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I would have sympathy if the woman in question was, say, a paramedic or a scientist - a proper, necessary, important job - but just so she can prance around in her dreary but over-priced little suit, making money alongside other moneygrubbing parasites in the City? No, I am sorry, I have no sympathy for this type of woman. And imagine how the children will turn out - a half-absent, power crazed mother who puts £s over her children's welfare. How can that be good?

- G Miegl, Hampstead, London NW3

Love the comments of Mandy - calls people bigots, then makes it clear she hates everybody! You know what, Mandy, you are lucky if you have colleagues that have reproduced and carried on being reliable. My children are now all grown, I didn't return to work until the youngest was in secondary school and I think I did it the right way. I don't think any woman can cope working full-time and having even one child unless she has paid help. Very few men do their share. Since I've returned to work I am shocked and yet not surprised at what seems like bad attitudes presented by colleagues with young children. I don't recognise your comments about them taking less sick time, etc. AT ALL. Far from it, the vast majority of them seem to think that the world owes them something now. If they had a little foresight and did not run themselves ragged but stayed home with the kids while they should then this would not happen. End of sermon.

- Lorraine Beaver, Aylesbury, England.

I don't get this. Is this woman looking for some sort of recognition or congratulations for farming her kids out to a bunch of Au pairs or nannies.

- Dc, London

One of my team comes back on Monday after six months maternity leave. I didn't find it hard to re-assign her work for six months and I don't think that any decent manager would find it hard to cope. If Nicola Pease can't cope when female staff take maternity leave, it's her that has the problem.

- Liz, London

I loathe this debate, wherever it takes place: it epitomises the decline of once-great Britain. 'ME! NOW!' pretty much sums it up - women who want to rush back to their 'careers', people who hate children, people who hate other people who have children - it all comes down to the self-centred, instant-gratification I-want-it-all society that Britain has become. When Margaret Thatcher said there's no such thing as 'society' perhaps this is what she meant.

Children are the future of the country: you have contributed to the Society you live in, and that society has moulded the children born into it - if you don't like how that's turning out look to what you your self are contributing. Society does not just comprise hard-working employees: you too were once a child who, because there were too many people in the world, should not have been born. British children will grow up, earn money and pay a huge amount of tax upon it to top-up the disasterous pension plans that you will being living off. They will pay for your healthcare (which may be a lot if you've indulged in more than a glass of wine a day), collect your rubbish and wipe the dribble off your chin if you can't do it yourself - all in the space of a decade or two.

I don't believe women can have it all: all things in life are a compromise, and the heinous notion of a woman 'sacrificing' her career to have a child shows what little value Britain places on family life.

- Roz, France

Nat ,London
Perhaps you cannot afford to stay at home because of the cost of childminding, excessive lifestyle or simply having too many children?
Your "me,me,me and let everyone else pick up the pieces" attitude certainly sums up modern mass consuming self centered broken Britain.

- Darius, London UK

Society has to decide whether it wants a future of reasonably well adjusted children and responsible adults or wealth in a society of maladjusted poor who wouldn't think twice about killing you and taking it.
"Making it to the top".......OF WHAT? A totem of greed, avarice and ruthlessness?

- Nigel Bullard, Surrey

Why is it that so many women think they do not have to make choices - that they can have it all, do everything? Feminists are long overdue for a reality check.

- Trunk, US

Just because Mrs Pease chooses to be a workaholic, it doesn't mean she should be free to suggest her insane, sad lifestyle be imposed on the rest of us. Maybe ask her children how happy they are living this way! New-born babies especially need a lot of care and attention at that sensitive age and not everyone can afford - or trust! - nannies like she did. I think the reason she wants the maternity leave reduced is because, being an employer, she doesn't want to have to pay for it.

And just because some bitter ES readers don't want to have children (or can't, being male) it doesn't mean that those who do and their babies should struggle so that "we can all work equally hard at the same time". If you did have children you (or your partner) would also benefit from maternity leave!

Get a life, people - life is more important than showing off your abilities at a dull office.

- Donna, London

Maternity leave is generous- much more so than over here in the States and when mums go back to work there is very little provision for part-time hours. I have worked in the UK for the NHS before having my children and am now bringing up my three boys here- as a family we are lucky that I am able to do so. I loved having my career and hope to go back to work but now that I am a full- time mother I wonder how anyone can do both to the utmost of their ability. You just cannot be in two places at once mentally or physically. I know that my kids benefit from having me around and it sets them up to become stable and happy young men. Maternity leave is a necessity and all the skills acquired in raising young children could certainly be used to resolve office/workplace dramas.

