book - MomsRising

Dear President Obama and Member of Congress,
There has been an extraordinary but quiet evolution of our workforce. And it’s up to leaders like you to bring our country’s
public policies up to date. For the first time in history, women are 50% of the labor force. Yet our workplace policies and
practices haven’t caught up to that reality.
The fact is that mothers are in the workplace to stay: three-fourths of moms in the labor force and most families rely on the
paychecks of moms to make ends meet.
It’s time to advance public policies and workplace practices that boost businesses and families, like access to paid family
leave (maternity/paternity leave); affordable childcare/early learning opportunities so parent can work and kids have safe,
enriching places to go; paid sick days; equal pay; and an increase in the minimum wage.
Every day at MomsRising, an organization of more than a million members, we hear stories from the frontlines of motherhood.
For example, Cynthia shared: “I worked for an advertising firm. At one event it was obvious just how many women worked
for the ED. I asked him why. He told me, ‘I can pay them less.’ I was 23 and shocked. I hadn’t yet learned I was less valuable
than a man.”
And, Barbara came forward to share: “I didn’t have paid sick days so I had to postpone taking my kids to the doctor. One
time, this resulted in my daughter having a serious untreated ear infection that harmed her hearing.”
Christina wrote: “I’m frustrated that our childcare costs more than our mortgage AND our car payments COMBINED.”
These stories aren’t isolated incidents. *You can read more stories from women in every state of our nation by going here:
http://moms.ly/OurFamiliesNeedALift
81% of women in the U.S. have children by the time they are 44 years old. And right now maternal status (i.e. being a mom)
is a greater predictor of wage and hiring discrimination than gender (i.e. being a woman).
Too many moms and families are struggling. This hurts families and our economy alike.
We can do better.
It turns out that there is an excellent return on investment for both businesses and taxpayers alike when public policies
like paid family leave, access to affordable childcare, and sick days are implemented. Among other things, businesses have
higher retention and better employee performance, taxpayers save funds due to fewer grade repetitions, and reliance on
long-term government entitlement programs drops. In fact, the returns on investment in these policies are so high that
more than 177 countries have some form of paid leave for new moms (the U.S. isn’t one of them), more than 160 countries
have a guaranteed minimum number of paid sick days for all workers (the U.S. also isn’t one of them); and studies show that
for every $1 invested in early learning/childcare, there is a later $7 return for an average child and up to a $20 return for a
high risk child. When workers get paid enough to support themselves and their families, individuals and local and national
economies thrive. Raising the minimum wage would create 140,000 new jobs and help our economy by increasing household spending nationwide by about $48 billion.
It’s pennywise and pound foolish not to advance these public policies.
It’s time.
Please take a moment to read through the stories of moms and dads across the nation on the following pages and also here:
http://moms.ly/OurFamiliesNeedALift – and then please also take a deeper look at the public policy changes that are long
overdue in our nation so that our families and economy can thrive.
Thank you for ALL you do!
Sincerely,
Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner,
Executive Director & Co-Founder MomsRising
MomsRising.org
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INDEX OF STORIES
Childcare / Early Learning
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Minimum Wage82
Paid Family Leave (Maternity and Paternity Leave) 86
Paid Sick Days219
Equal Pay264
CHILDCARE / EARLY LEARNING STORIES
ALABAMA
Dr Angela
My oldest daughter is a product of participating in Head Start.
She is an advanced diploma honor
high school graduate, honor college student, full-time employee,
volunteer with various community projects – i.e., assisting senior
citizens, cleaning neighborhood,
reading to children, active church
member, as well as a youth motivational speaker.
She participated in a Head Start
Program for two years, our family encountered an extremely positive educational and supportive
experience. She really enjoyed the
caring/nurturing, cognitive and social/emotional development; for
more than fifteen years later, she
remembered her teacher’s name. I
felt a little embarrassed that I forgot her Head Start teacher’s name.
As the mother, I should have remembered that.
I am proud that my daughter’s
teacher had such a positive impact on her at age three and four
that she would remember her full
name.
ALASKA
Bonny Lynn
I was fortunate to find a woman
who had children the same age as
mine. Our children went to school
together. Our youngest boys be-
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came friends and one mother
would take care of the boys while
the other mother helped out at
the school. When I needed to return to teaching, she let me pay
her to take care of my son.
The two boys are still very close
after 30 years, having been ushers
in each others weddings. Living so
far away from our birth families
in California, we’ve become family to each other in Alaska. I am
constantly thankful. I might have
missed out on seeing a few of my
son’s firsts, he had the experiences
I would have given him.
ARIZONA
Connie
When my daughter was around
3 years old, I had to start back
to work. I tried day care from a
home-provider, a small pre-school,
and a friend. At all of these three
options, when I went to pick her
up after only a couple of hours,
she was in tears and emotionally
exhausted. She was so hurt by the
experiences that I did not know if I
could keep working; I was not willing to ruin her mental and emotional health. These places did not
make her feel safe or attended-to.
I found a parent cooperative
pre-school just in the nick of time,
and it turned out to be wonderful. The director was an extremely
skilled, experienced and loving
leader, and she hired only caring
workers. As a parent co-op, there
was buy-in by all the families to
make it a safe and loving environment. My daughter is now 17,
almost out of the nest, and she
still speaks fondly about her time
at this pre-school, where the children were loved and respected,
and kept safe and learned how to
learn.
When I tried the ordinary, findin-the-phone book places, my
child was harmed. It is as simple as
that: if the child care is not childcentered, it is harmful.
Emilie
Any child care is expensive, and
high quality care, which is the only
kind my child will have, is extremely
so! I’m definitely wondering how I,
a teacher, and my husband, a nursing student, will afford it.
Last year I directed a small preschool. We had to turn away many
interested working parents because
we didn’t have adequate scholarship funds to supplement tuition
for them. We had several working
parents, public school teachers and
nurses, who sometimes had to borrow money from their own parents
to pay their children’s tuition.
There are some excellent free
preschool programs available to
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low-income families, and many
early childhood programs available
to those who can afford to pay
high tuitions. It’s unfortunate that
working middle class parents who
really need early childhood care
the most have trouble finding programs they can afford!
(degree in Architecture) and a brilliant career.
Jeanne
We only had my daughter in a
part-time Montessori daycare for a
few months. Other than that we
have kept her at home and are now
home-schooling her at age six. It
has been a struggle for us at times
but she has done very well. She is
reading and doing math past grade
level and has a great personality.
The other home-schooled children
we know are very accomplished. I
strongly believe that children need
their parents’ direct influence in
their early years. I would like to see
our country support that more by
enabling and encouraging parents
to work less and supporting homeschooling more.
In 1978, I was a divorced mother
of two. I worked at a high powered job full time to support my
little brood.
The baby was going to AM kindergarten at the neighborhood
school, and I needed care for her in
the afternoons. I chose Palo Alto
Preschool, which was located in a
Lutheran church less than 2 miles
from our home.
They picked my daughter up
from school and took her to their
facility, where she stayed until 6.
They provided lunch and a snack,
and a nap if needed.
She had an extraordinary experience there. Her kindergarten
teacher, Mr. Carr, was an elderly retired teacher who wanted to continue his career. His assistant was
also a kindergarten teacher who
had been trained in movement
therapy. She was a strong believer
that nothing negative should ever
be said about a child of this age.
She refused to say “not doing well
with reading readiness” or any other discipline, and allowed only positive comments.
Mr. Carr remains my daughter’s
favorite teacher to this day. He had
her quite accomplished in doing
long division, and she could read
the New York Times to me at the
end of her kindergarten year. He
never made her feel different than
the other children, and made my
little fatherless child very comfortable in the belief that men can be
kind and nurturing.
She is now 37, and has a love of
physical exercise and mathematics
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I am so grateful to those good
teachers, of whom I expected little
more than child care. I can only
credit the grace of God for my good
luck in sending my child to them.
Judy
Michelle
I was a teacher at the local high
school for 7 years. When I got pregnant for the first time, I wanted to
do everything... continue teaching
in my FFA program AND raise a
baby. Turns out it was a hard match.
Adding my daughter to my health
insurance was one thing (I went
from paying $15/month to $280/
month!) AND my new expense,
DAYCARE, was crazy. I dropped 1/4
of my monthly income to daycare,
1/4 to health care, and 1/8 to the
extra gas. It was NOT worth it. I
couldn’t afford to teach. I was in
the middle of a Master’s program,
and although I still finished and
received my Master’s, I could not
afford to teach. Now I have two
children. I am really enjoying the
time at home with my children (of
course!) but I would definitely not
be able to afford daycare now. I
would pay out half my paycheck!
I should also say that I was so
sad the day I took my 10 week old
to meet the babysitter. I knew she
would be great, but it was just a
horrible feeling, to know that my
baby was going to spend some of
her special first weeks with someone she didn’t even know. It was
very bittersweet. Although the
babysitter was awesome, it broke
my heart. I always felt like there
was this string tugging at my heart,
ALL DAY, pulling me toward my
baby! I couldn’t stay after school
with my after school program anyway! I HAD to come home to my
munchkin!
Now I own a small business and
work out of my house contracted
by a large trucking company to
find freight for their truck drivers. I’m not raking in the big bucks
but I’m home with my babies and I
don’t have to pay for childcare! So
I pretty much make the same as I
did teaching!!! Hahaha!!
Phyllis
Especially with today’s economy,
both parents must work to support their family. To do that parents need early education. I have
a 19-year-old son that is still having issues with his reading due to
the fact that the school district said
there was nothing wrong and that
he did not need early education at
age 4 when I took him in for testing. If there is nothing wrong in
his early education years, please
explain why he is still having issues
reading.
If we do not give our children
a good early foundation on which
to grow their talents and skills as a
student, everything they try to take
in later only makes the journey
more precarious. You can not carry
much without a strong foundation.
Sandra
I was lucky enough to find excellent child care for my daughter
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when I decided to finish my education. I now am a full-time wife and
mother, a full-time student, and
I also work part time to cover my
daughter’s tuition, which is about
three times what I pay for mine!
It’s worth every penny to ensure
that she is well cared for by honest and upstanding individuals who
are studying the field of child development, but its definitely hard
on our budget. Quality early-child
education should be a right and
not a luxury, but unfortunately our
country isn’t quite there yet.
Susan
When my eldest was 4 we had her
in a home daycare environment that
was certified by my company (they
helped us find daycare). My husband
and I checked it out and thought all
was good. After the first week she
had at least two changes of clothes
each time there (food on her clothes,
“spilled over diapers”), then she started going to bed later (she wouldn’t
fall asleep), finally she began crying
when she would be brought. Finally
(after three whole weeks) we made
an ‘unexpected’ visit to pick her up
– the kids were corralled in the back
yard and parents were no where to
be found. We found the husband
and wife in the house – 7 kids from
baby to age 5 in the back yard alone.
Needless to say we never went back
and she was reported back through
my company and to CPS.
We did all the research that needed to be done, it was a bad person
taking money from people and really
not caring. I learned my lesson from
that point onward and when my kids
(I have two) gave any indication of
bad times at daycare – trust me I was
all over it.
ARKANSAS
Brandy
When my daughter was 6
months old, I went to work full-time
in the Biochemistry Department at
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the local medical school, UAMS.
Leaving for a short vacation in May,
I stopped by my daughter’s school
to pick her up early and found one
worker in the whole building with
16 children (8 in the infant room
under 6 months old, and 8 in the
6 months-12 month room). And
not only did they have an inappropriate ratio, she was asleep on the
floor with the front door unlocked!
I walked in, took my daughter, and
almost walked out before she even
stirred. That was my daughter’s
last day at that facility. The director reviewed the video tape of the
incident and decided to defend her
worker saying that she was sick
that day! Unacceptable.
These are our children! They are
vulnerable and need to be protected. Just imagine if it was someone
else who walked into that center
and left with an infant that wasn’t
theirs.
Holly
Having been a Nurse in a “Preschool” (daycare for children ages
6 wks - 5 yrs), many of whom had
handicaps both physical/psychological I had a 1st hand view of
how badly we need quality care
for our young children. Many kids
go to “school” from 8 AM to 3:30
PM and the nutrition they receive
there – for many of them – constitutes the majority of their daily
sustenance. Many receive nothing
but sugary “fruit” drinks and either
“fast food” or “junk food” after
they leave to go home. Many come
in in the morning so hungry they
are grabbing at the food and some
even take food off others plates!
If these children don’t have a
place like a daycare or “Pre-school”
to attend they will basically go
hungry, because there is no one at
home who cares enough to make
sure that they are fed. These children are also sick more often than
the others, especially during the
winter months.
CALIFORNIA
Adrienne
Although I am long past the
stage of needing child care for my
daughter, I do want to weigh in on
this issue. As a single mother since
my daughter was one year old, I
had to work to support us, and child
support was basically non-existent.
Because she was a very bright child,
I placed her in pre-school where
she could learn. I could afford to
do so, even on a salary earned by
a high school graduate with no
college. My daughter went on excelling in school and earned her
master’s degree in finance. She is
now employed as a VP at an international bank earning more than I
could even dream of. This is what
affordable child care can do.
The costs of child care have risen to the point of being available
only to the more wealthy among
us. Yet it is those of us with limited incomes that need it the most,
and find it the hardest to get. It is
a path for our children to excel that
many parents can’t afford.
I often say that if I had to raise
my daughter today, I would have
to put her up for adoption, because I could not afford to raise her
properly and see that she got the
education that she needed to excel.
Child care should be a right, not a
privilege. Our children need it, and
our parents need it. The cost of
child care has become a burden to
today’s working families.
Alyce
I am lucky that I was able to
have my children go to state preschool. It was a great experience in
both towns we were in. In San Luis
Obispo the preschool was mixed
with disabled children. That experience was amazing! The State preschool in Felton was only open 1/2
days so it was more for the experience of going. There was really no
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way to go to school or work.
I think the experience was great
both times. I had the chance to
meet other families in my area. My
children were able to meet new
friends and prepare for their “big
kid” school experience.
Anita
We are expecting our second
son in a couple of weeks, and I will
be able to take 16 weeks of paid
leave. I wish I could take more, but
although I am entitled to 20 weeks
off, the remainder would be unpaid. This is after rigorously saving
sick leave and vacation time over
the past year as preparation.
The cost of childcare when I return to work will essentially be
equivalent to my income, so the
only financial justification for working is to continue to receive health
care benefits. Not only is this personally disappointing – especially if
I am not contributing to household
income I would much rather be able
to stay home with my children – I
find it disturbing as a citizen. I am
a masters educated nurse with a decent salary, and I can barely afford
childcare. I wonder what choices
other people have to make?
Aurea
We came to America in 1961
from Mexico. My mom was 38 years
old and had never worked a day in
her life. Two children aged 3 and
12. My mother had to work 3 jobs
to keep a roof over our heads and
food on the table. What a gift from
Kennedy and ESPECIALLY Lyndon
B. Johnson.
Why you ask? A weeks daycare
for my three year old brother cost,
back then, $3.74. I so clearly remember it because it was my job to
take the envelope with the money
as well as my kid brother to school
every Monday. Where has that
golden affordable opportunity to
give our working parents gone?
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Billie
As a grandparent, parent, and
retired kdgn teacher I have experience in the problems of rearing
and educating children. On a small
salary I found a wonderful woman
to babysit my two children while I
worked. I babysat my grandchild
when I retired. As a teacher I saw
the struggle of working parents
trying to get their children to and
from school.
Sometimes there
were children left at the school
entrance before school opened as
parents rushed to an early job and
children who waited long in my
classroom for parents who worked
late. I could always pick out children who had gone to a preschool
or good instructive daycare.
Our children are our greatest
national resource and even before
this depression we were not caring for and properly educating all
children across the nation. Now
conditions are dismal and parents
and teachers are struggling harder.
Good child care and early education are the basic building blocks
for the school years that follow to
produce an educated, healthy, and
stable population.
Our nation cannot be great and
compete with other productive
countries unless we provide free or
accessible early child care and education for all children so parents
can work worry free and teachers
can educate eager little minds that
are often wasted. If great resources and attention were paid to the
early years of childhood training,
the whole education system and
behavior of students through the
grades would improve. All the stories of parents’ trials cry out in one
voice: “HELP US TO CARE FOR OUR
YOUNG!”
Carol
Mine is not a story about getting child care for myself, etc. but
it is about that California cut out
subsidized childcare for parents
that are on aid. I am a counselor/
educator for a domestic violence
and sexual assault center and have
worked here for 18 years and this
is the first year since I’ve been here
that California has taken that away
from parents. How are they ever
going to be able to continue to
work and or go to school without
that help? So now that they will go
back to staying at home (which is a
great thing for kids if the mom/dad
likes to do that) and we can continue to shame them for being lazy.
Once again we are taking away
from the people who already have
the least!!
Carol
When I first started to work I had
no one I could depend on to help
with our children. Both of our families lived out of state. The couple
of pre-schools in the area were too
expensive so a friend and I started a
pre-school at a local church.
All Moms had to volunteer each
week for a set amount of hours. I
worked with the local high school
and had students from certain
classes get credit for helping. The
hardest part was dealing with the
local and state offices for permits.
They told you one thing and always ask for something different.
My sons are adults now and I have
four grandchildren and still do all
I can to promote education and
children’s well being. They are our
future.
Carol
Many years ago, I enrolled my
2 1/2 year old son in a Montessori
school a few days a week. I wanted
to spend some quality time with
my new infant and felt my toddler
could use the socializing. A few
years later, we moved to northern
Idaho, where my oldest attended
the U. of Idaho preschool for a semester. My youngest had not had
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the preschool experience, so when
my oldest started kindergarten, I
found an unused one room schoolhouse and I went before the “city
fathers” to get approval to start a
preschool there.
I enjoyed the experience, the
little ones who attended and the
mothers who helped out and became my friends. After a year, my
youngest started kindergarten and
I gave up the preschool endeavor.
Later I heard that I had been called
“a Communist” for taking children
out of the home before the age
when they would attend public
school.
Catherine
I am happily expecting my first
born this coming January. Being
a proactive type-a personality, I
started looking at daycare options
almost the second we got outside
of the miscarriage zone. Thankfully I found many wonderful places
that I would be completely comfortable sending my child to. Not
so wonderfully, ALL of those places
are going to cost more per month
than MY MORTGAGE! That’s right.
Daycare is so expensive in the Bay
Area it is costing more than my
mortgage and it’s not like Bay Area
housing costs are low!
My husband and I combined
make exactly the median income
for the area and, thankfully, my
work provides us with good health
insurance benefits (which is the
number one reason why I have to
keep working – his work doesn’t
come with any health insurance),
so we aren’t in an impossible situation, but it’s not like we have an
extra mortgage payment of wiggle
room just sitting around in our
monthly budget. We think we can
make it work (we hope we can
make it work) but unless one of us
gets a substantial raise or the cost
of daycare gets significantly more
affordable, this will be our only
child. We literally could not afford
to pay for daycare for two and still
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make all of our other monthly payments. I think it’s terrible that a decision like whether or not to have a
second child should be made FOR
YOU by the lack of affordable care
options.
Chloe
I was an assistant teacher at a
Montessori Preschool and sent my
two daughters to another Montessori preschool. They are now 41
and 43, an architect and a graduate student in art. I believe that the
early years are the most important
in a child’s development.
Darcy
We cannot afford child care.
Grandma watches the kids for us.
I don’t know what we would do
if we didn’t have her. I’m hoping
that she will continue to help and
they will need less care as they are
in school more.
Dena
I have been laid off three times
in three years due to the economy.
This has caused me to lose all of
my savings and other hardships I’d
rather not list. Childcare/Preschool
in the Bay Area is expensive and it’s
necessary so that I can find a job.
I had to take my daughter out of
her preschool and juggle to try to
find a job – I still haven’t found a
job and it’s been seven months of
struggle. She cried for her school
for months. I did my best to home
school her but the stress of not
being able to adequately look for
a job is too much. Now I’m in my
401k taking what I have left to put
her back in school. Preschool help is
not a luxury – it’s a necessity and a
much needed education/social start
for children.
Desiree
I have subsidized assistance for
my childcare, which I am terrified
of the thought at one day losing.
I, like many other mothers, can
not afford to live in California and
pay the full cost of childcare even
though I work a full-time job. My
best friend was also receiving assistance for her childcare through
Stage 3 that was recently cut in
our budget. She has 4 children and
has been working for over 10 years
without a break in employment.
With this recent cut, she is now facing such a dire hardship that she
may have to quit her job and be on
welfare because the cost of daycare
for her children, in addition to the
cost of living, would be more then
she can afford. This is not fair and
is extremely heart breaking.
There are so many mothers in
the U.S. that find pride in working to support our families. The
cut in childcare subsidy programs
is jeopardizing our futures. Not
only are the mothers who lost
their assistance with the stage 3
cut are being affected, but there
are those who worked at the programs offices who lost their jobs. I
grew very close to the office support, case workers, and supervisor
of my local office that was closed.
They were given 4 days notice that
they were being laid off, and they
are such good, very caring, and devoted employees.
I am in tears telling you how
this has effected so many moms
just trying to survive in this world
and are finding it harder and harder to manage.
Please hear my pleads in asking for you consideration to not
cut these programs. Thank you for
your time.
Doris
I have advocated for free childcare for all children. I spoke on
an outdoor platform urging child
care when I was 7 years old. This
was in 1935 in New York City. To
date, child care for all has never
become a reality.
I have twin 6-year-old grandchildren, who attend child care
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here in Soquel, California. Although it is not privately run, the
fee per month is extensive.
The government has not seen
it necessary to spend for the children. This is not consistent with a
democracy, where parents should
have the ability to raise children
in security, safety and peace without having to spend large sums
to make it possible. The private
institutions charge unaffordable
amounts for most parents. If we
are to go forward as a quality nation, childcare for all is a must.
Elizabeth
My daughter’s preschool has
wonderful teachers who aren’t
paid enough because the families
can’t afford to pay more. Many
families have scaled back to parttime daycare due to the economy. I
feel for the teachers who have families of their own and don’t always
get to be there for their kids.
Recently, I asked a teacher how
her son (who was at the preschool
but started kindergarten this year)
was doing. She was visibly close
to tears telling me that he had a
dance performance that afternoon
but she couldn’t attend – obviously
because she can’t afford to take off
work.
It is a reminder that most of the
women who take care of our children have children of their own
who they miss during the day too.
Heather
We were able to find a great
pre-school close to our house. It
costs $750.00 per month which is
about 25% of my salary and well
worth the price.
My concern is how low we are
paying these teachers. I have done
the math and these important people in our children’s lives must be
scraping by.
If women do not get higher
salaries, then we generally can only
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pay these caregivers barely above
minimum wage. Our children are in
the care of people who are stressed
and financially struggling in many
cities. This is a troubling situation.
I have to work full time to cover
the cost of his wonderful education. But I really just want to work
30 hours a week. The current situation is a strain on our families in
terms of time and money. If Norway can figure this out, so can we!
Holly
Being an older parent, I knew I
was coming back from maternity
leave in a couple of weeks and
work and myself already had arrangements for me to work three
days a week and work from home
or bring the baby to work two days
a week until I could secure full
time daycare in about one to two
months. In our town, there is only
one place that takes children under
two and I had been on the waiting
list since I was 2 months pregnant.
I was informed two weeks prior to
going back to work that if I did not
secure full time daycare within two
weeks that I would be fired. So I
had no choice but to find another
job. It was very disappointing.
Hrefna
We have two children. We were
fortunate that both attended excellent day care centers, but the
price was astronomical, see http://
ccsc.stanford.edu/enrolled/fees.
html for figures. What a cruel and
unusual punishment for daring to
have a child.
After living for many years in
the USA, while getting a good
STEM education, we decided that
the society as a whole was not living up to our expectations. In particular, we didn’t want to live in a
society that bandied ‘family values’
about, but did nothing to actually
help families.
We decided we were done pay-
ing astronomical daycare fees,
and moved back to our (socialistic)
home-country this summer. There
the daycare is subsidized and easily
affordable, at about 1/10th of what
we used to pay. It may not be exactly top-of-the-line quality, but it’s
good, solid, reputable daycare.
The daycare costs in the USA,
at least in our area, are ridiculous.
I cannot for the life of me understand why, in an area of highly
educated women, the public policy is to make it almost not worth
a woman’s time to go find a job,
since the take home pay gets eaten
up by massive daycare fees.
Jen
I have been unable to afford
childcare for over a year now. Because, childcare is so cost prohibitive in Los Angeles, it is more cost
effective to stay home than to
work. I have many friends in the
same position and all of us had to
give up our jobs because childcare
is more expensive than we can afford. I feel my son could really use
an environment filled with other
kids and lots of fun and that it is
important that he attend preschool
and I get back to work. Hopefully,
we’ll be able to find something affordable soon.
I have been approached by illegal immigrants who are babysitting
and they all charge $15/hour which
is on the cheap end for childcare.
All the other babysitters I’ve contacted charge $20/hour. Preschools
range from $600-$1000/month and
most have long waiting lists. It’s
been tough for sure!
Jorli
I raised 6 kids. I became a single
parent when pregnant with my first
child, so was forced to work. However, I made sure that the first 2 1/2
years of his life (a serious bonding
period, I believe), he was with me,
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living with my mother, sister, and
another arrangement. I then felt so
badly dropping him off for such a
long day, that it affected me emotionally. Subsequently, every weekend was spent with him, and every
night after work. I rarely dated or
went out, just to make up for the
time lost. This was back in the early
80’s, so it didn’t seem hard to find
a qualified pre-school. It did cost
just about everything that I made
to pay rent, preschool and food for
us (not to mention gas and car!) We
had no health insurance, and were
lucky that nothing went wrong.
When I remarried and had more
children, I was extremely happy to
be able to keep them home with
each other and me, until kindergarten age (which I believe is a good
age to be able to adjust socially,
and to have had enough love to
feel secure). I read to them almost
every naptime, we went for walks,
explored, built forts, did art projects, and I was happy taking care of
the house, the meals and them.
My kids are now all college
graduates, and are happy welladjusted young adults. I would
definitely recommend any parent
to spend as much time as possible
with their children those first 5 formative years.
Jose
I certainly remember how my
mother and father took two jobs
each, one of which was doing gardening work for our church parish,
just to make sure that they could
pay for the tuition for my brother,
my sister, and myself. My parents
would sacrifice almost everything
to insure that their children would
never have to face the same challenges that they did.
Joy
I was working full time, 9-5 when
I had my first son, Alex. I found a
childcare provider who was open
until 6 p.m. It gave me the flexibil-
8
ity to get there on time and be able
to finish work. There was another
provider who was open until only
5:30, two doors down. I chose Anne
because her house was clean and
she seemed organized, and she was
open late. It slowly occurred to me
that Anne was more appropriate for
the needs of me, the parent – cleanliness, order, structure. However, she
was not flexible with the children,
there were areas in the house they
could not go to. They were regimented and by 4:30 p.m. she was
cooking dinner and ready to move
along. It was 5 months before she
even knew Alex could communicate!
In hindsight, I do wish working
mothers had more flexible time. As
long as they got their work done
they should be allowed flex time. I
ended up having a live-in nanny for
my second boy. I believe he was happier, but confused as to who ran the
house and ended up talking only
when he was 2! We need more flexibility for working mothers. I cringe
and shake my head when I think
of the children’s early days. I think
there’s no long term problem I just
wish it had been less stressful.
Julie
I have been a daycare provider
for the past 14 years. I consider myself one who has a desire to make a
difference in a child’s life and to set
a good example of how a parent
should behave. I am respectful of
myself and of others which is how I
run my daycare facility. I teach age
appropriate lessons daily and serve
two hot meals daily.
When the budget was delayed
for months, I continued to care for
my children because the parents
had no other means of providing
care for their children. I am happy
to know that the budget will provide extended daycare for an undetermined time. I will continue to
care for the children even without
payment until I am no longer able
to do so.
I pray that the Governor decides
to do the right think in regards to
daycare. The children are our future. We must bring them up with
the intent to run this world some
day. Thank You for your time.
Julie
I was a single parent with
four children, ages 2 -10. (I had
left an abusive husband and was
supporting all the children on
my own.) I had a terrible time
finding a day care provider, but
was told that this certain provider was one that the Social Services recommended, so they would
help with day care costs while I
worked. I thought my children
were going to be in good hands.
After working all day, I came
to pick up my children from day
care only to find out that this
woman had locked them outside
all day long!! My poor children
were cold, hungry and traumatized! Naturally, they never went
to this provider again! I was broken-hearted that my children
had suffered like this because I
needed to go to work.
We need better protection
and care for our children!
Karen
I truly lucked out when it came
to finding daycare for my child. I
took my son to an in-home daycare site that was run by an retired couple. These people were
practically saints. The couple had
turned their home into a day care
paradise. The back yard was lined
with safety padding. They had
several tricycles and big wheels
so that there were enough to go
around, and the kids would be
able to ride without conflict. They
had a swing and slide set with a
sand box which they always supervised when in use.
The husband had converted
the garage into a play room/learn-
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ing center. It was modern, and
clean, and its shelves were lined
with toys and materials for arts
and crafts. The home itself had
child sized picnic tables for lunch.
The couple served a warm and
healthy lunch, and gave each child
a warm damp towel to clean with
following lunch. The house was
absolutely sparkling sanitary any
time that I dropped in. Their rates
were extremely reasonable, and it
was hard for me to imagine how
on earth they made a profit when
it appeared as though the couple
invested all of their proceeds back
into caring for the children.
Again, I feel extremely fortunate for having had this childcare experience, as I know that
finding desirable and affordable
daycare is not always easy. Most
reassuring was the fact that my
son loved going there and would
dart through their front door as
soon as we arrived. I usually had
to track him down in order to say
goodbye. When it was time to
pick him up from the center, it was
not unusual to see more than one
child trying to assert that they did
not want to leave to go home!
Karen
Our family, a mom and dad and
two boys 5 and 2, have benefitted
from having one income that is
enough to feed, house and cloth
us all. I have been aware since my
first child was born that this is not
a choice for most families. Some
women would rather work than
stay home with their children, but
many women, and men, work because they must in order for their
families to make ends meet. This
was true for my mother.
Why can’t we have a stipend for
childcare that encourages families
in either choice they make? Welfare for homecare, or welfare for
childcare. A mother’s job is worth
over 100K, but we’d only need a
fraction of that to stay home, or
put towards higher quality care!
MomsRising.org
Karen
In the fall of 2009, my husband
and I were excited to welcome
our 4th and last child into our
family. Life was seemingly wonderful, until we realized that the
high cost of childcare exceeded
my husband’s income. This was so
even though we only had to pay
part time care for our two oldest,
school-age children. It was soon
clear that the only solution was
for my husband to quit his daytime job of 7 years to stay home
with the kids. Luckily he was able
to find a part-time, evening job.
However, he had to take a entry
level position in a different industry and a pay cut, which ultimately resulted in loss of 73% of his
income.
