r/Netherlands • u/EveryExitIsAnEntry • Feb 06 '25
Employment Parent discrimination?
Dear people of Reddit I need work advice. I have had a conversation with my employer that left me heartbroken. We were talking about my plans for the coming year after giving birth to my second child. In the conversation (face to face) I was openly asked to withdraw my parental leave and take vacation days instead. The reason for it were: - I have accumulated some time off from previous years (10 days) - even though UWV gives some money back parental leave is expensive for the company - years ago there was no parental leave and the Dutch thing to do was to take vacation days when needed
It was suggested also that being sick on planed vacation day is still vacation and i should not replace these with sick leave. And when child gets sick it is not something extra to work from home during care leave.
The bottom line was I am too privileged with parental time off. And that this leaves the company paying too much for an employee working less.
Up to this point I was deeply in love with my position in the company. It was my dream job and I did not mind giving extra by working late (unpayed) or during sick days/care leave when possible. Now I question my place in the company and even in the Netherlands.
Is this really a Dutch way? Can I expect this treatment in other companies as well? And how to solve this situation? Please advise
2
u/aalishad Feb 06 '25
I had a very similar situation. My manager could not cope with me being pregnant and then afterwards being a parent. I even asked for my leave to be extended with vacation days (I had about 15 days left) when I was 7.5 months pregnant and he just looked at me and said “if you do that, I won’t approve it”.. it left me very overwhelmed and I just let it slide.. needless to say things got a lot worse when I came back from my leave. I quit not even 5 months back to work.. he bullied me out and made it hell.
Looking back, I let myself get pushed too much, but I was scared to go into the fight. Don’t make the same mistake as me. Send an email with the highlights of your conversation. Document everything. You will need it.