The Importance Of Paid Maternity Leave
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Politics and Activism

The Importance Of Paid Maternity Leave

This isn't a woman's issue, this is an American issue.

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The Importance Of Paid Maternity Leave
Amber Schorah

In July 2015, Amber Scorah brought her 3-month-old baby, Karl Towndrow, to his very first day at daycare. Like most new mothers, she was hesitant to leave her child alone, but because her three months of paid maternity leave were up, she had no other option.

Scorah dropped her son off at 9:30 a.m., and she told the daycare assistant she would be back between noon and 12:30 p.m. to nurse him. At 12:15 p.m., Schorah rushed back to the daycare center, which was only two blocks away from her job, excited to see her son. As she arrived, her first sight of him was unconscious, blue-lipped and incorrectly receiving CPR from a daycare assistant. After the fact, a medical examiner concluded that the cause of his death was undetermined.

In a deeply personal New York Times parenting blog post, Scorah goes into detail explaining what happened on the day of baby Karl's demise. After reiterating the story, she goes on to explain that she wants it to be known that she is not criticizing the daycare or the company she works for, but rather the current state of parental leave policies in the United States.

There are only two countries in the world that don't offer paid maternity leave: The United States and Papua New Guinea. Certain states, such as California, New Jersey and Rhode Island, have programs in place that ensure paid maternity leave for most mothers, but not all. Even under these technicalities, unpaid maternity leave still leave a majority of women disadvantaged.

The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 is a United States federal law that mandates job security and unpaid leave for three months for qualified individuals following a family (birth of a child) or medical leave. These qualifications include being at a job for over a year and being employed at a company with more than 50 employees, along with many more exceptions. Under FMLA, half of new mothers are not eligible for paid leave at the time their child is born. The job security is a plus, but raising a baby is a lot of money and 12 weeks of not receiving pay is something that is unrealistic for many American families. This, in turn, forces many American women to leave their newborn children at home way too young, quit their jobs or not take any of their unpaid time off altogether.

My mother, who was pregnant with me in 1997, was not able to work midway through her pregnancy due to multiple complications. Following doctors orders, she was placed on disability where she only received $300 to $400 every week. Following her return to work, my mother was lucky enough to have my grandmother take care of me. My mother herself said that she wasn't ready to go back at six weeks, and deserved the three months that she was denied.

Jennifer Willis, a school teacher who was pregnant around the same time my mother was pregnant with me, was in a similar situation where she was only given six weeks of maternity leave following the birth of her daughter, Samantha. Once her six weeks were up, she then used her sick leave, along with time off that was taken out of her paycheck, to extend her leave to three months. After her three months were up, Samantha was then taken care of by her grandparents. Because of her position as a school teacher, this allowed Willis a lot of time to spend with the baby that most mothers do not have the luxury of. Even after the three months of leave, it was still really difficult for her to return back to work, which is expected of a new mother.

Childbirth is a major physical, emotional and psychological event that takes place in a woman's life. When you demand that a woman gets back into the workforce as soon as possible, it doesn't take into consideration things like postpartum depression, excessive bleeding, incontinence, breast infections and not to mention excessive pain. As for the babies, a lack of contact with their mothers during the first months of life can cause children to miss their developmental milestones -- or in the case of Amber Scorah, miss the entire life of a child altogether.

The laws, or lack thereof, are stuck in the '50s where women only had jobs as a "hobby" and not for survival, as they do now. If every other developed nation in the world has figured out some way to make paid maternity leave feasible in their country, then why hasn't the country with the second highest GDP been able to do it? It's time that lawmakers keep their economics out of our uteruses and realize that in a country where women make up 58.6 percent of the workforce, it's time to take care of us.

For more information on the state of parental leave in the United States in comparison to the rest of the world, check out Maternity Leave: How America is Failing Its Mothers by Broadly.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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