The Maternity Rant.

I try to be a non-complainer. Naturally, I do complain at times. Every Taurus has their moment, right?

Hopefully my complaints and negativity are short lived for those around me. I do my best to not indulge myself too much, nor seek that outside validation of wallowing in something that isn’t “fair”. I just don’t think it gets any of us anywhere, regardless of how justified we feel.

For me personally, it certainly doesn’t feel good. And I’d prefer feeling good over validation of fairness bullshit.

However. I feel the overwhelming need here to address something that has been pissing me off to no end this week. I am hopeful once I get this off my chest, I’ll be able to leave it.

People. I am utterly dumbfounded that, in 2014, we have no maternity benefits in our country. In fact, we are on par with third world countries when it comes to maternity benefits. Oh, right, because there are none.

First, I’d like to ask anyone who is silently {or secretly!} thinking, but maternity shouldn’t be a benefit, to kindly refrain from any response. I’m a mama bear right now about this and I don’t want the claws to come out.

Alright, so yeah, we have short term disability. I suppose that’s a “benefit”, but I’m talking real benefits. As in, you can take off for three months and still get paid your full salary and not have to use sick/vacation/pto leave. Better yet, I’m talking benefits rivaling the United Kingdom where mothers can take off for a full year and still be collecting their salary.

Short term disability? That’s an f-ing joke. I get six weeks — six!! — being paid 60% of my salary. Now I don’t want that to sound shitty, because I’m thankful that at least it’s something.

But six WEEKS. SIX. WTF?! That is NOTHING. I cannot even imagine leaving my six week old little babe and returning to work at that point. 1. I don’t know how any woman is physically and psychologically ready for that, and 2. Those little six week old babes need their mamas. Not an f-ing daycare or whatever daycare provider.

This is just GD ridiculous. RIDICULOUS.

I am not going to return to work after six weeks, which places me with two options — seeing if I get granted long term disability, or take unpaid leave. The unpaid leave would be an unpleasant hit, hell, the 60% is a hit as is … but when I’m faced with my only other option of returning to work at the beginning of June? Fine. I’ll suck it up and take it.

Because I happen to believe that being with, bonding with and loving my new born, freshly arrived little old soul, is the most important thing and I’ll eat the few thousand dollars it’s costing me.

For those mamas out there who cannot afford to take unpaid leave, my heart literally breaks for you. Not to mention, my heart rate goes up in outrage. This should not even be debated. Maternity benefits — GOOD ones, at that, should be a no brainer.

What if we started placing more importance on our family unit? Has anyone running this GD show ever thought about that, the effect that would have? Starting with our babies.

If we’re able to as mothers {and fathers} begin providing a stable, loving home to our children, then aren’t we setting up success for thriving citizens for our future?

 

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