As a result we were no longer
able to pay our credit card payments, our car payment or our
mortgage. We eventually lost our
family mini van, our home and
had to file bankruptcy. We still
struggle to make ends meet for
our family of 6, because we no
longer have a two parent income.
All of this was a result of the lack
of availability of AFFORDABLE
child care for working families.
If we had had access to affordable childcare or assistance
for working parents, we would
still be middle class. Instead we
are now poor and can barely afford to feed our children. This
is what we get for being hard
working and responsible. Something has got to change. Working parents should not have to
go through what went through.
It’s not right.
Kellie
I worked in the child care field
for over 20 years. I know how
hard it is for parents to find quality child care. I often worked in
centers where we had long waiting lists, and we would receive
daily calls from desperate parents who needed care for their
children. Parents need to work
and sometimes attend school. All
want a better future for their children. Whether I worked in a lowincome state subsidized school,
or a upper middle class university
based child care center, parents
needed a safe place for their children.
Research shows us that most
centers in America, especially caring for infants and toddlers, are
substandard. What are we doing
to our children? The early years
are critical. I teach human development at the college level now,
and my students learn how the
first years of a child’s life are crucial to healthy development later
on, and lead to being well-adjusted adults.
Everything we do for children
and their families affects society
as a whole. We need to come together and provide nurturing not
only for the young children, but
their parents who need a tremendous amount of support as they
raise our next generation.
Kerry
Affordable part-time childcare/
preschool through our local Park
and Recreation Department is
making it possible for me to help
run our family business. I would be
out of the workforce entirely, and
our business would be suffering,
were it not for this great community resource.
There are very few issues that
effect women of my age (twenties
and thirties) more. I also know of
several women who have had to
reconsider their entire career because of the exorbitant cost of fulltime care. I think current unemployment numbers veil the large
numbers of women who have had
to become stay-at-home mothers
to accommodate rising childcare
expenses and/or lowered wages.
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9
Kristin
I am in the midst of searching
for childcare for my 3 year old
daughter. My husband was laid
off, and, although I make enough
to sustain the home, I do not make
enough to pay for high-quality
childcare. Also, because my income is above poverty (62k for a
family of 3), I do not qualify for
any subsidies.
Currently, my husband is home
with her, but she is missing out on
valuable socialization skills as well
as fundamental educational basics.
It saddens me, but we do the best
we can with our version of “home
pre-schooling” her.
Kristin
I was lucky enough to be able
to stay on maternity leave until
my daughter was over 4 months
old, but then I needed to find
part-time child care so that I
could return to work part-time. I
needed to find something affordable, and with my daughter so
young it was important to me to
find a home-like setting for her
(in-home family child care), ideally with fewer children in care,
so that she wouldn’t be exposed
to as many germs.
I ended up calling over 60
places, and had a lot of struggles
finding care. In San Jose, in-home
family care centers are very affordable versus other options (between $30 to $60 per full day of
care, versus over $140 a day at a
professional day care center), but
almost no where was accepting
infants, and the places that were
had problems that concerned me.
I finally found a place that I
liked, and my daughter started
there for 2 months, but then suddenly the provider’s home was
foreclosed and I had to start the
search again. I found a second
place that seemed good, but upon
picking up my daughter early one
day I found her in a very unsafe
location, left completely alone, in
10
the back of the house. She never
went back there again! I felt like a
horrible parent that my interviewing of the provider and careful
screening with the local county licensing had still put my daughter
in an unsafe situation.
Now I am on a 3rd child care
setting. The facility isn’t great,
fairly small, but clean enough.
The provider is very caring and
she keeps my daughter safe,
which are the two most important
factors for me.
It was very hard finding care,
and particularly hard having to
call over 60 places, and do 8 inperson interviews before I stumbled upon places that were acceptable and met standards of
safety and care that I felt comfortable with!
Each time I found a provider I
wanted to select, I would call the
local county licensing board to
get the report on the local child
care license from their last inspection. The county NEVER calls
people back. Honestly, their system shouldn’t accept voicemail,
because they do not return calls. I
would have to call until someone
answered my call right then. Often the provider hadn’t had an inspection in years! It would be nice
to have a more complete report
on each provider’s license with
annual inspection results.
Larry
As a social worker (Child Protective Services) low or no-cost child
care is the difference between my
clients working or staying home
and continuing to collect TANF.
Child care also provides a safety net
where children are seen everyday
by mandated reporters instead of
spending 24/7 with their potentially
abusive and or neglectful caregivers. Child care is usually part of a
safety plan for the family. We know
they’ll call if things are not ok in a
child’s life.
Laura
I’m a single mom, so when I had
my daughter there was never any
question of my going back to work
or not. I could not have fathomed
before this odyssey began that the
cost of childcare would end up exceeding my rent, nearly doubling
my living expenses – even after I
found a wonderful in-home daycare that was less expensive than
average. It’s a bizarre and truly
crushing calculus that middle-class
parents in the U.S. face: we need to
work to support our families (this is
true not just for single parents, but
for most two-parent households as
well). Yet the cost of working (i.e.,
childcare) makes working a nearly
zero-sum game. I had held a job
as a teacher – a job I was good at;
a job I loved – and had to quit because more than 50 percent of my
take-home pay was going towards
the cost of childcare. I was “lucky”
in that I’m well-educated and had
other marketable skills, which
helped me find a better-paying job
even in the midst of a global recession. But the choice cost me my
professional satisfaction, and cost
society a dedicated teacher.
Lisa
When my first daughter went to
preschool, she went to a city school
district preschool 3 hours per day.
It was fabulous, her teachers were
great. It was free. With budget
cuts, our city restricted enrollment
and our income excluded us for
my second daughter to go through
the same program. So, I am paying
$524 per month for my daughter
to go to a home-based preschool 5
days per week. She stays longer 3
days and takes a nap there, I get a
few extra hours to do mommy stuff.
Her teacher is fabulous as well. We
have had to restructure our budget
to allow us to send her here, but it
is well worth it. We have made cuts
in other areas because we made
this a priority.
Other friends of mine have de-
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cided to home school and stay
home with their children which I
think is a fantastic thing to do. Let’s
face it... who better knows a child’s
learning style, strengths and weaknesses than their own mother! I
believe that as parents it is OUR responsibility to parent our children
and prioritize our family’s resources
to find the best situation for them.
I do not want the government to
make those decision for us, nor do
I think it is a constitutional responsibility for them to provide every
service to every individual.
Liz
My children (ages 5 and 2.5) are
both enrolled in a Montessori preschool I just love. My husband and
I are both full-time working parents, so we needed someplace for
our children to go and stay until
5pm each day. Very, very few preschools in our area allow students
to be there from 8:30-5, so our
choices were very limited. I work in
schools, so I’m especially concerned
about finding the right environment for our kids.
Our children have completely
thrived at their preschool. They’ve
learned important social skills, have
become independent in so many
ways, and my oldest has already begun to read. They love school and
learning, which couldn’t make both
of us happier. The teachers are committed, thoughtful, compassionate
people who have really taught them
as individuals and have fostered
such a remarkable learning environment for all kids at the school.
While we love our school, we are
overwhelmed by the bills. Now that
our youngest is also in preschool,
our bills run upward of $40,000/year
for year-round full-time childcare.
This is insane. We both work fulltime, but with our mortgage and
other bills, we turned to my father,
who has agreed to pay my youngest
child’s tuition this year. Next year,
my oldest will be in kindergarten
at a public school, so much of this
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financial pressure will be off. It saddens me that their preschool education is SO expensive, yet they’re having such an incredible experience, I
can’t imagine pulling them out.
Ironically, while they currently
attend school from 8:30-3, and then
have 2 hours of after-care, when
they go to our local kindergarten, they’ll only have school from
9-11:45am, and then be in after-care
the rest of the day! They’ll go from
6 1/2 hours of school a day, to just
under 3 hours! I’m confident they’ll
be fine, but I can’t help but wonder
what will happen to the kids whose
parents did not put them in preschool. Is less than 3 hours of school
a day enough to make up the difference of what my kids are able to get
in preschool?
Luci
I was a single Mom in the 70’s
and 80’s in Berkeley, CA.
My
daughter and I were lucky that the
local school district (Berkeley Unified School District) had childcare
attached to it.
There was an afterschool program for all children from the ages
of 5 to 10. We got our childcare at
no cost because I was a low income
person. This is something that
should be re-instated today!
Use the school buildings when
there are no students there=cost
effective! And hire people to do
the work from the community!
Let’s get the word out to young
mothers! We don’t need to pay
thru the nose for childcare! Go
thru the school districts!
Lygeia
I’m a single mom who does not
receive child support even though
I was married to the children’s
father for 9 years. It has been an
incredible struggle in the past 4
years since I won custody of them.
I work and go to college. I don’t
get paid sick days or vacations. I do
receive subsidized child care without which we would not be able
to survive. I live in Marin County
which is very expensive, but I cannot move without being severed
from my support network of family and friends. So we choose to
stay here even though we can’t
find permanent affordable housing.
Subsidized childcare is crucial
to the well-being of low income
families. Also it is an investment
in the future which will be noticeable when these children grow up
and become either the next generation of responsible, educated
citizens or the next generation of
deadbeats and criminals.
Don’t underestimate how much
low income women care about
their children and are willing to
sacrifice and suffer to make sure
their needs are met. We work hard
and want them to have a better
future. Subsidized childcare enables mothers to stay employed
and keeps children safe and out of
trouble.
Marada
I am a mom who is sending our
child to a Montessori school because
thankfully, for now, we can afford
that. But earlier in my life I was a
Headstart teacher’s aid, and I have
to say this is the most amazing program I have ever seen. The program
prepares at-risk kids for doing very
well in school, provides social workers to help struggling families, and
provides child care so that poor
parents can go out and work – the
alternative is that childcare sometimes costs more than the family can
make, especially with single parent
families.
We are talking about helping a
poor family for a year or two to get
on their feet vs having unprepared
children living in dire poverty fend
for themselves. A country’s greatness, in my opinion, is best judged
by how the children are treated -
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11
they are our future and our most
precious commodity. To make a
wildly successful program like Headstart have to fight for its existence
is incredibly short sighted and a sad
commentary on the goals and aspirations of one of the world’s greatest nations. Our children are our
future, and there is no difference
between a poor child and a welloff child except in the way we treat
them. In these troubled times we
should be expanding programs such
as this one, not trying to shut them
down or limit them.
Not everyone can afford good
preschool. So our family banded
together. His uncle pays for Jakob’s
preschool. We grandparents spend
time at least once a week with him.
We teach him things, play with him,
take him places. I know we have all
done right by our grandson Jakob
as everyone in the family is helping
him be a happy, well-adjusted child.
Margaret
Both of us worked full time at
good jobs and had to have childcare for our two daughters, first
full time, then both before and
after school. My story is short but
pointed.
I wish every child had the support Jakob has. We have all made
him a priority in our busy lives.
Mary F
I was widowed with two kids
age 3 and 2 and had not finished
my college education. I took my
kids to a co-op child care facility. I
volunteered two days a week and
went to school 3 days a week and
studied when the kids were in bed
at night.
I graduated and received a
teaching credential. I could not
have become a productive worker
had I not been given this kind of
help, knowing that my kids were
being cared for in an environment
of learning and opportunities.
Mary
We have one 5-year-old grandson. This is his third year in preschool. Because he has attended
a preschool that provides loving
structure he has developed a strong
sense of confidence while learning
many skills, from interacting well
with children and adults to developing competencies in physical and
educational areas.
I can’t imagine my grandson going into kindergarten without the
preparation he has gotten from this
preschool. We know already areas
he shines and areas he needs to improve. As one person put it, paying
for quality preschool is way, way
more important than paying for college because it prepares him for the
rest of his life.
12
Our kids did well and we are
glad that we paid for childcare. But
every year I paid the loan off, and
then had to go back to the Credit
Union for the same loan. Usually it
was the full-time childcare in summer that really pushed us over the
financial edge. Also, the school system is still setup expecting Moms to
be home in the afternoon.... totally
archaic, and not reality.
Melissa
We first moved to this area
when my daughter was almost 3
and finding good childcare was
harder than finding housing.
We’re not wealthy, but I wanted
a place I could trust with my child.
There were places on a list of provided by my employer’s work-life
office that I walked in and walked
right out of without filling out
an application because they were
too dirty or kids were crying and
no teacher paid any attention.
Originally we split my daughter between two places because
one was available only T & Th and
the other MWF. The TTh place was
great, but the MWF place was
a nightmare. The head teacher
said that 3 year olds should not
be read to in order to encourage them to read themselves – 3
year olds! Over the first month,
my husband and were debating
how we could keep our daughter
there but what we would do with
no child care. But the last day of
the first month, my daughter had
developed a minor medical condition (not contagious) and her doctor said she could attend daycare
but needed to take medication.
We brought the medication
and a letter from the doctor indicating dosage and timing to administer it, and the head teacher
said it was too much trouble and
refused to give her the medication! We pulled out daughter
out that day. We got very lucky
and found something very good
a week later but we had no idea
what we were going to do when
we pulled her out.
Melissa
After the difficulties we had
finding childcare for my daughter, I thought I was prepared with
my 2nd pregnancy. I put my name
on the waiting list at the daycare
my daughter attended when I
was 3 months pregnant (and out
of the greatest danger of miscarriage), and even though we had
a “sibling priority,” my son was
6 months old before a spot was
available!
Melissa
Even as an attorney I have difficulty finding affordable, quality
child care. I cannot believe that the
full amount of child care expenses
is not deductible on taxes. Please
seriously consider supporting high
quality and affordable child care.
Melody
My school district has a great
Headstart Preschool named Maizeland ELP, I went there in the ‘80s
and my sister went in the ‘90s. I en-
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rolled my daughter there and it is
her last year there. I love the school
because the teachers and staff care
about the kids and we are like a
small family. I am grateful for my
preschool.
Despite the fact that not all
families have these supports, all
children deserve and need high
quality child care, from Birth-13
years.
Mia
When my daughter was in middle school, I found myself living in
an area 500 miles away from my
closest family member. I work in a
high-pressure industry and, despite
my full disclosure during my interview that I was a single mom with
NO backup at all, my employers
just could not seem to understand
that if I got stuck for even fifteen
minutes longer than my scheduled
hours, I would have to drive like a
maniac to try to get to my daughter, whose onsite daycare at school
closed PROMPTLY at 6pm.
As a mother, it is crucial that you
feel comfortable and confident
when leaving your small child in
the care of someone else. Upon
returning to work, my grandmother loving cared for my son from 3
months to 28 months. After being
laid of from my job, I returned to
San Francisco State University to
complete my studies and was lucky
to have a wonderful onsite child
care center available. The quality
of the Associated Student Early
Childhood Campus Center was unmatched due to many of the students from the university’s child
development programs working in
the classrooms. My son thrived in
their care and I successfully completed my undergraduate degree.
While looking for work and
searching for care for my then
4-year-old son, friends recommended a fantastic preschool relatively close to my home. Unfortunately since I wasn’t working and
wasn’t on public assistance, we
didn’t immediately qualify for the
site. I definitely could not pay the
full tuition rate, but I didn’t want
to compete with other families for
the child care subsidies. The director of the preschool worked with
me to get my son in their program,
while I enrolled in online classes
and finally began work with my
current employer.
Now at age 10, my son attends
an afterschool program located
at his elementary school where
he completes homework assignments, plays sports and interacts
with his peers. I realize that I was
lucky to have the support of family, friends and quality programs
to help me ensure my son received
the best care.
MomsRising.org
Michele
More nights than I care to remember, I came to find her waiting alone at a dark school a block
from a freeway onramp. NO parent
should have to deal with this situation in order to keep the job that
feeds you and your child and puts a
roof over your heads.
Misty
I am a single mother with four
children. My second oldest was
the only child that was not able
to attend preschool. She continues to struggle with school and
she is currently in the 5th grade. It
is very important for our children
to get started early with learning.
I hope you continue to help our
children grow with a good education from the start because that’s
really makes a difference. I was
not able to afford for her to go to
preschool and yet make too much
her to attend a state preschool.
As a working struggling mother affordable childcare and preschools are very important. I am
not on welfare and do my best
to support my kids and every bit
helps.
Nancy
My child was enrolled in a Montessori preschool which did excellent work. The tuition was manageable – in fact, one of the visions
of the founders of the school was
that it would be affordable by
single mothers and those of modest means. Over a few years, the
tuition climbed, and was triple
the original tuition by the time my
child was ready for kindergarten.
I got on the board of directors
and found out the facts – there is
simply no economic way to run a
preschool with qualified teachers,
at state-permitted class sizes, on
a tuition affordable by most people. By the time my child left the
school, there was a waiting list for
spaces, but the people who were
on that list weren’t single mothers
– they were well-off families who
could have afforded to go anywhere.
We need to make sure that excellent preschool education, including Montessori, is available to families who can pay something, but
don’t have unlimited resources.
Nicole
Three days before the first day
of kindergarten, I was informed
that the early morning care program was canceled due to budget
cuts. I am a school teacher myself,
so I have to be able to drop my son
off early so I can race to my own
school and open my own classroom. I am also a single mom with
no family or spouse to assist.
With no early morning care, I
was left in a very sticky situation.
For the first 3 weeks of school, my
son carpooled with the principal of
the school who agreed to watch
him. This was not an ideal situation, but very kind of the principal
to offer. My son’s classroom teacher
also pitched in and agreed to watch
him for me until I was able to meet
g
13
some parents and find someone to
watch him before school. This has
been incredibly stressful for everyone.
NJ
My spouse and I have attended
graduate school, and we live in an
upper-middle class neighborhood. I
say this to tell you that finding affordable and exemplar childcare is
a problem for everyone, including
people with the relative means to
pay for it (so imagine the implications for someone working for less
wages and compounded by the implications of single parenthood).
For my family, our response to
the lack of adequate and affordable childcare was for me to leave
my professional position at a local university and raise my child
at home. While this was the only
“right” decision given the options
available to us, actually being an
at-home parent has not been easy.
Not only are there fiscal implications, but the emotional fallout
from being unemployed has been
very difficult.
Take a look at what is happening in childcare in my home province of Québec to see how affordable and regulated childcare looks
like when it is available in the very
communities where children live
and where parents work.
ever cover the cost of the childcare
that would allow me to keep the
job in the first place, so why run to
stand still?
“Affordable childcare” in my
neighborhood means illegal immigrants or teenagers – all of whom
deserve good employment, but
not at the expense of my family’s
or my children’s safety. Reliable,
quality care, where workers have
been educated in non-punitive discipline methods, where the television is not employed as a babysitter, where everyone is working in
childcare due to choice rather than
circumstance – these things are so
far out of our price range as to be
impossible.
We hear politicians praise over
and over the benefits of family, and
then they take funding away from
the heart of family –our children. It
is unbelievable that we continue to
pay for the death marches our children take when they go to America’s wars while the educational opportunities that might save them
from the army are the first things
to be trimmed from government
budgets. Stop selling out our children.
Mandate childcare at any business with more than 50 employees,
and subsidize it. Put a cap on classrooms – infant, preschool, K-12 – of
no more than 14 children. Put your
money where your “family values”
mouth is!
Rebecca
I imagine I can only echo the
stories of hundreds of thousands of
American families when I say getting quality childcare has, by far,
been our toughest challenge. Because children seem to be viewed
as a liability by most employers –
which would be discrimination in a
job interview, but is evidenced by
the lack of childcare centers, swing
shifts, paternity leave, and reasonable maternity leave at every company I’ve worked for – I have ended up staying home. Whatever job
I might be able to get could only
14
Renee
My daughter went to Family Connection preschool from the
time she was about 3 months old.
We really love and felt like we were
leaving her with trusted friends but
the cost of infant was a shock and
we dramatically changed our lifestyle to accommodate the cost.
We had a wonderful experience
with them would love to share a
little about each of the teachers we
had.
#1) Teacher Sonia in the Baby
Bee’s room (infants) who had to go
out for surgery while our baby was
there so before her surgery took
the time to write down all of my
daughter likes and dislikes for her
sub and called us to explain why
she would be out, that the incoming teacher knew our daughter
routine and when she would be
back.
#2) Teacher Jackie in the Duckie room (2-2 1/2) she is the tiniest
teacher there and she listens to the
kids and knows how to have fun.
#3) Teacher Holly in the Pnoy
room (2 1/2-3) who encouraged
each child to be themselves and
teaches all the children to be kind
and to appreciate the differences
in each other.
#4) Teacher Johanna in the Kitty
room (3-4). She is from Germany.
She started a garden in the back
play yard and many of the childrens’ snacks from there. She has
no children but many cats that
she loves a lot. She is able to find
the best in each child and through
compliments and kindness bring
out the best in each child. My 4 yr
old daughter once told me that if
anything ever happened to her
dad and I she wanted to live with
Teacher Johanna because she did
not have any children and she was
not sure how God let this happen
but she knew that if we were gone
Johanna would love her as much as
we do.
#5) Teacher Rose in the Teddy
Bear room (4-6) who took our bug,
reptile, animal loving child and
showed her how to blossom into a
miniature scientist/mathematician
who is also well mannered and respectful of everyone she meets.
This amazing group of women
was worth every penny we spent
and every sacrifice we made so
that I could continue to work full
time with complete piece of mind
knowing that my child was getting
exactly the same care I would have
given her if I was to stay at home.
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Ruth
For the past year and a half my
4 year old daughter has not been
going to child care/preschool. The
cost for this particular school was
too high in the long run. It was like
I was paying rent for an apartment
,approx $532/month. I couldn’t
keep up with payments and I wasn’t
able to afford it anymore and had
to take her out. She is now almost
5 and still not in a preschool. Since
her b-day is in December, mainly
schools around the area won’t accept her until next school year.
In the meantime, my parents
take care of her while I’m at work
until 6pm and even on some days
I don’t get to see her because I attend night school at a local community college. It’s hard being a
single mother and not getting the
appropriate help or assistance for
situations like these.
All other preschools usually go
based on your income and it’s still
too high for me to afford. I have
tried getting assistance through
programs but the only response
I get is that there is not enough
money in the state’s budget and
I am denied. My only option is to
have her wait until next school year
and have her at home in the meantime.
Seren
Back when my kids were preschoolers and primary graders, I can
remember that my baby sitter was,
without a doubt, the most important person that I knew. My life
was adjusted to fit her schedule as
it was not possible for me to work
without her being there.
Shirley
In 2008, I was fired from Nordstrom along with at least six other
employees. I spent all of 2009 appealing my case to get my unemployment benefits, working small
jobs that I found, taking my son
to Long Beach Community College
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preschool and taking care of my
husband on disability.
I started interviewing mothers in
my circle of family, friends and others on the success of raising their
children and the response was always the same...’our law firm was in
the same building as the children’s
great childcare’ or ‘my husband
who works at a hospital drops my
son off at the childcare on site’ or
those mothers who had extended
family near took care of the children.
By February 2010, a female law
librarian empowered me by complementing me on great parenting.
She met my 4-year-old and reminded me that he will only be four once
and educated me on how systematic
the appeal process is at the Superior
Court level. She felt like it would be
better time spent if I exposed my
case differently. I mentioned creating a non-profit that would advocate for career women who are
mothers with minimal compromise.
October 2010, I volunteered all
three days at the womens conference in Long Beach which incorporated 14,000 female attendees who
were empowered by host Maria
Shriver and her guests that included Michelle Obama, Sandra Day
O’Conner, Jane Fonda, Jane Goodall, Oprah Winfrey, Billy Jean King
and Mary J. Blige. This exhilarating
moment has moved me in the path
of my conviction – childcare in the
workplace. I was interviewed by
the Signalhill paper in Long Beach
about my reasons for volunteering... explaining that I want to be
an “architect of change,” a phrase
used consistently at the womens
conference.
Shirley
Our family moved to Santa Clara
from Hollister, and I needed to find
child care for my three children. We
had a great caregiver in Hollister;
I was hoping to find someone as
good as she was.
I checked the local agencies and
got a few names, but the one I decided on was in our neighborhood,
and seemed to be a caring person.
They went to her during the summer, and I thought everything was
okay. When my children started
school, my son was in kindergarten,
and was supposed to go to her house
after school. I received a call from
the woman demanding to know
where my son was. I responded that
he was supposed to be with her,
and asked HER where my son was.
She was rude and belligerent and
told me that now she would have to
spend her time looking for him. She
went to the school and he was there
in the office, and she proceeded to
yell at him. Fortunately, his teacher
was there as well, and she stepped
in and told the woman that she had
no business yelling at my son, then
proceeded to call me and let me
know what was happening.
She informed me that there was
an after school program that she
highly recommended, and I immediately signed them up. When I
asked my son why he didn’t go to
the caregiver’s house, he said he
was afraid. I asked his older sisters
what he was afraid of, and they
told me about the abuses they endured while in her care. She had a
screened in porch which was where
she made my children spend their
days, while other children in her
care had the run of the house. She
would hit them if they did not say
their prayers before meals. NO ONE
hits my children, not even me!
These are just a couple of examples of the abuse they endured, and
when I asked them why they didn’t
tell me about what was happening,
they told me they were afraid of
her. I immediately reported her to
the agency that had recommended
her. I don’t know what happened
to her, but I do know that she no
longer cared for children out of her
home.
g
15
If it wasn’t for the after school
program that my son’s teacher
told me about, I don’t know what
I would have done. We need programs like the one they attended,
if only for the peace of mind that
our children aren’t being abused.
Theresa
I have two elementary school
aged children. I am a working mother, so when my children were preschool aged, it was necessary that
I had childcare services for my children. The cost of quality full time
child care in the San Francisco Bay
Area, where I live and work, was
beyond my budget. Although there
are many quality child care centers
my area, I exceeded eligibility requirements to qualify subsidized
child care.
My solution to my child care
problem was to have my mother
move into my home, in order to assist with childcare in the early morning and late evening. When my
children became potty trained, I was
able to find a parent run cooperative nursery school that offered an
affordable afternoon program. My
child care arrangements required
a significant amount of sacrifice to
my personal privacy and physical
energy, as I was required to supplement the reduced cost of child care
services at the cooperative nursery
school, through an additional commitment of hours worked at the
school site: cleaning, shopping for
supplies, grant writing, fundraising
and maintenance work on behalf of
the school.
Few working parents have these
options available to them, due to
work demands, distance from family and other financial obligations.
The early education and care that
my children received was of considerable quality, and the personal and
financial investment that it took to
ensure that my children receive high
quality was necessary to ensure that
I was able to remain productive and
focused at my workplace.
16
Additionally, my children were
able to transition into an elementary school without incident largely
due to the preparation they received from the caregivers and educators during their early preschool
education. Congress must recognize the importance of quality early
child care is essential to children and
working parents.
Tiffany
I am a single mom. My son entered preschool in September. Prior
to preschool, my son was attending
a home-based daycare near my job;
it was convenient, and at $900 per
month, more affordable than most
of the care facilities that I found in
this area. Unfortunately, the quality
was not what I wanted for my son.
He was picking up language and
behavior that I found unacceptable.
There was a tolerance for violence
(“boys will be boys”) philosophy
that I did not agree with.
So, with a take home salary of
less than $3,000 per month and a
mortgage that’s over $2,000 per
month, I am now shelling out $1235
per month for a “quality” preschool
near my home in Richmond. Clearly,
I can’t afford it and I feel like my options are few. I could sell my home,
but due to the current market, I
would take a loss on my investment.
I could plot to get myself fired and
become a welfare mom. I could get
a second job, but then I’d need to
pay someone to watch my son for
those hours too.
I feel like I’m being penalized for
being a good citizen and wanting
the best for my son. There must be a
better way. I earn too much to qualify as low income and not enough to
make ends meet each month.
Yasmin
I have three children and two of
then attended a state funded preschool (LAUP). My kids did not qualify for Headstart, nor could I afford
to pay for private preschool. How-
ever, there are no income requirements for this pre-school program
that both of my kids attended to.
Now my son is in first grade and my
daughter in kindergarten. I believe
that preschool gave them a great
start to their education. Last week I
had a conference with both of their
teachers and I was very pleased to
hear that both of my children are
doing very well in their studies. In
fact they are above average in math.
I believe that attending preschool
and the preschool teachers had a lot
to do with their success today. If we
as a nation is going to compete with
the rest of the world, like China and
Japan, our nation needs to invest for
the success of our future, which it all
needs to start from early education.
COLORADO
Anne
We found a great preschool at
our local recreation center. Tuition
is at the state minimum, which is
the only way we could afford it. He
only goes for 9 hours a week, but
he has excellent teachers. I work
from home doing custom sewing
and alterations. My son goes to
work with me one day a week for
a couple hours to pick up/drop off
clothing/sewn items. We weighed
the options of me finding a fulltime job vs. the cost of full time
day care at a ‘good’ center. I would
basically have been working 40
hours per week to make the equal
amount as tuition would cost.
Bertha
As a parent, grandparent and
an experienced professional in the
field of child development and early childhood education, I cannot
emphasize enough the importance
of those early years.
The brain-based research has
give us ample data to convince legislators that investing in young children is more important than providing college scholarships. By the
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time they get to college, they can
find many ways to access whatever
they need, but young children are
our largest voiceless minority.
Elizabeth
I am a child care employee in
Boulder in the only five star Qualistar rated school in Colorado.
I have been in this field for over
seven years and the ONLY reason
I am still doing this is for OUR future and OUR children’s future.
It is beyond important that all
children get some form of education before the age of three.
(Most brain development is decided by then.) However, as much
as I would love to continue doing
this, I may not be able to. I, as
well as my fellow co-teachers, do
not make a livable wage. I have no
health coverage because I can not
afford it and I have to work close
to 80 hours a week – forty babysitting and forty at the childcare
facility – so I can make ends meet.
I have a bachelor’s degree and
took three college courses to meet
new state requirements. So I am
an educated being. I just want to
make parents aware that if funding is cut, tuition costs WILL go up
to make up for the loss. Can you
afford higher tuition?
Jamie
I work at a day care center. I was
interested in childhood development and I took a chance to see
if this was my calling. I have been
completely disappointed in every
way. The price for childcare, CCAP
requirements, and food program
are very under funded! They charge
$330 for a 3 year old for 5 days a
week. That is a total of $1320 per
month; that’s more then the average mortgage payment. Moreover,
the food program is funded by the
state. The meat products are very
processed, the vegetables are all
out of a can, and so are the fruits
that are soaking in fructose syrup.
MomsRising.org
There have been many stories of
parents who have had to bargain
with friends to watch their children
because their CCAP money was
topped out. So many families and
especially mothers are just working
to keep their kids in day care.
The benefits for employees are
unbelievably horrible as well. I’ve
worked there for 4 months an acquired 3 hours of sick time. Not to
mention I’ve been sick 4 times and
have missed 7 days of work (because I’m sick from the children’s
germs). There is no vacation time or
holiday pay unless you’ve worked
for at least 5 years at the company.
