Curious about (lack of) mat leave in USA. How do women cope?

[Ed1n]

Reading another thread about WFH with a newborn which got me thinking. I’m on mat leave and cannot imagine returning to work at twelve weeks, which is I understand, fairly typical (even best case) in US. Any stateside mumsnetters able to give insight into how long most women really take, what is childcare provision like etc?

It seems such a different set up! How do you breast feed, cope with sleep deprivation and decision making.

Googling suggests Estonia is the generous country for paid mat leave. USA the worst.

In Australia when mine were born it was 12 weeks paid leave in total, generally 6 weeks in the lead up to due date and 6 after.

But it was nigh on impossible to get a childcare place for babies, and frowned upon before 9-12 months anyway (in my circles), so most people scrimped and saved to cover the unpaid period and applied for whatever government supplements they could.

My employer (public service) did allow up to 2 years unpaid leave and access to part time work until the youngest started school.

I also nursed both my babies until 9 months and was back at work after 16 weeks. Expressed at work and built up a massive freezer stash before I returned.

My American mother in 1970 took a week off when she had me, then had to return to work in the business she shared with my father. Mother took me to work with a crib, later a playpen. She left me with various sitters when she could. When I was two, my maternal grandmother took early retirement to watch me 45 hours a week.
High quality child care is very expensive here unless one’s work place subsidizes it.

@Classica

Mind boggling that the wealthiest country in the world has such paltry maternity leave.

What about women who work as waitresses or stacking shelves in a supermarket? Can't imagine physically being able to do such work a week or two after giving birth.

I've just looked up the employee benefits for a supermarket, pharmacy, and coffee shop chain in my area. Even though it's paltry compared to other countries, they all appear to offer paid parental leave, including for part-time employees. I'm sure these are relatively new policies (probably in the last five years), but it's good to see.

As PP's have mentioned, it's the businesses with less than 50 employees that almost certainly don't offer such benefits, because they can't afford them, and that's why the government needs to step in and guarantee paid leave. I genuinely think the situation will change, it can't happen soon enough.

Here's an interesting article about how maternity leave in the UK has changed over the years

It didn't exist when I had my first baby, although I did receive Maternity Grant, which was a one off payment of £25, and Maternity Allowance, a weekly payment of about £10 I think, which was paid for the first 12 weeks.
I worked in the public sector and under the rules at the time (1979) women could stop working from the 28th week of pregnancy and remain at home until the baby was 12 weeks old. Employers held the job open until then, or until the woman informed them that she did not intend to return to work.
Most of us didn't return to work after the 12 weeks. There were almost no nurseries, so anyone needing childcare usually went to a childminder.

Re: breastfeeding/pumping, this is actually a right that is protected by US federal law for breastfeeding mothers. Workplaces have to provide a private space for nursing women to express milk, and the place cannot be a bathroom. (Like other rules mentioned by PP, this mandate only applies to employers with more than 50 employees.) I breastfed for 15 months but returned to work after 3 months and found it very doable to express milk at work.

The women most affected by the brutal policy are those working blue collar jobs in the private sector. They can't afford not to return to work no matter how exhausted they are, or how poorly they may be recovering from a CS, tearing, etc.

Welfare doesn't provide the sort of fallback low paid workers can rely on in many other countries. The prevalence of contract/zero hours work complicates the picture further because women in this position don't have employee rights. It really, really sucks.

The experience of professional women, who seem to be represented here, isn't typical of American women.

Many in the US are very passionate about the baby in the womb but do not care about them after they're born. It's every man for himself after birth, even healthcare isn't subsidized yet they spend billions interfering in other countries.

@Delectable

Many in the US are very passionate about the baby in the womb but do not care about them after they're born. It's every man for himself after birth, even healthcare isn't subsidized yet they spend billions interfering in other countries.

Subsidies are available nowadays to help people obtain healthcare coverage.

