I am currently pregnant with my second child. My family and I are ecstatic. It is an honor and joy for me personally to be able to bring new life into this world. But at the risk of over simplifying how much happiness and immense delight I feel; the flip side is that this joy comes at the cost of my growing anxiety and stress around my maternity leave situation. Each day as my in-utero baby grows, I start to feel more dread and anxiousness around what to do once baby is born.
The current federal maternity law in America entitles women to 12 weeks of UNPAID maternity leave. But really that all depends drastically on which organization you work for, how many employees they have and how long you’ve worked there. Also, did I mention it was UNPAID? Some states have put measures in place to help support with giving some income during this time, providing supplementary disability payments during a woman’s maternity leave. And in some states, we are entitled to such pay as it comes out of our paychecks anyway. So great, except not when the state’s laws stipulate what those weekly/monthly paychecks look like. The gracious state of NYC provides “disabled” postpartum women a whole $167/week during their 6-week disability paid program. So how does one pay their rent and put food on their families table as the breadwinner bringing home approximately $668 a month and who also happen to live in the lovely, expensive city of New York? The answer is you literally cannot. And the new paid family leave act is better but that only kicks in after your disability is up. So, what happens when you cannot financially afford those first six weeks off?
At time point in time, my nights are filled now with running through alternative scenarios and thinking about how to create a side hustle during my maternity leave so I can actually take time off to bond with my new infant but also ensure my family can survive. And I am very fortunate, I have an immensely supportive community and network of family and friends who will do their most to help us. But that doesn’t make me less angry or anxious at this point. In fact, it infuriates me that this is the only silver lining for me which allows me to know that thankfully, my family will be okay no matter what. But what about those single moms out there? What about the families who mothers have to sacrifice their personal health as well as potentially their infants to return to work too early in order provide a pay check to support their families? What about low-income families? Who’s out there supporting them? Not America. And while this soap box speech has gone on long enough for you to catch my drift, I haven’t even begun on the inadequacy of paternity leave policies by employers either. My husband got a week off after the birth of our son. Actually just 4 days since he was born on a Monday and my husband called in sick that day. What type of supportive leave is just 4 days for a new father?
So, America, it’s time to FAMILY UP. By that I mean its 2018. It’s time for our country’s federal laws to actually start supporting families, for real, not just doing the bare minimum. Stop placing women who’ve chosen to be mothers into the impossible conundrum of spending time healing and bonding with their new baby(ies) or returning to work to survive. Give parents the support they need when they are the most vulnerable. Advocate for parents, particularly mothers, by giving them choices not stipulations on how to navigate the choppy waters of postpartum. Entice employers to actually SUPPORT their employees who have chosen to become parents. It’s time for our policy makers to be a little more like the strong, fierce, hardworking, dedicated, bad ass parents who are out there hustling, struggling and surviving to do the most for their families. This is unacceptable America. On behalf of families living in across this country, we demand and deserve far better (sound of a microphone being dropped).
P.S. I don’t really care what your politics are. This post is not about taking sides. It’s about supporting families. And I purposely didn’t add in a lot of facts because all the research indicates America comes in last already compared to the majority of the world’s “developed” countries in relation to our crappy maternity leave laws. If you want to read more, do your own homework. Or get pregnant and realize how sh*t the options are out there for you and your family if you live in the United States of America. Either way and fair warning, the results are quite dismal.
K Space 