To acquire maturity leave you have
to pay $10.20 per paycheck, for at
least year, to get $800 a month for
3 months only. Finally, the wages
are completely unrealistic for a
family or even a college student.
To make $10 (at least) an hour you
must have at least 4 years experience!
Not only does this industry need
more funding but it needs some serious legislation! Not only does the
employees pay, but worst the children’s best interests seem to be the
last of their concern!
Joe
I currently live in China but two
years ago I worked at a public elementary school in Kremmling, Colorado. Kremmling is within about
two hours of five premier Colorado
ski resorts. A very well-off area of
Colorado... for some.
I was the Gifted and Talented
Teacher on a Response to Intervention Committee. The role of the
committee was to help kids who
were having severe behavioral
and/or academic issues. Most of
the issues centered around us getting decent health care for various
child. Glasses so they could see.
Helping heal recurring ear infections, dental work. These children
didn’t have health care. We constantly had to brainstorm places
where they could get free clinics
or take advantage of grants or just
about any way they could just get
basic care. It was very frustrating
because most of the kids we were
meeting about had academic issues largely influenced by a lack
of health care. If they had decent
health care we would probably not
be meeting for most of these students.
As the Gifted and Talented
teacher, most of my students were
able to succeed more at school
because they had better care.
They did not have to worry about
glasses, or bad teeth, or various
other physical ailments and thus
were able to achieve much better
academically on average. Being in
communication with friends still at
the school I know the situation has
not improved. The reason I write
this hoping it helps somehow in
getting children the basic care they
need. Thanks for all you do and
good luck!
Leslie
Being idealistic, we really wanted “education” for our child, not
just “child care.” We operate a business from our home, but as soon as
our little one was crawling, there
was no way for us to get enough
work in to pay the mortgage and
keep clients happy.
We tried various part-time nannies, including a few different services and sharing nanny resources
with friends. But we kept ending
up with folks who really didn’t
have the early childhood development skills we needed... and found
that a lot of TV time was the result!
Finally, we got our daughter
into a Montessori school at 18
months, but it started at only 6
hours a week at that age and our
income and cash flow suffered. As
she progressed through the school,
she flourished and our income im-
g
17
proved (with more hours in school),
but the costs were equivalent to
almost one-fourth our take-home
pay. We felt stuck between a resource that obviously benefited
our child but was so expensive and
one that would leave her plopped
in front of who-knows-what on TV
for hours at a time.
Believe it or not, now that our
child is in first grade, our public
school – only a few blocks away –
has turned out to be the life saver!
Our child love it, is obviously progressing academically, the staff is
very caring and innovative, and
they have fun before and after
school programs to expand her curriculum... and our work hours. A
need that has not been well met
by a competitive marketplace has
been more than adequately answered by public schools!
Patricia
My priority when my kids were
very young was to be with them.
My husband made $75/week but
we had what we needed. I was
lucky because my parents were
young enough and wanted to care
for my children when they were
older.
I can’t tell you what a relief it is
to know that the little people I love
the most and were so important
in my life had the love and nurturing experience and involvement of
their grandparents. I understand
that others are not so lucky and
must allow other people they may
not even know, to raise their children.
Why do so many other countries
“get” this, and why do we lag so
far behind? Why do we wonder”
what went wrong”? Are we not
smart enough to figure it out?
Ramona
I’m a grandmother now, but
even when my children were
young, good childcare was not af-
18
fordable. I had a bachelor’s degree
and would have preferred to pursue work in my field, but instead of
being able to do that, I worked in
childcare. At least that way, I could
bring home a little money. I was
not paid well, but at least I got to
see my kids. The price for that is
a much reduced retirement income
and late entry into the workforce.
My children are grown now and
having children of their own, and I
am appalled to see that things have
only gotten worse. Finding good
and affordable child care is still difficult. Mothers are forced to return
to work prematurely because we
don’t have paid benefits for them,
and they need the money. After
returning to work, unsympathetic
employers make it hard for them
to choose between work and family. After all this time, we still do
not support families in this society. The US continues to be one of a
hand full of industrialized countries
that do not have laws requiring paid
family leave. Shame on us.
Some things should not be done
for profit. Health care, elder care,
and child care are three of those.
Making these for profit industries
means that care givers are not paid
well, standards are not in place,
and those on the lowest and highest
ends of the life scale ( in years) suffer
for it.
Is this really the greatest country
in the world? I am embarrassed for
all of us and think we could do a lot
better.
Samantha
I can only speak to the situations
that I have experienced on my own,
but childcare in my home state of
Colorado is increasingly difficult to
find, much less a provider that is
high quality (or highly qualified).
My first experiences were in the
Roaring Fork Valley (the area between Aspen and Glenwood Springs)
and as a working single mom, the
average cost of $1200/month was
nearly too impossible to afford. I
had to move in with my parents in
order to be able to afford to work
and pay childcare. The state qualification guidelines are such that, due
to the cost of living in the area, one
can barely afford to live yet can’t
qualify for government assistance. I
ended up having to put my daughter into a religiously-oriented preschool just to get the cost down to
approximately $760/month.
After I was laid off (the company
I had worked for shut down), I decided to go back to school and finish
my Bachelors. Even though the campus I attend has on-campus childcare, the spaces are very limited and
again I had to put my daughter into
a religiously-oriented preschool in
order to make it affordable. Thankfully I was able to secure her a place
in the on campus childcare at the
beginning of this semester, but the
cost is still quite high and difficult to
afford for a single mother who is a
full time student.
The waitlist for governmentfunded child care assistance in our
current county is quite long and
the estimated time you will be on
it before a spot opens up is more
than 2 years! Fortunately (or unfortunately given the economic situation it implies), I was able to qualify
for cash assistance and as such my
daughter’s childcare should be almost completely paid for now. Because her new preschool is on campus, the quality is very high, but it is
the first daycare in which my daughter has been enrolled that I can say
that about and I feel like that is a
truly sad situation indeed.
After having worked in public
schools and volunteered in classrooms, I’ve fostered relationships
with several teachers. Every single
one of them believes that preschool/
early childhood education should be
REQUIRED from age 3. Those children who didn’t attend preschool
enter into kindergarten with a
learning gap already 2 years in the
making. These are the students who
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typically wind up struggling with
school, losing interest early on and
dropping out.
We need to give education the
level of importance on the overall
quality of life a person will enjoy,
not to mention its significance for
the future of our country and world.
My struggle has been incredibly
challenging and the fact that any
type of assistance is pretty much out
of reach of most parents is absurd,
but shows very well how the needs
of this country’s people are not being met.
Sienna
My 32-year-old daughter and
29-year-old son went to Children’s
World from age 3 (pre-schoolto age 12 after school Care) and
they absolutely loved it! I could
walk in and around the building
anytime and there was never any
hidden things going on!
Since I was teacher and could
leave somedays before the 5pm
rush, I did have them some afternoons, but there were days they
begged me to let them stay late to
be with their friends at Children’s
World. The pre-school education
was also fantastic. I have met other babyboomer Moms who have
said the same thing, that their
kids loved day-care.
Yes, I was a very lucky full-time
working mom to have had such a
great experience for my children.
They both have their Master’s
Degree today and even grew up
as teenagers in a broken home.
Yes, parents do make a difference
if your children go to Day Care.
When you take them home, play
with them, interact with them..
do not sit them in front of the
television!
Stephanie
I’m a working divorce mother
of one child. The cost is extremely
expensive. I have to ask family
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members to watch my son 3 days
a week after and before school
because I can’t afford to put my
son in daycare on those days – I
can only afford 2 days a week.
For the summer I can only afford to take my son to a daycare 2
days a week due to the cost. I pay
$136/week for 2 days of childcare.
I’m sure this year it will be even
more expensive for summer care.
Due to the economy I cannot
get a good paying job or raises so
the cost goes up for daycare my
sons school, and my pay stays the
same. I need to work and there is
no mercy for us people drowning
in this terrible economy and how
everything is going up so high.
I will eventually have to get on
food stamps for help.
The cost Is way too high for all
families!!
Susan
I had my child in a ‘family’
based home preschool / childcare,
that I had found through my
county “family services” program.
After returning from holiday, I
was confronted by the owner (my
daughter had been there over a
year at this point with little negative feedback).
She informed me in very harsh
terms that she no longer wanted
my child in the program, that she
and I were a problem. She confronted my 4 year old with “do
you want to be here, because
I’m not sure I want you here anymore.” the day before we left
on holiday (which I never heard
about until after the fact).
My high energy child pushed
all her buttons apparently but I
had never heard a word... and
her confrontation with my child
made me wonder what else I’d
not heard.... apparently a number
of parents had requested to cut
back on nap time or eliminate it –
the group was mainly 4 year olds
at this point. She thought I had
lead the parents against her, since
I had originally made the same request earlier in the year.
Her comment was “she needed
the children’s nap time to make
it through the day” and that I
should try and have the group she
did in her house all day... If she
didn’t have that break she wasn’t
sure what she would do...
Needless to say, I pulled my
child within the week. I didn’t
want her where she wasn’t wanted, and I certainly didn’t want her
with someone that was just trying
to make it through each day!
But it was not simple or easy to
find a good place for her to move
to on such short notice.
Funny thing, the lady retired
within the year.....I think her confrontation with me, and my further communication with her after that helped her realize that
maybe she should not be with a
group of toddler / preschool kids
anymore.
Tara
Childcare in my area is very expensive. The cheapest I’ve been
able to find is $1000 per month
for a child under 2 years old. My
problem with this is not only the
expense, but the fact that I can
only put $5000 per year into my
dependent care flexible spending
to save on the income tax.
I can’t work without childcare,
but I’m taxed on the majority of
the income used to pay for that
childcare. I’m now about to have a
second child so my yearly childcare
costs will jump up to $24000 per
year and only $5000 of that can be
tax deductible.
Something needs to be done to
help working mothers like me who
are taxed on all this income that
we never actually see.
g
19
CONNECTICUT
Katherine
I have two small children and
between the two of them, we
have been through five ‘early
learning’ centers. The ‘early learning’ centers ranged from terrible
to good. I have had teachers and
administrators lie to me about
my child in order to benefit their
bottom line or reduce their work
loads. We have also experienced
the great teachers who see the
good in all children and work
diligently to help the children to
express that goodness in all they
do.
We have experienced the old
adage ‘you get what you pay
for’, but even now that I am paying for one of the most expensive options, its still hit or miss
based on the specific teacher my
child is exposed to. Some teachers are terrible and some are fantastic. There are very few in between. The real sad story is that
the teachers are so under-paid.
They are paid only $12 an hour at
most. Many of the great teachers
are college educated. Very few of
them can afford to work at those
wages for long. Turn over, based
on wages alone, is high.
It breaks my heart to see these
extremely
talented
teachers
move on to other industries simply because they cannot afford
to work with children. Our children need these excellent teachers even in the early learning
centers or daycare environments.
The good they can do with these
young hearts and minds is immeasurable. The damage a bad
teacher or bad experience with
early learning can do is also immeasurable.
AND, if there can be government funding of early childhood
education, then it MUST go to
teaches salaries.
With two children in full time
pre-school, I paid $2400 a month
20
in tuition. That high cost obviously did NOT go to the teachers
salaries....and it needs to.
Kathleen
As a single parent, head of
household, mother of three I am
so grateful for the assistance of
Care4Kids in Connecticut.
I do not have one family member, other than my children, for
1.600 miles. I need the assurance
and peace of mind that my children are safe, highly educated
and at with a reliable Child Care
Provider.
Because I attend college as well
as work, my needs for child care
must be flexible. I am happy with
the child care center I currently
have, however, if I didn’t receive
the assistance from Care4Kids, I’d
have to continue to pay a babysitter who may not have the equipment/skills to educate my son to
his potential.
PLEASE! Do not allow budgetary needs to affect programs such
as Care4Kids and give our children
all of the necessary funding to educate them to be competitive in
our global economy and eventually move our country forward!
I still find it unbelievable that
education cuts exist in this country! If you want to cut any funding....cut it from the salaries of
those making more than 70,000/
year. There are children in this
country that deserve a strong
educational background giving
them confidence, self-esteem and
a possibility to highly achieve!
Kelliann
I’m in the process of trying to
find affordable health care for my
2 children while I go back to work
full time and go to school part time.
At this point, I am at a loss, because
for both of them to go to daycare
will cost almost my entire paycheck
per week. I can’t afford to NOT go
back to work, and I can’t afford TO
go back to work.
What is someone like me, who
is trying to build a better life and
future for her children supposed to
do??
Louise
Full-time daycare is challenging
enough and very costly. Before &
After School care is another issue.
There must be affordable care for
children as parents need to work so
the mortgage gets paid.
Many communities do not have
care in the school system. Private
providers must care for children and
then transport them to and from
public schools. Snow days, holidays
what is a working parent to do.
I am fortunate to work at a nonprofit agency and there is some flexibility. Of course, I make 20% less
than people employed in corporate
America.
Last year at this time, I discovered my son would not be able to
continue at his daycare/preschool
once he started kindergarten. It
was very challenging to find a reputable place with openings in the afternoon. We now save $50 a month
on childcare because he is in school
from 9:00 a.m. until 12:00 p.m. Not
certain how we will cover the summer as most day camps are 9 to 3. I
work 8:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. with
a 45 minute commute each way.
Good childcare is critical to ensure a
great workforce of parents.
Sandra
We happen to have excellent
care for our child. Why? Because
I am fortunate enough to be employed at a major private university that has excellent care affiliated
with it. And because we are able
to pay MORE PER MONTH THAN
FOR OUR MORTGAGE for it.
It is outrageous that quality
child care is often limited to upper
middle and upper class families
MomsRising.org
who can afford it...and whose children, by the way, are least likely to
really need it.
DELAWARE
Elizabeth
I married a French citizen, and
when we had children, one of the
biggest factors for deciding where
to live (along with healthcare)
was preschool. Even though I love
to live in the USA (and have lived
there almost my entire life), we decided to live in France where preschool education is funded for all
children age 3 and up (and even 2
1/2 in some areas like where we live
for children who are potty trained).
I wanted to be a stay at home
mom while our children are young,
and it would have been impossible
for us to do that in the USA where
we would have had to pay for
healthcare and preschool. I think
it is time for the USA to join most
other developed nations (France,
UK, Germany, Netherlands, etc) in
providing basic services to all its
citizens, including preschool education for children 3 and up.
FLORIDA
Angie
My sister has two kids of her
own, aged 5 and 3, and she stays
home with them so when I started
to work again I asked her if she
could watch my son. It was a great
decision for us.
My son loves being with his
cousins and his aunt and she keeps
him on a schedule without faulting. She’s really good with him and
treats him very well. I couldn’t have
asked for better child care and at a
reasonable price!
Lew
I was a “Mister Mom” type father to my sons, R. and D., for several extended periods until their
MomsRising.org
mother initiated divorce proceeding against me when they were 9
and 6 respectively, and she took
them to her girlhood home in
northern Atlanta, Georgia which
effectively left me as an absentee/
non-custodial dad. Fortunately I
was able to spend extended periods with them during their summer
vacations from school until their
teenaged years contributed to
their deciding to often decline my
company in the interest of other
socio-familial opportunities.
It’s not so important what happens to us, as it is important “how”
we handle the exigent circumstances in which we find ourselves,
however, and the fact they’re both
grown now and working, and with
D. even getting married to his high
school sweetheart S. next month,
the epigram “all’s well that ends
well” definitely applies.
Regarding “childcare” per se,
I do want to give a plug/endorsement to Baby Gator here in Gainesville, Fl. where both attended when
I was in graduate school and beginning my career as a guidance counselor in the public schools. Quality
child care is a very important factor
in any child’s process of growth and
development and I fully support
both the valuable and free VPK
(very pre-kindergarten) program
we have in our state, as well as
the nationally funded “head start”
programs which serve to counterbalance the deficits too many of
our nation’s especially minority
populations’s children suffer.
Meredith
Years ago, when I had two kids
in daycare, my ex-husband stopped
paying child support. I was on a
waiting list for state assistance, for
daycare, but nowhere near the top
of the list. The daycare that my
children attended kept both of my
children in their care, without pay,
and some bartering (a couch and a
wing back chair). I was very lucky.
Michele
Wow, where to begin? I am
a 36-year-old single parent of a
20-year-old and a 16-year-old – yes,
a survivor of teenage parenting. I
was living in the ghetto of Bronx,
NY and chose to not live of the system working and trying to attend
school. Doing the right thing, I never qualified for low-income child
care. Due to not being able to afford child care it was a choice I had
to make either get on welfare and
get 4C program while attending
school. Or stop school and struggle
with just a babysitter to watch my
boys while I work. I feel that the
system tried to keep me down. I
could no longer afford childcare so
when my children reached 7 and
11, I relocated to Florida where the
laws were different for children
of that age to be left home alone.
Struggling to take care of my children the legal, honest way has and
continues to be a struggle.
While I sit and watch other parents on foodstamps, Medicaid and
low-cost housing and day care with
more materialistic things. Woman
I know are choosing to work part
time jobs just so they can get foodstamps and low-income day care.
Why are their pantries fuller than
mine? I work, pay taxes and get
nothing for free. It is almost as if I
am punished for not being on the
system. My children and I shopped
and continue to shop at Goodwill
and or clearance racks. Also they
were never able to join any extra
activity programs because I either
could not afford it or did not qualify for low income. As the cost of
medications for their asthma and
my sons Narcolepsy medications
can never be considered when it
comes to low income programs.
I do not allow these hardships
to stop me but we have to live day
by day. Now that my boys are older,
I am enrolled in college (yep, with
student loans). LOL. My 20-year-old
g
21
is also in college and has trouble
holding or finding work due to
economy. Funny, but I can not get
certain benefits because he is over
18-years-old yet I am responsible
for his college education until he
is 24. I don’t get it, but I will not
sit and try to figure it out – I’ll continue to do the right things for the
right reasons.
Patti
At $160 a week for daycare per
child part time or not, WHO can
AFFORD that? NO ONE. Except
you got it, the RICH. Especially ppl
making min wage.
I make more than min wage
and I could NEVER afford it. What
is wrong with these ppl who think
anyone can make it on that when
greedy corporations are now ruling
America. DISGUSTING. Revolution
coming.
Susan
I am sure that our situation is
not much different than many
other families. However, we are
two parents with education backgrounds and know the importance
of early learning and education.
However, forced to make difficult
financial decisions, we have two
young boys, ages 4 and 1, that
both stay home. We came to the
decision that for me, as a mother,
to go to work, and put two young
kids into a quality childcare facility
would far outweigh the financial
means. It isn’t worth it.
Childcare, daycare, preschool...
it is all so expensive, we cannot afford it. Instead, we’ve chosen to
pull together, struggle with our
financial issues for the time being,
and be a one income household.
We’ve chosen for myself to stay
home until they could go to regular
public school.
For us, being educationally informed, we have been able to
provide some of the resources and
22
information children need during these early years, but still are
missing out on the social aspect of
being in a classroom and amongst
other peers.
GEORGIA
Cheryl
I stopped working full time a
few years ago because with my job
making $42,000/year, I could not afford my childcare. I was incurring
expenses involved with working
that included parking, gas, dry
cleaning and of course childcare. After taxes, my net income
was roughly $600/month. This
was just not enough to continue
spending long hours away from
my toddler, so I stopped working
altogether.
I requested a part time arrangement that I was going to
do a job share with another colleague who also needed part
time. Both of our supervisors
turned us down flat.
So neither of us is in the workforce now. I’d like to go back to
work, but now since I’ve been
off, I believe employers are reluctant to hire me because I’ve only
been “a full time mom” for the
past few years. I have a masters
degree and am currently pursuing my doctoral degree. I believe
that had I been able to obtain affordable child care, I could have
remained in the workforce.
In the U.S., everyone is left
to fend for themselves when it
comes to childcare. This has the
net effect of there not being consistent high quality care available
to those that do not make six figure incomes.
I believe that for the good of
society as a whole, we should invest in subsidizing childcare. This
investment will pay off in the
well being of the children who
will grow up and become productive citizens themselves.
Evelina
The day care, Discovery Point,
my daughter was going to for
more than 2 years, closed in
one day, without any notice, on
Friday, June 11, 2010. If we unenroll a child we have to give 2
weeks notice. Why they don’t?
What about the moms who
work? And the kids’ feelings and
friendships with other kids?
Judy
May 2005,
my wonderful
daughter-in-law passed away from
cervical cancer, leaving a husband
and young son of 21 months behind. My husband and I has just
retired (2 hrs away) We then had to
help my son with some of the daycare as it was very costly and sometimes he did not get home in evenings until very late (on the road,
traffic, delays etc.) So, of course,
we had to help by picking the child
up, as it was very costly after hours
and quite frankly, they closed. So I
do think help should be there for
young families when they are in
need.
Kaleema
I began looking at daycares
while I was still pregnant and became immediately disappointed
and overwhelmed. The daycare
centers were overcrowded and
overpriced! When I did background
checks on the home daycares they
had far too many infractions to
trust them with my child. However
in the midst of the darkness I found
a bright light and that was the
Elaine Clark Center for Exception
Children in Chamblee, Ga.
I admit that initially I overlooked
the Center because it did not have
all of the “state of the art” bells and
whistles I saw at some other centers
and I mistakenly thought it was exclusively for children with disabilities.
However I soon realized that the
over-crowded “state of the art” cen-
MomsRising.org
ters forgot the most important job
and that was preparing and molding young lives for a positive and
productive future; making personal
individual attention and building
self esteem the biggest ingredient.
Their student-teacher ratio is better
than the state requirement. It also
turned out that inclusion of all children with disabilities was the icing
on the cake!!
I left my job in April of 2008 because the cost of childcare was too
expensive and I do not understand
how the cost of an essential service
for working adults can be so high
that it can ultimately push a family
to stop working instead of encouraging parents to continue to work
by lessening the cost of childcare.
And with all of that, they are
the best bang for your buck in my
area so I don’t feel bad while I am
struggling with the fees. At least I
am very confident in the service and
I don’t have to worry about my son
while I am working full-time.
I am not the only one who goes
through this. It often seems as if
you must choose; career or parent.
I know many people who decide to
stay home and not even attempt to
work because they know how much
childcare cost. I don’t think it is fair
for someone to have to choose career over parenting or vise versa.
It is my hope that there can be
some services for mothers like myself who work full time but still cannot keep up with the demands of
childcare. There is a serious gap in
this country because the working
Mom (I am recently divorced) usually is not eligible for any child care
assistance but is still barely making
ends meet. This gap is full of us and
we are not being heard!
Please regulate the cost of childcare or fund programs that will
provide an alternative for parents
who wish to advance their career
and raise a family simultaneously. Often times, if we can make it
through the childcare days, our
careers have moved forward and
finances are not an issue any longer but we often are not given a
chance to progress.
LaShea
Shana
I want to share a quick story. I
started my federal career in November of 2005 as a federal contractor with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. I had
2 little ones when I started working and during my time working at
CDC I conceived another child and
had a son.
Childcare for the dual working
family is crucial. Times are tough
and families of all income levels
need access to the best early learning childcare experience for their
children. I am hoping that legislators will find a way to relate to every day families enough to continue
government programs that provide
parents with access to quality early
learning childcare.
My cost for childcare for 3 children was $360/week and that was
a discounted fee for parents with
multiple children. Starting off, my
salary was $34,000 and that meant
after I paid childcare each week, I
had roughly $100 left to take care
of gas, groceries, etc. My husband
and I soon decided, after trying to
maintain for a year and 2 months,
that we would be better off if I
stayed home with my kids until 2
of them were at least in Kindergarten.
MomsRising.org
As a mother of three, all of
whom have enjoyed the educational benefits of private prekindergarten and kindergarten,
I have not had the need for government assistance. BUT as the
new owner of my own childcare
early learning center, I see daily
the need for wonderful families
of lower income levels to have access to assistance in order to give
their children the same or similar
opportunities as children of more
affluent families.
By providing the financial resources to early childhood education for all income levels, our country will continue its trend of being a
leader among all nations. Without
access to early childhood education
for all families, we are on our way
to becoming a third world country!
We must invest in our future, starting with the children!
Tashana
First, I would like to talk about
how hard it is to be eligible for
Headstart programs. I was able to
put my oldest daughter into the
program, but when it came time to
put my youngest daughter into the
program, I almost didn’t qualify.
There is only one Headstart program for 3 yr olds in my county.
That is ridiculous! This is a great
program for our children and it
needs to be available everywhere.
We have so many Pre-K programs
around Georgia that are lottery
funded, why can’t it be the same
for Headstart. Also, the eligible income is too low! When I was first
told about the income for my size
family, which is a family of 4, I was
shocked! No one can really survive
off less than $25,000 a year – it’s
crazy. There needs to be something
done about that, some kind of
funds set aside. Second, I am also a
childcare provider, so I understand
that parents want the best care
for their children while they are at
work. I also understand the heartache and pain that comes with trying to find affordable childcare in
the location desired. That isn’t easy
either. Some parents still need to
apply for childcare assistance just
to be able to pay the bill. And even
with those programs, funding is
not always available, or it doesn’t
last! This is absurd!
The state, the congress, everyone needs to help parents like
g
23
me be able to have piece of mind
about paying childcare fees, dropping our kids off at a great daycare
so that mothers and fathers can go
to work with no worries about anything.
Varda
I recently had my first baby, and
finding the right infant care was
hard. It’s expensive, so I had to balancing quality of care against price
against convenience.
I took the risk of leaving my
baby with a neighbor that I knew
only slightly – she has two boys and
is trying to stay home with them.
It was a little scary but has worked
out fabulously. I appreciate her experience as a mom and love that
my baby is getting the true home
environment at her house. It is also
about half the cost of the child care
facility I would have used otherwise (so child care costs only pinch
and don’t hurt) and supports my
husband’s and my flexible schedules. Finally, she will take my baby
if I absolutely can’t stay home with
baby when baby’s sick – that was a
lifesaver when my baby was sick for
20 days straight a month ago.
Yolanda
I received quality care and learning at two different facilities. They
offered different curriculum. One
was ABEKA and the other is We
Learn. I made a choice to pay for private daycare. I do think that parents
should be involved at home with
what their children need to know
for school, but I also think that they
need to place their kids in the prek programs that are available if they
do not have the time to do so.
I do feel that the daycare centers
overcharge for before and aftercare for those whose parents work
8-5 or 9-6 jobs. You end up paying
more for before and aftercare than
you would if they are enrolled in a
private daycare.
24
ILLINOIS
Amy
Yesterday after picking up my
daughter from preschool at Barbara Vick Early Childhood Center in
Chicago I found a letter from the
principal which read:
“Dear Parents, I have some very
difficult news to share. Monday
morning I received a phone call
from Dr. Barbara Bowman, Chief
Early Childhood Officer. She indicated that due to the fiscal crisis in
the State of Illinois, all of the Preschool for All (PFA) early childhood
classrooms at the Barbara Vick Center will not be funded next school
year. This includes morning, afternoon, and third shift. One hundred
and eighty children at the Vick
Center will not have access to a
preschool education. 10,000 early
childhood children will be affected
city wide. The Office of Early Childhood is using socioeconomic status
(I.e. free and reduced lunch counts)
to determine which PFA classrooms
will be funded for the 2010-2011
school year. Only PFA classrooms in
schools with a poverty rate of 93%
or greater be funded next school
year.
The Office of Specialized Services has not indicated that there
will be any changes/cuts to the special education program next school
year. However, the elimination of
the PFA classrooms will translate to
no blended classrooms next school
year. Sixty children with Individual
Education Programs will not be educated with their typically developing peers...”
I, along with several other parents at Barbara Vick Early Childhood & Family Center are disheartened. My daughter is in an IEP and
I believe the reason for her success
is greatly due to the blended classroom environment that Barbara
Vick offers.
The removal of PFA in Chicago
Public School is an outrage. It forces many things:
1. My special needs child will attend a school not in my neighborhood and potentially a dangerous
neighborhood because my neighborhood is not at the 9% poverty
rate. This means I have to choose
between her and my family’s safety
and her education, not to mention
the extra gas money it will entail
driving her to another school.
2. My other child that could attend preschool next year can no
longer, as I can not afford to send
him to a private preschool and he
has not been identified as needing an IEP. This now threatens his
future education as studies have
shown the importance of early education being the building foundation.
3. I also had planned on my children attending CPS for Kindergarten/Elementary School. However
along with the cutting of PFA, CPS
passed a 4 day school week. They is
not an answer to budget issues and
concerns me what further actions
CPS will do. I now have to consider how in this terrible economy
I can come up with tuition money
for private schools. We are among
the many “new poor” (middle class
families who have used government help for the 1st time) with
the inability to sell our house, and
the months we were on unemployment due to layoffs in my husbands
work. I do not know how we can
come up.
We recently moved to Chicago
in a better neighborhood from the
suburbs and with our higher taxes
we are not even given education
for our preschoolers and now the
education for all is at risk. We have
already increased our income we
side jobs and decreased our expenses forgoing many “normal”
societal standards such as cable TV
subscriptions (we have been without that for years actually!)
So I know that Early Childhood
was being threatened nationally
but now that it is affecting my kids
directly because of Illinois’s terrible
MomsRising.org
state budget cuts, I am looking to
fight more! Off to make some call
and write some letters, and then
praying!
Clara
I just read the message regarding the need for finding and funding quality, affordable, and safe
childcare. My thoughts are that the
legislature needs to review the tax
deduction allowance for childcare.
I believe right now it maxes out
at $5,000 depending on income. I
am grateful that I have a quality,
safe childcare center. My husband
and I both work. We have 3 children under the age of 10. We hit
our $5,000.00 max back in May. I
think that the tax law needs to be
reviewed since so many parents are
going back into the work force.
Our representatives need to
take a look at what quality daycare
really costs in this country and think
about what they can do to help the
parents of our next generation get
the best start that they can.
Darci
Child care for two children =
$1200/month. No assistance for the
middle class, therefore, I had to
give up my work to raise my children. Now I get assistance for being
poor. What a great country we live
in (insert sarcasm).
Denise
I own a home daycare in Downers Grove, Illinois. It is so rewarding
to be able to work with children of
all ages. I have had the same group
of kids for 4 years. I get them at 3
months and they stay with me until
first grade. It’s amazing watching
them grow into such smart, loving
and imaginative kids. I dreamed of
opening a daycare center, but I feel
I would miss out on that close bond
I am able to have with children in
the smaller group. Our group stays
at 4-6 kids. [email protected]
MomsRising.org
Devorah
I have 2 sons who are 5 years
apart. The first one was born in
October of 1979 and I lived in Evanston, Illinois which had an organization called 4Cs (Community Coordinated Child Care) and they helped
me find 2 amazing child care providers. Two of the reasons we chose
to buy a house in Evanston was because of Full Day Kindergarten and
4Cs. Terri took care of my son from
1980 to 1983 (I had maternity leave
until the end of January 1980), at
which time he entered pre-school.
