I adore the (100-person) company I work for, which is very flexible and accommodating. When I told them about my pregnancy last week, I asked them for three months leave, whether (after the birth) I could work three quarters time, and whether I could work partially from home, and they had not the slightest problem with any of this. I personally think I am really really lucky.
My mom, however, is in a snit because my company doesn’t offer any PAID parental leave. (I live in the state of California, which will pay me a fairly large fraction of my salary for six weeks, but none of that money will come from my company directly. The other six weeks or so would be unpaid or come out of vacation time if I wanted to do that-- since we can afford it I’ll probably go unpaid and save the vacation time.) She says, “Most people get three months paid maternity leave!” I told her this didn’t seem accurate to me, and she told me, “Well, people like lawyers get three months paid leave!” (I don’t even know why I told her about the California thing – next time I think I’ll pretend that the money comes from my company so that she’ll shut up about it.)
What’s your experience? Any lawyers out there, or friends of lawyers, want to tell me about their awesome three month paid leave? Is this maybe a large company thing? My friend who works at Lockheed Martin recently got one week paid leave, but he was a father – he did say mothers got more, but I didn’t press him on it.
Two of the six people in my department are pregnant. They are getting six weeks paid (provided that they use 5 PTO days). After the six weeks, they can take an additional 4 weeks unpaid (or use their other vacation days).
The company used to offer the same package for paternal leave, but I’m not sure if that’s in place anymore. FWIW, I work for an international company with about 30K+ employees.
Count yourselves lucky. I’ve never worked for any employer who offered one minute of paid maternity (or paternity leave.) As a matter of fact, it was a blessing when FMLA passed, because at least employees were guaranteed they’d have a job to come back to. At that, you were expected back after six weeks, unless there was some sort of medical complication.
Teacher. We get ten days of personal leave a year. This can accrue over multiple years. If you have a baby, you use your accrued time and after that you are on unpaid leave. If you have short-term disability insurance (which costs extra), and complications during pregnancy/delivery, you may be eligible for that.
Teachers try to time babies to come in June, but of course that doesn’t always work out.
Well, I don’t want to make you envious, but lawyers at big firms do indeed get 3 months paid maternity leave. However, I don’t know why your mom would think that all professions automatically would be the same. Maybe she wants you to go to law school?
I got unpaid paternity leave, but I was allowed to max out my sick-time.
My SIL is a teacher and she is having her baby tuesday. She had to take last week off, and since she has had a few other medical problems, she doesn’t have much sick leave left if any. They actually had to take a loan out so she can have more time off.
My brother works for me as 1 of our 3 employees. I’m giving him 3 weeks off paid. Best I can do (technically we are exempt from FMLA anywa, due to our size. But he’s my brother!)
Not to belabor the point, but I should also point out that several of the bigger law firms have actually gone to 18 weeks of paid maternity leave (4 and a half months!). However, I imagine it could be difficult in these ultra-competitive jobs to take the full time without some professional consequences.
I’m a teacher. I can take 30 days paid leave providing I have 30 days saved up, as our unused sick days roll over from year to year. Fortunately, I have them; if you don’t have them, you don’t get paid, but you can go on disability. Despite the fact that I have about 60 sick days saved, they won’t LET me take more paid leave unless I have a doctor’s note saying I need to. I could take 12 weeks unpaid, but that’s just not feasible for us. It’s a bit surprising, for a female-dominated profession, that the maternity leave policy is so ungenerous, but I guess it’s better than nothing.
I really lucked out by working for a hospital during my last pregnancy. We got PTO, which could be used for vacation, or whatever, and when that was exhausted, we had a very liberal short-term medical leave, and when that was exhausted, if there was a medical reason you couldn’t go back to work, there was a long-term medical leave.
With the combination of saved-up PTO and short-term leave, I got 3½ months of paid maternity leave.
Before that, I worked at a law firm. The associates could get as much maternity leave as they had saved sick days, and they could take up to 6 months (unpaid) and still get their jobs back, although most of them came back sooner. The partners could do whatever they wanted. One of them came back after only three weeks, but she had two nannies, and one of those nannies was hired just to bring her kid into the office so it could be breast-fed whenever necessary. I don’t know why she didn’t just hire a wet nurse.
Well I’m about as lucky as they come. I live in Canada and so get one year of maternity benefits through the government, a little less than half my salary. But I also happen to work for the federal government, which tops up employees off on parental leave to almost 100%, for a full year. They will also hold my job for 5 years if I want to stay home longer.
