(It's not noted on those maps, but the 60 days of unpaid leave in the US is only if your job meets the FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act) requirements. Neither my previous nor current jobs have. The first one I had been at for just over 4 months when Scott was born -- not a sufficient length of employment. This one I'll be at for almost a year and a half, but it's a company of remote employees, and you're FMLA exempt if you have less than 50 employees at one site.)
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Okay, second over, I'm done. Because I'm a good capitalist and certainly don't want to appear to harbor any socialist ideas, burdening my society with the duty of protecting my job while I go about the business of birthing human beings and then nursing them for 30 minutes every 1.5 to 2 hours for about 4 months. Hmm, not so much done it seems.
I like capitalism, I really do. I like the idea that we all need to be responsible and provide for ourselves. And I DO provide for myself. There have been times in our life (as grad students with a baby and plenty of medical expenses) when we were eligible for welfare programs that we declined to participate in because we didn't need them. We had been blessed with the mental capacity, educational opportunities, and good raising to get internships and save up money.
But our modern society has lots of wonderful features -- plumbing and sewers! electricity! highways! amazing medical knowledge that comes along with a crazy complicated insurance and payment system! -- that we cannot be expected to provide for ourselves. Yes, there are places in the US today where the only source of electricity for the house comes from a windmill in the front yard. (I knew a boy who grew up in a house like that in Texas.) I think it's generally accepted that most of us prefer not to live like that and we don't expect people to provide for us like that.
I don't really know what I'd suggest. Sweden/Russia/Austria has great benefits because they want their declining birth rates to pick up. Not a problem in our country. I'm not even looking for paid maternity leave, really. But I would like it if a mother's job were waiting for her for just a little longer. And if it weren't so easy to avoid FMLA. People who have babies are often in their 20s. It's a good decade, biologically, for doing so. People in their 20s are also usually just starting their careers. They're working jobs that they haven't been at long and often without full benefits packages. That's the reason unmarried Americans can stay on their parents' healthcare until 26 under the new health care bill. The average age for an American mother to have her first baby is 25. Is it really a surprise that she might not have the perfect career yet?
I'm so lucky. I have this awesome husband who has the kind of health insurance that people get married for (and yes, health insurance marriages are happening, because people are wackos, but at least you can't marry someone of the same gender, right?). And this pregnancy we have Paychecks (capital P!). And I get to decide on my own to resign from my current job and stay with my boys full time for a while.
But lots and lots and LOTS of women don't have that choice. Let's cut them some slack.
