448.43 euros per month… This is the amount of parental leave in France, which does not allow many parents to stop working to look after their children. Chloé, a young mother of two boys, has figured out how to be available for them, while being well paid.
The assistance granted to parents who wish to stop working to fully care for their child at birth is too low in France. In fact, the amount of the Shared Child Education Benefit (PreParE) this year amounts to 448.43 euros per month for a total cessation of activity. “Parental leave is paid too little!”tells us Chloé, who found another way to make time for her two boys, from the birth of her first child. “Having two salaries per month, and suddenly, only that of my husband (+ 450 euros monthly) did not seem possible to me, especially since the costs are considerable when a baby is born“, deplores the young mother.
After doing some obvious calculations, she finds no other choice than to have two salaries. But then, how can you enjoy your children while having a full-time job and, above all, a lifestyle almost equivalent to what you’re used to? For Chloé, there is no question of returning to her job by default, as most mothers do, due to lack of sufficient remuneration. She then decides to stop her activity, while earning enough money (and it is not a question of working from home or becoming self-employed).
Before conceiving her first child, Chloe was employed as a secretary in a law firm. “I had a fairly stable job, and a very decent salary.“, she explains to us. The working atmosphere was also perfect: she was able to benefit from flexible working hours during her pregnancy and her employers were rather benevolent. Also, when the date of her maternity leave approached, Chloé contacted them to speak with them: his objective: to negotiate a contractual termination which would then allow him to benefit from unemployment for the months to come.For me it was the only way to be able to enjoy my son for almost 10 months, while receiving a decent salary, which was around 1600 euros per month.“, she confides.
On her eldest child’s first birthday, Chloé began to seriously look for another job again, and this time landed a position as a receptionist in a telephone group in which she worked for about a year and a half. But when she learned that she was pregnant with her second, she tried this approach again with her management, who accepted, again, her request for a conventional termination. Her unemployment rights are reopened: she receives 1,300 euros per month and takes full care of her two children.
To act in this way, Chloé made her choice: to put aside her career plan for the benefit of her children. “I have a checkered CV with completely different professions, but I didn’t really look at what I found, as long as the salary followed.“…Chloé still admits that this is not a solution of which she is proud, since she was not actively looking for a new position as she should have done in the eyes of Job Center. “But without a decent salary, and with only 450 euros per month, I clearly would not have been able to stay with my sons.” Regardless, this break in her life as a mother allowed her to see her children grow up and she doesn’t regret that for anything in the world.