‘All women should be able to take paid maternity leave from 30 weeks’
Now that I’m heavily pregnant and working full-time, I wonder why we’re chasing so long? Is there no other way, that maternity leave?
Wouldn’t we all feel better if we got paid leave from 30 weeks as standard?
It is not such a strange thing: it is already happening in other countries. Great Britain has arranged it as follows: maternity leave of 52 weeks, of which 39 weeks are paid. In Finland parents get 14 months leave, in Denmark 18 weeks paid and the father 2 weeks and in Bulgaria you get paid for a year and in Estonia you even get 85 paid full weeks. In a prosperous country like the Netherlands you would think, why not us a little longer than 16 weeks? Especially if you have a standing profession that you can’t do from home, such as doctors, hairdressers or teachers?
I understand that it is long enough for employers who are looking for a replacement for someone for 4 months, but on the other hand: how often is a woman pregnant in her life? Two, three times? And suppose you work from the age of 18 to the age of 67: then you have been loyal to a job for almost fifty years. Those few months in your life when you are heavily pregnant and suffer from a large baby belly with possible ailments, do you give yourself a little more rest? In any case, I would love it if you could enjoy the last trimester a little more because of the peace of not having to work. You just sleep a little less well and you’re just not 100 percent yourself. Then this is the time in your life when you want little stress, can buy your baby stuff in a shop instead of rushing online or to see a friend. Especially if you already have older children, a little earlier leave can be nice. You can get used to the expansion of your family more calmly.
Mental rollercoaster in your maternity leave
Let’s also not forget that a pregnancy is mentally a very unique period in your life. Your thoughts and hormones go in all directions, so that you are very happy with the baby in your belly one moment and find it incredibly difficult to get used to the idea of a baby the next. You work overtime in your head as a woman. Can I do this? How will my baby be? Not to mention the tension before giving birth. In short: I would say, if possible, go on maternity leave as early as possible and even after your baby is born, take as long as possible off. You can work for many more years – but this time as a mother will never come back.
Tessa Heinhuis (33) is the mother of Bodi and Daaf and is almost expecting her third. She lives in Bussum and is editor-in-chief of Mama Magazine.
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