Did anyone hear the piece of last Saturday's Weekend Woman's Hour in which another woman (editor of some newspaper but I forget which) said the Spanish government couldn't be serious about defence because they'd appointed a pregnant woman to the post of Defence Minister? It was nearly enough to get me dusting off my dungarees and Doc Martens! (Bra burning at my age being unwise aesthetically, you understand.)

Em, the thing I'd start worrying about if I were you is affording nursery fees if/when you decide to return to work...

Mmm, dangerous territory this, but I'll risk sticking my toe in the water.

In my previous incarnation BB (Before Bookselling) I was responsible for Customer Service amongst other things, which meant lots of lovely ladies of a certain age. Maternity leave was a constant disruption, and the burden falls on the rest of the team. My wife is a teacher, and showed little patience with my moaning until . . . she became head of a department of 6 which has been one down on maternity leave for the past 8 years (no, not the same woman!). So now she moans and I nod sympathetically and try to avoid saying I told you so.

Now I am not saying that maternity leave is a bad thing, far from it, but if as a recuiting boss you are faced with the choice of two equally qualified ladies and one of them has just got married and the other has returned to work after having a family . . . what is your decision? And is that discrimination?

Danny: No, not nursery. Yes to someone to help in the home (they're called 'mother's helps', which I like) but if I can possibly do it I want to take advantage of the fact that I can work from home to be in the home at the same time as the baby.

Philip: no doubt about it, if it was someone else in Snowbooks who was pregnant and looking to do 'normal' paid maternity leave ie other than 2-6 weeks, which is what I'm aiming for, it would indeed be a serious problem. Same goes for sick leave, holidays, jobsworthiness...It's just one more reason why I really don't want to grow the team. Managing people is not how I want to spend my days. I think the future is automation (tick), freelancers and joint ventures - note our excellent partnership with Allison and Busby who are doing a fine job on our sales. Rob, I think, (correct me if I'm wrong) thinks that keeping the team small might be a problem - but I'm the one who has to manage said team, so I win. I love the way we're working at the moment - mainly from home, as a small team who understand each other perfectly, with the focus on Doing Stuff not managing, admin, meetings. I really don't want to give that up.

(Please don't send in your CVs saying you wouldn't be a jobsworth or be sick. I'm not hiring!)

You've been blog tagged. Check out my blog for the rules.

SJP

Philip, I really like how logically you made your point, and I have trouble not agreeing with you. I think it's sort of lose/lose, being in this situation, because while you want to be nonbiased toward female employees, you also need to consider practical concerns of the business you're running. It's always going to be unfair one way or another. And actually being the PL? You wind up wondering what's more important, job or kids, which is a terrible, terrible thing.

Here in the US we have a federal law about family/medical leave for companies of more than 50 employees, which includes men and allows for leave when children are newly adopted, but it's pretty spindly compared to EU countries like Denmark, where you can have loads of time off. Oh, and that law was only passed in 1993; before that you were mostly out of luck unless you had a kind employer.

Hello? Aren't children the future? where are all these employers going to get their workforces from if they act so hostile to people having kids?

Why do you think I'm a writer?

(P.S. Sarah, bra? what's that? And I bet I'm an awful lot older than you!)

Lee, I think it's a kind of new fangled liberty bodice.