Wait…I just found out that people are required to take leave in the UK for at least 2 week (or 4 weeks if they work at a factory) after they give birth. Is that true anywhere else? American mind is 
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How would it be physically possible to get back to work sooner? At 2 weeks postpartum I still couldn’t sit and my tits leaked and I cried at everything. What workplace wants that hot mess?
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I mean, you can’t exercise until 6 weeks post partum. Even if I put the baby up for adoption no fucking way I could work until 6 weeks postpartum, minimum.
I also want to point out that those numbers are archaic and I assume that no one there is working 2-4weeks postpartum.
I had to file my taxes or hst or something around 8 weeks postpartum. Disaster. And the ei paperwork. Fuck that.
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Oh yea, they get up to 52 weeks of paid leave in the UK (with higher pay for the first 26, and the second 26 is more complicated, and if you split between two parents, it’s more complicated).
But I’ve never heard of the requirement that you have to take it.
because 'MERIKA I know several people who took less than a week.
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I know at least one who was back the next day.
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HOW
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Sheer american grit and panic.
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That woman was the worst workaholic I know, but I still have no idea.
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I’m sorry they get what now?
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Oh honey.
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cries in american
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Just scroll through this if you want to cry a bit.
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The idea of getting full pay for six months when my current work offers six weeks where I’ll get paid about 50% and that’s considered GOOD just…
AAAAAAAAACHLSDHFLHDSF
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I paid 858 last year into EI. Since mid Feb I’ve been (coincidentally) getting 858 every two months. Until a year. The only caveat is that I have to pay into EI every year I work now. But like, I’m 36, am i working 26 more years? Also it covers future pregnancy. Also it covers other kinds of family leave or unemployment
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Also it’s ~~ not by employer ~~ in the UK. You don’t have to work for a SPECIAL employer. (Though I think in the UK you have to have worked for the employer for 6 months by the time you’re 15 weeks away from your due date - i.e. you have to have started working there when pregnant.)
It’s 90% pay in the UK. But also no hospital bills.
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But you can go on benefits if you weren’t working. It’s better than canada where the jerks want you to have worked a certain amount if you want ei
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Yea, it’s just REALLY REALLY low in the UK if you weren’t working. 152 GPB a week, which is barely enough to pay rent even outside of big cities.
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Sure but also…
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Yup. America is so broken in this regard. It makes me pretty angry, to be frank, if I think about it really hard because we’ve just accepted this fucked reality.
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I personally know multiple women who have gone back 2-3 weeks PP. They all fall into two categories: shit service job they can’t afford to lose, or WFH tech/HR type jobs that you can kinda work/not work and mix rest into. I do know one floor nurse who went back at 4 weeks though. And a girl in my nursing school had her baby Christmas break and was back in classes by 3 weeks PP. I think she was allowed to push her clinicals back 1-2 more weeks though?
The US is fucking nutty.
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