My younger son was born in 1984
and Ethel took care of him until
1989, at which time he entered preschool at my local YMCA which was
also terrific. I was fortunate to have
a good job (as did my husband) and
we picked a good community that
had the services that we needed to
raise our children.
thing extra is not something we do.
Some months I have to dip into my
savings account to make ends meet.
I worry constantly that my 10-yearold car that has 160,000 miles on it
will simply stop working.
I make way too much money to
qualify for childcare assistance and
while I am certainly not looking for
a hand out, I could definitely use
help. I don’t need someone to pay
for all of my childcare, just a small
percentage of it.
I am thankful that I qualify for
AllKids, Illinois’ health insurance
for children, because even though
my school district pays for my insurance, it would be $500 a month
to have my son on my policy. With
AllKids I pay $40. It would be helpful to me and many other struggling families to have a similar
sliding scale allowing families with
slightly higher incomes to receive
assistance with child care.
Elizabeth
I am a single mother to a 2 year
old. After staying home with my
son for a year, I found myself alone
and needing to return to my job as
a teacher. Being a teacher means I
have summers off and all the major holidays, which is good because
my son’s preschool closes for most
holidays, but it also means making the childcare payment every
month puts a major dent in my
paycheck. Living in Chicago, my
rent takes one paycheck on it’s own
and my son’s school takes 80% of
the second. I don’t live in a luxury
apartment, just one that is safe
and clean, but with rent being at a
premium right now, I couldn’t find
anything cheaper without sacrificing cleanliness or safety. My son attends a fancy school. Again it’s just
somewhere I feel comfortable leaving him every weekday morning as
I head to work.
So I make sacrifices every day.
We are able to live within our
means, but we stick to a very strict
budget. Eating out, buying new
clothes, going on vacation, or any-
Heather
My husband was recently laidoff his primary job. He does have a
second part-time job that he could
work more hours at, however, because of the cost of childcare, it
would actually be BETTER financially for us for him to stay home
and collect unemployment. If he
tried to work more hours at his
part-time job, the cost of childcare
would put us “in the hole” each
month because his part-time wages
are not enough to equal what he
was making at both his primary
and secondary jobs. Whereas, if he
stays home, and we are not shelling
out money for the cost of childcare,
the amount of money he collects
on unemployment will be enough
for us to get by.
It is a pretty sad state of affairs
in our nation when a person who
wants to work and could work
more at a part-time job until he
can find another primary job can-
g
25
not work more because he cannot
afford for his children’s daycare.
So, we have become a drain on our
state’s resources in two ways, not
only collecting unemployment but
also not providing a job for someone else (our daycare provider).
It is not something we enjoy and
hope that another job comes up
for him soon, but with the state of
the economy right now, we know
that this could be our new reality
for awhile.
Not only is it disheartening to
be out of a job, but we risk losing
the great daycare provider we had
to another family, so that when my
husband does return to full-time
work it is possible that our children
will have to be put with a different
daycare provider than the provider
they have all had since they were 8
weeks old. In fact, our provider is
like a 3rd grandmother to our children and that kind of love and caring is hard to replace.
I was literally in tears when I
had to take my children from their
daycare provider on that last day,
knowing that my children love her
and knowing that they would ask
why they weren’t going to her anymore and thinking of how I was to
explain the situation to them. It is
definitely a low point in our lives
right now and cutting funding for
daycare and early childhood learning will definitely not make anyone’s lives any better.
Jinki
I sent my daughter to school as
early as 3 years old. It was very expensive but rewarding. She learned
how to read and write better than
the rest of her classmates when she
was in kindergarten. We were so
surprised on their kinder graduation when she read a letter for
teachers and parents. At the end
of her first grade, she was awarded
with the highest achievement in
major subjects. Now she’s in 5th
grade and remains an “A” student.
We also sent her brother and sister
26
to school when they were 3 and doing well as well. Her brother is 4 yrs.
old and her sister is 5 yrs. old.
Sending them to school at the
early age also gave me the opportunity to do household works and
gave me enough time to rest.
Kim
My son, now 7, has been in
childcare over 3 years now. Thankfully the state helps pay for the
care or I would be in trouble. Looking for care was a bit of a daunting
task. The program Illinois Action
For Children gave us a list and said
tell us where he will go. We spent
some time going to the facilities
and meeting the personnel.
When we decided on one we
went back to fill out the paperwork
and overheard one of the adults
talking badly to the children. When
questioned she became rude and
told us to mind our own business.
So we continued to look around
and finally found The Pillars in
Hickory Hills. They helped with the
paperwork and are wonderful people to be around. They taught my
son sooo much he became very into
learning his abc’s, numbers, etc... I
watched him grow as he learned
the rules of society and becoming
his own person.
I believe without that early development and interaction my son
may be in a different place today.
By the time he was in kindergarten
he was used to being in a school
like structured place. Adapting into
kindergarten seemed pretty easy
compared to some of the others in
his class according to other moms.
He enjoyed the learning and influences of the other children around
him. I know picking him up how
much good the program helped my
baby.
Then when he went into school
and we needed child care for after
school. We luckily found another
excellent facility through the park
district. He loves going to be with
the kids and getting homework
done before getting home. The socialization skills has helped my shy
son to not only fit in but he loves
everybody and fits in with anyone.
I believe he has flourished because
of these programs.
I spend time teaching my son as
best as I can but can’t be with him
24 - 7 and I’m very grateful someone is helping us along.
His father is disabled and not
able to care for our son. I don’t
know what I would have done if
this program didn’t help low income people. I could go on and on
but the bottom line is ...
Please don’t cut these programs.
The children are our future don’t
we deserve to give them the best
environment, learning, love, respect and experience we possibly
can?
I know child care was a better
decision than some stranger watching my child, add in the learning
and he’s more well rounded!
Maria
I am a grandmother of a 2 year
old. She attends daycare where
English and Spanish is spoken.
In my household, mainly English is spoken. She has been slow
in verbally expressing herself to
the point that my daughter asked
her doctor if something was wrong
with her child.
When I take her to daycare I
usually speak Spanish with the staff
and sometimes at home I will use
the language but not that often.
To my surprise one day I went to
pick her up from daycare and all
of a sudden she asked me for my
hand IN SPANISH. She is learning
both languages and she uses both
at home. So when she was not talking she was just taking all in.
So, to have daycare centers that
will help your child develop while
parents are at work is money well
spent on our future which are our
MomsRising.org
children. It is a lot better than
putting a child in front of a TV to
watch cartoons and waste their
developing mind. So, yes, daycare
and early childhood education is a
fundamental to our future that are
the children.
Marianne
I am an assistant head start
teacher. Until I worked in a head
start classroom, I had no idea how
much goes into this program for
at risk children. Our center is 85%
Hispanic. Many of the children and
parents do not speak English. Children are not separated into age
groups, but spend the time with
one teacher, and the same children.
There are family involvement specialists who make sure the children
get the medical, dental and other
care that they need, including psychological evaluation and early
speech intervention.
Without this program these
children would be lost in a regular school setting. There is nothing
like watching these children blossom and realize their potential –
children in a silent period which is
typical of English language learners
suddenly chattering away in English, or a child who screams, cries
and hides the first day of school
making friends and learning how
to go down the slide. This program
respects the culture and involves
the family while teaching them
how to learn in their new environment. I wish there was funding to
expand this to the rural south.
Mary
When my daughter was little,
my only monthly expense that was
higher than daycare was the mortgage. That was a long time ago,
but I don’t think that things have
changed in that respect. Waiting lists and finding a place that
opened early enough – I had a long
commute to work – were difficulties to surmount. And even though
MomsRising.org
daycare centers were expensive, I
don’t think they paid the workers
very well, so there was a lot of turnover in some of the places.
There was a particular daycare
center that was not part of a commercial chain, but a private business operated by two very dedicated and caring women and a
very good staff. Unfortunately, we
moved to another town and had to
take what we could get.
Kids spend a lot of time not only
with parents, but with teachers and
daycare workers. It is important
that the daycare centers have good
quality and stability. It is almost impossible for families to keep their
heads above water only one salary
and there are many single parents
with no choice on the issue.
Mary Kay
When my daughter Lucy was 1
year old, we moved from Brooklyn back to Chicago. We found a
wonderful in-home daycare with a
mother and daughter care-taking
team. Lucy enjoyed a year plus in
their apartment with a living room
full of toys, games and activities –
lots of love and good care. Then,
one day (out of the blue) the family mentioned they were going
out of business in a couple weeks,
planned to move out of town, etc.
We weren’t sure what to do because we knew nannies were above
our price point and we liked Lucy
being in a social setting. While Lucy
was 2-years-old at this point and
would be eligible for a child-care
center, the few centers in/near our
neighborhood were too expensive
or had waiting lists of 6 months
plus.
The time-line went much faster
than expected. They told us on
a Thursday and by the following
Monday, the living room was totally empty – you could literally
see outlines on the carpet and wall
where toys and activity stations
used to stand! This experience was
so disappointing and crushing for
all of us.
We were in a jam and totally had
to scramble with me working fulltime with travel and my husband a
full-time student and working parttime. We both had to take time off
and were able to squeeze Lucy in to
a wonderful childcare center that we
all LOVED for another year plus (until
we moved to a new neighborhood).
The elements we loved most about
the childcare center was the learning through play philosophy, great
spaces – rooms were bright, colorful, clean, well organized and FULL
of awesome activities - sand/water
tables, musical instruments, dress-up,
building blocks, writing stations, etc.
We’ve gone through the search
process all over again with our second child – our son Charlie who is
currently 2 1/2. Going through this
twice, I often reflect on the challenge of childcare: it’s difficult to
find, it can be expensive, it takes a
lot of trust to leave your child while
you go away to work, and it’s obvious that many childcare providers
don’t provide well enough for their
employees.
Renuka
As we move our youngest into
the preschool era, I worry about the
quality and affordability child care
has become in the recent years. I
know Head Start is an option, but
unfortunately as a two-income
middle class household, we do not
make the cut as low income parents.
Therefore, we must put our 3-yrs old
into private day care which costs anywhere from $100-400/week! I believe
in the power of education, but at
what price? I would like my daughter to succeed and maybe eventually
attend a gifted or classical elementary school, but this means I must pay
the high price of preschool. I never
imagined that having children can
become such a financial nightmare. I
thank my stars daily that my children
g
27
are healthy and strong girls so that
when their day to face the world
comes, they will be ready.
Sarah
I have been fortunate enough
to have my parents and my in-laws
involved in the care of my two children while I work. I am also fortunate, at this point, to be working
part-time and for a company who
is very flexible with me. Our childcare arrangements are constantly
evolving and I work around sitters’
schedules. Currently, my mother
watches my kids in her home a couple of times each month. My in-laws
watch my kids in our home once or
twice a month. And we have babysitters who cover the other days (in
our home as well) while I work.
I decided when we had children
and went back to work full-time,
that eventually I would get to a
situation where the family was always tipping the balance. I finally
have that balance. It is not without
sacrifice, as we can always use the
extra income, however, we believe
that having me at home with our
kids as much as possible, while still
keeping up with my career while
raising our small children, is very
important. We also are constantly
evaluating the cost of childcare and
my income... as most families do.
I feel deeply for the moms who
are not able to be at home with
their kids more often and want to.
And I know that childcare is a very
challenging issue for many working
parents and wish there were more
resources to help families, especially single moms.
Shanita
I am a mother of three children
so daycare has always been an issue
for my family. Two years ago I could
not afford to pay for childcare and
according to my state my income
was too high for the child care assistance program, simply because
they based guidelines on gross in-
28
come vs NET income – the actual
pay you take home. My husband
and I worked opposite shifts, but
still needed care for about 2-3 hours
in the afternoon.
We hired a teenager in the
neighborhood we felt comfortable
with, and things were going well.
Up until a few months later when
late one night while my family and I
were sleeping, someone robbed our
house. I was awaken to see police
standing in my bedroom door. The
person of interest in the case, my
babysitter and her boyfriend, who
both were later caught breaking
into another home. I felt so violated
and used. I trusted the babysitter
and this is what happened. She never returned not even giving notice
and I had to scramble to make alternate arrangements.
I am so glad and blessed that
when it was time for my middle
child to go to school they had all
day kindergarten so that, I only had
to pay for one kid to go to daycare
full time. Even that was expensive
and I believe in paying for education, but to get no support from
the government is crazy. We want
our kids to do better and be able to
compete in a global economy, that
starts with a good education which
starts at the 2-3 year old level and
not at the elementary school level.
More support needs to be given to
early child hood programs like head
start, and the range of people provided this service needs to be expanded and based on net income.
Sorry this is lengthy but this is
something I feel very passionate
about. I even wrote emails to my
senators in Illinois and got no response. so sad my kids were not
even worth a response.
Wendy
I’m extremely fortunate in that
I do have choices for child care
and can afford to choose the best
choice for my family. Our local
school district has an excellent and
fairly affordable program for kin-
dergartners and an after school
program. I work part time, but
over half of my income goes to
child care. This will be the first year
that we can actually claim child
care expenses on our taxes, as we
were previously using a nanny and
paid her under the table.
At times, it doesn’t feel worth
it financially to continue working
when after taxes, child care and
commuting costs, I take home so
little. But I like being out of the
house a few days a week, I feel
committed to my job/profession
and I hope that when my kids are
in school full days(not for several
years), I will see the payoff financially.
I know I’m very fortunate that
I can afford good child care and
that my community has some good
options. It was very stressful putting together our child care plan
this year with our son starting kindergarten. I shudder to think of
what it’s like for families with little
to no choice in child care.
INDIANA
Beth
My husband and I both work but
believed one of us should be available for our son during the first
year of his life beyond evenings
and weekends. Part-time daycare
just isn’t available outside of inhome options. But all of those we
checked out had what we believed
to be serious issues.
So I work part-time since we
couldn’t afford for me to quit my
job completely and we pay for our
son to go to daycare. Only there is
no part-time fee arrangement. So
we’re paying as if he were there
full-time.
Although we believed we were
providing him with the best of both
worlds (socialization with peers
and bonding with a parent) we
could not find a suitable care option that coincided with our plans.
MomsRising.org
Because we chose to go with
a daycare that carries one of the
highest tuition rates in our area,
we are struggling. But we couldn’t
not think of sending him to a subpar institution. (One caregiver, for
instance, admitted an employee
had been diagnosed with H1N1
yet her in-home daycare was still
operating because she said she
needed the money.)
Carol
I am a Paths to Quality mentor.
I was a CDA instructor for 8 years
and an adjunct instructor for 3 in
the ECE field.
I go all over Lake, Porter and
LaPorte Counties aiding and empowering child care providers in
improving their childcare settings
through a set of standards and Indicators designed by the state of
Indiana. I also work in the Child
Care Resource and Referral Office.
Children and Families are in need
of quality childcare.
Kathleen
I’m a full-time working mother
with two children in full-time daycare, ages 1 and 4. Fortunately I
have a wonderful education centered daycare facility in our town.
However, affording it can be a
struggle. I pay more per month
in childcare expenses than I do for
my mortgage. My husband was
laid off from the Elevator Constructors union 16 months ago; he
continues to work part time but
we haven’t dared pull our girls
out of daycare for fear of being
without quality care when he is
called back to work due to waiting lists at our child care facility.
I don’t complain about paying for quality child care, as I see
the educational benefits already
in my 4 year old. However, what
I would like to see is the Dependent Care Spending account limits
raised. The current annual contribution limit of $5,000 per year
MomsRising.org
doesn’t being to cover one child
in full time quality day care, let
alone more than one child.
Mary F
I am at the “grandmother”
stage in the total child care picture,
but I feel very strongly that young
children NEED to know where they
are going to be after school. Before
and after school childcare is one of
the progressive ways to give kids
security.
These are not terribly expensive
programs, but it would be a hardship to my daughter if I were not
able to help with the cost. These
are the kinds of programs that Congress might cut, and it would be a
very big loss.
Sybil
While living in California, quality early education/childcare cost as
much as I was making. Not having
a career position as an executive
assistant, leaving the workforce
seemed the best option, given that
I would be working to hold a place
in a career path that was my second choice. (I have a Masters in
English.)
Even as a stay at home mom,
though, (in California and now in
Indiana) finding quality affordable
preschools is a challenge. Co-operatives are the most cost effective,
but full-time moms need preschool
not only for the benefits it provides
their children, but for the break it
provides the mom.
Moms are better at being moms
when they get spelled every now
and then. LaFayette Nursery School
in California is an awesome school.
Contra Costa County in California
does a great job in supporting
small children and their caregivers.
Tot Drop, an hourly by appointment preschool environment is an
amazing program. The park district
programs in the LaFayette, Moraga
and Ornida area are exemplary.
IOWA
Amy
The families in our community
are really struggling to find childcare for their children. Our only
center had to close because factory
layoffs made families unable to pay.
The only other center is in another
town, and they are completely full.
Parents without the option
of adjusting their work hours or
having family babysit are forced
to leave their children in private
homes, with people they don’t
know well. I am a Family Support
Specialist, and parents often come
to me asking for help in finding
safe childcare for their children.
Right now there’s not much I can
tell them.
Elizabeth
Twenty years ago my husband
left me with two sets of twins, 6
months and two years old. I was
the sole provider and had to work.
Iowa had a day care subsidy and
because a new daycare had just
opened I was able to place all 4
children in the same center. At first
we were trying to figure out how
to place the boys in as many as 3
separate daycares, a home day care
could not legally care for all of my
children because there were limits
on the number of children under a
certain age. I struggled for years to
keep a roof over our head and food
in their bellies, with very, very little
help from their father. Because I
had a child with special needs (Autism Spectrum) it was a constant
struggle to keep daycare. My annual income would pay for housing and health care and food and
the bare essentials but could not
accommodate four children in day
care. There were few alternatives, a
shelter or foster care I suppose.
Now my boys are grown up and
working and paying taxes, two are
serving in the military in Afghani-
g
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stan. My family could not have
survived without the daycare subsidy and were constantly in danger
of losing it, if I earned a dollar too
much I could lose the whole subsidy. Those were tough years, but we
survived with a lot of help and a lot
of creativity.
Jessica
Child Care is a big plus in todays
society. Especially with single moms
that get paid minimum wages and
can’t afford to pay out of pocket
because they’re living paycheck to
paycheck. I know I live paycheck
to paycheck. I have to pay my rent
plus my bills and that takes up my
only two checks a month that I get
from work.
Childcare also teaches your child
to be independent. Not only because they’re not with you 24/7 but
because it teaches them to mind for
other people as well. It also teaches
them to get along with other children and to see how other people
live as well. The childcare provider
I have right now is awesome. She is
the best one I have had yet. She is
good with my kids as well as making them mind and listen to her.
The early learning is an awesome
idea. It keeps the kids learning and
makes them want to learn more.
It advances their education. Don’t
take the childcare and early learning away please.
equate training is a big issue, but
even more critical is the impossible
expense it presents. Please help get
the word out that finding appropriate child care is especially difficult
if your child has special needs, and
the care is often beyond the family’s resources because it is much
more expensive.
Shelley
I have struggled to find affordable Childcare and Preschool.
When I was a full-time student, I
was provided childcare assistance
through DHS. If not for this program, I could not have earned my
degree.
Now that I am working fulltime, I am not eligible for assistance and do not make enough
for full-time childcare. I have
had to rely on my mother to help
watch my 4 year-old. I checked
into several providers that offer childcare and early-learning
combined. These services would
take up about 45% of my monthly
earned income. It comes down to
a choice between providing my
child with an early learning experience or buying groceries.
I finally did find a reasonably
priced pre-school at a local church.
KANSAS
Claire
Kim
My daughter has autism and at
school she requires a one-on-one
aide throughout the school day.
When school is out, my daughter
still requires a high degree of adult
supervision. I am a single mother
who must work full-time to support us. I cannot afford to pay an
aide an hourly rate of $10 an hour
or more for every hour my daughter is out of school and I must be at
work. This becomes acutely problematic over the summer months.
Finding child care with ad-
30
You may not like this, but my
daughter will be 4 tomorrow. I
have worked part time and the
majority of the time, have chose
to be a SINGLE stay at home mom.
My daughter is well beyond what
children in her age group are doing, and I feel that because I have
stayed home with her she is WAY
better off. I get very aggravated
by people who choose to work
and say that they can’t afford to
stay home and raise their children.
There is a difference between
CAN’T and WON’T. It seems to me
that people are getting more and
more selfish. They would rather
send their child to a ‘preschool’ and
work so that they can have cable,
fancy phones, and an gas guzzling
SUV than make sure their child is
secure and able to spend valuable
time with a parent. If a child got
10 to 12 hrs of sleep and is at daycare for 8 to 9 hrs. That leaves AT
BEST 6 hours a day for that child to
be with their parents. This doesn’t
include the time they are eating, or
in the bathroom, or playing while
mom and dad are eating or in the
bathroom....or for ‘me’ time.
I would rather spend the majority of the day with my child and
know that I enjoyed molding them
into a good person, than hoping
that the caregiver can give my child
a fraction of her time. If it were
up to me, I think that government
money would be better spent on
people raising their own children
than what is currently happening.
It works in other countries, and
they are obviously more successful
in education and family life than in
the USA.
Kristin
Where I live, “there are only 78
child care spots for infants at registered Douglas County child care
centers” for the estimated 1,150
babies born in Lawrence every year.
This does not include those babies,
like my daughter, who were born
at other regional medical centers.
At daycare centers, those spots can
cost upwards of $1,000 per month,
and many require reserving (and
paying) for those spots, sometimes
several months in advance, before
the child is old enough to go to
daycare.
That’s 1/3 of my income as a
postdoc, and we also have three
school-age children, making daycare centers totally unaffordable.
We were fortunate to find a wonderful licensed in-home provider
with more reasonable rates, but
those spots are also difficult to get.
MomsRising.org
Stephanie
I once had a great and wonderful child care provider. She
was an angel sent from above.
She was by the book but cared
for each of my girls like they
were her own. From potty training to alphabets and activities
to her wonderful and healthy
menus she was amazing.
But Lexie’s Law closed her
doors. She would have loved to
continue providing care for her
kids but she could not afford the
renovations and regulations.
My cousin and my Aunt have
both been forced to close their
doors as well.
These women
were wonderful amazing people
who I would trust with my own
life let alone my children.
I’m not saying that Lexie’s Law
was bad but the regulations and
laws really put parents in a pinch.
It’s not every child care providers
fault for awful people. It’s the
state that lets them run. As for
affording daycare it is what it is.
If you want good daycare you
pay for it. If you don’t you let
the state (local tax payers) pay
for it. It was difficult finding another provider to watch my kids
but its the job of the parents to
do so.
To me its the worst thing ever
starting a new daycare provider,
but its not the end of the world.
If you have a bad feeling about
the person who is watching your
kids then pull them and find
new... if you can’t afford daycare
stay home with your kids, my tax
money will go to it one way or
another.
I was a single mom for 6 years
and I busted butt to find and
keep my daycare, but the more
regulations that our “too big”
government puts on people and
the private sector the harder its
going to be for the good people
to run their own business or keep
their daycare provider.
MomsRising.org
KENTUCKY
Amberly
I have 2 foster children currently in my home. I have had both on
the waiting list for childcare at a
nonprofit, nationally-accredited
agency for over 2 years now, and
am still waiting. There are very
few resources in my urban community that provide safe and affordable childcare services, and
this continues to be a struggle for
my family. These children have
suffered enough at the hands of
their previous caretakers.....and
they deserve better!
Amy
I have 2 young children in daycare. They attend a facility which
is designated for faculty, staff,
and students of the University I
work for, as well as participants of
a program called Scholar House,
which helps single mothers obtain
a college degree.
We love the environment
there, it is a great school. However, we may be forced to take
them out due to how expensive it
is. My husband lost his job in the
beginning of this year, and we applied for daycare assistance. We
were placed on a limited program
that helped us tremendously! The
only problem is that the funding
for that program ran out at the
end of September. We went from
paying $115 per week for both
children, to a whopping $310 per
week!!
Needless to say we are now
about 3 weeks behind and don’t
know where to turn. My husband
is currently working again, but
making half of what he previously
did. The next time I receive a paycheck, the entire thing will go to
daycare, which of course leaves
no money for bills or food. Not to
mention that we will not even be
caught up.
The price of childcare is absurd
and most people can not afford
it. It makes it very hard to keep a
job when you are basically working to pay for child care. I think
that child care should be something that is reasonable enough
for all families to afford so that
people can get back to work. It’s
good for families, the economy,
and the country in general. It’s
time the government started taking better care of the families of
this country.
Jessi
When my babysitter retired,
my daughter was 18 months old.
We were shocked to discover the
terrible choices in child care in
our area. We couldn’t afford the
really good centers and many of
the others were obsessed with
meeting state minimums for CPR
training, food choices, etc. We finally settled on a place that was
just a bit out of our price range
and seemed like a good choice. A
few months later, my daughter’s
teacher left and was replaced.
Almost immediately, the behavior issues started and then a few
weeks later, we started finding
the marks.
My daughter was being abused
at daycare. Pulling her out was a
leap of faith. I had to get her away
from these horrible people, but
I had no where to send her and
no time to take off work to keep
her at home, take her to counseling or interview new centers. We
eventually found a new place to
send her and worked with them
until she got through her trauma.
In the meantime, I had to continue paying the abusive center because of my contract with them,
meaning that for two weeks, we
had to make two daycare payments (neither of which were actually affordable).
No parent should ever have to
choose between losing their job
and protecting their child’s safety.
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Melissa
No one can afford childcare or
school anymore and if they can,
they’re barely making it. And it
cause they wanted the child to
have a great education at a good
school that they have to pay for
and really can’t afford and chose
to live check to check to pay for
it and the same for daycare you
want to get them in there early so
that they can be learning instead
of being with an in-home provider who has them watching TV all
day and there’s not always good
things on TV or education so you
sacrifice to put them in daycare
to start learning and interacting
with other kids to build up the
self esteem and better them for
the further.
So, parents all mothers will
do what ever it takes to get their
child or children a great education and struggle while doing it
because they know in the long
run hopefully it pays off and if not
they still know their son or sons or
daughters had a great education.
Assistance only to be turned down
twice this year alone....1st we
made too much... I bring home
under $700 every two weeks and
our mortgage is $985, and that
doesn’t include food and utilities
and BASIC NECESSITIES.
I just applied again about 1
month ago, in desperation due to
the fact that he has now lost his
job, not knowing that now both
parents have to still be currently
working to receive assistance – it
doesn’t count that you are out every day looking for a new job.
So now I’ll have to take my son
out of daycare because we can’t
afford the tuition and keep him
home with dad but at the same
time dad needs to be out pounding the pavement applying for
new jobs, which he can’t do with
a 3 year old tagging along with
him.
I hate this. It’s very stressful for
us right now. It’s a tug-of-war...
pay the mortgage, buy food, or
pay daycare, or skip the mortgage
this month and buy his asthma
meds.
Shelly
Twins! Yippee! Infant daycarenightmare! I had enough money
left to buy groceries after paying
for daycare... that was working
full time... it was almost not worth
working, but we still would have
made too much money for any financial help if I had been able to
stay at home... messed up!
LOUISIANA
Colette
My husband and I have a beautiful 3 year old son. It’s been extremely difficult to keep him in
daycare. the weekly fee is $110.
With me taking a huge pay cut
after Hurricane Katrina, almost
$10,000 less a year now and my
husband taking a huge cut as
well. I have applied for Childcare
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MAINE
Deborah
Our daughter is a newly single
mother of 2 children under the age
of 2. In order to support them, she
needs to continue her work as a
High School Art teacher. The daycare closest to her work wants $400/
week ($1600/month). Of course we
will help her, but we are retirement
age. It seems that it would be in the
public interest to have some way
of helping single parents in our
daughter’s position.
Elizabeth
After struggling to become a
mother I wasn’t going to hand my
child off to just anybody. And both
my husband I need to work – we
live in rural Maine and employment
can be tricky. I mostly relied on a
few friends for a while, especially
while we used up our FMLA time,
my husband had 8 weeks paid, I
had none (we adopted and I did
manage to breastfeed for as long
as I could. A difficult process to get
started and even more complicated
by having to pump while at work).
When I had to go back full time
we struggled along working opposite schedules but that was not
working for anybody’s sanity. I
reduced my hours and we finally
found a day care we were willing
to use, Waldorf Philosophy. It was
started by a coworker at one of the
hospitals I work at and their philosophy is in line with our sense of
raising our child.
Even now we try to utilize child
care rarely, we did not become parents to have others raise our child.
Fortunately we have employers
who are willing to help us create a
family friendly schedule.
Jennifer
My daughter was on a waitlist
for 2 years to get into a wonderful program whose mission fit
perfectly with our values. Once
in, she was happy, her teachers
were great and we were happy.
Then after about a year, my husband was laid off from his job.
At first we didn’t consider pulling
our daughter out of childcarewe would need it soon enough,
we thought. But as the months
dragged on we needed to cut
more costs from our budget. We
were in a difficult predicaments, if
we pulled her from care we would
lose the spot, the spot we waited
2 years for and what would we do
if my husband did get a job? Ultimately, for financial reasons we
shifted her to part-time, and decided to roll the dice on whether
we would be able to find her fulltime care if needed.
My husband remained unemployed so we didn’t face that challenge; however, the second finan-
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cial blow to us was at tax time.
If you pay for childcare but one
spouse is unemployed the entire
year, you do not qualify for dependent care credits, a tax policy
that seems punitive without reason.
with our little girl. Of course, it
would be more costly for me NOT
to work, but now I have to pick
and choose what bills can slide
for an extra week or two so that
I can afford day care. There’s just
something wrong with that.
Being unemployed and looking
for work is not enough of a reason to need childcare, according
to the IRS. But I would argue that
if we had pulled our daughter out
of care completely and my husband found a job, we would not
have had any place for our daughter to go and he in fact would not
have been able to work; which,
ironically, is one of the questions
you must answer yes to in order to
receive unemployment benefits
(are you ‘able to work’).
And then there’s the problem
of what to do when she is sick
and can’t go to day care – either
I scramble at the last minute to
get coverage, or I stay home from
work.
Obviously I want to be with
my child when she is ill, but one’s
boss can only be so understanding before that causes problems
too. One day, it’d be nice for
women not to have to struggle
so much to provide for their families, even though day care is essential to be able to do it.
Jennifer
Just a quick one: the norm here
for all day care in a licensed facility
is $10,000/year. A good paying job
here (southern Maine) pays around
$30,000/year.
Sometimes it doesn’t seem to
make sense to let someone else
spend more waking hours with my
child than I do so I can take home
$20,000 before taxes.
Shawna
I am a singe parent and I cannot
work at a job because the daycare
expense costs more than what I
would bring home with. They cost
too much!
