered. I want to see flexible working policies in organisations that allow parents to balance professional and family responsibilities wholeheartedly, but also effectively, I want to see family friendly policies and a family friendly policy framework that really includes how you are supporting single parents. That includes facilities that you might have to mitigate the effects of off site childcare, but also the cost of offsite childcare, that recognises what happens when people need emergency family leave. I really, really want to start seeing schools commit to establishing support and mentorship and signposting for resources, financial and otherwise, that families can access, signposting parenting workshops, signposting family counselling and then committing to clear and understandable Return to Work programmes, I say clear and understandable because Return to Work programmes need to be ones that recognise that in the first two years of being a parent, there is a lot going on. So how about we committed to developing structured Return to Work programmes for the people that are coming back from maternity and paternity and shared parental leave? How about if we start thinking about phased return options? How about if we start thinking about all of the ways that people can become skilled and can professionalise being out of the workplace? There are a tonne of things that we need to do in our workplaces in order to really mitigate what is turning out to be a kind of detrimental experience for many people. I think maternity leave and paternity leave should be the best moments in our lives, some of the best moments in our lives, when it'd be great to look back on the period of time after you had your child and just kind of glory, in the wonderment of it all. Or wonder in the glory of it all. At the moment, the model that we have is outdated, it feels outdated, because it doesn't feel like it meets the needs of families of the Modern Family. And it feels outdated, because it detrimentally impacts upon the lives of people doesn't feel in any way luminary. And we can say the government isn't doing enough. But we can also say I look into my organisation. And I see that it is a site of inequity. And I want to do better. And so I'm going to start talking to the people in my organisation who are impacted, because they are going through maternity leave because they are going through paternity leave. I'm going to remember the mantra nothing without us and I'm going to involve them in a conversation in which they can contribute towards improving the situation for anyone who comes here. And anyone who makes the journey to parenthood. I'll see you in the next episode.
There are a whole host of awareness weeks and months that support this season's topic of pregnancy and maternity. The season goes out during women's history month and will fall on either side of International Women's Day, which this year will take place on Friday March the eighth. National Adoption week usually takes place in the second week of November. For 2024 it is likely to follow the same pattern. Baby Loss Awareness Week takes place in October every year. In 2024 it's likely to follow the same pattern and will culminate as ever in a wave of light. Black Maternal Health Month doesn't have a fixed date. But if it follows last year's pattern will take place at the end of September and the beginning of October 2024. National Fertility Awareness Week will take place at the end of October and the beginning of November 2024. And finally Menopause Awareness Month will take place during October 2024, with October the 18th recognised as World Menopause Awareness Day.
This episode was presented by me Angie Browne. The series is edited by Big Tent Media and produced by Emily Crosby Media.