The birth of my daughter is not a disability. But that’s how I was being paid the past two months. I’m lucky. My employer offers paid maternity leave (but not paternity leave so I can’t in good conscience call it parental leave¹). Most parents in the United States aren’t so lucky and have to make do with unpaid leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and paid vacation². But when I first looked into what my employer offered, I discovered my leave was paid for under the company’s short-term disability insurance. My first reaction was anger. How dare people call my pregnancy and new baby a disability! My child is not the same as breaking a leg or getting sick! Short-term disabilities are by definition abnormal and undesired events.

Once I cooled down, I acknowledged that funding parental leave through the short-term disability insurance policy makes sense. As far as an employer is concerned, time off after birth is a disability. I can’t (or don’t want to) work. Competitive employers want to offer maternity leave, but they have to pay for it somehow. Only a few states offer a normalized way of paying for parental leave (for example, California). So as far as I can tell, the majority of employers who offer paid parental leave use short-term disability policies to pay for it.

Still, the word is offensive. My daughter is not a disability. My body is not a disability. The necessary process by which the next generation is created is not a disability.

---

I am “supposed” to exclusively feed my daughter breast milk until she is six months old. After that, most of her nutrition should still come from breast milk with solid foods added gradually until she is one year old. That’s according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. The World Health Organization recommends continuing to breastfeed until the child is two years old. Breastfeeding is recommended for a long list of health reasons including reduced rates of obesity, asthma and type 2 diabetes as well as likely reduced risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Why wouldn’t you breastfeed if you can?

But how many working mothers do you know who breastfeed their one year olds? How about six months? Unless you have an interest in this (or are a breastfeeding mom yourself), you probably have no idea. Breastfeeding is sufficiently stigmatized that (depending on the poll) about half of Americans think women shouldn’t breastfeed in public¹. The statistics are dire. Fewer than 40% of babies are breastfed exclusively at three months — fewer than 20% at six months. So far we’ve made it to eight weeks.

The modern workplace and the necessity for most mothers to go back to work (usually for financial reasons because very few employers provide paid leave beyond a few weeks) is a big reason for women to stop or decrease breastfeeding. Unless you work at a surprisingly flexible workplace, you probably aren’t bringing your infant to work with you. You probably don’t have onsite day care that can call you down to feed your infant as needed. Your remaining option is thus to pump breast milk. Most women chose relatively portable electric devices. However, breast pumps are notably inefficient compared to a nursing infant. Even pumping three times in an eight hour shift might not result in as much milk as the infant would eat in that time period (and each pumping session might take up to thirty minutes for decent results).

Until very recently, employers weren’t required to provide places or time to express breast milk². I’m fortunate in that my employer provided space even before Obamacare required it. Moreover, I have a great deal of flexibility in how I arrange my day and can pump regularly and make up work at other hours (and possibly even do some work while pumping). I still worry that I won’t pump nearly enough to feed my baby while I’m away at work. Keep in mind that I’m lucky. I’ve nearly the best possible situation for a nursing and working mother trying to follow health recommendations.

If you’re thinking I sound stressed about this, you’d be right. Since our health establishment has impractically but strongly recommended that all should breastfeed exclusively, I feel I’ll be a failure if we don’t. If I don’t somehow manage it, then what kind of parent am I? Rationally I know it will be fine if we feed my daughter formula now and then — the health benefits of breastfeeding probably aren’t diminished by occasional supplementation. But I’m angry. If our country truly valued both children’s health and their mothers’ place in the workplace, accommodation of breastfeeding would not be so limited. As it is, even many of the most well-off working mothers are quite obviously not able to keep breastfeeding as long as they should.

---

Or: women will continue to be penalized in the workforce if social norms are that men take little to no time off to care for a new child.

Or: how the patriarchy fucks over fathers and mothers and decreases the health of all.

The typical white collar new father takes less than one week off when his wife gives birth¹. This, frankly, pisses me off. Meanwhile their wives who just went thru a possibly grueling forty weeks of pregnancy and a possibly even more grueling birth process, likely need to stay home for a while to recover (doctors recommend at least six weeks). If she’s lucky, she has support at home full time for that recovery time, but far too many don’t. Whenever I consider what it would be like taking care of my daughter by myself for the first couple weeks postpartum, I am terrified that I would have screwed it up out of exhaustion and emotional instability. Then women are asked to establish a good breast feeding relationship (more on this in another post) and they are told how important it is to create a good bond with their child and how many benefits there are to a parent staying home with an infant. Is it any wonder that women may choose to stay home²?