- Elisa, NJ, USA

Triffidqueen, well said I agree with you completely. Yes, if women don't have a year's maternity leave who is supposed to look after the baby? I presume Ms Pease means that women should either not have babies if they want a 'top career' or they should basically pay another person to look after the baby when they are still very young. I don't know which is worse. Am assuming Ms Pease paid for someone to look after her children during the first year of their lives. How sad for her and for her children. Money can't buy love....I'm sure she thinks its had no impact on them whatsoever but she might not think that when they're older and don't feel that close to her or that she was ever really there for them. Its mothers who hand their babies over to strangers in the first year of their life that should be legislated against! I think a year's maternity leave is the least a woman should get and her (and her partner) should get more tax breaks and incentives to stay at home with their children as long as possible.

- Ava, London, UK

What does Nicola think life is all about? If she thinks it is all about making money I feel sad for her and the children of parents like her who put their career before their families. A big house is not worth much if your children don't know you because you're never there.

- Nick D, Croydon

why does this woman have to come out and say this rubbish? With her £200m husband and quite likely an army of nannies. Who exactly is she meant to represent?

A family isn't something you just kind of "do" on the side. Selling your soul for career advancement shouldn't be mandatory.

I work full time, I'm good at my job - what difference does it make if I take a year out? Plenty of people go travelling or take time out for other things and don't have to endlessly excuse themselves for their choices

- Bit Pregnant, london

"Lets hope Nicola dosn't end her final days in an old peoples home with no one to care or visit her. Only when it's too late will she realise the importance of family.
- Triffidqueen"

Plenty of parents end up in old people's homes with no one to care or visit them because their children have better things to do than to repay the hardship.

- Maz, London

What a shame that in this day and age this topic still brings up this kind of mysogynistic vitriol; bad enough from men and compounded by "successful women" in business.

Most people need two incomes to get by in this day and age, and it may have escaped some people's notice but there is a political agenda to get women into the workplace and indeed over several decades it has been made more and more financially difficult to stay at home with children.

So the truth is - women can't win, and the message is -expect to be made to feel like you are failing your kids if you go to work, and that you are taking advantage of the system from a work perspective and expect to feel like you are shirking if you stay at home with them.

My family are my world - I am good at my career, but given the miserable "I'm alright Jack" attitude out there, I hope my children's taxes don't go towards supporting any services to those who grudge their very existance enough to spout the rubbish above.

- Sarah Hampshire, London, UK

Quite agree with the successful lady. Further, the often bogus job losses tend to put many employers off taking on women in the City in the first place. Men are easier to sack. The wild compensation claims are just too expensive.

- Michael, London, UK

Tl, Dulwich - "maternity leave conditions are made so cosy" - really??? Obviously everyone's salary and maternity benefits are different, but personally I don't call £104 per week a "cosy condition" unless you had an extremely low paid job in the first place. For the vast majority of women, statutory maternity pay is an enormous cut in salary. Most people I know who got statutory maternity pay couldn't afford to take anywhere near a year off!

- Annabel, Leeds

Gosh what bigots! I'd love to know what the mothers of some of you with more outrageous comments feel about their views!

Working mothers come in as many "shapes and sizes" as other colleagues. They shouldn't be defined by the fact that they are a mother! I have plenty of female air-headed colleagues who are childless but take far more time off sick as they are so self-obsessed, spend far more time gossiping and flirting and crying in the loos due to the latest drama in their lovelife and a far few male colleagues who are a total waste of space, only want to talk about themselves and wonder how on earth they keep their jobs.

On the other side of the equation, the large majority of my colleagues who are working mothers are hard-working, committed employees who tend to take less sick leave and dont have time for the pettiness of office politics/game playing.

Yes there are exceptions to both sides, but that's exactly my argument - don't stereotype! Good and bad employees come in many forms and consist of both parents and non-parents - get over it.

- Mandy, London

Jane Snookes, Fulham

Whoa girl, I hope I never get in your way on the district line. Chill

- David, London

Women should not take men's jobs; they should stay at home and raise their children. "Equality" is bogus: you cannot have both a family and a career without fatally damaging one or other of them.

- Neil, London, London UK

@ Jenny, LONDON
"It's clear men must give women priority over men to get top management jobs. We have been kept under a glass ceiling to long to satisfy mans desire for a family."

----

So we are no longer talking about equality then?

- Frank, Home Counties, England.

I don't mind covering for long maternity leave but what I object to is when they return from it they always want the same job, part time please, endless trips to the clinic etc. so I am still covering. Someone I know got the job as the supervisor in an officer whilst she was on maternity leave only when she returned was allowed to do only three days a week. Tough on the people she supervised surely. Two men were turned down for the job - simply because they were male....