Susan
I bet there are a ton of other
people in the same boat as I am,
struggling to afford day care. My
toddler loves it and I am lucky
she is in a wonderful place. But at
$188/week, it’s killing us. That’s
roughly $750 per month, which
is more than half of our mortgage payment! And that’s only
for four days per week of care;
luckily, I have on day off to be
MomsRising.org
Tracy
One of my first jobs out of college was working at an Early Head
Start (infant to 3 years old). This
program was a life-saver for many
parents working 2, sometimes 3
jobs, or going back to school to
get an education.
Many families were receiving assistance, working, and still
struggling to make ends meet. I
saw first-hand what it meant to
our families to have a high-quality childcare, with trained and caring staff. I was also amazed at the
level of on-going training for all
staff. Head Start and other programs provide quality, affordable
child care which is a basic and critical need for so many families.
As a Mom of a one-year old,
and working part-time, I had to research and find childcare recently.
I found an affordable, wonderful,
small, home-based childcare that
my son loves, but I know many
families are not as fortunate.
We need to invest in early
childcare and education, the first
teachers of our children.
MARYLAND
Amelia
I am a single parent, and when
my son was younger he used to
have so many allergic reactions and
I was often in the emergency room.
So he had one of his episodes and
I was at the emergency room after
having been up since 5:30am and
working until 6pm. I told the doctor. that he is allergic to red dye so
not to order any meds with red dye
in them. She said the meds she ordered did not have red dye, and I
went to the pharmacy and picked
it up but did not check to see if it
was red. I drove 20 minutes to get
home, gave the child dinner and
bath and went to get the meds,
and guess what it was red!
I wrapped up the child, drove
20 minutes back to the pharmacy,
had it changed and driving back I
sat in traffic for 40 minutes, and
it was 11:45pm when I finally made
it home. I was scheduled to attend
a hearing the following morning at
9:00am and the baby sitter called
me at 8:15 saying she will not make
it. The only thing left to do was cry!
And now that he is in middle
school, I shell out hundreds of dollars a month for after school. I wonder what lawmakers think people
like me should do when they let
the kids out of school at 2:30 in the
afternoon. Does anyone care what
happens to kids between the time
they leave school and the parents
get home? Where should the kids
go to be safe, nurtured and entertained, or should there be an alternate work schedule for parents
with children younger than 15?
Claudia
Probably the most stressful experience of my life has been finding childcare for my now-toddler
aged daughter.
I know that I am one of the
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lucky ones. When my daughter was
born I qualified for full FMLA leave,
my large employer offered some
paid leave, I had decent affordable
healthcare and I was a professional
who made enough money pay my
bills. I would have loved to stay at
home with my child, but needing
said health insurance precluded
that option.
However, like many who work
in our nation’s capital, I live 2 hours
away from my job (in the far more
affordable city of Baltimore). I never imagined the challenge I would
find in finding a childcare center
that opened early enough for me
to still get to work on time. I never
imagined that a mother-to-be must
place an unborn child on a waitlist
in order to procure a coveted spot.
(Let me qualify that - I believe you
need to place your child on a waitlist for a slot before s/he is even a
gleam in their daddy’s eye!) And
while I believe that the people who
watch our children deserve far huger salaries than they normally get,
I never imagined that my monthly
childcare costs would equal the cost
of my mortgage!
I searched high and low for a
daycare that opened early near my
job, with the thought that perhaps
I could drag my poor child on the
commuter train with me each day
at the crack of dawn. I night have
well of been searching for a pot of
gold! Childcare centers “do” exist
in Washington - but try getting into
one, even if you work for the agency that gets priority on the waitlist!
Again, I am a lucky one. I eventually found a safe center located
on a hospital campus that mostly caters to doctors and nurses who have
12 hour shifts, and opens at 6:30am.
Luckier still, after only a few months
on their waitlist I was offered a spot
for my daughter. Even luckier still,
I somehow scrounged up the 1400/
month to afford it. I was lucky
enough to have an office where I
could at least pump my milk for her.
And finally, I was lucky to be able to
34
afford the center where my daughter spends so much of her day, a
safe place with warm and loving
staff, a place where she eventually
learned songs and was read to.
But being able to raise your kid
should NOT depend on dumb luck.
I have reconciled the fact that I
must drop my child off at daycare
before the sun rises. I am reconciled to the reality that should she
fall ill during the day, I need to embark on a two hour journey to pick
her up. But I know of so many
mothers (and fathers) who have it
even worse. Moms who rely solely
on public transportation and are
setting out at 4 am with their infants in tow to get them to a childcare center, and then embarking
on journeys to work. Single Moms
who have no paid sick leave and
no childcare alternatives if their
child is sick.
The situation for working parents in the US is a disgrace. Combine the lack of paid leave, with
poor transportation infrastructure,
with a lack of affordable, quality
daycare, and you a recipe for disaster - a generation of children who
lose out on precious time with
their moms and dads.
Dana
We are lucky and able to find
good childcare in the area we live
– outside Washington DC, but the
price for childcare is outrageous.
Come February, when I place my
second child into infant child care
along with my 4 year old son who
is in preschool/daycare, it will cost
my husband and I over $3200 a
month! Let me say it again... $3200
a month for 2 kids and the school
is a non profit! This price rises at
about 5% each year too. I haven’t
even gotten a raise in 2 years, let
alone enough to cover a 5% increase in day care costs every year.
$3200 is more then most mortgage
payments, which we also have to
pay. We only get to place $5000
a year into a dependant care ac-
count. That only covers 1.5 months.
Living within a major metropolitan
city is very expensive and while we
have lots of benefits, such as great
school systems, public transportation, high quality medical care,
jobs, etc, the ability for most middle class families to afford to live
here is overwhelming. To be able
to afford day care, my husband and
I have had to stop almost all contributions to our 401ks.
Congress needs to address that
fact that “middle class” in Washington DC metro area (or NYC,
San Fran, LA, etc) is very different
then “middle class” in say, St. Louis,
MO. Even though my husband and
I make over $200k a year, we can
barely afford day care and mortgage payments and are carrying
credit card debt just waiting for
the day the kids can go to public
school. If something should happen to us, our house or our car, we
have very little in reserves. The tax
system and dependant care allowances should be based on the average income in the area you live and
the amount you have to spend on
daycare/preschool.
And to dispel the myth that giving tax breaks to the wealthy will
trickle down, I want to point out
that I work for a very large, public,
extremely well known company. I
have been there for 10 years and
have always received high performance marks. My company currently has about $1 billion in reserves and makes millions every
year, but gave out NO raises or bonuses. A good year is when we get
a 2.5% salary increase, which isn’t
even a cost of living adjustment.
Debbie
I went back to work briefly after our first child was born, but a
few months later I found myself
in the role of a stay-at-home mom
expecting a second child. When
our daughters were 1 1/2 and 3, I
was enjoying them so much I became a family child care provider,
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adding more joy to our family. We
eventually had a third daughter,
who didn’t experience life without family child care until she
was 12. My children loved family
child care so much that they didn’t
like weekends when their friends
weren’t at our home with them.
But I was only able to work as a
family child care provider because
I had a husband with an income
that supported us.
Family child care providers’
greatest rewards for a job well
done are hugs and laughter from
loving children, and knowing we
have made a positive difference in
the lives of children. Unfortunately, the women who do the critically
important work of caring for and
educating our youngest children
are among the lowest paid workers in this country.
Heather
We had a nanny who we shared
with another family when my
daughter was just under 2 years
of age. The nanny turned out to
be quite paranoid and thought
that the other family was videotaping her in their home when she
was watching our daughter and
the other family’s daughter. The
other family was NOT video-taping her but the nanny just would
not listen to reason and the nanny
started claiming that she couldn’t
watch the children because she
just didn’t trust that she wasn’t being videotaped.
My big question was why
would she care if she was being
video-taped – what did she have
to hide? Finally the other family fired her on the spot one day
and we were without childcare
right then and there. I went from
a full-time working Mom to a fulltime-stay-at-home-Mom in less
than 24 hours. We never hired
another nanny after that horrible
experience. What a nightmare! I
wouldn’t wish that on my worst
enemy!
MomsRising.org
Janice
I am a parent of two children under 5, and a psychologist who specializes in working with children,
adolescents and young adults. I see
early learning and childcare from
both sides of the coin – as a parent who needs to find affordable
care for my daughters that I can
feel good about, and as a professional who works with children and
families to find programs that meet
their needs.
From both points of view I need
to say: We do not have enough
high quality, affordable options for
childcare and early education, and
the lack of these resources is directly related to a host of societal problems, including the education lag,
juvenile delinquency, obesity and
high/increasing rates of dropout.
For my own children, we had
a nanny for a time (about 6 - 9
months), but when our nanny
graduated from her nursing program, we struggled to find daycare
that was able to work with our part
time schedule, affordable, and that
provided a high quality of care.
Those that were willing to take our
daughter part time tended to be
large centers where there were too
many children, too few (and underqualified) staff, and not enough individual care for an infant. Many
family daycares, which provide a
smaller environment and more individual attention, cannot afford
to give up 50% of their legally allowed infant slots for a child who
will be there only part time. We
were fortunate to find a newly
opened daycare that was willing to
take our daughter on a part time
basis, and our younger daughter
joined her this year.
I am grateful to have a stable,
loving, small, family-oriented environment to care for my children
when I am at work. As a professional I know that caregiver stability is a crucial consideration during
the early childhood years, and I
am grateful that I am able to work
a part time schedule in order to
be with my daughters while continuing to run my own business
and work as a professional. However, these things come at a cost
- 15,600.00 per year, to be exact.
Even as a well-paid professional,
that is a chunk of change to come
up with, and it is not even close to
being one of the more expensive
options out there.
Additionally, when the numbers
are crunched, even that amount
means that the person who cares
for my children is paid between 8
- 10 per hour. Without benefits.
I made more than that as a secretary!
On the professional side of
things I often see the results of
children whose parents must work
and often cannot afford high quality care. Behavioral difficulties,
emotional difficulties, and stress in
family relationships are the least of
these concerns. Even children who
qualify for Head Start programs often don’t have access to them due
to scheduling, transportation, or
behavioral difficulties.
The research tells us clearly that
supporting stable and high quality
caregiving during early development is critical to the emotional,
developmental and physical health
of our children. We should do better. We could do better. I don’t
know why we do not do better.
Jennifer
I am the mother to an adorable
16 month old girl, Ava. I wish I
could stay home with her full-time
but my husband and I cannot make
it work financially. I am lucky,
though, because I found an amazing daycare very close to my husband’s work, and not too far from
mine. We all love her daycare,
even Ava, and know she is in great
hands and learning a lot when she
is there.
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This daycare is not cheap,
though, and we would never be
able to afford a second child at
this place, as we have already had
to cut back on things like our 401K
contributions and savings just to
make ends meet as it is. The cost of
two children at this facility is only
$200 a month less than what I make
each month. I may as well quit my
job. So herein lies my dilemma: we
want more children and don’t want
Ava to be an only child. But I want
the best for her and a safe, reliable
daycare is paramount.
In order to have the family we
want, we’d have to move her to
an in-home daycare, which I am
not comfortable with. Do I keep
my family small and rob Ava of siblings? Or do I put her in an inferior daycare? Or do I quit my job
all together? This is a decision I
shouldn’t have to make.
Karoline
My husband and I have two
little girls, and although we both
work full time, we cannot afford
daycare. We have both been at
our jobs for a long time and have
been lucky enough to work out
an agreement by which one of
us works from home three days/
week and the other works from
home two days/week, so one of
us is always there to care for the
children.
There are wonderful things
about this arrangement, including the fact that my husband has
developed an incredibly close
relationship with our girls and I
think is more involved in their daily lives and day-to-day care than
most dads who have full-time jobs
outside the home. And I often say
that I get the best of both worlds
by being able to be home with my
children some days and take them
to playgroups, library story times,
etc. but then I also get to put on
makeup and nice clothes on the
other days and go talk to adults!
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It is definitely not easy though.
There have been times when I’ve
felt like I’m not being a good
mommy OR a good employee,
which is incredibly discouraging. There have been days when
my daughter started crying during a conference call and I had
to choose between professional
embarrassment and comforting
my child. There have been times
when we’ve gone to the park or
to a friend’s house and had to
turn around and leave after only
a few minutes because some crisis happened at work that I had
to deal with right away. It’s hard.
But I wouldn’t change it because I
know that it is a precious gift for
me and my husband to be able
to spend this time with our girls.
Before we know it they will be in
school all day long and the memory of how hard this is will have
faded away, and we will probably
miss these crazy days.
There are more practical benefits too – easier nursing for my
newborn, no need to take sick/
vacation time when one of them
is sick, etc. etc. Honestly I don’t
know if we would send them to
daycare even if money wasn’t an
issue. However, I am fully aware of
how lucky we are to have this arrangement, and that many moms
and dads are not as lucky.
If either of our jobs changed
and made our work-at-home solution impossible, we would be
in big trouble. Making quality
childcare available and affordable is a critical goal for American families.
Ruth
I love my childcare situation
- but it is pricey! I found a great
in-home provider through a management service called Monday
Morning Moms. I love my provider
and I love Monday Morning Moms.
I get back up care when my provider is on vacation or needs a sick
day. MMM offers free first-aid and
CPR classes to parents twice a year.
My provider and her sister run
the child care center out of their
home. They’re incredibly warm
and loving and I feel like their
family – they certainly treat my
daughter like she’s family.
I really couldn’t be happier. But
I know I’m very lucky and it pains
me. I wish everyone had access to
this kind of care and that all providers had access to paid vacation
and sick days.
Sara
The Judge presiding over my divorce arbitration arbitrarily set an
amount of $2700 a month for child
care when I was spending closer to
$3800 a month for a nanny – as my
ex-husband and I separated when
our children were only 6 months
old. We certainly could afford a
nanny, but my ex-husband argued
that he found day care for approximately half of what we were paying
for the nanny. Thus, the Judge’s decision – he split the baby.
Clearly the statement that was
made is that my job means nothing
and the well-being of our children is
less important than my ex-husband
keeping his carefree and fun lifestyle. I pay for before care, day care
and aftercare. The Judge’s award
doesn’t even cover the cost of the
boys’ tuition – let alone cover any
of the cost of nanny care when the
boys are sick and have to stay home
from daycare.
My sweet little boys spend all day
in day care when they could spend
part of the day at home with inhome care – while my ex-husband
spends his money on travel and other recreational activities. When will
the divorce inequity end especially
when it comes to the children and
paying for child care?
Trudy
I found a very loving home facility that taught my daughter some
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very important social skills. However, as much as I loved my providers positive influence she had told
me from the beginning she was not
running a preschool but a daycare.
So though the location was convenient and the price was exceptionally low I had to place my daughter
in a facility closer to my job in the
city. As much as I would have loved
to place her closer to home, those
preschool facilities were much too
high for my budget. So she is currently in a facility not as good as my
first choice but affordable.
My husband and I are trying to
accomplish that increasingly more
elusive American dream of paying for our home and trying to
give our family more than we had
We are both working and hoping
to have one more child. But with
childcare and all the other extra
curricular activities kids want and
need to participate to fight obesity,
open their minds to new ideas and
experiences, etc...costing extra and
increasing in price year after year,
my fiscally conservative self is not
sure we will.
I feel like our choice of how
large our family will grow is severely limited by what is no longer
available as part of the normal education: art, PE, Music. These are extra expenses that were once a part
of public education. Where exactly
is my money going... if not to my
child’s future?
Valkyrie
I am currently working on my
dream of quality childcare in the
state of Maryland. Currently a Pediatric Nurse for a group home,
Second Family Inc. We have been
blessed with the opportunity to
care for underdeveloped kids.
I have been doing this for the
past 10 yrs. and thought “hey, I’ve
tried balancing my schedule with
being a Nurse and making a mad
dash to the sitters to pick up my
kid. How about I put together a
Daycare Center that is extended
MomsRising.org
in hours, days, and open on Holidays.” ...Daycare on your Schedule.
We also will accommodate caring for your child if he/she is under
the weather. Operated by a Nurse
and an Elementary School Teacher.
MASSACHUSETTS
Aaron
I found a great family day care
provider near my house, but it costs
a quarter of my monthly income
(and a quarter of my wife’s income)
in order to afford her great services. And she’s one of the cheapest
options we found in the area!
Abby
When I was pregnant with my
son, now 19 mos. old, my company suffered economic setbacks
and radically reduced my pay. I already worked without any contribution to healthcare benefits, and
paid out of pocket. Subsequent to
my son’s birth, my husband’s company, who did cover his insurance
at the time, began doing cutbacks.
He had to find another job, much
farther away and involving more
hours, weekends, for similar pay
and minimal benefits. Needless to
say, we’re making less money, paying unfathomable amounts for
health insurance, and live in one
of the most expensive areas of the
country (not by choice – it’s just
where we’re from!). Daycare costs
continue to increase.
My husband and I are at the
breaking point, struggling to pay
our mortgage, and panicked about
what kind of future we can provide for our son. Hearing that further cuts may be made to daycare
programs and childcare, instead of
increases, causes me great alarm,
fear, and a lot of sadness. I lament
where this country and our government has placed it’s priorities. The
one thing I always thought was
an absolute was that my children
would have excellent opportunities
for education in this country. Now
that is in jeopardy. Some college
tuitions are now over $40,000 per
year, and I’m not even referring to
ivy league schools.
At present, my husband and
I often say to each other, “it will
get better when he’s out of daycare and begins school.” But now
I worry for that as well. Will public
schools still be open? Will they still
be public? Will they provide the
same programs and opportunities,
as well as a safe, healthy, and nurturing environment? We all know it
is the small cracks and fissures that
eventually cause the failure of the
dam – don’t let them weaken an
already compromised system, especially at the very base of it – daycare
and early childhood education.
Sadly, my husband and I will
not be having the additional children we had hoped for because we
simply cannot afford it, and do not
want to bring someone else into
the world who may have to suffer
great deprivation and hardship under the conditions of the strange
new America we live in.
Adena
When my son was 1.5, I started
looking into childcare options in our
area. Preschool programs were pretty short, running just several hours
during the day, and I was hoping
to work part-time while he was at
school, so that wouldn’t work. Daycare, on the other hand, was for a
full day, which I didn’t need. I finally
found a daycare program that provided a day longer than a preschool
but shorter than a full day (8-3:30),
which is exactly what I needed. My
son thrived in this wonderful school
for 3 years, and I was able to work
part-time on the days that we was
in school. Reflecting back on this, I
realize that having flexibility in both
work and childcare is key for both
happy children and happy parents.
g
37
Amy
I have two children. Childcare
fees start at $250 per week per child
in my area. I had a great job and
had to make a choice children or career. I had to get creative. I quit my
big financial service job (just before
the bottom fell out). I enrolled my
children in a large childcare center
in my area and took a job in childcare administration there, along
with a 40% pay cut. On the bright
side, I no longer had to commute,
get suited up, deal with fussy stuffy
grown-ups, pay a small fortune for
lunch, and most of all I was with my
children all day everyday and got a
50% reduction in fees. I was there
to see that first step, hear that first
song, and give a back rub when
they were fussy at naptime.
Now both of my children are at
school and I have decided to stay on
in childcare. I reduced my hours so
I can pick them up from school and
now I am avoiding the cost of afterschool programs. I think this decision was the best for me and the
only way I could have achieved the
best of both worlds. Work & Family.
our home, but no such luck. When
my mom is out of town, we have
no choice but to go back to the
old way: I have no idea how single
moms do it.
Colleen
My 4 year old granddaughter is
in an excellent pre-school run by the
YMCA in Cambridge. Monthly cost
is about $1200. The result is that her
two working parents, one a nurse
and the other in biotech, cannot afford another child. They rent and
they have student loans.
Cynthia
Nothing funny about the price
of after-school child care going up
– not improved just more expensive and my income going down.
Also, my daughter’s childcare can
only be claimed on our taxes until she’s twelve. She has an early
birthday so we can only claim the
first two months of sixth grade.
Cathy
I believe it should be level for
everyone, not based on birthdays
but on the grade level – be it
through 6th grade or the middle
school years.
My in-laws watch my children,
otherwise, I could not work and we
would probably be on welfare.
Elizaveta
Christina
My husband and I work in two
different retail companies: until my
mom moved in with us, we were the
sole care-givers for our two girls. We
couldn’t afford childcare, and spent
years working opposite shifts in order to make sure that the girls had a
parent with them at all times.
We frequently had “discussions”
with our respective bosses about
our work availability. My husband
nearly got fired because he asked
for a 15 minute shift change to ensure that we had adequate time to
make the kid hand off. I wish that
we had the option of good, safe affordable child care within range of
38
Childcare is a very, very sensitive
topic for all working parents. Here
in Boston, where I’m pursuing my
PhD in chemistry, the childcare cost
runs about $3000 for 2 children
monthly ($36000 yearly)! This is not
the most expensive numbers I’m
giving here, it’s maybe just a little
above the average for family-based
care, and definitely less than you
would pay if your children went
to large child care centers, where
both the quality of education is
high, and the care standards are
monitored.
I am now keenly aware of how
difficult it is to continue education
and competitive research while
caring for children and trying to
balance family life, childcare, and
career development in a highly
competitive environment. Costs of
childcare for small children are almost prohibitive for a student to
continue education and for mothers to continue working.
Geneva
My husband and I both work
full time. When my first child was
around 2, I started to look for new
childcare - he was currently with a
wonderful family-based home daycare, but needed the next step as
this caregiver prefers babies and
young toddlers.
To find quality childcare near
where I work (downtown Boston,):
1. I waitlisted for a year at the
place of first choice
2. I grew desperate after a year
and enrolled my child at another
place, and paid about $400 (nonrefundable) to do so. Plus about 5
hours of interviews, school tours,
forms to fill out (like applying to
college), producing immunization
records, etc.
3. Within days of the $400 payment to the other school, the waitlist
to my favorite place came through
with a part-time spot, which I took,
and kept him in the family daycare
the other days
4. Then we got a full time spot.
Whew! I was not willing to compromise and send him to a much more
expensive and lower quality place,
although that would have gotten
him in quicker. By the way, the minimal total monthly expense for childcare for our two kids, age 1 and 4 =
$2540. That doesn’t include all the
extras (trips, fundraising, etc).
Gisela
I’m a grandmother now. But
when my 3 kids were little, they
were all afforded a wonderful preschool experience in France where
we lived at that time. The “Maternelle” offers great educational
and socializing opportunities for
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preschool children. They have well
trained teachers, and materials to
play and learn with that many families couldn’t afford on their own.
They also allow mothers, single
or not, to go to work without any
worry about the cost of childcare:
it is free, paid by taxpayers. Why
are so many people in the USA
rejecting”Big Government” and
“Socialism”, when in other countries they have worked for decades?
Jennifer
Congress should increase the
amount of childcare allowed in order to determine the child care tax
credit. I have two small children.
Even with flexible work arrangements-it still costs my husband and
I over $10000.00 a year in childcare
costs. By increasing the allowable
amount when calculating the tax
credit-that would mean more money back for my family. And every
penny helps. The current limitation of 5000.00 is way too low for
two children especially when the
actual costs are so much higher. If
congress truly wants to help American families-this is one easy sure fire
way to do so.
Julia
I started my own nonprofit consulting business in March because I
was not able to find a full time job in
the nonprofit sector (or any sector,
really!) My husband and I decided
to move our small family to Beverly,
MA DUE TO child care costs where
we previously lived - Medford, MA.
In Beverly, we have lots of family
who can help and we only have to
pay for 2 days a week. Mondays my
15 month old daughter is with my
mother, Tuesdays and Thursdays we
pay $87/day to send her to a nonprofit child care center in Beverly,
Wednesdays she is with my mother
in law, and Fridays we do what we
can - either I don’t work or my father watches the baby part of the
day or I work when she naps. It’s really catch as catch can for child care
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- we can’t afford more that 2 days
of center child care. Thank God our
family is around, healthy and willing to watch the baby! We consider
ourselves VERY VERY lucky to be in
this situation .
Lara
My husband and I are fortunate
enough to both have good paying
jobs that we enjoy. However, when
we found out our second child was
actually our second and third, I
went into a tailspin - how on earth
would we afford day care for three
children for the 15 months between
the end of my maternity leave until
my son began Kindergarten? Full
time daycare/preschool for all three
would have been almost $5,000 a
month. $5,000 a month. Why so
expensive? Because we wanted
high quality day care for our children, and that is very costly.
We were incredibly fortunate to
have my mother-on-law care for our
children three days a week cutting
our costs to a babysitter two days
a week who I woefully underpaid,
though I very much appreciated
how fantastic she was. But without
my mother-in-law there was absolutely no way we could have done
it.
Even now, with our son in school,
and our girls in a preschool run
through our town’s recreation center (at about 1/2 the cost of the corporate daycare we previously used),
our childcare costs are still the single biggest monthly expense - more
than our mortgage. That includes
after school care every day for
my son at the school for $460 per
month, and preschool every morning for my daughters with three afternoons at $1530 per month (with
my mother-in-law still caring for the
girls the remaining two afternoons
per week).
The only reason that we have
been able to sustain our middle
class life is because we have family
around to help us. Without that,
we would have needed to move further away from our jobs, or out of
state completely, which would have
meant leaving my elderly parents
without any children to assist them,
as I am an only child. While we live
in an expensive neighborhood, and
our condo is not cheap, we are careful with our spending. Our mortgage is for less then half the value
of our property, we don’t have internet, we rarely go out to dinner,
and when we do it’s usually during
restaurant week or for birthdays,
nor do we buy clothes very often.
When our children are out of
daycare we will be in a different
situation - and we are very appreciative of our good fortune, but the
reality is that the cost of day care
has significantly impacted our lives
for the past 7 years, since our son
was born.
Laurel
When we lived in NJ and I was
searching for childcare for my first
daughter, I found a fabulous childcare facility that felt like it would
be a wonderful fit for my baby
when I returned to work in the city
(after a mere 12 week leave). When
I learned the price for the number
of hours we would need care including the commute in and out
of NYC, I had to search for another
option.
My husband and I came to refer to the high end childcare that
our budget would not allow as
the “stainless steel appliances”
and that it was an investment we
couldn’t afford to make. I don’t
for a second want to discount the
wonderful care that we ended up
with, but you wonder how much
better the experience would be in
the more expensive option.
Then with the move to Cape
Cod and the addition of a second
daughter, I was once again faced
with the stainless steel appliance
g
39
experience when two different
pre-schools were way out of our
budget because their hours seem
to be made for people who don’t
work. Really if I could pick them up
by 3pm I would, but who is able to
get out of work that early???
In addition, even with a lower
priced care situation, we got into
massive debt during the years that
both daughters were in daycare /
pre-school to the tune of $400 per
week.
And shall we discuss what the
heck you do with them, when they
are sick and can’t go to school...
miss work? Find a willing friend,
family or neighbor? None of the
solutions are easy or guiltless - you
are either guilty about abandoning your sick child or about missing
work. Our non-stainless steel appliance solutions have worked for us,
but it could be easier.
Min
I had always worked nights.
My husband works nights. It just
fit. When our daughter came into
our life, it was a struggle to find
someone willing to come to our
home and watch her overnight.
My husband and I worked it out
so we had different days off and
would only need a sitter 3 days.
But no one with a regular full-time
day job wants to wake up for midnight feedings for a child that’s not
theirs. Once our daughter got old
enough to get past the long daytime naps I was dispatching on 4
hours of sleep. My husband was
running forklifts on the same. I
eventually started working days,
losing my (sad to say) much needed differential. I couldn’t afford to
pay daycare during the day (so we
could sleep) and a sitter at night (
so we could work).
We are by no means well off
but we make just enough to not
“qualify” for any assistance. Not
even WIC. We have worked with
our respective company’s for years,
40
finally have benefits, finally have
sick time and hate the thought of
leaving it . If I could afford to stay
home, I would. I’m barely affording her daycare for only 3 days a
week. If I reduce my hours, I lose all
the benefits I have finally achieved
and any chance of advancing. Its a
shame that a family structure has
to be broken to get by.
Many families are like mine:
working different shifts to cut
down on daycare, leaving no time
to spend as a family. Our family
functions in units of 2 – Dad and
baby or mom and baby. Never
mom and dad and never all together.
Tip
The long and short of it is that I
cannot afford daycare for my toddler. I was laid off shortly before
my daughter was born and when
looking for work after her birth
realized that I needed a significant increase in my income just to
break even and be able to afford to
work. To make things worse, some
of the jobs I was being considered
for required irregular hours that
changed weekly, meaning my child
would not need full time daycare,
but I would still have had to pay for
full time childcare just to reserve
her spot.
As twisted as it may sound,
my husband and I decided that
it would make more economical
sense for our family to take the cut
in income and for me to stay home
for the time being because we
would end up losing more money
by having to pay for daycare.
MICHIGAN
Angela
I have three children. My oldest
is now 16 years old and was able to
enjoy a fabulous start to her learning. When she was small, there were
early childhood programs every
where I turned. She was able to get
speech assistance quickly because
she attended preschool.
Well, I had my youngest children
just a few years ago. My son is now
4 years old. He is smart and very active. I know that this is the time to
start his schooling. However, the
school systems have changed so
much that I am unable to find affordable preschool for him. Schools
and daycares that do have affordable options are full with waiting
lists miles long. The people I talk to
don’t even take my information to
call me back, because they have so
many inquiring. It becomes a first
come first serve atmosphere. I don’t
think that’s good enough for our
young children.
I thought that we lived in a society that valued the education
of our children. I thought that No
Child Left Behind, at least the title,
summed it up. We don’t want our
children left behind. An early start
to education is critical and I am
afraid too many are falling through
the cracks. We are patiently waiting
to see “if” our local school system is
able to start their projected class in
January. I cannot afford the inflated
day care costs and playgroups seem
to be few and far between, if they
are of good quality. We need quality, affordable, and accessible early
childhood education options!
C
I couldn’t figure out why my kids’
snow pants and boots were never
wet when I picked them up. Then
I realized that the daycare wasn’t
taking them outside – ever. They
maybe went outside to play 2 or 3
times the entire winter. Plus the hot
lunch served at the daycare was junk
- how in the world could Tortino’s
Pizza Rolls be considered healthy??
I ended up switching daycare
centers to a more pricey one – but
I love the fact that they serve fresh
fruit for lunch, carrot sticks & cheese
sticks for snacks and go outside two
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times a day. I know the kids are way
happier too!!! With 2 kids in daycare we spend about $300 per week
in child care. It is a ton!
Charity
I struggle with paying childcare
for my children being a single mother of two and then to get someone
who will take care of them in a manner I would! It is hard as mothers
to leave your children with another
person – worrying about their safety,
their discipline and shown love and
acceptance! I LOVE the free headstart programs around my area that
provide childcare and development
learning for my 2 and 4 year old
children from 8 am - 2:30 pm. The
program includes diapers, breakfast
and lunch and craft supplies.
