Maternity Minute
What is maternity leave?
-It is a set period of time, given to mothers following the birth of their child(ren). The purpose of this leave is to give you time to recover from giving birth, and to care and bond with your new baby!
-It is often times unpaid leave, unless you have a stack of sick days and PTO days accumulated. So you would need roughly 30 days or 240 hours of some kind of paid time saved up to complete your typical maternity leave with full pay.
-You can use short-term disability if you have purchased a policy, but you must have purchased it a year before becoming pregnant and it will only pay out a portion of your salary.
Long story short: maternity leave in Louisiana and many other states in the USA is TRASH!!!! Six weeks for a vaginal birth, eight weeks for a cesarean section. Of course you do get twelve weeks of FMLA, if your employer meets the requirements to support that, but it is also typically unpaid leave. So are the extra 6 or 8 weeks worth it if you can’t afford to pay your electricity bill or buy diapers for your baby?
Federal law requires twelve weeks of unpaid leave for new mothers, however to even offer FMLA leave, your employer must employ over 50 or more people within 75 miles, and you as an employee must have worked over 1,250 hours in 12 months prior to your leave and worked for the employer for a total of 12 months at the time.
At first 12 weeks sounds generous, but then when you factor in the fact that it is unpaid, it doesn’t seem as exciting. Also, in some cases, if you work for a company that pays part of your insurance premium, you may be expected to foot that bill while you are out. So not only are you making no money, it is actually costing you extra to take your FMLA leave.
The national average for maternity leave is 8 weeks, but only 40% of employers offer that as paid time off, and only 70% of new mothers are able to actually take that much time off. Most women will take 6 weeks off of work before returning and putting their child in daycare, honestly I am sure there are many women who go back sooner if they have alternative childcare options. Licensed childcare facilities do not accept children until they are 6 weeks old, so if you should need to return to work prior to the 6 weeks, you would have to find someone who is not licensed or maybe a family member or friend to care for your child. Another bit if controversy at putting your child in daycare at 6 weeks is the fact that this is typically when they are getting their first round of vaccinations. (Which if you have had kids, you know this may lead to them running a slight fever, meaning they can’t go to daycare, so what would be your third day back at work is really the first time you get to call out because if your sick newborn.) The U.S. is extremely far behind in the business of paid parental leave. There are many other countries that offer at minimum, four weeks of paid leave for new parents. Out of 41 countries, the U.S. is the only one that does not offer government-mandated paid leave for new parents, neither mothers or fathers, while countries such as Poland offer over 40 weeks of paid leave, and others offering almost 18 months! About half of the countries offer some type of paid paternity leave as well. Ya’ll, when I had Everette in September, Johnny took off one day of work, the day I actually gave birth, and he answered several [hone calls during the day and then sat down to over 50 emails that evening while I rested. So really, he missed ZERO day of work, much less stayed home and helped care for the new baby. He is especially limited at how much time he takes off from work since he is our sole provider. Thinking about all of the positive things that could come out of having dads who are able to spend an extended amount of time at home with their children after birth could be an entire post in its own.
Okay, so you were one of the “lucky” ones. You had plenty of sick and personal time saved up AND you had short term disability, so financially you were all set to take off 8 weeks to soak up every moment with your brand new baby, oh and to let your body complete heal from birthing said baby.(And maybe even recovering from having a gigantic incision into several layers of your abdominal wall!) But here you are, feeling refreshed and ready to jump back into work (yeah, right), but really your time is up and it is time to go back. You’re at work for a few weeks and you catch the flu, ya know from being back around all of your coworkers, plus baby is in daycare and exposed to more germs than they were at home. You need to take off to go to the doctor, so you submit your request for a sick day, but wait, you don’t have any left, because you used them all on your maternity leave. So what do you do? Well you have two options, option 1 is to go to work sick, which seems a little bit inconsiderate, but how will you afford to miss work without any sick leave? Or there is option 2, take the time off to go to the doctor and to get well, but any time off will be unpaid. Side note: it will also be deeply frowned upon that you are ALREADY missing work for any reason at all considering you JUST had 8 entire weeks off, you should have used those 8 weeks wisely and gotten the flu during that time. So what would you do? Option 1 or option 2? As a teacher and a new mom with my first two kiddos, I always chose option 1. I couldn’t miss out on a days salary after I was financially recovering from my maternity leave. Both of those options given to working moms seem terrible, but one thing about a momma is the fact that she will always do what needs to be done to support her family before caring for herself.
With my first child I was able to take off about 8 weeks before I returned to work, with my second I had 9 weeks at home since it was the summer time and I was still teaching, but for my third and fourth I was able to stay home and not have to go back to work. I do feel like I am able to bond more and just experience my children more completely by staying at home for a longer period of time with my youngest two. I also get to spend much more time with my oldest two when they are home for breaks and when they get home in the afternoons. These are things I wouldn’t get to experience if I only had 6 weeks of leave and had to hurry back to work.
While I appreciate the situation I am currently in and the fact that I no longer have to worry about my maternity leave passing by so quickly, I am bothered that other moms, especially first time moms, will have to experience this. There is really no way to fully describe how uncomfortable and heartbreaking it is to drop your brand new, 6 week old baby, off at a childcare center or in home daycare, or even with family. It is not natural to be away from your infant so soon. Even women who are eager to get back to work, would probably tell you that 6 weeks was too soon. I hope that one day our country can get on board with the importance of paid maternity leave and being able to spend the first months of your child’s life focused on nurturing them, healing yourself, and transitioning into this new role, instead of rushing back to work because of financial needs or due to the fear of losing your position should you stay out any longer.
Working momma, I see you, I respect you, and my heart goes out to you. You’re doing a good job and you will always be able to say you did what needed to be done! Mommas will always find a way!
