rolindsayblog

This morning I heard about a bill that was passed through the House that would allow federal employees up to 4 weeks of paid leave after the birth or adoption of a child. The story so caught my attention that I sat in the parking lot of my son’s daycare to listen to it while he got antsy in the backseat. As a government employee, I was shocked and extremely disappointed last year to find my employer didn’t provide any type of maternity leave. I had been working in my current position for two years, but had only just converted from a contractor to a government employee when I became pregnant. That meant that by the time I had the baby, I only had minimal time saved up to take off with pay, and although my employer honors the Family and Medical Leave Act and would allow me to take up to 12 weeks off, unpaid, this “benefit” wasn’t an option for me. My husband, formerly an active duty soldier, was working part time and getting his master’s degree. Because he had joined the Army just after college, we had no money saved up–I had been unable to kickstart my career with the instability of being an Army spouse, and in case you didn’t know, enlisted service members with a wife but no kids make next to nothing. So taking unpaid leave was never a viable option for us. In the end, I ended up being able to take 3 weeks off, then work part time for two more. By July, my leave was gone.

This lack of paid leave and wondering where our mortgage payment would come from if something went wrong with my son’s birth caused me great amounts of stress. I’m not entirely unconvinced that this stress contributed to my son being born nearly 6 weeks early (which resulted in him being less healthy than a full-term baby–read on). However, this scenario probably sounds reasonable enough to anyone without kids; after all, I had nearly a month off with my baby once he arrived. But those people assume that just because the baby is out and thriving, a new mom or dad can come right back to working a consistent 40-hour work week. They fail to take into account the numerous doctor visits a healthy newborn will need, not to mention the ones that a less-than-healthy baby requires. In my case, my premature infant was diagnosed with pyloric stenosis when he hit 5 weeks old, and my husband and I spent two miserable days and two sleepless nights in the hospital with him as he underwent surgery and observation. Then there were the chronic ear infections. And then the RSV that sent him, wheezing, back to the emergency room. Luckily for me, my boss is flexible and allowed me to make up countless hours of missed work, but she was under no such legal obligation to grant me those allowances. And just when I began saving up a little leave to use for emergencies while my husband is deployed for training with the National Guard, a pandemic scare forced me to take even more time off with my son, who couldn’t go to a daycare closed by the threat of the swine flu.

The bill that passed the House last night was contested by numerous Republicans, including, of course, representatives from the state in which I live. They argued that allowing the government to pay for its employees to take maternity/paternity leave in this recession (which was, arguably, brought on by the backward policies of the previous Republican administration) is fiscally irresponsible. I understand where this argument is coming from. I’m one of those people who worked for many years without paid leave and still has a hard time understanding things like retirement packages; it’s hard for me to grasp the idea of employers paying their hires not to work. But when it comes down to it, benefits exist to keep employees from being mistreated and to increase their overall productivity, among other things. You can’t expect a new mom–whose baby is still waking up for feedings every three hours, who’s still in pain from labor, and who’s utterly exhausted from the physical trauma her body just went through and the mental strain of caring for a dependent child–to perform to the best of her abilities in the workplace, and I think this gets to the heart of the opposition’s argument against paid maternity/paternity leave. In their refusal to grant working women time off to be with their children and to adjust to having a new child around, opponents to this bill are  working to force women  back to their traditional, repressive roles as caretakers and homemakers. And this is consistent other misogynistic views from some on the far right, who want to force women to have children, regardless of the circumstances, by opposing abortion rights and trying to restrict the sale of birthcontrol, yet who fail to grant working women the peace of mind that would come with knowing they had time off after welcoming a new child into their lives. These ultraconservatives encourage breastfeeding, but I have yet to work in a government office that provided me with a clean, quiet place to pump and adequate breaks on which to do so; clearly new moms are meant to breastfeed, but only at home, where they belong. They completely ignore the concerns of single mothers who don’t have a spouse’s income to carry them through weeks of unpaid leave, yet oppose offering childcare stipends to government employees. They refuse to grant a new mom or dad even 4 weeks of paid leave, yet I’ve never heard of a daycare that accepts babies less than 6 weeks old.

Recently, my husband and I were talking about having or adopting a second child. But when we thought I might be pregnant again, I realized the only thing keeping me from feeling overjoyed at the possibility was my lack of saved leave days and my husband’s uncertain future when he returns from training. You see, he started working full time in addition to going to school when our son was 6 months old, but when the National Guard called him away for training, his position was filled by someone else. Now we’re not sure if he’ll have a job to come back to. I think opponents to the House bill fail to understand the various circumstances that federal employees face when having or adopting a child. If our situation was as “easy” as my getting pregnant and taking unpaid leave while my husband works to pay the mortgage, maybe this bill wouldn’t be absolutely necessary. But because my husband volunteered to serve his country and make all the sacrifices that entails, we’re stuck in this predicament where, if I were to become pregnant again, we’d be penalized for his service (and one might argue that it’s illegal for him to lose his job for being called to active duty, but I can assure you, while the basics of that are true, the fine print and our personal experience has proven it’s not that simple).

The bill that passed the House last night now moves into the Senate for review, and I can only hope and pray that enough sensibile people there see fit to allow its passage. From there, perhaps the private sector will start to move in the right direction for new-parent leave (though many family-friendly private businesses already provide their employees with paid leave after the addition of a child). For me, I can only say that news of this bill was a welcome surprise and that it’s given me hope that one day, before my son is too old, I may be in a position to help him welcome a new brother or sister to our family. Until then, even in my relatively secure situation, every pregnancy scare will be just that.

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