What is Maternity leave ?

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In April 2016, the New York Post published an article called “I want all the perks of maternity leave — without having any kids.” It introduced the concept of “meternity.” The author suggests that women who don’t have children should be able to take 12-week vacations like their fellow working mothers.

In my early 20s, I never concerned myself with the facts surrounding maternity leave. I had no idea how difficult it was to have a child and then be forced back to work 12 weeks later with no vacation time, a baby who was not sleeping through the night, a drained bank account, and feelings of a looming postpartum emotional breakdown.

40 percent of women don’t qualify for the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) which grants 12 weeks of protected job leave, unpaid, at the federal level.

Only 12 percent of women in the private sector have access to any sort of paid maternity leave.

There is no federal paid maternity leave — it's left to the states to figure out.

The only states with an active policy are California, Rhode Island, and New Jersey.

25 percent of women are forced to return to work within 2 weeks of giving birth to support their families.

The United States is the only high-income country to not offer paid maternity leave on a federal level. Paid leave is guaranteed in 178 countries, the United States not being one of them.

We need to change the conversation from maternity leave being a privilege and start discussing the real implications of not viewing it as a human right.

Perhaps even more disturbing than the facts are the implications that the lack of a federal maternity leave policy has on women and children.

The United States has the highest infant mortality rate out of 28 wealthy countries in the world, coming in at 6.1 for every 1,000 births.

The birth rate in the United States is at 1.83 per woman, a record low. If we do not maintain our population, it will impact our GDP and economic standing.

We must do better. Over and over again we are forced to confront the fact that poor maternity leave policies are bad public policy. With the majority of families in the United States depending on women to earn an income, we can’t ignore the obvious and deadly problems that plague all mothers regardless of their economic standing.

Circling back to the article on meternity, the author says that the time mothers spend away from their desks on maternity leave gives moms the ability to "find themselves.” She states that her choice to work late is because she is picking up the slack for her mom coworkers. Perhaps the most dangerous assumption is that every woman has access to a 12-week, paid maternity leave. It simply is not the case.

Assuming that all women are afforded the same maternity leave rights is dangerous. Even I believed that all women were entitled to 12 weeks of protected job leave. Why would a young woman think otherwise when it was not something that had yet to personally affect her? Women need to stop being shamed for having a career and having children. Our economy can’t survive unless women work and continue to bear children for the next generation.

The birth rate has already fallen behind what is required to sustain the country as it is today. Let's stop talking about maternity leave being a vacation and start respecting the women who bear the children of the future. Many other countries have managed to figure this out. Why can't we?

Parental leave or family leave is an employee benefit available in almost all countries.

The term "parental leave" generally includes maternity, paternity, and adoption leave. A distinction between "maternity leave" and "parental leave" is sometimes made- maternity leave as the mother's leave time directly before and after childbirth and parental leave being the time given to care for newborns.

The US is one of only three countries left in the world that do not guarantee paid maternity leave. The others are Papua New Guinea and Oman.

The closest thing we have is the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which became law in 1993 and allows qualified employees to take 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for specific family and medical reasons. Having a baby, or caring for an adopted child, falls under this category.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 12% of Americans have access to the paid parental leave, which is considered a benefit by employers. Only 5% of low-wage earners receive paid maternity leave. Paid parental leave policies remain up to individual employers.

When women don't receive paid maternity leave, research has shown that they are more likely to drop out of the workforce, therefore losing income for themselves and their families. About 43% of women with children leave work voluntarily at some point in their careers. A 2014 New York Times/CBS News/Kaiser Family Foundation poll of nonworking adults aged 25 to 54 in the United States showed that 61% of women said family responsibilities were why they weren't working, compared to 37% of men.

Or, on the other hand, a mother can go back to work too quickly, which could be harmful to her or her baby's health. That gives her less time to bond with her child, increases her risk of postpartum depression, and also makes breastfeeding — which is incredibly beneficial for the baby's health — much more difficult. About 25% of women go back to work 10 days after having a baby.

In some countries and jurisdictions, "family leave" also includes leave provided to care for ill family members. Often, the minimum benefits and eligibility requirements are stipulated by law.