But, they're a recent phenomenon, like many of the benefits mentioned on this thread. Essentially, the US is several decades behind other developed countries in these areas.

As well as the mat leave how do parents cope with sick children? Presuming the other benefits are equally rubbish. Eg I know I can take 3 paid days of special leave when illness inevitably hits or use some annual leave but what on earth do parents do with more draconian terms and conditions especially if babies are in nursery. My second seemed to be permanently Ill during my mat leave.

I'm in Aus. My company offers 18 weeks full paid maternity. We can also purchase up to 8 weeks annual leave (above our 5 weeks). By purchasing the additional leave - tax break too - it allow us to take 12 months at 50% salary or 6 months at full salary.

The Gov also offers min wage payments, but I earn too much to qualify.

@Bunnycat101

As well as the mat leave how do parents cope with sick children? Presuming the other benefits are equally rubbish. Eg I know I can take 3 paid days of special leave when illness inevitably hits or use some annual leave but what on earth do parents do with more draconian terms and conditions especially if babies are in nursery. My second seemed to be permanently Ill during my mat leave.

Generally (and again, speaking for my type of job), we take sick time to look after our kids. I get 12 paid sick days each year, and can roll over all of those if I don't use them. (At the moment I think I have something like 30 days of sick time.) If I run out of sick time, I can use vacation days instead.

@Bunnycat101

As well as the mat leave how do parents cope with sick children? Presuming the other benefits are equally rubbish. Eg I know I can take 3 paid days of special leave when illness inevitably hits or use some annual leave but what on earth do parents do with more draconian terms and conditions especially if babies are in nursery. My second seemed to be permanently Ill during my mat leave.

Of course, if you're working for an employer that doesn't even provide sick time for the staff themselves, you'd lose wages to look after a sick kid, same as you'd lose for yourself if you were ill.

As a teacher in 1995 I was only entitled to 12 weeks. It was such a wrench. But I went back after Easter so had the long holiday to look forward to.

Most employers are required to offer 12 weeks of unpaid leave. Some employers and a few states offer paid leave. There are also optional short-term disability programs that cover pregnancy.

Intelligent women (and men) factor this into their family planning, and ensure they've saved enough to cover whatever leave they want before having a child. Less intelligent ones do whatever they want with nary a thought for the practicalities, same as everywhere else, and then whine about it and expect everyone else to bail them out when they can't afford it, same as everywhere else.

I really feel for US moms dealing with such crap maternity leave. I can see why so many moms choose not to go back to work and families have to make such huge sacrifices. I'm in Canada and had 12 months paid leave at 93% of my salary because my employer "topped up" the government mat leave benefits. I actually made more money being at home on mat leave then I did being at work as I saved on daycare for my other kids. I even accrued 4 weeks paid vacation while I was off and came back to a promotion and raise! I was very grateful but it's hard leaving your baby no matter how old they are and I ended up pulling my little one out of daycare and becoming a SAHM for 3 years. But the downside is we pay such high taxes it's ridiculous!!!!! And yes vacation entitlement is a joke at most organizations in Canada. It's nowhere near as good as the Uk.

I'm in the US and got 6 weeks that I used vacation days and unpaid leave. Never heard of such long maternity leave till I came in this site.

When my first son was born in 1996, IIRC, I got six weeks on 90% of pay (most of which had to be taken before the birth), then an additional six weeks on 50% of pay. I think you could take a further few weeks on smp only but we actually got a cash bonus to come back after the initial six weeks.
When my daughter was born in 2004 I could not believe how generous maternity leave/pay was.
I got a full year off and I think I only went down to smp for the last month or so, although I had changed employer by then.
To be honest, you just got on with it as you knew no different.
Things were a lot less baby led in thec1990s than they are now, and I do wonder if that is because you had to get things lined up to go back to work more or less from day one so we're a lot more focused on eg sleep.

Is the US really “the worst”? Worse than Afghanistan say?

