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NMM - Appropriate amount of time at new job before TTC?
Hey guys!
What do you think is an appropriate amount of time to be at a new job before you start TTC? I know you have to be there at least a year to qualify for FML (so that would be 3 months before TTC with a normal healthy pregnancy). But how long would you wait for cultural reasons (to ensure you have a good reputation and ppl know you do a good job, etc.)?
I'm looking at beginning TTC at the 6 month mark on my new job, and I'm a little nervous about it. I feel like I have a good feel for my job, have made some good contributions, and built up a good reputation thus far. I work for a non-profit that really values work-life balance, so I don't think it would be a big deal. Still... I worry about it coming across as non-professional to get pregnant too soon on the job (and just typing that seems completely ridiculous.)
Re: NMM - Appropriate amount of time at new job before TTC?
Absolutely! 100%
I agree with the other PPs. You should start TTC whenever it is best for you, though I'd wait until you'd be eligible for TTC to make sure they are required to hold your job.
While pregnancy shouldn't matter and IS legally a protected class, we all know that some company cultures might still frown on it. With that said, when my husband and I were first dating, his company hired an accountant who was six months pregnant, and obviously pregnant, at the time she was hired. My esteem for them went up.
On a different side note, another similar protected class is reserved duty soldiers who are called back to active duty. We had a really ugly incident at a previous company I worked for. It was a defense contractor. We had a contract that was coming to an end and all the employees on it knew their days were numbered. "Magically" one of the guys was called back to active duty about ten days before everyone on the project was told their last day...which was a couple weeks out and he'd already be back on active duty.
Companies are only required to hold a job that exists, they are not required to pay you. But this particular company...for ONE YEAR...was generous enough to pay him the difference between his normal salary and his army salary. This guy actually had the NERVE to come back and expect the company to employ him, even though he knew his old job had long been eliminated and we didn't have another position available for him. He even threatened to sue if we didn't take him back on. It wasn't even my money or my company, but I still get mad when I think about that jerk.
They caved and took him back on. Except we had nothing for him to do. My boss was furious and, in a way, made his job kind of hellish. He was occasionally given mundane office jobs if we had some, but spent most of his day sitting at his computer. Except no internet for personal use and that was heavily checked. He spent most of his days with nothing to do except stare at the wall for 8 hours. But it worked. It motivated him to send some resumes out and a month later he was hired on by someone else.
DH and I were planning on TTC starting this month until certain situations at work have encouraged me to find a new job ASAP. There are 3 potential jobs that I'm in the running for, one of them being a really promising position at a company I previously worked for. We decided to hold off on TTC until we know what happens with these positions. If I get hired in the next few months, we'll wait another 4-5 months to TTC. If all of these opportunities fall through and I have to go back to the drawing board, we'll start TTC right away and see what happens.
TTC Countdown to 8/2015
@juliebeannn - Good luck with your new job hunt and TTC! A few months back, I thought about staying at my old job until after we have a baby, just so I would be more settled. Now I am so glad we didn't do that! My new job is 100 times better than the old one, and who knows how long it will take us to get pg.
Hope when you guys decide to start TTC, things go quickly and smoothly!!!
TTC Countdown to 8/2015
We don't have plans to have children, but if we did, I really and truly would not even consider my employer's 'feelings' about the matter. Maybe that's unprofessional? I think our family decisions are absolutely not our employer's business and wouldn't give it a second thought.
We would however plan around getting maximum benefits/paid time off, but that's for our personal benefit, not the employer.
No. We lag so far behind other developed nations in terms of maternity leave policies that it's ridiculous. No woman who qualifies should ever be made to feel guilty about taking her 12 weeks unpaid FMLA. Or pumping when necessary. The amount of guilt we heap into mothers is crazy, but none of us would be here without one. Child bearing and rearing is a part of life. Small employers (like mine) aren't required to offer any leave but many make do during 6-8 weeks to hold a spot for a good employee.
@dorsiflector--It sort of looks like you created an account just so you could chime in on this issue, which is kind of weird, and I probably should just ignore you. I will just say that I am happy to work for a company (a SMALL BANK, no less) that supports employees and their family needs, so this would never be an issue.
It makes me sad that women in this country have to worry about their jobs or positions within a company simply because they are the gender designed to carry and birth offspring. GOOD companies and corporations would never make a good employee feel guilty about their family choices, regardless of the size of the business.
Clearly everyone taking three months off a year is ridiculous. New moms are recovering from a medical trauma while working their butts off, not jet setting around Europe.
Your argument feels personal. Are you a small business owner?
In a way, I get where you are coming from. I am sympathetic to employers (and the other employees) who have to do extra work to make up for someone who is out on maternity leave. That is why I asked the question... I feel guilty just thinking about how I might go out of work for 3 months after only being at the company for a limited amount of time. Because of that guilt, I'm actually trying to work twice as hard pre-pregnancy to "prove my worth" and make valuable contributions to "make up" for the fact that I am woman and therefore will one day likely be a baby vessel. (This will probably sound horrible to others, but deep down it is how I feel and probably how a lot of others feel.) If I'm already feeling like this pre-pregnancy, I can't imagine what the guilt must be like post-baby...feeling torn in two directions. Because of that I sympathize with BOTH new moms and the employer.
You ask if the employer should have to pay for maternity leave, but that really wasn't the question (although there are arguments to be made for that too). FMLA is unpaid, and I don't really expect to receive paid maternity leave. All I really want is 3 months unpaid maternity leave with the ability to come back to my job without judgment or resentment from my employer or coworkers. If I (or anyone else) were to have any other medical emergency, I think this would be a fair thing to expect. As others have pointed out, FMLA doesn't just cover pregnancy...it covers any medical emergency and new dads too!
I'm really curious what your solution to this problem should be? Should moms and potential moms just stay out of the workforce all together? (If so, employers better be prepared to increase salaries for men, because DH's salary sure wouldn't cut it for a family.) Do you think women should just return to work the day after undergoing a traumatic medical event? Should we just stop having babies and hope that storks will suddenly begin to drop the next generation of humans out of the sky?
Employers do all kinds of other things for employee engagement/happiness/wellness, I don't see how parental leave is any different.