I’m so jealous. 10 weeks is not long enough but it’s all I can swing with full pay, and that’s with a bit of maneuvering and having my baby’s birth fall during a time of the school year where there are about 2 weeks of holidays.
I was all set to come into the thread and post about all the paid maternity leave I got, but reading about how little you guys get, and how you have to use up holidays to do so…I feel bad for doing so! It seems so wrong that you don’t get the time off you need to spend with your new baby.
It’s also irrelevant to the OP, as I’m in the UK. I work for the NHS, so we get a pretty good deal (8 weeks full pay, 16 weeks half pay, 13 weeks statutory, 13 weeks unpaid). My husband gets 2 weeks paid paternity leave, and both of us get unpaid parental leave (not sure about the amount, but it seems generous). Seems somewhat on a par with Canada.
I’m 3 months pregnant, so I’ve been looking into this a lot. I’ve been wondering how we will manage for the year that I’ll (probably) be off work. I think that I may have just got a bit of perspective here.
So sorry you all have it so hard. You have my sympathy
Mrs Piper and I had a similar experience when the PiperCub came along. Mrs Piper took eight months off, and then I took four months off, so PiperCub had a parent at home for a full year.
Employment Insurance is a federal program here. New moms get 15 weeks of maternity benefits. There are also up to 35 weeks of parental leave, for new moms, new dads and adoptive parents. So if the new mom wishes to take a full year, she gets EI for a year (2 week eligibility period + 15 weeks maternity benefits + 35 weeks parental benefits). If they wish to split the benefits, they can, so both mom and dad can take time off.
In addition to employment insurance, there’s also the issue of time off from the job. That’s normally covered by provincial labour standards laws, unless you’re a federal employee like Elret, or work in a sector under federal employment law. Employment standards laws are normally drafted to dove-tail with the federal EI benefits.
For example, in Saskatchewan, it’s The Labour Standards Act which governs. Section 23 provides that a new mom is entitled to 18 weeks of leave from her job. Once that’s expired, she’s entitled to 34 weeks of parental leave, under s. 29.1, which adds up to a full year (18 weeks maternity + 34 weeks parental = 52 weeks). New dads and adoptive moms are also eligible for 37 weeks of parental leave.
The Act also provides that an employee can’t be terminated because of pregnancy or taking maternity/parental leave, and that there’s no loss of seniority or other benefits because you take leave. There is a right to be reinstated at the job after the leave is over (see ss. 26 & 27).
EI benefits are capped at a certain amount of one’s salary, so you don’t get full salary from EI. However, many larger employers will top up to close to full salary, as a condition of employment. (It’s not required by The Labour Standards Act, but many employers see it as an attractive employment benefit.)
In Australia companies are legally required to allow 12 months unpaid maternity leave and guarantee return to the previous position, but aren’t required to give any paid leave. If the mother has vacation leave, or long service leave owing that can be taken during this time. Sick leave can only be used if the mother is actually sick - medical complications would qualify for that, but simply being too tired/uncomfortable would not.
I’m so lucky I work for a top 100 company. I get 3 months at full pay as part of the statutory 12 months maternity leave. In addition, a further 12 months unpaid is available and return to work at the same job grade, but no guarantee of the exact same job.
I am shocked at how limited the US in this regard. It just seems so wrong.
My sister in law is a doctor in Spain. She works for the government’s medical system but she’s “on contract,” eventually the plan is to get tenure.
She gets three months maternity leave; part of it can be taken before the birth, but if bedrest is required the mother will get sick leave instead. In Spain sick leave is paid if it lasts less than X amount (the amount varies depending on circumstances but can be as much as two years, as it was for my father’s cancer); at one point it starts being paid by Social Security instead of by the employer and you get only base salary (no personal or company-wide bonuses). She also gets “breastfeeding hours;” after the second kid she went part-time (30 h/week instead of 40).
My brother, a construction foreman, could get two weeks paternal leave. He negotiated with his boss and got to treat five days as paternal leave and five as “personal days,” so that if for example the baby was sick and work wasn’t completely crazy he could stay at home.
I’ll just never get over the notion of “limited sick days.” There’s many things about the US I like, but that is just wrong. Yes, unlimited sick days can be abused, but people coming in to work sick is worse!