But anyway perhaps it’s a good thing, why should the rest of society pick up the slack both at work and financially for the women who want to play SAHM when it suits them, then just have the rest of the country pay up and provide them with the job they left back when it suits them?
It’s not practically efficient and is basically entirely selfish on those women’s part and revolves all around what they want without a thought for how it’s provided for them. Which is at everyone else’s expense.

Real talk - SAHM mother’s provide more care for less and are less of a burden on society than working mothers who live subsidised by state welfare (which is what long maternity leave is).
Yet we’re a totally undervalued group.

America is the absolute pits. Nothing about it sounds in any way appealing.

Oh for goodness sake! What a ridiculous statement.

I'm in the US - my employer holds your job for you for 6 months. I took 8 weeks on full pay, then used 20 days of banked holiday to take me up to 12 weeks, then I did my state's SMP equivalent for another 4 (maybe 5?) weeks before I went back to work. DH got 4 weeks of paternity leave, so he did 2 when DS first came home and 2 when I went back to work. I could have taken the whole 6 months but I was bored out of my mind and couldn't wait to go back to the office.

DS went to daycare. He appears to have survived unscathed.

I don't know a single SAHM. All my mum friends work. Most of them take 12 weeks and a lot of the big firms - tech especially - pay full pay for 12 weeks. One of my friends went back at 6 weeks after her first DS because she's a partner in a law firm and she had a trial. Her husband took paternity leave to cover the gap and then she went back on leave when the trial was done

RE: breastfeeding, pumping is really popular. In my circles there's huge pressure to breastfeed - formula is very much frowned upon and I don't know anyone who exclusively formula fed. I spent thousands on lactation constructs and still had to mix feed because of low supply and I was so ashamed. My office has a really nice pumping room which you booked slots for every day - they even had a hospital grade pump in there you could bring your own pump parts for.

Women get 6 weeks unpaid disability leave following childbirth (I believe that was introduced by Clinton?).
Women in good jobs usually get decent paid maternity leave from the employer as a perk. Men might also get paternity leave.
But a low paid, hourly worker? Nada beyond the 6 weeks.

Sidenote: I'm in NYC so there's also very much an (unspoken) expectation that you'll return to work having lost your baby weight and back in your size 2 trousers .

Losing the baby weight is very much an open topic of conversation and the assumption is that you'll be looking to get back to your pre-baby weight ASAP.

(I could write reams about bonkers Manhattan parenting/pregnancy/childbirth but that would derail the thread )

@Bunnycat101 I have LOADS of sick leave. I get the NY state mandated 56 hours PLUS another 20 days from my employer. Technically we have unlimited sick leave, but for that you need to be signed off by a doctor and seriously ill.

My office is also flexible, so I don't have to take sick time for doctor's appointments. I had to go once a week for 6 months of my (horrendous) pregnancy and didn't have to take sick time, I just took the first appointment of the day and came in a bit late.

Not everyone is that lucky, but it's also not super rare in professional jobs. One of my friends had a 30 week premie and her office reworked their leave and sick policy to let her spend as much time as she needed in hospital, and then at home with her DS.

I’m in the Middle East and I get 90 days maternity leave. With my first two babies, I added on a few weeks of annual leave so went back when they were around 15 weeks old. DC3 is currently 8 weeks old and I’m heading back to work in around a fortnight because I have a big project coming up that I want to be involved in from the start.

We have a fabulous nanny (who was hired specifically for her newborn experience when DC1 was born)

My husband’s job is very flexible

I have a hospital grade breast pump that I use from the get go and ensure I have a good stash in the freezer by the time I go back to work

By law, breastfeeding mothers are also permitted to take ‘breastfeeding hours’ - in my workplace this is a two hour reduction in the working day until tne baby is 6 months, and one hour from
six to twelve months.

I'm really excited tk het back to work in a few weeks. Staying at home for much longer would be seriously damaging for my mental health and the ides of being at home with a baby for up to a year actually fills me with dread.