Walk into a room of parents and say something like, “Parental leave is important. Parental leave is something people should have.” Try it. In almost any room of parents, of all different backgrounds, you would probably face a wall of blank stares, people thinking “Of course…and?” Parental leave is not a particularly revolutionary idea, unless you live in the United States.
The United States is one of four countries that do not offer any paid parental leave. Only four! It’s pretty criminal to think that a country with trillions of dollars to spend on war can’t drum up enough resources to fund paid parental leave. What do you get? You get a measly 12 weeks without pay during which you are not supposed to lose your job.
I’m on maternity leave right now. A maternity leave I have because my union fought for it in our last round of contract negotiations. The last time I had a child, just about six years ago, we didn’t have any. One of my paychecks was literally $60! And that’s because my meager sick day pay was consumed by a jump in healthcare costs of over $300 a month prorated to the day I’d given birth. (The contradiction in calling birth and pregnancy a disability or a sickness is certainly ripe for a whole other discussion.)
This time around it still is not even fully paid maternity leave. It’s partially paid. I am yet again cobbling together funds through privately purchased disability insurance, increasing my own debt and begging money from my family.
I count myself lucky. Over 25 percent of U.S. women go back to work less than two weeks after giving birth. Two weeks is nothing. Two weeks is barely walking well and you still don’t know what day it is. Given the sleep deprivation, two weeks and back to work could be a pretty dangerous situation. According to the study that generated these numbers, 7 percent of women took NO time off. Read the report detailing these stories called The Real War on Families: Why the U.S. Needs Paid Leave Now.
No surprises here, but the women who took the most time off were the most educated. Seeing as education is linked to income, we can pretty safely say the poorest and most oppressed women in the United States, the women most likely in need of that paid time off for a variety of reasons, are exactly the women being forced back to work too early. Clearly, this problem wouldn’t exist if the U.S. government would guarantee fully paid leave.
The report details women’s personal anecdotes capable of inducing tears. You don’t even need to be a hormonal, sleep-deprived new mom to dredge up some tears when you read these stories. Nope. All you need to be is human. Because the way in which the capitalist system in the United States provides for women and families is depressing. In fact, it’s worthy of an indictment—a people’s indictment. And it needs to end.
