How long should parents have off work when they have their children?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/11/how-long-parents-off-work-have-children

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An American-British lawyer and businesswoman who took 12 days off work when her son was born has said that long maternity breaks are bad for women.

Barbara Judge praised the way maternity leave was handled in the US – where companies with more than 50 staff provide 12 weeks of unpaid leave – and suggested that the British system, where women are allowed to take up to a year off, was bad for women’s career development, and left them at risk of losing their job. “My mother used to say, when a baby is born it needs to be fed, bathed and diapered. An 18-year-old girl can do that,” Judge told an audience at the Wealth Management Association’s Women In Wealth Forum. “Your job is to get the money to pay the 18-year-old girl. When you have to be there is when the child gets smarter than the nanny.”

The question of how long mothers and fathers should spend off work when they have children is often vexed. In the UK women are entitled to a year, 39 weeks of which is paid, although they can return earlier. Men can take one or two consecutive weeks of paid paternity leave, and last year new rights came into effect allowing parents to share 50 weeks of leave between them – 37 of those weeks paid.

One obvious consideration for those making the decision about when to return to work is the cost of childcare. According to a study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a group of 35 industrialised nations, childcare costs in Britain are by far the highest in the western world. It’s been estimated that working parents now have to spend £11,300 a year on average on childcare.

How long did you have off with your child, and do you have any regrets? Did you and a partner take time off, and if so, how did you decide how to divide the time up? Would you have preferred to take a break later on – when your child was starting school, or reaching adolescence? If you did this, how did it work out, both personally and professionally? Have childcare costs stopped you taking time off? Do you feel there’s pressure to return to work? Share your thoughts via the form below.