There’s a good reason why women tend to stay home: historically, women didn’t work outside the home. If she did, she wasn’t expected to work soon after having a child or ever again. She also probably wasn’t earning an important (or majority) share of the household income. But we have careers now — I sure like having one! — and lives that are not defined by our ability to reproduce. But with this comes a conflict. Women have good medical reasons to stay home at last for the very early weeks. There are health and other benefits to a parent staying home longer ^{3 4}. If someone can stay home, it’s often just going to be easier if it’s the woman. But if women are staying home for extended periods to care for infants, then she just interrupted her career⁵. Her male colleagues did not (typically) interrupt their careers to take care of a new child. Nor were her male colleagues likely encouraged to take time off or praised if they did.

Women currently take more time off to care for children or family than men do. If a company offers paid family leave at all, they offer it for women far more often than men⁶. Women are already perceived to be focused more on their families so it’s expected she’ll take time off to take care of sick children (and managers of both sexes perceive mothers as less committed than fathers). Men, on the other hand, feel they will be penalized if they do.

Funny that. Women are being penalized in the workplace for taking time to care for a family, starting from birth. In industries that already have problems finding and retaining women, a culture where men don’t take time off proportionally to care for family as their women coworkers will result in women not advancing. Not because men are better or women just aren’t interested, but simply because men don’t typically take a few months off at some critical period when a new project starts that gets those on it promoted. If taking time off for family isn’t a routine thing that everyone does, then those who are aren’t able to take off a mere handful of days for a new child will always face greater challenges (that have nothing to do with their abilities or potential in the workforce). Right now that’s mostly women.

To bring this around to my industry, tech, we talk about all the reasons there aren’t more women. There’s the “pipeline” problem — that is, few women studying computer science. There are questions of sexism and implicit bias in hiring and promotion. But I think parental leave is almost certainly also an issue. Fortunately some tech companies, like Facebook, are trying to change that. At Facebook, men and women workers have the same parental leave benefits. I don’t know how it works out in practice — perhaps women still end up taking more time off than their male coworkers. But at least Facebook is trying⁷. Other companies, like Google, found that extended family leave greatly improved retention of women — recruiting and hiring at large tech companies is incredibly expensive so improved retention can save a lot of money. Gender-neutral family leave policies probably won’t magically create some utopia where men and women are exactly equal — evidence from Europe suggests there are big trade-offs in practice. I do expect it to give more women real options to stay working without having to compromise their careers or families.

---

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you probably know that we recently had a baby. For most of the last year I’ve experienced what … the overwhelming majority of women throughout history have experienced. But to me it was new. Every little discomfort or awkwardness or question resulted in me considering and re-considering. Is this like this for other women? What’s the range of experience? I’m handling it this way — is that how others do? Too many parts of the experience made me angry. Not angry because it’s somehow unfair that, for instance, women experience morning sickness. That’s a matter of biology (not yet clearly understood). But, rather, that my country ignores, diminishes and makes few adjustments for child bearing and rearing. Once your kids are old enough to walk around and at least to some degree take care of themselves (eat, poop, etc. on their own), then we support you more (primarily with public schooling). But before that? You’re on your own with whatever resources you can cobble together from family and friends (hope you have health insurance!)

So what follows will be a series of musings surrounding questions of reproduction, parenting, science and equality, especially in the workplace. I’ve been thinking about these issues off and on since before I got pregnant. Here is my attempt to try to put some of my confusion and emotion into words. As background, I am well aware that I “have it good” compared to many in my country. I have a good job that pays very well. I have a partner who supports me (and, in fact, will be the primary caregiver after I go back to work next week). My employer actually pays for eight weeks of maternity leave and, even before the Affordable Care Act made it mandatory, provided “mom’s rooms” for nursing mothers to pump breast milk. In addition, I have a flexible desk job and can largely direct my own working day. Still, I find many of the issues I face hard to navigate. When I consider what it would be like without my privileges, I’m angry.

The first few posts: Why a Culture of Non-birth Partners Taking Leave Is Necessary. Breastfeeding is Not Compatible with the American Workplace. The birth of my daughter is not a disability.