Do mothers have an unfair advantage in the workplace? Meghann Foye, an American magazine editor turned novelist, certainly seems to think so.
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Jealous of co-workers clocking off on maternity leave, and saying she's tired of picking up the slack from female colleagues with a bulletproof excuse for avoiding overtime - namely, the need to get back to their children - 38-year-old Foye recently let rip.
In an interview with The New York Post, she demanded to know who decided that you had to be pregnant to take a year off work, and lamented that having children appeared to be "the only path that provided a modicum of flexibility" in an age in which workers are expected to be slavishly on call.
But such has been the backlash against her suggestion that the child-free be allowed to go on "me-ternity leave" - that is, that all women take time out for a life-enhancing career break - that Foye was forced to cancel a television appearance on Good Morning America.
Some of the more printable messages sent to her on social media sites include "only an attention-seeking imbecile could come up with [me-ternity leave]" and "show me a well-rested woman on maternity leave and I'll show you a baby who spent the day with someone else".
Meternity, the novel she had hoped to promote, features a heroine who is mistakenly believed to be pregnant, so she keeps up the ruse and enjoys the perks of impending motherhood without any of the pain.
I must confess that, back in my office-bound 30s, I concocted a similar fantasy whereby I would over-indulge for a while before waddling off home for several months. On my return, when questioned about my progeny, I would make vague remarks about "finally feeling complete", before leaving the office at 6pm sharp, claiming that duty called; said duty being some degree of work-life balance.
A friend took this further and actually got herself duff-upward, deciding that, after 20 years of hard graft, she could tolerate one offspring, particularly if its birth coincided with the beginning of the summer months and was the guarantee of public holidays thereafter. While her daughter was at the bump stage, she was wont to refer to her as "Payback".
I am obviously not saying that parenthood is akin to a holiday. Being the oldest of five convinced me that it represented a Sisyphean task, and I take my hat off to those who hazard it. I can barely get myself out of the house in matching shoes of a morning, let alone any mini-mes.
But having children is a choice. It may be hard work, but it is hard work that one has opted for, and no less valid than any other life decision, be it finally not writing that novel or gazing distractedly into space.
Rest assured, I would not go as far as one cat-loving colleague, who was forever demanding that she be allowed to spend time with her kitty, just like a parent on school holidays. But a few months off to learn Latin, comfort an ailing parent, or get one's life together? These strike me as entirely legit.
I dared to take a modest one-month break a few years ago and have never been happier. Pretending to be off in foreign parts, instead I remained at home doing all the things that would conventionally constitute a Normal Civilised Life: visiting art galleries, seeing friends, reading up on topics that obsess me, going for walks, eating properly, noticing things, breathing, and not living in a state of permanent mental exhaustion.
According to the Mental Health Foundation, combined anxiety and depression is Britain's most common mental disorder. The Health and Social Care Information Centre reports that prescriptions for antidepressants stood at about 28 million in 2003. Nine years on, they had reached 50 million.
For all the talk of mindfulness, most of us would settle for not feeling out of our minds. If you decide to have a break during your 50 years spent al-desko by giving birth, then good for you. However, for those of us who don't, then other sanity-saving options should be available.
By the time one returns to the daily grind, one can expect to be sleeker, swifter and more expansive of brain. One will have more to offer one's workplace, whether in terms of energy, humanity or hinterland. And, with any luck, a reset button will have been pressed.
How long can it be before the likes of Google and Facebook - already considered among the best places in the world to work, thanks to perks such as innovative nap pods, free food and massage rooms - offer me-ternity leave to those who want or feel they need it? After all, there are ever-more of the child-free around, and we are ever-more militant about it.
Statistics reveal that women of my age are almost twice as likely to be childless as their parents' generation. One in five women born in 1969 is without issue, compared with one in nine in 1942.
Moreover, the Institute for Public Policy Research predicts that the number of men and women aged 65 to 74 sans kids is set to almost double before the end of the next decade. By 2030, more than a million people in this group won't have offspring.
And it's not as if, by being child-free, we won't have goals, responsibilities, lives. Last year, after my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, a boss whose maternity leave I had quietly slogged through, grunted, "Oh, right, still dying?" when I was forced to turn down a project.
We should all have the right to reclaim our private lives from our work existences.
The Telegraph, London via Essential Baby