We can't let the boss tell us when to have babies
When should you have a baby? One time universally considered a no no is just after you take a new job. So congratulations, Natasha Kaplinsky, who has pulled off the conjuring trick of getting a pay rise - and pregnant - all at once.
Only six weeks into her role fronting Five News, Kaplinsky has announced she's expecting her first child. You can just imagine the expressions in the boardroom as executives check the signature on her contract to see if the ink's dry yet.
And last week the BBC's new economics editor Stephanie Flanders admitted she told bosses she was five months pregnant only after she'd accepted the job.
Neither lied - Kaplinsky even talked openly about her desire to start a family - and both Five and the BBC have behaved honourably. But I'll bet both women had fingers crossed behind their backs during the interviews - because accepting a job when you're pregnant or not using contraception is a huge dilemma.
Like so many women, Kaplinsky's career hit fast forward just as she tried to have children. Or more likely, when she decided not to put them off any longer. And Flanders, at 39, was hardly in a position to skirt the baby issue while she waited to see if she got the job.
But it's precisely because women delay motherhood to help their careers that we're then caught in successful jobs when the prospect of motherhood comes into sharp focus. Women weigh it up all the time. Should we forge ahead, taking on new roles and longer hours? Or acce pt that we could be an employer's worst nightmare, liable to fall pregnant at any time?
A friend found herself in exactly that position. Offered a very senior job - a major boost to her career - she also knew her absolute priority was to have a baby. Plagued by a sense of guilt that she'd be letting down her new employers and predicting numerous stressful encounters with the HR department, she reluctantly backed out. This woman wasn't even pregnant, she'd just thrown away her Pills.
Kaplinsky and Flanders will get full maternity entitlement, rights that don't often apply when you're less than a year into a job. And even when they do, determined employers will get round, or simply flout the law. That's the experience of 30,000 women a year in the UK who find themselves sacked just for being pregnant, a picture revealed by the Fawcett Society this week.
Figures such as these are a disgrace, not least because they send out a clear signal to women - you become a burden, not an asset, the moment you conceive.
Flanders and Kaplinsky didn't set out to be role models, but that's what they've become. By sticking to the letter of the law, and not being swayed by their conscience, as my friend was, they've showed it's OK to hire a women when she's pregnant - and not a crime to take the job.
Maternity leave is not a lengthy paid holiday, despite what so many begrudging bosses seem to think. It's the next generation these women are off producing. You can't put a value on that.