Amber in Mitcham

- Amber In Mitcham, Mitcham Surrey

You all talk like the only women who have children are in managerial positions. They do get into support positions too, believe it or not! I have known 3 different women over the years who I know for a fact only got pregnant so as to avoid coming into work for a few months - one of them in the private sector where she was being bullied and thought it would be easier to have a few months off from her tormenter, and another in the public sector who was frankly so useless she couldn't find anyone else stupid enough to employ her so got pregnant, then was pregnant again by the time she came back off the 1st maternity leave. So what about those poor children that have been created and all because maternity leave conditions are made so cosy? Or does that not matter to you, just so long as mummy-dearest can have her way?

- Tl, Dulwich

Tempting not to join this endless argument but really. Are we still discussing this issue? Some women have children. Some don't. Some women of the women who have children are, shock horror, more talented than those who feel the need to stay at work hour after hour to justify their existence. So, to keep the talent, you have to work around and accommodate the rest of people's lives i.e. the real life that happens outside of the workplace. Insecure women who feel the need to put down their competitors while they're on maternity leave, need to take a good look at whether their companies would keep them at all if they weren't just glued to their desks putting the hours in that their child-friendly counter-parts do in half the time.

- Flo, Bath

Brains strinking, too much time off - work or kids - what utter drivel from you nutters. I would expect to be able to take a years maternity leave off - someone else can temp whilst Im off and I can come back to work when Im ready. In this day and age, I cant afford to stay at home - I doubt many other mums do as well which is why we need to be able to take good maternity leave.

- Nat, London

People always seem to take short term views of this. In a career which can span 40+ years one or two years out doesn't make that huge a difference to anyone. Certainly in most long term careers (and i speak as someone in a fast paced it career) taking time out doesn't particually disadvantage you, whereas spending time with your children at the most crucial time of their development is advantageous to everyone. It's just a shame that as a father i couldn't split the time off with my wife for our child.

- Nick, London

Well, I think that your children should be part of your family, not part of business life. If you can't cope with having them without your colleagues ending up doing half your job, then maybe you should bow out gracefully and concentrate on the child.

- S Esquilant, St Albans, Hertfordshire, England

Triffidqueen,
Which bit of "mother-of-three Nicola pease" didn't gave you the idea that Nicola Pease is not a mother. Of three.

- Gc, London

You poor, deluded backward English people... there is a whole world out there were children are well taken care of and women have great careers that suit their own personal needs and ambitions. You don't necessarily have to work 60-80 hours a week to achieve results, but people like Nichola Pearse do like to pretend that this is the case to support their workaholic ways. I pity men who have to slave away for life like fools until a heart attack gets the better of them... thank god women CAN take some time out to have children. If you're good at what you do, just find the right job/career/business and move on to better things.

- Marta, France

Breeding is just breeding. Animals do it. People only go "Ooh, it's so am-ey-zing!" once they'd done it, and they only say that to try and make the non-breeders feel left out. Pathetic, I call it. Breeding is not clever and the world is over populated as it is so why don't you think of the bigger picture instead of just breeding like an aminal. No one is interested in your sprog, when your workmates shriek "Ooh, you must bring junior in when you've had it!" they don't mean it, it's just something to say, so don't bother. I don't dislike kids before anyone starts, I just can't stand other people's ha ha! And I am not known for cooing into prams like some demented old biddy, not like you lot from the sound of things. So stop having kids, then everyone will be happy or at least if not happy, then fed, in the end the human race will die out and then all our problems will be over and no one will be arguing the pros and cons of letting all these demented females back in the workplace just so they can release their crazed hormones into the atmosphere - no one can tell me that's productive, finding mad women crying in the toilet all the time. Yuk!

- Jane Snookes, Fulham

It all boils down to how organised you are. As a working mother I get up an hour earlier than my children to organise breakfast/packed lunches and stay up late at night to prepare following nights supper. I work full time, am connected to my office network at home so I can work 24/7 if necessary. It works because it has to - and I got a bonus and promotion this year. Result!

- Claire, London, UK

as horrible as it sounds, there are too many women in the work place in postions of power and making it difficult for companies to function properly as they the women come and go on maternity leave. there may well be some sense in what others are saying, i.e. women either are mums or employees - not both

- Peter Kavanagh, dublin, ireland

I need to agree that if I own a company, I dont want to pay the long maternity leave and pay for the staff whose children are sick and have to find cover.

