The Fight for Fair Maternity Leave

You know, it's amazing how I never have to wonder what to write about for long. Not only does Anna provide pretty much constant amusement and inspiration, but so do my awesome Facebook friends.

Today as I was drinking my coffee and skimming my FB news feed at my desk (it's part of my morning wake-up ritual, don't judge), I came across this article thanks to a link posted by two of my friends. Everyone should read it because just about everyone is impacted by this issue in some way, shape or form. Yes, we're talking about paid maternity leave.

Ahh, baby days

It's interesting that I'm writing about this, since I didn't become a parent the "natural" way and didn't even have the option for maternity leave, paid or unpaid - but we'll get to that later.

The article makes an excellent point. We moms often spend so much time paranoid about whether we're doing the "right" things to take care of our kids, and comparing ourselves to parents we know or to studies or to the parents in magazine articles, that sometimes we miss the big picture.  Truth is, everyone has his or her own unique way of parenting. Different things work for different people.

But there's one thing we all need, and that is the support of our government and our employers to make the transition to parenthood as positive as it can be. We need to stay healthy to be good parents, we need to make sure our kids stay healthy....and we still need to be able to put food on the table and have jobs to go back to when the time is right.

Let's face it, kids are expensive!

Yeah, mom, everyone needs an Elmo!

This was supposed to be the point of the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) - to keep our jobs safe while we transition into motherhood by providing a certain amount of guaranteed time off without losing our jobs. Too bad it doesn't require that time off to be paid, and doesn't apply to an unfortunately large percentage of new parents because it only applies to larger businesses with a certain number of employees.

If you work for a small business, like I did when Anna was born, you're screwed. Maybe your employer will be generous and decent enough to work with you anyway....but maybe not. That's just the way it is. So you either suck it up and return to work too early, which is hard for you and your baby, or you don't and risk not having a job to go back to.

Enter the above article, which points out in no uncertain terms the ways in which the U.S. lags behind other countries when it comes to maternity leave. And that's just sad.

This includes you dads, too. Dads also should be eligible for time off when they become new parents. They're going to be tired too. New moms will want and deserve their support. And while it is possible for them to be covered under FMLA, the same restrictions about size of the workplace and number of employees apply to them.

So, sign the petition at the end of the article. And share it on FB or Twitter or wherever else. Because the only way things will change is if we do something about it. Also, we should follow the other advice provided in the article - let's stop the infighting and comparisons with other moms and just stick together to take care of the real problems we have.

Before I wrap up, I'm also going to put in a plug for those of us who became parents but weren't pregnant. We may not have needed time off for our bodies to recover from childbirth, but we were every bit as sleep-deprived and exhausted as any other mom.

A rare nap with infant Anna

I will never forget how Heidi and I would tag team middle-of-the-night diaper changes and feedings at first, and then switch off. Both of us had full-time jobs as attorneys. Both of us kept working with no time off. I had an hour-long commute to work and often had to drive to courts in remote parts of the state early in the morning with less than four hours of sleep. Needless to say, that sucked.

Of course, it was more than worth it, but it's been three and a half years now and I am still chronically exhausted. I don't think my body will ever recover the sleep I lost in Anna's newborn days, so I always feel as though I'm in catch-up mode.

I just wanted to note that even though I didn't give birth to Anna, I did everything else any new mom would do, as did Heidi. The only difference was that we didn't have nine months to prepare for it, or maternity leave to recover from it. Parents in this position should be entitled to paid leave as well.

I believe that FMLA covers adoptive parents, although given its restrictions, it still would not have applied to me or to many other people. And, to my knowledge, foster parents aren't included. That's just wrong. You see, Heidi and I started out as foster parents and the initial plan was not for us to adopt.

Because we were relatives, we didn't get the state aid other foster parents sometimes receive, so we ended up saving our state some money. But the increased financial burden on us made it even more important that we not lose our jobs, so we always went to work no matter how zombie-like our states of consciousness were. Foster parents provide an incredible service and also go through all of the changes any new parent would, so let's not forget them.

Who could resist this face??

What do you think? Do you qualify for FMLA? Does your employer have a generous maternity leave policy? What supports would have made things easier for you when you had a newborn? Check out the article and discuss.