I commend our government for
allowing this program to exist and
pray that it continues to receive
funding for many years to come!! I
have to subsidize my childcare with
a babysitter during my actual working hours since the headstart program takes place during my sleeping hours. Fortunately I have family
members who can provide this additional care at $0.50 - $1/hour rate.
VERY REASONABLE!
I sympathize with single mothers
and their struggle to find affordable
good childcare! I also would love
for more work places to allow sick
time for us single mothers to take
for our children without the guilt
or condemnation and even possible
job loss.
Delisha
As a stay-at-home, work-athome, single mom to a newborn, I
had to employ some creative tactics
to make it all work. Sometimes I
wonder what the high level execs
and VPs on the other end of my
conference calls would think if they
knew I was at home, sitting on a
couch my living room, breastfeeding my infant daughter during our
“meetings”.
MomsRising.org
As my little one grew older and
significantly more verbal, I could
no longer pull it off and had to
look for childcare. After lots of research, I found a place I felt good
about and scheduled care for two
afternoons a week – intending to
keep all telephone communication
and meeting appointments confined to those time periods.
On our first official day, I took
her in and went over the detailed
instructions I had left the day before two or three more times and
then just sort of stood there. After an uncomfortable silence I said,
“So...wait... I’m supposed to just
walk out of the door and leave my
baby here...with people I’ve only
met 3 or 4 times?”
Don’t get me wrong. I knew
how it was supposed to go but at
that moment, the thought of doing that just seemed so crazy. The
sweet lady gave me a strange look
and said, “yep..that’s usually how it
works.”
My response: “I think I’ll just
hang out in the hallway. I brought
my laptop. I’ll be working so just
holler if you need me.” I did that
for about month. I laugh when I
remember that first day.
Eva
I, as a single, full time working
mom, making a middle class income,
was thrown into the childcare world
when I gave birth to twins. I was
floored when looking into childcare
for my children, because I had to return to work full time in exactly 6
weeks and in home childcare was
my entire paycheck which was absolutely ridiculous and unreasonable
and thankfully I found a location
near my workplace that was safe,
reputable and slightly more reasonable. But even so, I was paying 3
paychecks a month to daycare and
living on one pay check a month for
nearly two years. I don’t even remember, because I think I’ve blocked
the experience out of my mind, on
how I managed or survived it without any help whatsoever. Many bills
piled up after I spent many months
trying to fix my credit and pay off
debt. But as thankful as I am, there
are always ways to improve, and
of course it is important that there
be some additional tax breaks for
parents paying for daycare that is
as much as our monthly take home
pay. It’s just not reasonable and the
feeling left in the air with anyone
you leave your children with is you
get what you pay for. If you want
better care, you’d have to pay more
and that is true in a daycare center
or with in home help.
Parents out of all people are trying their best to make it and provide a home for their families and
anyone with income is over qualified for public assistance and although there’s some tax break it’s
not enough to help people survive.
We need more help and it’s not too
much to ask. Even less strict loaning requirements so we could get
help from time to time as needed to
cover certain expenses for a certain
amount of time. Since essentially
we pay taxes on the right to work
in this country, we already have in
a sense established good credit with
the government.
Jennifer
When I was 19 years old I quit
attending college because I found
a full-time job in which I made
enough money to live. Years later,
I married and had two children.
During this time, I took some time
off after each was born and then
worked part-time. When I found
myself a single mother to a 4-yearold and a 2-year-old I was making
$7 and working 20 hours a week.
I have been called ‘resourceful’ by
many but with neither children old
enough to be in school, I couldn’t
find a job that would net any money after childcare expenses.
I was able to apply for, and
g
41
receive, child care supplements
through the State of Michigan.
With the combination of this help
and the support of family, I was
able to take on more hours at work
and eventually, secure a full-time
job in which I’ve received raises and
promotions. We are doing well
now, having bought a home and a
car this year with enough leftover
to give to charitable organizations
regularly.
When I think of those difficult
years, all I can think is ‘what about
those who don’t have family or access to government help?’. The effects of hard times without support
can result in long-term devastation
to a family. I want my tax dollars to
go to PEOPLE, the most important
of those being vulnerable children.
Jodi
Trying to find quality local childcare for my children while I worked
was a struggle. At one place that
came highly recommended by
friends, my daughter was placed on
the wrong preschool bus and could
not be found. She was on a bus
with middle schoolers and since she
was so small the bus driver couldn’t
see her. It wasn’t until the daycare
realized that she didn’t come back
from school that they reacted.
Kassi
I just wanted to share that finding
affordable/quality childcare has been
a continual struggle in our family. I
have 4 children ages 17, 13, 8, and 1
year. And to be completely honest, it
is because of my income bracket that
I had to spread my children’s ages out
so much. I would have never been
able to put two children in daycare
at the same time. It is hard enough
with just one.
Not to mention, we have had
some serious horror stories with
the decision to place our children
in day care we could afford - and
needing to compromise on quality
care. Often times the more “af-
42
fordable” care is lax about policies
and procedures, and sometimes can
be hazardous to the wellbeing of
a child. Having gone through the
nightmare of one of my children
being abused in a family day care
home, this has been an ordeal for
everyone.
Now with a new one year old to
care for, and a full time job that is
necessary for providing for my entire family, we are going through
the struggle to find affordable and
quality care once more.
I think that the cost of child care
is outrageous - the low end is about
$250 per week. That is almost half
of my salary! How do we survive
and still ensure that our children
are well cared for?
We are one of those families
who are not fortunate enough to
have a good support system of relatives to help with this type of care.
Therefore, we are on our own and
wondering how we can afford to
pay for care for our baby, and still
pay for food!
Part of the problem is that we do
not qualify for financial aid for child
care services...we make too much
money according to the guidelines.
However, at the same time, we do
not make enough to pay the child
care fees that centers are asking.
What does a middle of the road
family do? We make sacrifices...
which include losing our vehicles, or
having our electricity shut off.
It isn’t as though we are living
beyond our means either. We do
not have cable television or satellite television in our home. We
don’t have credit card debt either.
We live bare bones paycheck to
paycheck...and our constant dilemma is “who will take care of our
baby while we work”?!
Laura
My son is 3 years old, and has
been in childcare for his entire life.
My husband and I both work full
time, so daycare is a necessity. We
were lucky that we found a wonderful facility for him not long after he was born. They were able
to take him in right away, and we
have loved it ever since. The teachers are all fabulous! They really
bond with the kids (of all ages),
and my son loves seeing his friends
at daycare. He and another boy
have been best friends since they
were in the infant class together as
babies, and now they’re still best
buds as they’re getting ready for
preschool. My son learns so much
at our daycare, and even in current
comparisons, the daycare we chose
is still the right one for him.
Unfortunately, the only bad
part of daycare is the COST. Daycare is ridiculously expensive! It is a
constant source of stress for us. In
this volatile work environment, we
know that we would not be able to
afford daycare if either of us were
to lose our job. Some may suggest
we just find cheaper daycare alternatives. In the area we live in,
however, all daycare facilities cost
about the same. We might save
$2 a week if we changed facilities
– and that’s really no savings at all –
and even though we can claim daycare on our taxes, it’s still ridiculous
to only get a credit for $2000 when
we spend over $10,000 annually.
So, as much as we love the daycare
our son attends, it is still stressful to
know that it is barely affordable,
even with both of us working. If
there’s anything I want from the
government, it’s to find a way to
make childcare AFFORDABLE.
Lisa
When my first child was about
to enter preschool, we did not
know what to do. We could not
afford a private preschool but we
also did not qualify for Head Start.
We found out about a public preschool (Heritage Child Development Center) that sounded great
so we called them up. They had
a number of different “qualifications” listed and if you met any
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2 of them, your child got in. The
stipulations were like if the mother was a teenager when she gave
birth, if the child had any diseases,
like asthma, diabetes, etc, if you
made under a certain amount of
money.
We qualified because I was just
2 months shy of 20 when I had him
and he was diagnosed with asthma.
It was a wonderful, center-based
preschool and my son got a great
head start in school. However, they
lost their funding and had to close
a few years ago. I don’t know what
parents do now-days and my heart
goes out to them.
Patrice
I have been a Child Care Provider for 17 years in Michigan. I have
seen programs come and programs
go but there is a movement toward
quality in the US now that is unprecedented. With the amazing
research being done at how vital
the ages of birth - 5 are, we should
be paying child care providers $100
per hour! Their role in developing
the child emotionally, physically,
socially and educationally is critical.
The movement toward quality in
child care involves the QRIS (Quality Rating and Improvement System) program. I am involved in this
pilot program in Michigan. It is a
rating scale for child care much like
a hotel rating scale. It will not only
help us improve the care of young
children but give parents a place to
start when looking for quality care.
Please talk with our leaders about
how important the QRIS programs
are for each state and ask them to
fund these programs.
Rachel
My husband and I both work
full-time. We have one child in kindergarten (public schools, finally!)
and an infant. We are extremely
fortunate to have family in the area
who help with daycare issues (it has
been my mother’s almost full-time
MomsRising.org
job – without pay – for the past five
years and the next five to come).
However, even with family help,
we need to have our children in
paid daycare situations. We have
had many conversations about
what other things we are not going
to be doing in order to pay for outside care. If something happened
and we had to put the baby in full
time care as well as pay for afterschool care for our other child,
we’d have some significant issues
keeping abreast with our financial
obligations.
We have absolutely no choice
but to work, we need both incomes
to be able to afford a place to live.
While we recognize that we are in
no way as bad off as many, many
others in our area and in the country, we are not living the lives we
thought we would with our children.
Shawna
Yes, we have had a difficult time
paying for daycare – it was our
largest bill. But two years ago we
decided to have my husband stay
home with the kids. He drove an
hour one way to work every day
with high gas prices, a low paying
job and daycare we had to make
a tough choice. We were already
hurting and about to lose my car
because we just couldn’t make the
rising cost of everything so we just
decided it would be best for him to
stay home.
It’s been hard but we know we
aren’t the only ones – we have
friends and neighbors doing the
same thing. Daycare is just way too
much, as everything else is these
days.
Suzanne
My husband and I are reasonably educated and comfortably
middle class. Affording childcare
isn’t fun but we are thankful we
can. Last year it became necessary
for us to find a new care situation
for our youngest and we selected
a locally owned church daycare
near our home. Unfortunately, our
previous care situation came to an
abrupt end when our regular sitter had to provide 24 hour care for
her own mother who was suffering
from dementia. We found out on
Sunday that we no longer had care
for Monday morning and beyond.
Because both parents in our home
work, we were scrambling to find
a solution and FAST. (There is not
any kind of leave at either of our
employers for such a situation as
this. Wouldn’t that be nice? A couple of paid days off when families
have a daycare crisis?)
We found a locally owned
church daycare and signed our
son up. It was a horrible mistake.
The daycare providers were not
trained professionals; although the
facilities were lovely, the children
were all clean and happy-nothing
seemed out of place. We had to
pull our son out the day I dropped
him off, kissed him goodbye and
ran out to my car to discover I had
forgotten to pay my bill. I ran back
in to the building to avoid a late
fee (payments were due by noon
that day) and found the daycare
provider berating my two year old
son for his developmentally appropriate but hard to understand
speech.
A trained worker would have
understood that two year olds can
be hard to understand and that ridiculing a child is never appropriate.
We were back to square one with
finding childcare FAST since there is
no paid leave in these situations we
were in a pickle yet again!
MINNESOTA
Alissa
We looked for a long time, years,
to find a good place for our son.
We needed inexpensive, part-time
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43
care because my husband was laid
off and was staying home. He just
needs a few hours to spend on job
searching and maybe a part-time
position. All the places we found
were so expensive or low quality
(I’m an educator myself and won’t
settle for sub-standard) we just ended up keeping him at home. When
we finally found the place he is in
now, it was sheer luck!
while my husband is on the road
performing, some weeks we don’t
need any. Finding infant care is
hard enough, but flexible on which
days we come? Then, if you’re lucky
enough to find that, you can forget about it being affordable. One
day care center wanted to charge
us $100 a day (compared to a local average of $35-$50/day) for this
flexibility.
We were across the street at
our neighborhood park and I saw a
group of kids that looked to be preschool age. I stopped the woman
with them and asked what this was.
She told me she taught the preschool program in the community
center next to the park. She has a
4 year degree in education and the
program is fabulous! But, I never
would have known it existed if I
hadn’t happen to have been there
that day and asked about it.
We finally found someone who
would take my daughter at a price
we could afford, but we eventually realized why this person was
willing to be flexible: because she
didn’t have any other clients because she wasn’t very good. Chicken nuggets and french fries for
lunch for a 12 month old? Really?
Stinky, gas-smelling kitchen. VERY
poor interpersonal skills. And she
is always closing because she has
some appointment or other. I hate
how my work life is held hostage
by my day care provider! But what
else are we supposed to do?
I wish that there was some way
to find out about all of the smaller
programs and in home centers. The
big, for-profit day cares have $$ to
spend on advertising. How can parents find out about the alternatives?
Amelia
I literally had no quality childcare
choices so I had to resign from a beloved job. The only option in the
small community where I worked
was a church daycare where the
caregivers talked together while
the kids watched nonstop TV, there
were almost no books, and while
visiting I saw a older baby fall off a
chair and be praised for “catching
herself,” when in fact, the caregivers had been ignoring her completely, and she fell on her face hard. I
could not leave my child in that environment. My career was affected
deeply, as has our family finances.
Andrea
I work full time and my husband
is a freelance artist, so our day care
needs vary from week to week.
Some weeks we need 5 days of care
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I know families who have had
to pass up highly desired part-time
jobs because they couldn’t find affordable, part-time day care for
their child. Now that my daughter
is out of the infant classification, I
am hoping we can find more options for her. It’s traumatic enough
to put a child in daycare in the first
place, but day after day to leave
this fragile, sweet, innocent baby
in a place I hate? I wish I had more
options.
Andrea
I find it very interesting that
I can deduct child care expenses
from my income tax... unless I’m
the one taking care of my kids. And
I can take care of someone’s child,
and deduct in-home business expenses from my taxes... unless they
are my children.
Research proves over and over
that the best caregiver is usually
the parent. But there is absolutely
no incentive given to stay home.
While I do support money going
to more quality care outside the
home, when is our country going
to invest in FAMILIES? I am a stay
at home mom. But I am not considered a caregiver...
So the funny thing: my husband
and I even thought of setting up a
day care for our own kids. My husband would pay me to care-give,
and thus we would technically be
eligible for all sort of tax incentives....kind of silly. And not realistic. But sad.
Jackie
If you decide to work as a single parent and make between
$30-37,000 you missed out on any
form of eligibility at your county
level, head start and other community programs. Meanwhile,
your pay check is just too little to
afford $800.00 in child care cost
out of your monthly take home of
$1700.00. How can you afford to
live as a working single parent on
$900.00 with rent, bills, food, other necessities plus student loan to
pay?
What’s the message here?
Don’t work, stay home and get on
welfare?! I struggled for 5 years
and got no help or break until my
now 7-year-old son started kindergarten. We could not even do
preschool because we were not
eligible for the 2 or 3 hours a day
deal. Mommy made too much!
Now he sits in class with other
kids who parents sat home, did
not work but benefited from the
systems because they met the noto-low income guard lines and are
ahead. Those kids can read, write
and count better because they got
head start and other preschool
programs available to them on a
platter!
Kyra
I’m an early childhood professional. I taught preschool at the
MomsRising.org
University of MN’s laboratory school
until the day my first son was born.
Then I stayed home with him – I
wasn’t about to drop my son off
with a stranger so I could go teach
and take care of other people’s children. When I was ready to go back
to work, my husband decided to
stay home with our son. My work
since becoming a mom has not involved direct care of children; I’m
currently an editor at a publishing
house that publishes books for early
childhood professionals. I’m also the
board co-president of the MN Association for the Education of Young
Children.
Quality, affordable child care
programs are few and far between –
parents need more financial support
and access to quality programs and
providers need more professional development. A child’s preschool years
are fundamental – time in child care
needs to promote life-long learning
and the important social-emotional
learning that occurs before kindergarten. Children learn from the
adults and materials they are surrounded by – quality matters!!
Miranda
As a single mother of two I was
in tight bind when it came time to
me finishing my degree. In the beginning of college I was splitting
costs with my ex-husband. And in
the last semester he decided to stop
helping me pay for our one year
olds childcare. Which was very expensive. I was finally able to get on
a county child care program for college students. I had to prove many
things to the state in order for them
to approve my much needed childcare. Including five proofs that I was
going to make more money then
my last job. For example, five pay
wages for my current occupation.
And it was hard to prove to them
that I would make a good amount
of money. In the end the state paid
for three months of childcare. And
thankfully I became employed
shortly after college.
MomsRising.org
However, the quality of care is always a struggle. Even though they
go to a great accredited learning
center with video surveillance monitors. It’s so hard to get great child
care. I do wish we had more funding
and programs available for young,
easily-influenced children.
Sonya
I became a mom, a single mom,
at age 22. I went “back to work”
when my son was four weeks old. I
worked awake over night shifts at
a shelter for homeless teens doing
case management. It allowed me to
be home with my baby during the
day. Even with a salaried, full time
job, there were no conventional
childcare options I was able to afford. I ended up finding a wonderful family with a toddler during
my son’s infancy who needed care
during the day for their daughter.
One parent worked full time, the
other was a full time student. They
were also unable to find affordable
childcare.
We began “trading kids”. I took
care of their daughter days, usually about 40-45 hours a week, and
they took care of my son nights,
the same amount of time. It was
a very good arrangement and we
continued it for nearly three years.
Unfortunately, I was working about
45 hours a week at my paid job,
coming home, and single parenting my own child plus an extra kid.
I often had to go 48 hours without
sleeping, and even on my nights
off from work, I still had a nursing,
teething baby who kept me up a
lot of the time. I did the math and
figured out that I was sleeping, on
average, about 14 hours a week,
and I sustained this for three years.
By the time my son was three
years old, I was so exhausted from
lack of sleep that I required inpatient mental health hospitalization
and was not able to continue working my job. I had wonderful care
for my son. I paid for it with my
health and my career.
MISSOURI
Anonymous
My son had just turned a year
old when we needed to switch family child care providers because our
first provider was moving. I found a
new child care provider, one that I
was comfortable with, and as usual
I dropped off my child at the new
provider’s home in the morning.
All day I fretted and worried
about transitioning -- was he crying? How did he like it? and called
in the middle of the day to check
on him. All day I was distracted by
the reality that my child was at a
new child care while he was in the
throes of separation anxiety.
As usual, my husband did the
pick up that evening. And of course
he went to the FIRST provider (the
one my son was no longer attending) because of course that’s where
he had gone for the past year.
The provider took one look at
my husband in the doorway and
kindly told him, “Remember, your
son is at a new child care today.”
Fortunately, she knew the new
child care provider and was even
able to give him directions to the
new location.
So...some of us go through toddler separation anxiety with our
toddlers while we’re at work , and
some of us don’t worry about it at
all. And kudos to our child care
providers who are partners with
parents of all different persuasions
and perspectives.
Linda
I know I was lucky to have been
a full time Mom until my daughter
was seven, and when I went back
to work due to divorce, my employer let me flex my hours so I was able
to drop off and pick her up from
school.
Now, however, I have a new
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45
employer, and I have to leave my
daughter at home alone for 30
minutes each morning before the
neighbors drive her to school.
Even though she is twelve and
responsible for her age, my heart
and stomach are in knots every
morning when I drive away, knowing I can’t be there for her.
Every child needs their parents
to be there for them, physically.
And when a child comes from a
divorce situation, it’s even more
important. They need stability, routine, and to feel safe and secure.
I think in today’s business world,
where there is technology allowing
continuous communication (email,
skype) that a parent should be able
to work from home, or to be given split hours between office and
home, that allows them to be both
an employee and parent.
I know in my situation I was a
much more efficient worker when
I had flexible hours because I was
grateful for the schedule, and
made sure I gave my employer fulltime productivity on my part-time
schedule.
Lisa
I am a single mother of two children. My son is 8 years old and my
daughter is 13. My son still needs
before and/or after school care because I do not want him home alone
for an hour before school or an hour
after school.
The price of childcare is outrageous! Before and afterschool care
at his school is around 300.00 a
month and I simply don’t have it.
So I am forced to work a later shift
so I can take him to school and my
daughter is home when he gets
home but that puts a lot of responsibility on her that she shouldn’t
have.
I need affordable childcare so I
can be there for my children when
they want dinner at a decent hour
or help with their homework.
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MONTANA
Leslie
When my children were young
0-5 yrs, I provided childcare in my
home. I had a small family childcare
business. I saw many families juggle
childcare and work and constantly readjust the delicate balance of needs
and necessity. Every family had a different scenario about how they did
it. It was amazing that there was not
a trend in childcare schedules. All
were educated, with the minimum
of a college degree.
Only one family, during 6 years,
had a childcare schedule of 7:455:30. The mother of this family was
a lawyer, which is one of the highest
status jobs and the most competitive. Most families had to become
creative with schedules and income
in order to succeed and most had extra help from family with childcare
or finances. As middle class, white
families, they had the tools and the
sense of entitlement to solve these
problems.
The point is WE NEED A CHILDCARE POLICY. We need to reduce
economic hardships on families because it is affecting our children, our
future. Our country fears taking a
stand on ideological issues, like family, but it is time to create nothing
but success, nothing but solutions to
childcare issues. Every family should
feel like success is achievable. Children thrive in healthy environments,
where parents feel like they have
choices.
NEBRASKA
Julie
My son was born healthy, but
not so happy. He developed Colic
shortly after we were released from
the hospital. I am a nurse and I can
tell you that nothing prepares you
an infant that cries most of the day
and night. I spent countless hours
at the doctor’s office desperate for
a solution, but with little success. I
would have to wait it out like all
the other mother’s in the world.
I returned back to work at 11
weeks because that is all the institution I worked for would allow.
My son continued to cry more than
the average infant his age. My
husband and I went through 5 daycare facilities in less than a year because he was more work than they
expected or because something
happened and we felt we were unable to trust the facility. It was extremely stressful and caused strain
in our marriage and on our parental roles. With the last daycare, we
decided I would have to say home
with him (although we had no idea
how we would afford it) because
we couldn’t do this any longer.
Finally, we did find a wonderful
woman who takes exceptional care
of our son and I can continue to
work in Nursing. However, I have
since changed my area of specialty
to working with pregnant women
and infants to help them through
the struggles of parenthood.
NEVADA
Carolyn
My experience with attempting
to find quality daycare/preschool
at a reasonable price has been
both good and bad. My husband
is a games dealer in Las Vegas and
with the economy the way it is his
income (which is based mainly on
tips) has been reduced by almost
25% in the past couple of years.
With two young children having affordable quality daycare is
a must. We had hired a young female who had been a nanny before and got along well with our
children. This didn’t work out as
she was not reliable when it came
to being on time or following the
rules we had given for taking care
of our children. The next in home
day care we found was ran by a
husband/wife team. We thought
MomsRising.org
this was ideal for both of our children as one of the issues that we
have is that my husband and I both
work late nights and our children
need supervision until 8:30 pm two
nights a week. This makes it difficult to find daycare as well as most
daycares close at 6:30 and charge
$1.00 a minute for every minute after that. This was ok for the first
couple of months until we realized
that our older son needed more to
do during the day instead of just
watching TV.
We made the decision to transfer him to Kindercare in April of
2010 and he has been learning by
leaps and bounds. Due to the cost
we continued to keep our youngest (under a year old) with the in
home day care until the day came
when I got a phone call from sister
in law who was there to pick him
up and nobody could be found. For
over an hour I did not know where
my child was nor could I reach the
in home day care provider as well.
As I was frantically driving home
from work (30 miles away) I finally
got a return call from the day care
provider who said that they had
gone for a walk – in Las Vegas, in
the middle of the day during July
during an excessive heat warning.
Then, I also found out that her husband had been arrested that morning and they were being evicted.
Needless to say I contacted the
daycare we had transferred my
older son to in April and made arrangements for my younger son to
start there immediately.
Yes it is quite a bit more expensive on a monthly basis. However,
these are my children and the peace
of mind I get knowing that they are
being taken care of and that they
are not in danger is worth every
penny I pay. Finding quality, affordable daycare is a constant struggle
for my family as well as for other
families that I know. It is even worse
if you are a single parent struggling
to make ends meet while paying for
quality child care.
MomsRising.org
Darcy
I am 37 years old and my little
girl is now 17 months old. I am
a single MOM raising my daughter alone. My little girl Lilly-anna is my miracle my heart that
makes it beat my sun that makes
it shine. My story is one I am
sure you have heard many times
over. I live in Lauglin, Nevada
but I work in Bullhead City. Arizona. My problem is that I just
recently moved to Nevada and I
cannot get childcare. My little
girl is in this wonderful daycare
because I am a working MOM
that has to work to support us
because I don’t get child support
so it is solely up to me to make
ends meet. When I lived in Arizona the state was helping me
out, but now that I live in Nevada
they are telling me I am $78 over
the amount of money I make so I
don’t qualify for their child care
program, I fall in the 70 percentile of parents that don’t qualify
but if I want to call back in month
the state is looking into changing that but currently they don’t
have enough money for parents
who fall into the 70 percentile
group.
Are you kidding me? We are
talking about the state of Nevada – you know the one that
Las Vegas is located in. The state
that has so many tourists coming to spend their money they
have to build bigger hotels and
casinos... and they are telling me
they cannot help me out.. I am a
hard working mom that needs a
little help – I am not a MOM that
sits on her butt and just waits
for the check to come in. I need
some help. Not only is there no
childcare located in Laughlin, NV
but I also have to pay AZ state
tax because I work in AZ so that
is some more money taken away
from me.
Somebody needs to help us
MOMS out. My little girl goes to
a great day care but it cost me
$575 a month to keep her there.
How in gods name do I keep
paying this? I don’t make that
much money. I make enough to
pay rent and childcare – forget
diapers and wippies oh and you
wanted us to eat this month good
luck. It is not fair that our legislature is not willing to do more
to help us hard working MOMS
out. Do they not realize that
our little people are our future?
That quality childcare and education is what shapes these little
minds. I love my daughters daycare the people their take great
care of her I can’t say enough
about the ladies and the staff at
her daycare. They are wonderful,
caring, loving people and I am
very lucky to have found a place
for my daughter to go that I feel
safe and secure leaving her there.
But it has come down to do I even
bother working if I can’t even pay
for the daycare.
I am an American citizen and
have paid taxes all my life I have
voted since I was 18 years old. I
have done the right things and
got an education. I have a job, I
just need a little help right now
and when you ask for it they
make you feel like your nothing
and why did I bother wasting my
time. Remember the little people
you are denying. Remember the
future you are denying. Our legislature, our States need to pay
more attention to the Wonderful
hard working MOMS out there
and less time thinking of ways to
rip us off and take our money.
Maybe becoming a MOM later
in life opened up my eyes and understanding how great my own
MOM is. I think growing up we
take advantage and don’t appreciate all the things MOMS do, but
now I understand the MOMMY
role and I will do anything to see
that my daughter gets the best
care and development possible
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even if that means I have to work
two jobs to afford her daycare it
is worth it because the development and the learning she gets
by being around other children
is something she can only get by
being in daycare. I just hope the
state of Nevada can find some
money laying on the floor and
help us MOMS out. We are trying
to make it and along the way make
our little ones Great Well Respected
American Citizens that have something to give back to this country.
They need to help us out just like we
need to Support them in the decisions they make.
So take a moment and remember your childhood and how you
weren’t denied the simple things
in life. Don’t deny and turn your
backs on our little ones’ future because they want a chance to make
it just like you had. Thank you for
your time. I hope this helps out
in the fight for ALL GREAT MOMS
AROUND THE COUNTRY!!
Janelle
I have a 2-year-old son and a
4-year-old daughter. I LOVE the preschool I send my children to, however it is super expensive. As a teacher,
I can barely afford to send them 2
mornings a week ($124/wk). I need
to work full time so I convinced
my mother to watch them the rest
of the time and I clean her house
weekly in trade. In this economy, we
do what we have to. If I had to pay
for full time care, I would be spending $1,500.00 a month- 3/4 of my
take home pay.
Shellie
Like many mothers around the
world, I didn’t necessarily WANT to
go back to work after my maternity
leave ended, but I HAD to. I felt
guilty about leaving my little ones,
but knowing that they were with
kind, caring people, learning new
and interesting things in a clean,
safe environment made it bearable.
48
My 2 yr old comes home each
day with stories about books he’s
read, things he’s done, and friends
he’s played with. I truly appreciate
all that our child care facility does
for my sons (my 3 month old just
started) when I can’t be there to do
it myself.
Balancing child care costs is always a struggle. Right now, we are
in a stable place, but many families
are not. At some point it becomes
counter-intuitive to continue working if child care costs exceed your
income (after all other necessary
expenses: food, mortgage, utilities,
etc.)
Families are faced with less
and less discretionary funds to put
back into the economy.
Don’t you realize that family/child
purchases are probably a LARGE
part of the GDP (I know I spend a
healthy chunk of change on items
for my boys (diapers, clothes, foods,
toys, etc). When costs rise, spending
in those areas decreases. If I have to
quite my job and stay home to care
for my sons (while that would be really nice), my discretionary spending
will significantly decrease. Can’t you
see the bigger picture? This will lead
to more economic downturn over
the long run.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Cheryl
I have never had to put my children in daycare because I have
worked as a home daycare provider
for over 20 years. In the past few
years, I have seen many parents
struggle with being able to afford
daycare for their children. I have
lost several families due to a parent losing a job due to layoffs. I
have done free daycare for people
who needed to go to job interviews
and couldn’t afford to pay. I do
not take a paid vacation because it
would create hardship for many of
my daycare families to have to pay
for me to take two weeks off while
having to pay another sitter while
I am gone. I also do not take paid
sick days for the same reason. In
my town, over the past few years,
several local daycares have closed
so good, affordable daycare is becoming harder and harder to find.
I have a Bachelor’s degree in Child
& Family Studies and also keep up
with the latest childcare/child rearing topics so I can do the best possible job for the children I care for. I
love my job and I truly love the children I care for but it is one of the
most underpaid professions in this
country.
Janet
I am a single mother of a 12 year
old son. I work in the health care setting so in addition to needing after
school, summer, holiday and school
break help, I work every other
weekend at a hospital and require
weekend help as well. My son has
been through a wide array of child
care options. Nannies, sitters, after
school programs, friends and family.
On average I spend $350 to $500 per
month on childcare. My childcare
choices are very unpredictable and
rarely remain consistent. As my son
gets older his needs are changing.
Instead of childcare, he needs more
of a mentor who can provide companionship, and support, who can
get him to after school sports and
activities and remain a constant in
his life.
