Maternity Leave: An Overlooked Obstacle

So far on this blog I have not brought up my political beliefs or anything controversial. This requires political support and actually taking some time out of your day to make it happen.

Everyone has a mother and every mother needs time to recover and bond with her baby after childbirth. Every mother deserves to enjoy that time with her child and not have to stress out about how she is going to financially support her new family. This is an issue that goes beyond mother and child it includes the wellbeing of families and even outside individuals.

How are we all connected and affected by this one issue? Well let me explain; I ended up having an unplanned pregnancy, the details of which I will share in a later post. For now, all you need to know is that I ended up getting pregnant a mere 3 months after starting a new job.  Having not planned for it, I suddenly found myself without a solid foundation for how I was going to make it through three months with no income. Depending on your situation, there are programs and support to assist you during maternity leave. The problem is not everyone qualifies for them and even if you do, the support is minimal and temporary. My situation did not allow for any outside help. I had to rely on my place of employment to make it through my maternity leave. Luckily for me, they offered several options that would allow me to get enough leave for two and a half months of pay. There was a catch. In doing so, I would be advanced sick days that I would have to pay back.

Despite all of that I still felt very fortunate to be able to have that option. Not many people are so fortunate as I was. Still with my situation, I was unable to get the full three months off with pay and now, months later I am still paying back the leave I used while I was out. This means whenever Emma gets sick, I have to use my regular vacation time to take off to be with her.

We got into a situation over the last few months where our entire family was sick on and off for a month and a half. That left me with no time to take off for myself when I became ill. I had no choice, I had to go to work sick. Going to work sick is never what anyone wants to do. Here I was at work, sick as a dog with no leave and people were giving me the evil eye. I didn’t have time to stop every person to explain to them that had there been mandated paid maternity leave that my germs and me would be at home.

My next dilemma is now I have gone over a year without a real vacation. As any mother knows, even a family vacation is still a vacation, a chance to recharge, and it looks like I won’t be taking one of those for a while. I am not trying to use this post to complain about my petty vacation woes, but rather to solicit support for some great legislation. Moms, dads, women, men, young, old, co-workers, and friends, look to your mothers, look to future mothers. Give them the support they need because trust me being a mom has enough of it’s own challenges. One less benefits everyone.

Please support moms! Sign this petition before 2/28!!! Pass it on!

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/mandate-paid-maternity-leave/MtHK02QF