Maternity leave is battle every parent struggles with. How much time will you take off? How much time will your partner take off? Will you lose pay? How will you make ends meet? And, even though your company is responsible for coverage while you are gone, simply out of guilt, you will wonder if something will fall through the cracks.

I know to think about these questions now, but in 1995, while expecting my first child, I worked for a company making hourly wages that offered no paid leave. The most allotted unpaid leave I could take was six weeks. I was a new, young mother and really didn’t understand what, if any, option I had.

In 2000, expecting my second child, my maternity leave options were better, but still no where near the benefit needed. Per FMLA, expecting mothers are allowed 12 weeks unpaid leave. My company allotted 12 weeks of maternity leave - six weeks paid at 60%, the remaining six weeks unpaid. To compensate, I used short- and long-term disability.

Financially, I took a huge hit with the loss of pay. On top of that loss, returning to work after maternity leave, the added cost of child care is another impact.

Maternity leave is poorly packaged. Varying based on company, some care extremely well for expecting mothers, others barely recognize the need for leave. Very few offer anything additional or paid for the expecting fathers.

According to MomsRising.org, 49% of mothers in the U.S. compensate their paid maternity leave by using their sick days, vacation days, and other forms of leave such as short- and long-term disability. An astounding 51% of mothers have no form of paid leave whatsoever.

Even with today’s mounting struggles of increasing prices in fuel and food the U.S. is still a strong country. Knowing this it is almost embarrassing to note that the U.S. is one of four countries that does not offer any form of paid leave. Would you like to know the other three countries? Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, and Lesotho. I bet you are thinking exactly what I thought!

Bluntly - maternity leave sucks for the American family.

Now granted, strides are in place to hopefully improve family paid leave in the U.S. It’s not happening through federal government, but through individual states. The unfortunate part, only three states, California, New Jersey, and Washington state have passed a paid family leave bill. So, we are still a long way from success.

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