Does America hate mothers?
This Mother’s Day was filled with zealous advertising campaigns from businesses offering free goods and discounts to moms everywhere and legislators tweeting well wishes to their constituents. But they are hollow words from politicians and business owners looking to make a buck, because when it really matters, the United States leaves mothers out in the cold – or rather, puts them back in the cubicle.
The U.S. is the only developed country that doesn’t guarantee paid maternity or paternity leave to its workers. According to the International Labour Organization, we are one of just two countries worldwide, the other being Papua New Guinea.
That should shock you. It should make you angry. It should make you clamor for change. However, the often cited statistic has become commonplace in our businesses, and American families have become complacent, accepting this slap in the face from their employer as standard policy.
I assure you, it’s not.
According to a recent article from The Guardian, most countries offer at least 12 weeks of paid leave, including our neighbors to the south in Mexico. Across the pond, European countries offer considerably more time. The United Kingdom gives 39 weeks and France 42. Believe it or not, numerous countries also offer a full year or more of paid leave, including Germany, Japan, Sweden and Austria. Five countries even offer two years or more, with Slovakia the highest at 164 weeks. That’s just more than three years.
Yet, in the land of the free and home of the brave, paid parental leave is considered an employment perk, part of a benefits package an employee is lucky to have. Only 12 percent of workers reported having such coverage in 2013, according to an estimate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ National Compensation Survey.
How did this come to be?
The idea of maternity leave became prevalent following the world wars as an incentive to recoup a decimated population. Scholars believe because America wasn’t hit as hard as our European allies, the idea never caught on.
In 1993, Congress passed the Family Medical Leave Act, guaranteeing 12 weeks of unpaid leave after the birth of a child for qualified workers: full-time employees at a business with 50 or more workers.
But let’s get real. Unless your last name is the likes of Walton, most of us can’t afford to forgo a paycheck for 12 weeks of baby bonding time. Most mothers are forced to get creative, using up vacation and sick days for a few precious weeks in the new-mom cocoon. It’s a patchwork system of colossal stress, layered with new parent worries and stitched up with employer guilt.
So, how do we change it? Some states already have. In 2002, California passed six weeks of partially paid parental leave, funded through a small payroll tax. Rhode Island and New Jersey soon followed. In January, President Barack Obama signed a memorandum guaranteeing six weeks of paid leave for federal employees. And just this week, the U.S. Navy announced it would double its current policy to 12 weeks in an effort to recruit more women. Is it perfect? No, but it’s a start.
Last year, Obama called on Congress to fix the problem, and during the 2015 State of the Union address, he reiterated the point as part of reforms for the middle class. The notion has failed to catch on with Congress, but the Labor Department has kicked off a campaign dubbed, #LeadOnLeave. Stay tuned.
My question is why has it taken so long. Why wouldn’t legislators want to support a bill that supports families? Why wouldn’t employers want the best for their employees? Answer: Money.
Paying a worker to sit at home isn’t good for the bottom line. Business owners know that, and Congress doesn’t want to make them angry.
However, these same legislators know it’s the right call. Following Obama’s speech, The New York Times looked into parental leave polices at legislative offices. Most offer some sort of paid policy. Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill offers eight weeks of paid leave and Marco Rubio, the conservative presidential hopeful from Florida, gives his staff 12 weeks’ paid time off. If it’s the right thing for their staff, why isn’t it the right call for the rest of America?
As the president said, “If France can figure it out, we can figure it out. It’s not rocket science.”
The United States is falling behind. How can we claim to call ourselves the best country in the world and simultaneously stomp on the virtue of motherhood at the same time?
Answer: We can’t.
Springfield Business Journal Features Editor Emily Letterman can be reached at eletterman@sbj.net.