- Cecilia, Enfield in London

What M Farbash says isn't fundamentally wrong, pregnant women's brains do shrink, although it's amazing how many people don't know about this (not sure about the not popping back part - think that may be more to do with them prioritizing the child and letting everything else take 2nd place, which is probably how nature intended it). However, if as I do you are unfortunate enough to work in a place with family friendly policies (unfortunate in terms of not being family friendly yourself) which are being taken advantage of by more than a couple of women, you then have the added horror of them clustering together in screaming groups, going into loud and very unnecessary detail about all their aches and pains and exactly what went on at the birth. I can appreciate they might want to bond with their "sisters" in these matters, but seriously, can't they at least wait until they're having one of their beloved coffee mornings? I always remember how one time one of them put my hand on her "bump" - without a by your leave - and quite frankly I nearly fainted from the pure revulsion of feeling the projecting naval. People laugh when I say this but I felt violated. My main point, however, is that some things should be kept private and child birth and all it's attendant disgustingness is one of them. We bend over backwards to accommodate these girls, covering their work, etc., I think the least we can expect is a little tiny bit of consideration back.

- Sarah Bradshaw, Enfield, Middx

Women wreck their careers, their bodies and according to M Farbiash of Highgate, their brains in having children. (Incidentally I am sure your Mother appreciates that remark)

Would that stop me from having my child? No. Quite frankly I don't really care about the glass ceiling. I work as Finance Manager in a job where my employers are accomodating and understand 'my child is my priority', I don't 'check on my brat' every five minutes as I know he is in capable hands, and people ask me about my child rather than the other way round.

Nobody forces you to take a year in leave. The law is only a minimum of two weeks leave. If you want to only take two weeks, no one is stopping you. The option of extended leave is there for those of us who put our own health and the wellbeing of our child first. If you wish to take a different route, it's there for you. This constant non-helpful whining about destroyed careers annoys everybody, employers and Jo(e) Public alike.

- Smb, London, UK

Women should be at home looking after the kids anyway in my opinion. Whats gone wrong with society

- Mike C, London

I agree with Ms Pease - my career has been wrecked after taking a year off.

But Ms/Mr M FARBIASH - your spitting hatred of mothers and children has nothing to do with this issue. You are a vile insult to the people who raised you. Perhaps you don't believe every child deserves a mothers love and attention????

- Anon, London

Jenny, NuLabour tried this positive discrimination in it`s cabinet.....
I rest my case.
Business is Business - the more benefits you hand out to a particular group, the less employable thay become, the resultant inefficiency would increase the price of the product or service they provide.
Seemingly unfair, yes, but are YOU not price conscious when you buy things?
If so, you`re part of the problem, I`m afraid.
Perhaps “made by women for women” labelling is the answer, then you can choose to pay the extra cost in subsidy?

- Darius, London UK

It's not just the time they take off that damages their prospects. It's the fact that when they do eventually return to work, very few of them are the same person. They're either on the phone checking on the little brat every 5 minutes, or telling anyone who'll half-listen how the child is their priority (I notice some of them REALLY like to emphasise this point, like we're going to disagree!) or else being away with the fairies entirely. Of course, it is a long established medical fact that pregnant women's brains shrink. In my view not all of them pop back to the pre-pregnancy-shrinkage levels and that is why most women, once they've had a child, appear to be slightly brain damaged. I know this won't be a popular theory but I think deep down you all know it's true.

- M Farbiash, Highgate

It's clear men must give women priority over men to get top management jobs. We have been kept under a glass ceiling to long to satisfy mans desire for a family.

- Jenny, LONDON

why on earth should someone who hasn't worked as long and can't commit to working as long hours be given a position where someone else has and can fulfill these requirements? just because they are a woman?
if a person should be given equal opportunities then they should be able to work as equally hard!
get over it!

- Calm Down, london

I agree; I only took 3 wks off & then went back very part time, building it up gradually to 4 days pw. In this day & age, new initiatives/IT systems & procedures come in so fast that being away for 3 months+ means feeling out-of-date on return to work. However, maternity leave is the wrong way round; looking after an unreponsive new-born is boring & depressing- but when babies start to get really interesting/a joy to be with (at 1 year+) is when we're all back more-or-less full-time & too exhausted from work to give them the attention they require.

- Suzyq, Essex

Maybe women should stop having kids and just let the human race die out! What does Nicola suggest women do then. Maybe they should just rent a womb and hire a nanny. What a sad state of affairs when a job beomes someones life. Lets hope Nicola dosn't end her final days in an old peoples home with no one to care or visit her. Only when it's too late will she realise the importance of family.

- Triffidqueen, Desk in London

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