My experience with childcare
continues to be a challenge. There
are simply not enough options, and
rarely have I found anything that is
creative, nurturing, and quality one
on one environments for my son.
The cost of childcare is also a challenge and is a large part of my budget. In a country that spends billions
on their sports icons, I am baffled by
the fact there really isn’t much available to support the child of a working parent or parents.
I don’t really have a humorous
story to write about because there is
nothing funny about my situation.
MomsRising.org
Kim
I have been providing nurturing environments for infants
through six year old children as a
teacher-caregiver for the past 27
years. Through my professional
training and experience, and as
a mother of four, I have come to
feel very strongly about the true
needs of infants and young children. I am happy to hear that
congress is moving toward a bill
to support the growing need of
families and children for accessible, quality care. I am only wary
of the “early learning” part of it.
Current
research
strongly
shows that gimmicks such as
“baby einstein” videos, and other
children’s media programming,
as well as preschool programs focusing on academic subject matter all do the opposite of their
stated goal. They inhibit children’s movement, gluing them to
screens, or giving them concepts
their cognitive systems are not
ready for. The way infants and
children learn and their brains
and bodies develop in a healthy
and strong way so that when it is
appropriate they can sit still at a
desk and learn is through MOVEMENT and exploration and manipulation of their environment.
To do this, children need to be
well cared for and feel safe.
That is where the “system” can
help: educating and re-educating
caregivers and teachers and parents about the basic, true needs
of infants and children.
The
times and stresses have changed,
but these needs have not. Infants and children need love,
consistent routines, safe and interesting (not “educational” or
overstimulating)
environments
and space to play, be quiet, run,
jump, sing, skip, hop and rest..
and good quality foods to nourish their growing bodies. If this
new bill will help accomplish
these true needs of children, I’m
all for it!
MomsRising.org
NEW JERSEY
Denise
Child care has had an enormous
impact on my life. As a mom with
2 children 7 years apart, my own
experience was dramatically different with each child. The first had
the luxury of a grandmother young
enough to care for her while mom
worked. Seven years later my mother was too old and frail to care for
my son. However, again I was lucky
... I was able to find a job as an administrator in the after-school field,
so my own child care was in high
quality care (I was in control of it!)
and it was free to me. The need for
good care led me to a satisfying and
fulfilling career, and a determination
to see that ALL children and families
had access to excellent child care.
However, twenty four years later,
and still in the field, I realize how
expensive and difficult high quality
child care is to provide. I also realize
how underpaid the people who dedicate themselves to caring for other
people’s children are! That same son
who was lucky enough to be in good
care is now working as a child care
provider himself. He is bright, has a
college degree, and he does a great
job, but is grossly underpaid, and has
no health insurance. The daughter
whose grandmother gave her such
loving care also grew up to be a
bright and successful young woman,
but works long hours and can’t rely
on her mother to provide the same
at home care she enjoyed. She has
two young children in child care, and
pays more than her mortgage payment each month to keep them in a
good program!
If we are to continue to provide
our children with safe, high quality,
enriching child care, it cannot be on
the backs of underpaid providers or
be so cost prohibitive that parents
cannot afford it. The cost of subsidizing child care is far less than what
we will pay for future remediation or
incarceration if we fail to give children and families what they need in
the early years.
Ellen
When my children were young
in the 1980’s, my husband and I
needed full time care for our preschool child and before and after
school care for our elementary
school child. We had to spend way
too much time transporting the
kids and commuting and the expense was significant.
We chose our school district of
residence on the basis of available
care in Omaha. The before and
after care program for our older
child was convenient. Although
preschool care was available in
the school program, we found the
quality of a program housed at a
church to be much better quality
for our younger child, so we took
her there. Transporting our children to these different locations in
time for us to get to our jobs was
not easy.
Child care is not a luxury. A better quality public option would
have helped us at the time. I am
sorry that so many families still
have this issue.
Jennifer
I gave birth to my first child
three weeks or so after my dissertation proposal was approved. At
that point, we had one more year
of school housing, stipend and
TA work available. Adding a dependent to my school mandated
health insurance absorbed all of
my stipend (and more)--money
we had previously counted on as
income. So we took out an extra loan for that year. A full-time
teaching assistantship was a financial necessity. And there was
nothing left over for even parttime childcare: my spouse and I arranged our work schedules so we
could tagteam with our daughter’s care. I made no progress at
all on my dissertation--a fact I hid
from everyone, including my ad-
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49
visor, because my standing in the
program depended on that fictitious progress.
On paper, it’s taken me three
years to complete the dissertation.
In reality, I wrote in one year: the
year that we finally could (barely)
afford childcare.
Even once my husband found
his first parish as a priest, releasing us from the burden of being
a dual PhD-student couple plus
child, affording childcare at normal rates was impossible. Even
the Y’s rates were astronomical.
The preschool we finally found
(St. Stephen’s Preschool in nearby
Millburn, NJ) operates their program as a community service, offering rock-bottom rates--which
we still couldn’t afford, and so we
were simply asked to pay what we
could.
Without the extraordinary
generosity of a preschool in our
area that operates as a service
rather than a for-profit business,
I would still be writing that damn
dissertation. We were lucky--but
it shouldn’t take luck.
Jennifer
The cost of childcare is an enormous burden to my family. Both
parents have to work but the cost
of childcare ($13,000 for childcare/
preschool and $3,000 for aftercare) has meant that we have fallen deeper and deeper into debt.
For the past year I have been
unemployed, so even though my
daughter would benefit from at
least part-time preschool, I have
had to deny her that benefit. Additionally, I am forced to consider
only those jobs that would cover
the cost of childcare plus a significant amount over that just to
make ends meet. This puts me
out of contention for some very
good jobs that have lower salary
ranges.
I know I am not alone. A vast
swath of the middle class faces
50
the same economic challenges.
And it is crippling all of us.
Where is America’s support of
‘the family?’ There is a lot of TALK
about ‘family values’ but not a lot
of money where the mouth is!
When is this country going to
join the rest of the civilized western world (our allies) and provide
quality childcare, quality national
healthcare for all and guaranteed
higher education? If England and
Norway and Sweden and a host
of other nations can do it, why is
America failing so badly????
Kathy
As a Grandparent who can only
imagine what my daughters go
through today to find affordable
daycare with compromising their
jobs it is so unfair that more jobs
don’t have a daycare facilities.
My Sons went to the YMCA after school program, not only did
they get help with their homework
they also learned how to swim and
do other activities. I worked three
jobs! That’s right three! One full
time and two part-time to make
ends meet. The only difference between today day care and then is
COST. I paid $60.00 per week for
both my children. If you had more
affordable day cares for parents
you would have better children today.
Lillie
The cost of childcare is a lot
and at times overwhelming. Luckily, because I decided to go back
to school, I was able to enroll my
daughter into a Reggio Emilia approach child care center at my university and because I was a student,
I got a student rate. My daughter’s
experience has been wonderful.
We could not be happier with her
teachers, teachers’ helpers, and all
of the opportunities they have given our child. Because the school is
on campus, they have the luxury of
doing things like attending plays,
getting music classes, cooking classes with a chef, gym classes with
their own individual instructors,
swimming lessons, and so much
more. She is in her last year and I
am worried because the Kindergarten in our town is only half a day.
This will be difficult for me because
I will be working. So, it looks look
we will be paying a private school...
My husband makes a decent living and because of this we were
never eligible to receive aid from
the CCCC program. Even though he
made decent income, he was still
the only one working and we had
many other expenses. Many times
it became a struggle to pay childcare. If the costs of childcare was
less, I believe it would give us the
opportunity to do more as a family and save money for our child’s
future. In many other countries,
childcare is included in a working
or studying woman’s pay/studies.
If only this country would follow
the same trend to help families do
more and give them the importance they deserve.
Melissa
For the past 3 1/2 years my boyfriend has had to stay home with
our daughter because one we cannot afford day care and then when
I applied for state help so that my
boyfriend could work we were denied that help why well because
he didn’t have a job. Really that
doesn’t make much sense at all so
now for that past 3 1/2 years it has
been quite a struggle.
Pre-school is also ridiculously
expensive. There needs to be a
way for people to get there children in day care and pre-school
with out it being this difficult.
With rent being outrageously
expensive how are we ever supposed to make it juggling around
all these things. I’m lucky that my
child even gets to eat!!!
From a struggling mother.
MomsRising.org
Patricia
Susan
As a mother of 3 children, returning to work in the 60’s & 70’s
was no easy matter, both culturally & financially. Limited funds, as
well as reliable child care facilities,
virtually precluded any mother
from seeking employment.
I worked half time as a nursemidwife before my daughter
started school. Most babysitters
want to work fulltime. Babysitters who work part-time want to
work the same consistent days. My
schedule wasn’t always the same,
so it was very hard to find babysitters who were willing to work
different days. Most babysitters
prefer to work off the books, but
then parents can’t deduct childcare costs on their taxes.
When I finally progressed to a
level where my children were in
school all day I also became employed at a 600 bed teaching hospital nearby as an Employment
Relations Manager. With a primarily female staff facing child
care issues every day, I began to
survey area businesses & hospitals
to get a sense of the problem &
determine if there existed any solutions.
One large pharmaceutical company had the foresight & the money to establish an on-site center
which I visited to learn how it was
possible. (Hospitals are somewhat
similar, with shift workers, e.g.)
Next, I contacted companies who
were child care providers to assess
their capabilities and willingness
to adapt to the vagaries of a hospital setting.
When I put it all together a presentation was given to the Board
of Trustees of the Hospital. Their
response was tepid, to say the
least, and the project was tabled
indefinitely....until a new Hospital
President arrived a couple of years
later who sought my thoughts
about nursing shortages, retention, and recruitment. A man of
vision, he understood immediately the advantages associated with
on-site care and included in his future plans the building of a new
child care center. Within another
couple of years, the center was a
reality for babies 6 weeks old to
pre-schoolers.
Although my children were
well past that stage, it was the
highlight of my many years of
being a working mom and the
proudest personal achievement.
MomsRising.org
By the time our daughter was
in school 5 days a week, our need
for childcare greatly decreased.
However, school vacations, holidays, and half days were an incredible challenge. Our daughter
had to go to summer camp as long
as possible. In our school district,
there were 6 weeks a year when
there was no school or camp: the
post camp pre school 2 weeks,
winter recess, Presidents Week
recess, spring recess, and the post
school pre camp week.
My husband and I don’t get 6
weeks of vacation, to one of us
would take off while the other
one worked. We got very little vacation time together. I know there
are some working parents who get
help from their parents, but we
didn’t. Life was so difficult/complicated/stressful in those days.
Wanda
We need the Childcare Tax
Credit plain and simple!
I am a college educated, married working mother of 2 children
(ages 4yrs and 18months). I can
attest to the fact that it is very
hard to find affordable childcare.
We have a very modest income
of $3,600 a month after taxes
and we have to spend $1600 per
month on childcare expenses.
This barely leaves room for other expense: food, rent, electric,
gas, cable, phone, insurance and
my student-loans. There is never
any money left over for optional
things like entertainment, but we
survive. Every dollar is stretched
to the point of screaming.
We work and pay our taxes,
which is the only way to continue
to contribute to the Tax Pot. However, if we don’t have an affordable, safe and nurturing environment for our children to be in,
then we can’t work. With the help
of Daycare, my 4yr old is reading
books now and my 18 month old is
recognizing words on flash cards.
We can go to work with peace of
mind.
As Tax Paying Americans we
deserve the Childcare Tax Credit.
Our Money Earned It For Us!
NEW MEXICO
Dinah
When we moved to Santa Fe,
our daughter was under a year
old. After almost a full year of job
searching, I finally found a position. The next hurdle was finding child care for her. Apparently
the working women in Santa Fe
all had aunties, moms, or sisters to
take care of their children. That
left “outsiders” like me searching
frantically for the few good professional sitters. Through sheer luck
I finally plugged into the underground network and found Gina, a
great sitter five minutes from our
house. She loved and cared for
our girl for three years (including
potty training) until she entered a
full-day preschool program at our
church. The few days Gina was sick
or unavailable were sheer terror as
we searched for a substitute. Happily, our daughter is 27 now, and a
delightful adult.
F. Scott
Finding good childcare was a
frustrating experience. The university where I work has a fantastic
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51
childcare program, but the waiting
list for infants less than 1 year old is
more than 2 years - we would have
had to pay to be on the waiting list
for over a year before even trying
to get pregnant! So we went to
the private sector and found a nice
place very near my office. We got
on the waiting list, but after my son
was born and my wife had to return to work the director informed
us that there was no room in their
infant class.
After a frantic search (and some
unpaid time off work), we eventually found a place that we very
much like. We wouldn’t trade it,
but my wife and I (both working
professionals with advanced degrees) now pay nearly 1/4 of our
total take-home pay for care for
our son. And the cost of the program is in line with others around
the city, it isn’t some kind of “Cadillac Care”. I don’t know how families who make less than we do can
possibly afford childcare. We hope
to have a second child, but simply
can’t afford it.
Jacquelun
I was paying up to $300/week!
So I quit my job and stayed home
with the kids because I was working for daycare :( its very sad because my kids are very social and
they’re only 3-years old and 1-years
old. My 3-year-old was very upset
with me because she couldn’t see
her friend everyday. We need to do
something about these prices!
NEW YORK
Alicia
Years ago I worked for a wonderful organization in Seattle, WA
called Childhaven, a daycare for
abused and neglected children
from infant through 5 years old.
This program is invaluable as a resource for these children and their
parents. It’s a life-changing catalyst
52
to potentially break the cycle of
abuse. It’s some of the most inspiring work I’ve ever done.
Now I have a child of my own,
and although our budget is VERY
tight, I am fortunate to be able to
stay home with my three year old
son. But it has been very difficult
trying to find part-time child-care
for him on the evenings when I do
work, and the expense keeps me
from working more hours.
I know from both sides how vital childcare is, and I hope that our
lawmakers keep this in mind.
Danielle
I work in a Head Start classroom
and while I work my three children
are in daycare. I always get the
“Wow, you don’t get a break from
kids?” question. But, children are
my passion. The early childhood
field still seems to be looked down
upon in the education field. “Oh,
you are a babysitter?” Wow, I was
a babysitter at age 14 when I took
the safety course and made $2 an
hour. I went to college for Early
Childhood Education. I do not just
babysit the children in my room,
I create lessons and individualize
just like the elementary teachers
do. I understand the psychology
of these children and am helping
teach them the basics of life.
As a teacher whose children are
in daycare over 8 hours a day, I expect my children receive a quality
education in daycare. I want to ensure that the people that care for
them understand them and how to
help them reach their milestones.
I do not need someone to feed
them and change diapers. I need
them to take my place as a nurturing parent while I work. I want to
ensure my children are prepared
for Kindergarten. I want to ensure
my children are eating nutritious
meals. High quality early childhood
centers do this.
Thankfully New York has a daycare assistance program, because
Head Start employees in this state
make nearly half of what Kindergarten teachers make - even
though we need the same degree. I
could not imagine what I would do
without programs for early childhood education - I would be jobless
and without daycare.
Erin
I have an 8 month old. He will
not go to day-care. What we really
need to improve is the ability for a
parent to be able to afford to stay
home with their children.
We live on my salary, 40k and
Daddy stays home with the baby. I
would love to be able to be home
with the baby but I make more
money and have health insurance.
Daddy works on the weekend to
help pay bills. We don’t have any
frivolous expenditures. We don’t
have cable, internet, etc. Babies
should be raised by their parents
and I think we need to make that
option more available to parents.
Jennifer
We have been fortunate to find
great child care centers in MA, GA,
and NY (we moved a lot), with
developmentally appropriate curriculum, good staff/child ratios,
healthy food, and a safe environment.
However, without dual professional incomes, we couldn’t have
afforded the very high rates. I
visited some pretty scary places
in our search. State standards are
too low. It would behoove us as
a country to provide educational,
safe, healthy options for more
working families.
Joyce A.
I babysat two children, 3 and
4 years old. I would pick them up
at nursery school and take care
of them until there mother came
home. My car radio is tuned in to
my classical music station. After
MomsRising.org
I strapped them in, I handed out
their kazoos. When mother came
home, she asked, “What did they
do today?” I replied, “Today they
played with the New York Philharmonic.” Not too many baby sitters
can make that claim.
Leighann
I have been fortunate to find
quality daycare for my children at
an affordable price for my husband
and me. In the Albany, NY area our
daycare costs less than most others,
it is a for profit LLC and the owner
has her Ph D in child development.
The staff is unbelievable. As much
as I hate to leave my son all day, I
know he is well cared for, is having fun and is learning far more
than if he stayed at home with me.
If either my husband or I lost our
job, we would have to pull our son
from daycare and it would break
my heart. That is just how much
our son loves it there. It is a second
home for him and we are blessed.
Mary
My husband works the overnight shift, and then his mother
helps us out with after school care.
My children are always with
family. Still, it’s been quite a sacrifice, as it’s limited our family time
significantly and my husband is
perpetually exhausted. Wish there
were better and more affordable
alternatives, but child care in Manhattan for the middle class is nonexistent. We fall into the middle class
quagmire of not making enough to
pay for it but making too much to
qualify for local programs.
Mary
I felt secure that family members were available to step in and
help with child care as I worked,
coming up as a child there was always family members or neighbors
to help watch us children from the
time they got home from school at
3:00 until 6:00 p.m.
MomsRising.org
I had a false sense of security
where my daughter and sons were
concerned, family molested them.
They are grown men and women
today who will not allow family
near their children and take great
pains to whom they leave their
children with. This is not a funny or
happy story, but it is our reality.
Michelle
I was lucky enough to be able
to stay home for the first year of
my daughter’s life, but as her first
birthday approached I knew it
was financially time to get started
again. The daycares in my area
were all acceptable, but most were
warehouse type “kindercare” places. I wanted a more personal and
family situated one. We were lucky
with ours, where our daughter
spent her years from one to five
with about 12 other kids (5 in her
age group).
The biggest shock to the system
was the amount of money it cost.
This was the years 1999 to 2003 and
I was only working as a substitute
teacher and my partner had a decent job, but not one with a huge
salary. The cost ended up being
about $8-10K a year!!! That was almost all of what I made as a sub in
the beginning.
However, this daycare gave our
daughter skills that she still uses today at age 12, so I can’t complain.
I’m one of the lucky ones! I was just
happy when I landed a full time
teaching job. How do people with
multiple children afford it at all?
Michelle
I never thought in my life I
would ever need public assistance
until I had my son and had to
make the choice between raising
my son and allowing him to have
at least one parent around or my
career. As you can see my son won
and he deserves it. I am fortunate
that I have a family that helps pay
for my sons school.
Many single parents can not afford it let alone many two parent
households can not afford it and
then on top of it you ask for HighQuality Childcare. Every parent
wants that but when they only have
limited options and have to choose
between quality and what they can
afford is a big realty for many.
I am a struggling single parent that actually had to leave my
career in management within the
hospitality industry. Even though
I enjoyed my career and was on
the fast track to even more promotions, the requirements of the
job are to be available 80 plus
hours a week. Even though you
may not actually work that many
hours – normal is 50-60hrs – they
want to be able to schedule you
anytime. For example, I recently
interviewed with a chain restaurant that needed me available
5am-10pm 7 days a week with a
rotating schedule.
The cost of a private nanny
which is the only way to get that
much coverage for child care cost
around $30,000. The job at the
chain restaurant salary was between $30,000-40,000 a year. So I
would only be working to pay a
nanny. I gave my availability the
hours my sons pre-school is open
which gave them 50hrs a week to
work with but it was not enough
and I was disqualified from the
interview process for not meeting
the job requirements.
My 3- almost-4-year-old has
been in a daycare and pre-school
part-time most of his 3 year old
life. When I was laid off two years
ago it has been almost impossible
to find a job in my field let alone
at the same management level I
was at or under do to the needs
of the industry. Open schedules,
routing schedules, and on-call is
difficult enough for any person to
work at regularly but being a single parent its almost impossible.
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My son enjoys his school interacting with the other kids,
learning his ABC. He is not quite
4 yet but a few weeks ago actually work his own name. I was in
shock because he just started the
new pre-school program only a
few months before.
Even though I love teaching
my son at home the interaction
between the teachers and other
children will help him to grow
and develop social skills that will
be so vital to his overall development. But I can only afford parttime pre-school. With out public
assistants we would not be serving at all.
I finally started back to work
after moving cross country to
do so. Found an owner of a private business that works with me
and my scheduling needs. Part of
my work I can do from home or
with my child which is wonderful. It is low paying though and
only about 20hrs a week. What
it is allowing me to do though is
still raise my child instead of paying someone to do so, attending
school myself part-time and work
part-time.
I’m on food stamps and am
hoping to get some help with
child care also. We live a very
simple life with though to keep
expenses to a minimum.
Odile
I am French and moved 11 years
ago to New York city. When I had
my first child I was going to send
her to day care and nursery school,
which in my country are either free
or very inexpensive and well run.
I discovered with horror that I
wouldn’t be able to send her to a
nursery school before she turned
2 and a half year and for $11,000/
year and only until 3.00PM. You
must be joking: in America? The
country where women are supposedly achieving equality. Not when
it comes to childcare.
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Stacey
We are currently going through
a situation at daycare and are having a terrible time through it.
My husband and I both work, to
afford our home in NY. Both of our
children, 4yo and 2yo are enrolled
in full-time daycare. I have a rotating schedule so normal full-time
daycare does not work for us. I do
not work 9-5 and I’m sometimes off
during the week which makes daycare almost a waste to pay for but...
we are forced too!
There are no daycares that will
work with families that don’t have
the normal 9-5 work schedule. So
firemen, nurses, police officers, airport workers, etc. will have a hard
time with this one!
When they close for weather,
you pay them. If you take your
child out for a day or two for vacation, you pay them. If your child is
sick and cannot make it to school,
you pay them. It’s amazing how
once-sided this all is....Very frustrating taking it day by day and waiting for full-time public school.
Suzanne
I was part of a Shorenorth Co-op
Preschool & Parent Education Center for the past six years. This school
is affiliated with and supported by
Shoreline Community college. Being part of this co-op was an excellent experience! The parent education I got was very helpful and
the friends I made there will last a
lifetime.
Being a parent is a very difficult
job and having our co-op preschool
teacher and other classmates as
support was wonderful. I am an elementary school teacher by profession, very well educated, in the upper middle class, and what I would
call an “older” new mom. Still, being a parent is very difficult.
We need support for families to
help make the future generation
successful. I hope our legislators re-
alize the benefits of our state parent education program & co-op preschool. It was very valuable for me.
Velma
When my son turned 2 and 1/2,
he was so active and was being
babysat by my mother. I knew he
was a handful so I began looking
for a good nursery school. I didn’t
want just a place where children
played all day and napped and
had snacks. I was already clear as
an educator, that early childhood
education was important.
I finally found a nursery that
had a preschool curriculum, with
time spent learning and playing
creating a very healthy mix of the
two. By the time my son started
Kindergarten, he could already
write his first name, recognize his
letters and numbers and many
other things. Of course, I spent a
lot of time reading to him and exposing him to museums, show, etc.
I was only dismayed to find that
the school system was not set up
to deal with those children who
had already learned certain concepts, so I sat in the classroom one
day and observed my son becoming very distracted as the teacher
was teaching about animals about
which he already knew.
I then had to put him in a non
public school so that the learning
needs could be addresses.
Early childhood education is
so important and I just wrote to
my Senators to ask why it was not
mandatory here in NY. It is such a
critical time.
NORTH CAROLINA
Alyssha
Our daycare bill is killing us! We
pay $304 a week, but still bring
home a little extra that we need.
So I still have to work. The other issue is, my little girl needs the social
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interaction more so, than my little
boy. So, we have to suck it up and
pay that bill! I did find one place
cheaper; but when I went to check
it out, the teachers were all in the
back room, and babies were crawling out into the hall! I do believe
you get what you pay for!
Angela
When our first child was born
my husband and I could not afford to pay for childcare and health
insurance. Imagine having to go
through you child’s first couple of
years without health insurance. As
our earnings increased, we were
able to purchase childcare however finding quality childcare that
we can afford has always been
frustrating. After having three children and just about every childcare
experience you can imagine, I am
of the opinion that my children
received the best childcare from
Church based pre-schools where
the congregation had a heart to
serve their surrounding community
and subsidized this mission.
Claudia
My daughter had her two boys in
the Boys and Girls Club in Fort Mill,
S.C.. They had a great place to go,
homework was done, sports played,
snack provided. They loved it and
it helped my daughter work a full
time job. Then this organization
which is suppose to service children
in low income homes doubled their
fees.
My daughter had to remove
them from the program and they
became young latchkey kids. She
tried to maintain her full time job
but could not work, and monitor
her children. Their grades suffered,
they missed their friends and the
school had some minor problems
with their behavior. My daughter was forced to work only parttime weekends, which meant she
couldn’t provide insurance for her
or the kids. She had to go on the
MomsRising.org
food stamp program to supplement
her income. Bad experience you bet
and I cringe when I watch how The
Boys And Girls Clubs of America is
providing a place for kids to go.
Jeannine
Well, I guess I’m one of the
“lucky” ones in the working middle class who makes just enough
money to justify keeping a job and
placing my two children in daycare. We couldn’t afford full time
care for both. So for three days a
week, childcare costs more than
my mortgage. In fact, when I balance my childcare costs with my income I’m bringing in about $500/
month. Nevermind the two other
stressful days we juggle to watch
the kids. Things are very tight.
My husband’s hours have been
cut and ALL of our expenses have
gone up in the past two years. Of
course, I haven’t received a raise
in 2 years either. I have a Master’s
degree and work for a prominent
university. We are a two income
household. If we can barely afford
childcare, how could anyone with
less education or experience afford
it? Sounds easier to go on welfare.
We have just resigned ourselves to
being poor...at least until our kids
enter public school.
How this country can focus so
much effort and money into the
juvenile justice, remedial school,
jails and treatment programs,
when study after study shows that
investments in early child education return their value 10 fold, I
will never understand. Childcare
should be subsidized for all. Each
dollar spent in early childhood
development will return 17 back
to the community, so it will more
than pay for itself.
It’s time for America to get with
the program and abandon our
outdated, outmoded policies. If
we want to compete with the rest
of the world, it’s time we started
investing in families and children.
Jennifer
We added a second child to our
family this past spring. Since I work
for the school system, I had the
whole summer off to care for him
and my 3 yr. old daughter.
My husband and I were not
sure how we were going to pay for
childcare for both of them. We debated one of us (probably him) getting a second job. We looked into
a private babysitter as opposed to
daycare, but there didn’t seem to
be much difference in price (unless
we left our kids with really unsavory individuals). We felt backed
against a wall. We had to have
childcare so we could both work
in order to pay for groceries, our
house, electricity, my student loans,
and the medical costs of having a
baby. But we wanted it to be good
childcare, where our children could
learn and flourish.
We had already found the perfect childcare center at our local
community college, where my 3 yr.
old had been attending since she
was a baby. The teachers there are
educated and the child to adult ratio is low. It is a very child-centered
place. Unfortunately, putting both
our children there would cost more
than the monthly mortgage on our
house! I applied for childcare assistance through the Dept. of Social
Services. Unfortunately, we made
too much money to qualify.
So, my husband opted to go
back to school, in addition to working a full-time job, so that we could
get assistance from a childcare
grant through the community college. It has been tough. My kids
barely see their Dad because he is
always working, going to school, or
doing his homework. My husband
is very stressed-out with all his responsibilities and feels guilty for
not spending more time with our
kids. But it’s the only way we could
afford to send our kids to this wonderful childcare center.
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Jennifer
I am a married stay at home
mother of 4 and in order for me
to get a job I have to have daycare and which in turn means that
I would be working for gas and
daycare expenses only. I have some
college but never finished and with
the school/after school activities
schedule of my school aged children I would only be able to work
part-time and most likely for minimum wage.
With this schedule and pay rate
I am only making enough for gas
and daycare therefore, I am at a loss
of what to do. I really don’t want to
work to only make enough money
to pay someone to raise my child.
If I am only breaking even or less
then I must stay home. Child care
help would be nice so that I could
help my husband with the bills.
Our local agency has a year long
wait list for daycare subsidy and we
wouldn’t qualify with my husbands
income. Even so it’s still not enough
to make ends meet. Please help for
those of us who fall in between the
lines.
Kayron
Looking for child care is a very
hard, but necessary task. No one
can raise your child better than
you. Therefore, you have to look
for the safest, cleanest, and most
educational place. It is very difficult to find many places that fit
this description. Once you find
the right fit for your child, you
cannot afford it. With a dual income family of 4, you wouldn’t
consider childcare a large financial burden, but I personally pay
almost 800.00 a month. That is for
only one 2yr old in full time prek and one 9yr old for afterschool
childcare. That is more than my
house payment!
It is very difficult to be a working mother and have half of your
income go just towards daycare.
In addition to spending so much
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childcare, most women make
less money than men doing the
same job. So here we are working
to support our families, but we
make less money and have to pay
an outrageous amount to have
someone watch our children. No
wonder American single mothers struggle to keep food on the
table.
Rhonda
My daughter spent her first year
of preschool at Day School through
an Episcopal Church. She had the
same teachers all year long. The
following year she attended preschool at a “day care” for five halfdays per week.
The teacher and administrator
turnover was astounding and definitely had an impact on the children. We recently enrolled her in
a new “day care” which is pricier
but definitely has a more stable
environment and numerous positive learning experiences. We are
barely scraping by because of the
extra cost for this new preschool,
and I have been looking for a job
for almost a year to help us make
ends meet.
Rosemary
Childcare is so expensive it is
going to shrink American families. We can barely afford our 1
child, much less 2 of them. This is
sad. Siblings are amazing gifts and
without them I believe people will
struggle with close and meaningful relationships. Help America stay
strong by lowering or subsidizing
the cost of child care so Americans
can have siblings!
Shelby
As a recent PhD graduate, I’ve
been looking for full-time work
while struggling to manage an active 2 year old daughter. I am fortunate to have a grandmother nearby
who watches my daughter twice a
week. Without her, I would not be
able to apply for jobs or keep up
with the few contract jobs I do have.
I currently pay an unemployed friend
to watch my daughter twice a week
in the morning, but I wish I could afford to pay for her to attend a quality childcare facility. I would love for
her to be able to socialize with other
children and learn with them.
High quality childcare is simply
too expensive for us to afford on our
budget. Over one quarter of my husband’s salary already goes to health
insurance for myself and our daughter. Many childcare options in our
city that are of decent quality cost
about half of his salary. How can
we afford that? We make too much
money to be eligible for any sort of
assistance with health care or childcare, and we struggle to determine
how that is possible. I would love
for congress to consider childcare assistance for middle class families.
Veronica
I actually have a two part story
to tell... My daughter was very fortunate to be part of a Head Start
center that specialized in special
needs children last year and it was
amazing. Seriously, the gains she
made in that classroom amazed all
of us. They were the most attentive,
helpful, gracious and caring teachers I’ve seen in a preschool environment. They were completely tuned
in to our kids and their needs, and
believe me their needs were huge.
The quality of teachers in the Head
Start Special Needs Classroom for
the NBES area is fantastic.
Fast forward to this year, my
daughter started kindergarten and
I started back to college to earn a
degree to help us survive in this
economy. I had only one choice
and I was shocked at the attitudes
of the administrators, i.e. directors, the teaching methods (or lack
of). I’ve never been in a preschool/
afterschool care place and had to
deal with individuals who won’t
even interact with me, yet I’m pay-
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ing them $85 a week to take care
of my child afterschool. I only work
part time and if I miss work then
there is absolutely no money to pay
for afterschool care. Or WORSE yet,
when my daughter is sick (remember she’s a special needs student)
I still have to pay for afterschool
care even though she’s not there
and I’m not working to make the
money to pay for daycare.
It’s a working parent/student’s
worst nightmare. Not to mention
that there is a waiting list a mile
long to receive funds to help with
childcare thru our county, and they
even cut 300 people from receiving
childcare benefits, so why even try
to qualify for them.
NORTH DAKOTA
Jennifer
My husband and I have a 9 month
old son. We both work full time, plus
my husband also farms part time
with his father. We are having a hard
time finding quality, affordable daycare, so my mother watches our son
3 days a week and a friend of ours
watches him the other 2 days. My
mother doesn’t charge us anything,
our friend’s rate is pretty reasonable. We have been very fortunate
to have this arrangement so far, but
we will have to put our son in daycare soon, as my mother will not be
able to watch him for much longer.
I would prefer to stay at home with
my son, but we cannot afford that
either. I wish we had some better
options. Part time options would be
the best. I know there are many out
there with no options.
OHIO
Amber
Due to the cost of childcare, my
husband has to work only part time to
care for our newborn. My job carries
the insurance, so I can not be the one
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to stay home. I also work part time to
make up for the income lost. Because
we fall above the federal poverty line,
we get no childcare assistance, and
the prices are outrageous. However,
those we pay to care for our children
is too low, they barely make a living
wage, if at all. The problem is bigger
than we can fix I fear.
Latosha
I have had all the emotions when
it has come to day care for my children, I had refused to pay all the
little extra on top of my weekly fee
for day care when my two older
boys where in day care, so because
of it, I went to pick my kids up on a
Friday evening and the daycare provider had let them go last minute...
As of now I work days and my husband work nights because we can
not afford child care for my three
year old daughter, who will be four
in December. It just cost too much...
on top of that there is not Pre-K for
her so I have almost two years before
she can go to school, because I can’t
afford to put her in a Pre-k program.
Michele
What can be especially difficult
is to find child care if your child has
a disability. When my son was two,
he was diagnosed with speech delay; which was to be the beginning
of a long list of diagnoses.
When I went back to work, my
son was 15 months. I couldn’t find
child care until 2 weeks before I
went back to work. I was desperate. So I took a chance. This person had never had a child although
she was pregnant. What she didn’t
tell me until 4 months had gone
by was that my son literally stood
at the door and never moved from
the time I dropped him off until I
picked him up.
I tried three other child care providers that year; and one of them
told me she thought he had been
hit before because when she bent
down to hand him a cup of juice he
threw up his hands and cringed like
he was about to be hit in the head.
So my son couldn’t even tell me
what was going on when he was at
daycare.
What this country needs is good,
affordable daycare for our children.
They will be running the country
one day. Finding good childcare is
a nightmare.
Rebecca
I’m one of the lucky ones. I
found a wonderful day care that
we used for 8 consecutive years for
all three of my children. There were
some teachers I loved, and a few
that I didn’t, but for the most part
it was a facility that I raved about
and recommended to friends. I was
lucky that I didn’t have to wait for
an open spot for my kids. I was also
very lucky that I could afford the
care. It was expensive. For infants,
the cost is now upwards of $250 a
week in the midwest. Without my
household’s dual income and my
employer’s dependent care flexible spending account, I shudder to
think how we would have afforded
it. Single mothers and low income
families are really up against a wall.
It’s hard out there, and I am well
aware that I’m in the minority!
OKLAHOMA
Amanda
I receive child care assistance
through my local DHS office. If I
didn’t get this assistance I could not
work (even though I live paycheck
to paycheck) and would have to
apply for Welfare. I’m more than
grateful for every penny I receive
for child care without it I would
have to pay $120/wk! My daughter
is learning so much from the pre-k
program that is offered she knows
how to count, read (some small
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57
sentences) knows her alphabet and
she knows how to draw. She is four
yrs old.
I hate to find out what would
happen if these programs lost funding. Unless Congress wants to pay
for parents to stay at home I don’t
see where cutting funding would
be a smart decision on their part.
Elizabeth
I got divorced when my boys
were 3 and 5yrs old. I had no family
around me and had to ensure that I
kept my full time job. Being a single
parent with 2 young boys was very
hard. I had to take time off work for
dental appts, to get shots and physicals, and for doctors appts. When
the boys were sick and couldn’t go
to the babysitters house (because all
the other kids would get sick), I had
no where to take them and couldn’t
continually take off of work! I would
bring a pillow and blanket and have
my sick son lay on the floor under
my desk. They were understanding
at my job... as long as I was getting
my work done.
Now that the boys are 20 and
22 yrs old, I wish I would have been
able to stay at home with them
when they were sick and feed/care
for them properly! it is sad what
we have to sacrifice for in life just to
make ends meet...and my boys are
the ones who suffered the most!
OREGON
Adrian
As a single parent with no child
support, I worked a full-time job and
a part-time job in 2005. I paid over
$900 a month for full time care for
my 2 year old son for almost a year.
I was only bringing home $1800 in
income. My rent for a 2 bedroom
apartment was $700 a month. I
grossed way too much income to
get state assistance with anything
financial or any food benefits. I ended up getting further and further
into debt and in return, my car was
58
repossessed because I couldn’t make
the payments or pay the insurance.
I could barely keep the heat and
lights on in the home. I eventually
lost my job due to not being able to
make it in on time, thus having no
vehicle to get me there. After I was
fired, I was miserable. I had to cash
in my 401k with regret.
I am now and since have been
self employed because it’s the only
way I can afford to pay all of my
bills and care for my son at the same
time. I struggle majorly. But I struggled before and at least I’m happy.
Jobs don’t allow you to leave to get
your child from school. Nor do they
allow you to bring the child to work
to a in-work child care facility. Employers need to get it together and
help us and we need to help each
other any way we can.
Audrey
I had been working 3/4 time
since my daughter was born. My
husband and I were able to work
hours so that we didn’t have to
pay for care. Now he has since lost
his job and trying to go to school
and find jobs that work around his
schedule and I now work full time.
So we set out looking for affordable care. I am lucky enough
(for now) to work part time in the
office and part time at home so we
only need half day care.
The irony is that the extra hours
I work are going straight to child
care. After looking for a place we
could actually afford we found a
Montessori school that needed
students and was able to take my
2 and 1/2 year old. Except they are
only 4 days a week. So I bring her
into work with me a few Fridays
a month while the grandmothers
drive over the pass to help out the
others.
It is a delicate balance that we
currently in. If my employers decide they need me in the office full
time we are really screwed.
The price of daycare and cur-
rent average wages make it really
hard to stay afloat. I don’t know
how others are able to do it that
make less than I do.
Carol
When my son was three years
old, his day care provider closed
her business suddenly to move to
another area. It had taken a lot of
work to find a day care situation
where my little boy was happy and
I was devastated to have to search
again. This person was like a family
member to me because we shared
the care of my son on a daily basis.
I was working as a social worker
at the time and had several high
risk families on my caseload. I felt
very responsible for my job tasks
and very stressed by working on locating quality child care.
Most men do not understand
this sort of stress. My son’s father
did not take on the same responsibility as I did, and my male co-workers on the job did not understand
my situation either. I kept working
to settle my little boy’s situation
and do a good job at work.
Daniela
Had to quit my job because I
could not afford or find good daycare, also was denied unemployment. Employer ( before I had to
quit) reduce me to parttime and
did not allow me to go back to the
nightshift.
Erika
We are a two child family that
goes to a downtown Portland Oregon childcare/kindergarten. My
husband and I both work downtown Portland as well. We pay a
mortgage payment ($1500) each
month to have our kids at this
safe school close to where we
work.
It’s unfortunate to me that
our dependant care reimbursement program is for $5000 a year
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regardless of how many children
you have. I don’t know anyone
that pays the equivalent of $416
per month for safe, quality care
for 2 children. We pay 3 times
that amount and I know others
who have to pay more. Our alternatives are to have someone that
we don’t know provide in-home
care which isn’t an option for us
and to put my son in public Kindergarten. Public Kindergarten is
only 1/2 day and we would have
to pay an aftercare fee for him
anyway so that we can keep our
jobs.
I would rather not eat...and
sometimes it comes to that. I
just keep telling myself that it
will feel like I’ve won the lottery
each month when I’m no longer
paying for childcare...but then
there’s college!
Fawn
I was lucky to have co-workers who told me to get on wait
lists while I was still pregnant. We
found a place near our house (important since we only have 1 car)
that seemed good. It was clean,
had good facilities, a very experienced director whose philosophies
I like and a long-term head teacher
in the infant who many parents
hired to babysit after hours. However, when our daughter arrived
at 5 months of age, it didn’t work
out. They couldn’t get her to eat. I
arrived several times to find her crying and no one attending to her.
Babies spent lots of time strapped
in to various devices. I came and
breastfed her once a day and so got
to see the staff in action and was
terribly disappointed.
I have worked in daycare so
I have a sense of how hard the
work is, but was naive about the
wide range in quality of care. We
ended up putting her in two other
places (a home day care for about
6 months where there were some
serious safety issues and they another center which had huge staff
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turnover in only 6 months) before
getting accepted to the extremely
expensive, but wonderful center
she is at now and will be until she
goes to kindergarten. It was *very*
hard for her to move care providers so many times and the decisions
were really tough.
I felt even worse for folks who
have much more limited choices
than we do. I thought I knew how
to research quality day care, but options are much more limited than I
thought. We need to figure out a
way to pay providers more!
Harriet
I was so fortunate to be living in
French-speaking Europe when my
daughter was little. The daycare in
my area was the best in the town,
and only a block from my home.
The daycare staff were certified
and highly trained, and they were
very well paid and had excellent
benefits. The place was called “La
Chenille” which mean the caterpillar in French. It was in a beautiful
old house with a large yard. Because it was French speaking Europe the children were fed fresh
and extremely well prepared food,
delicious and healthful, junk food is
relatively unknown there.
I made friends with my neighbors and the other women on the
playground and we set up a network that would share taking care
of each other’s children if needed,
even over night, for instance if
couples wanted to go out on a date
night without worrying about the
children.
Had I lived in the states, where
afterwards I became a single mother, it would have been so much
more difficult. The daycare centers are not subsidized based on
income/overhead ratios like where
I lived in Europe and would have
been unaffordable. The staff would
have been under-trained, underpaid and exploited. The food would
have been not the kind I want for
my child, because in America I was
shocked to see “corn dogs” as a
lunch room staple when I returned
from Europe, just to give an example, and fast food chains providing
lunches with sugary soft drinks to
our children, unheard of in Europe.
Hazel
I believe in the need for high
quality childcare for all children,
regardless of their family’s financial
situation or status. I myself have
worked with children for nearly 20
years and run a preschool program
out of my home. My three year old
son goes to a nearby preschool,
where he is thriving.
What’s ironic is that, between
preschool and aftercare childcare
costs, I am operating my program
at a loss this year. Why am I back
to teaching? Not just because I love
my work, but also so that we could
pay tuition for my son’s wonderful
preschool, where he can learn to
be in groups of other children and
to develop his own life outside of
home, which I think is important
for him. His teachers are caring,
nurturing professionals who work
to create an environment and community which brings out the best in
the children.
Consequently, such high quality
is realistically expensive.
I contrast this to the larger daycare environments I’ve worked in
during my younger years. The children were ‘okay’, but not thriving.
The teachers were far less qualified-assistants often had little prior
experience-- and many of us were
burnt out after a year or so because
we didn’t have the resources and
support necessary for operating a
higher-quality program. Add to this
that many of our families were suffering from economic, educational
and social disadvantages, which
added another wrinkle to our work.
All of these parents dearly loved
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their children and wanted the very
best for them, and I am still sad that
the program we offered was not
‘the best’, but the best we could
do given the government reimbursement rate, which falsely drives
down the cost of childcare.
Our family is fortunate enough
to be able to absorb the financial
loss this year, and I wonder how my
business will change when my son is
old enough to attend a full-day kindergarten. Until then, I am grateful for both my son’s and my own
preschool. I see how his experience
is making a positive difference, and
can already see how much the children in my own group are learning.
I am proud to be a mother and
preschool teacher. I’ll be even more
proud when the United States
makes high quality child care a top
priority and considers it an investment in our nation’s future, instead
of subsidizing the sort of child care
that acts as nothing more than
a band-aid to our overwhelming
need.
Jennifer
When my oldest boy was a baby
(up to about 2 years old) I was a
single mom and finding adequate
and healthy day care was extremely
difficult. Due to expenses, I was
forced to use at home day care places. Here are a few experiences:
1. I dropped my son off and all
seemed fine, when I picked him up
he was screaming. This is a happy
child, easily pleased. I still wonder,
what exactly happened to him. We
never went back.
2. Interviewed a middle aged
woman and decided after seeing her home and listening to her
pitch that we would try it. First day
I picked my son up and he wasn’t
wearing his shoes. “Why not,”
I asked. “Because they got wet
somehow,” came the reply. Odd,
but perhaps he was playing in water. Next day, pick him up and his
diaper is so wet that urine is leaking
60
down his legs. It was now clear why
his shoes had been wet. We never
went back.
3. Another place the woman
smoked and though she said never
in the house with the kids, my son
smelled like smoke. Eventually I
could not leave him there anymore
to be exposed to that.
4. Another place had dogs and
older boys. Though the mom (provider) swore that the dogs and older boys were not an issue and rarely
were in the same place, on several
occasions I picked up my son to find
him either surrounded by dogs (big
ones) and cared for by the older
boys, rather than the mom.
5. I finally found an institutional place through Volunteers of
America. I was very pleased with
them and it was a good transition
through the rest of his day care
years and into kindergarten.
Jennifer
Childcare is a necessity in our
lives. Not only does it allow both
parents to work so that we can provide our children a safe, fulfilling
life while at the same time making
sure all minimum needs are met, but
also helps prepare them for school
by introducing concepts, structure
and socialization at an early age.
For my son, he needed the socialization and structure, and I needed the
time to go back to school so I could
provide for my family.
My daughter, however, is a different story. Not only do we now require both incomes, but my daughter absolutely needs the structured
atmosphere and socialization to
prepare her for kindergarten. The
problem is, she’s not an easy child,
and at the age of 4 she is on her
4th preschool. We have a hard
time finding somewhere that is
adequately staffed, provides a preschool curriculum, and that doesn’t
have a high teacher turn-over rate.
She is now at the second best place
in town...the only one she could
get into. However, it costs half of
my income for her to be there, and
I earn way more than minimum
wage. We do not qualify for state
daycare aid, yet if I didn’t work, we
would be on state assistance.
I feel that either all parents
need to qualify for subsidization,
or all daycares need subsidies, so
they can be more affordable to all
parents. Everyday I struggle with
the decision to stay home, to the
detriment of my family, and my
daughter’s social skills, or do I keep
working and keep her socialized,
yet with care that’s not only expensive, but my not be what is best for
her?
Daycare is really becoming an
extension of the educational system (indeed, many are now doing
half day “kindergarten enrichment” programs because kindergarten has been cut to half day),
and needs an overhaul too.
Jennifer
My family is lucky enough to
have found and been able to afford, extraordinary childcare. My
two boys (27 months and 3 months)
spend their days with people who
care about them and who help
them learn through play and by
exploring nature. The teachers are
engaged in ongoing education programs, ranging from infant child
development workshops to art and
dance classes.
My husband and I are college
professors and what has struck us
about early child care is the discrepancy between the importance
of the work and how devalued it
is by our culture. A child’s experience of these early years is just as, if
not more important than a college
education. And yet, I am required
to have 10 plus years of training to
teach a class while child care providers receive little or no training.
This devaluation of child care
work is evident in the low pay and
often impossible working condi-
MomsRising.org
tions of the childcare providers,
most often in high teacher/child
ratios. This work can be intellectually engaging and fulfilling, and
yet many creative and smart young
people who do it for a few years
simply cannot choose it as a career
because the pay is so low.
Affordability is important, but
it cannot be achieved by underpaying child care providers. We need
to value the work child care providers engage in and make it a real career choice by paying a living wage
and by providing more training.
Kathleen
I’m a well-educated working
mom, and finding good childcare
was a real challenge. I also found
that “good” is synonymous with
“expensive.”
I had my first child while I was
in graduate school. I needed to find
part-time care for my baby so that
I could go to classes and finish my
degree, and then work. I remember having a heck of a time finding good care for an infant. I tried
home day care providers and had
a miserable failure with a woman
who apparently plopped my baby
in front of a TV on a regular basis,
and then would grab her up and
hold her only when I’d come to get
her.
We went through a half-dozen
options to find a caregiver. When
my second baby came along I was
working full time. I put my name
on the wait list for a good daycare
center, but meanwhile I had my 2
little ones enrolled in a less-thanclean home care center where both
kids (and me) ended up getting
lice. Ugh! I almost gave up, but finally got in to a great daycare center situation that was really good,
but terribly expensive.
My husband and I weighed
whether it would be worth it for
one of us to stay home, as we were
paying almost one entire salary to
care for the 2 kids – in particular in-
MomsRising.org
fant care (less than 12 months) was
off-the-chart expensive, but at the
same time, women are expected to
go back to work when their babies
are 6 to 12 weeks old, or their jobs
are at risk.
As a well-educated person I recognized had the resources to find,
apply for, and secure good quality
daycare, and still could barely afford to pay for it in a family with 2
working college-educated parents.
I can’t imagine what it would be
like for a minimum-wage worker
family.
Melissa
Honestly, I don’t know how
most people do it. I only work
part-time, with a very flexible, understanding employer (I work for
a nonprofit). It is only because
of this that I am able to make my
3.5 year old’s preschool schedule
work. It opens at 8:15 and closes at
3:15, and is closed for all holidays,
takes a 2 week break at Christmastime, etc. I feel fortunate I can afford it, there was a spot available,
and my employer bends over backwards to help me make it work
timewise. I know I’m lucky – many
others don’t have that kind of flexibility, and the cost for high quality care is exorbitant. That’s why I
stayed home for this long with my
daughter. I know that’s another
luxury most parents don’t have.
When will we wake up and realize
these early years are the most important investment we can make
as a country, as parents?
Nick
Childcare for my 2-year-old son
is $750+ a month for four days
a week. Rent is $1100. How can
this be? Childcare is the same as a
luxury car payment? Or renting an
additional apartment? The care
he gets is great, but this needs to
change. Either the companies are
charging too much for services, or
the government needs to subsidize
childcare for working Americans.
I have paid into the system
since I was able to legally work as
a youth, and now I find myself (a
middle class citizen) being financially crushed by unfair and questionable health and childcare expenses. I have a 5-year professional
degree and am scraping by! I cannot significantly save for my retirement due to this high cost of living.
Nicolas
While not a parent, I have been
blessed with strong parents who
sacrificed much to raise me and my
sister and instill positive values in
us. Now, as an uncle to a weeks-old
niece, I am seriously concerned as
to what her future will hold. Education is vital to democracy, and
should start as early as possible.
Children need to grow up with
good role models and a strong
school system, not the mismanaged
mess our publics schools are now.
We need reform NOW.
Oona
I’m a single mom with two
young children, 5 and 8. I work full
time and don’t receive any child
support. A few months ago I got
a letter from DHS stating there is
a lack of funds and only families
receiving cash benefits will still
get child care help. They said they
were sorry but wanted to give us as
much notice so I could prepare for
this change.
I’m sure thousands of parents
received this notice. So I thought to
myself, how can I do this? Get another job to pay even more in child
care and never see my kids? Stop using the heat? Live in my car? Quit
my job because I will have no way
to come up with the money to pay
for daycare?
I don’t really understand what
they mean by being prepared. It’s
not like we go out to eat or on vacation, we don’t own fancy things
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61
or live some spendy life style. Hello,
I’m a single mom scraping buy living
pay check to pay check if I’m lucky.
I wrote a letter to Congress asking
them how they think I should prepare for this change. I got no response big surprise. So now I’m just
waiting and hoping they will come
up with funds. I’m very scared and
lost. All I want to do is take care
of my kids, watch them grow be
healthy and happy. Not have this
huge unknown stress linger over my
head. Thank you.
S
We have always chosen to use
small in-home daycares for several
reasons but mainly because we only
needed part-time care, they are a
much less expensive option than
centers. Though we have found a
few quality people to care for our
children, the road to get to each
one has been long and painful and
filled with bad memories. In less
than 6 years we have gone through
9 daycare providers (that is more
than any child should ever have to
endure). One abused our child, one
sat her in front of the TV in a dark
room when she was only 2 years old
and we didn’t allow her to watch
TV at all at home, one had her wash
walls and windows (when she didn’t
park her in front of the TV) when
she decided to put her house on the
market, another mentally checked
out when she was going through
a divorce....the list goes on. I could
write a book about it.
Each time this happens we go
through a grieving process knowing that it is back to the searching
process and weeding out even more
scary candidates.
It would be great if more could
be done to improve such a terrible situation that I know many
families deal with as well. My husband is a teacher who has had his
salary frozen for 3 straight years
and now had to take a serious pay
deduction with the elimination of
15 days from the school year due
62
to ongoing budget cuts. We are
barely surviving. The education
system in general is broken and
needs serious consideration to get
fixed.
Sara
For the first nine month of
my son’s life I was lucky to have
my mother watch him. When my
mother decided to go back to
school I had to find a daycare provider. My husband and I are both
employed full time, making a modest wage, and even though we
can barely afford childcare we do
not qualify for any assistance. So
I looked around on Craigslist and
the State register for people in my
area that we could afford. I found
what seemed to be a nice lady that
had been doing daycare from her
home for 10 years. The first time I
had to leave my son I almost cried.
She was certified, she had a devoted playroom, and she had a zoo.
Seriously she collected Sugar Gliders, and lizards, and snakes. My
son would cry every time I left him
at the Zoo. I thought it was normal
separation anxiety. I hated it, and
I felt horrible every time I left him.
I thought I was being paranoid
and I shushed my inner voice when
it told me to take my son and run
far far away.
One day my mother came with
me to pick up my son, and she
left the woman’s house in tears.
I was so relieved to have someone else validate my feelings of
concern. She and I began looking
for a new daycare immediately. I
finally found a lady who was doing daycare to be able to stay at
home with her infant daughter.
The difference in his care was noticed immediately, my son never
cried when I dropped him off.
We’ve been seeing her for over a
year now, and I hope she doesn’t
mind another charge soon, because there isn’t anyone outside of
my family that I would rather have
watch my next child.
Sara
I have two children, my oldest
is three, and has been in daycare
since 9 months, and his brother has
been in daycare since 3 months
old. I was lucky that my mother was
able to stay with my first son after I had to go back to work when
he was 6 weeks old. Since we had
to pay out of pocket for both my
maternity leaves we could only afford to go without my income for
a short time, thanks to a windfall
we were able to afford an extra 6
weeks, but even then I only got to
spend 3 months in the most precious time of my son’s life before I
had to go back to work. I had to
trust that he would be fine without me. I adore our daycare provider, and we have been with her
for over two years now. She cares
about my kids, and it enables her
to stay at home with her daughter.
I do not begrudge her the money
we pay because it is worth knowing that my children are in a safe
environment with someone that
cares about them. However I spend
over half of my take home pay on
childcare. My husband and I make
more than is allowed to receive
assistance, and if I didn’t have my
husband’s income to pay our bills I
wouldn’t be able to work because
the cost is so prohibitive. When I
look into the Preschool programs
that I would like to enroll my eldest in I want to cry. There is no
way that we can afford to put him
in a good educational preschool
like I feel he deserves.
Me and my husband are doing really well compared to many
in this economy, but we are holding on by a thread. Our savings is
gone, we have no retirement plan,
we are trying to buy our first house
through the VA program, and we
just want to provide a stable loving home to our children. How are
mothers and fathers supposed to
raise good people when we have to
spend all day at work to pay someone else to raise our kids.
MomsRising.org
Sarah
In the early 2000’s, I found
myself a single mom of two and
I went back to college. I was going to school full time, raising my
kids with no help, and working
part time. I will be paying off my
childcare bill for many years because I had to use so much of my
student loans to pay for it. Even
though I was on food stamps,
I couldn’t qualify for any childcare assistance unless I was working. Going to school didn’t count
even though I was a person moving proactively to get off of food
stamps and become a productive
member of society! We need to
help people achieve success! If I
hadn’t had the student loans that
I did, there’s no way I could have
done it. I worked part time to try
to maximize the work assistance,
but it was incredibly difficult on
everyone. I’m glad I did it, but
like I find it frustrating that women and men in my position are
actually disincentivized to get the
schooling they need to succeed
simply because there is no childcare assistance for students.
PENNSYLVANIA
Christina
$476 a week for 2 kids under 2.
My husband and I sometimes had
to forego eating to afford it and
would have to skip paying bills. I
was lucky enough to find a great
daycare center and was able to
build a great trust with the women
that worked there. I strongly believe that mothers should be granted at least a year long paid maternity. PS – I am now a stay at home
mom.
Christina
When planning a family, my
husband and I knew having a child
would mean sacrifices and finding
ways to save money. We both had
“good” average paying jobs with
excellent benefits & good credit de-
MomsRising.org
spite my huge student loan debt.
We were ready to continue our
American dream. After finding out
we naturally conceived twins. We
knew things would be a little harder
but we never imagined how hard.
The extraordinary cost of daycare
at $500/wk was more than my husbands net pay and just shy of mine.
We have no family / friends able to
watch our girls. We didn’t and still
do not qualify for any financial assistance. Topped with a $45,000 unconsolidatable student loan we are
on the verge of losing everything.
The cost of daycare required me
to leave my job to stay home. On
one income, we used up our little
savings, and still did not qualify for
assistance. We had no heat during
the brutally cold winter last year
with 2 babies and were forced to
stay with family many nights. Our
bills are constantly in arrears and I
lose sleep due to the stress. Adding
in the job market and economy, I
was lucky to find a federal job after 7 months but I’m making even
less than before. Again we do not
qualify for childcare assistance.
Daycare is bringing us straight to
foreclosure because we just cannot
afford our mortgage, groceries, diapers, and gas for our one car. We are
in so much debt and behind in every
bill. We don’t know what to do.
The daycare our now 2 year old
twins attend blessed us with charging us for only one child because
they grew to love our girls & felt
home care would not provide them
the education and stimulation they
deserve. They are our angels. We are
now trying to get back on track but
we are so far behind it’s like take
one step forward and 2 steps back.
It is extremely frustrating that as a
young college educated family who
has worked since our teens, pay a ridiculous amount of taxes is unable
to utilize the same programs we pay
into and others blatantly abuse. Is
this what the American dream is really about?
Danielle
I have found that the $5,000 annual ceiling for pre-tax reimbursable childcare expenditures is too
low. We always exceed that amount
– even with my child only in beforeand after-school care-– because of
full day fees for the summer, including field trips, and school year
holidays, in-service days, and snow
days.
Conversely, I also have learned
that the turnover of childcare workers is very high because their salaries are low. I understand that the
cost of operating a licensed childcare center is very high. I would
propose that legislators consider
both raising the annual maximum
for pre-tax childcare expenses for
flexible spending programs and
also consider giving licensed childcare centers tax breaks to reduce
their operating expenses and enable them to pay and retain high
quality childcare workers.
Deanna
Our children have been out of
daycare for a few years, but when
they were in daycare it was a tremendous struggle. Each month,
with two children in daycare, our
payment exceeded our mortgage
payment. Some months we paid
for daycare with our home equity
line of credit. It took us 2 years to
pay off the debt we acquired when
the kids were in daycare (and we
weren’t big spenders). Parents with
young children are really struggling.
It’s a no-win situation – you’re broke
if someone stays home, and you’re
broke if the kids are in daycare.
Erica
My husband and I have 4 children. We currently have to work
2 different shifts because we are
unable to afford day care for our
kids. Our kids are 5, 5, 1, and 5
months. It would cost us approxi-
g
63
mately $600 per week to put our
children in day care. It’s not worth
it. Our marriage is strained, we are
always so stressed and we never get
to see each other. It’s either him or
I at home alone with our children.
I would love to be able to afford
childcare just so we can be on the
same shift and have our family life
again.
Gina
While expecting our first child,
my husband did the prerequisite
visits to local child care facilities
in our area. The director of a facility housed in a church started
our tour in the infant room. The
room was no bigger than a closet
with no windows with six pack
and plays. When we entered the
room, the “teacher” was resting in
a chair with her feet propped up on
one of the pack and plays where a
baby was napping. Lucky for us we
found a wonderful place for our
daughters, but we were so sad for
the families that had to leave their
children there.
Kathleen
After about five years of paying for full-time child care that I
couldn’t afford, I had to remortgage the house to get out of the
debt that I had incurred. I was working full-time out of necessity, and
therefore paying for full-time child
care of necessity. My husband lost
his job when our son was about 4
months old, and it took a long time
for him to find something else that
was full-time. He ended up starting
a small business, which really didn’t
pay for a number of years. My job
provided a steady income and benefits. This was also the reason that I
was only able to have one child.
It still makes me sad that the
high cost of child care, combined
with my need to work full-time, was
a huge factor in my decision not to
have more children, leaving my son
an only child; I mourn that loss. It
should not have to be that hard.
64
It is my sense that the responsible
middle-middle class (I’m not talking about people who call themselves middle class but make over
$100,000/year) have small families
of necessity. So we are shrinking the
middle class in more ways than economic redistribution accounts for. It
will not be the same country if the
squeeze continues.
I found a great preschool program at the local church – it prepared my children very well for
Kindergarten. It was private and affordable (the free market at work).
Let’s work at making it easier for
families to keep what they earn and
make our country more business
friendly with less involvement of
Government in our personal lives.
Mary
MJ
My story is a bit different than
you might expect. You see, I worked
full time until age 30 when I had my
first child and then worked 3 days
a week. My mom babysat for me
for free 2 days a week and I paid a
friend for the 3rd day about 30 dollars a day (9 years ago). Three years
later, when I was expecting my second child, I decided that I did not
want someone else to raise my children so I quit my job to work part
time with my husband’s business.
Finding someone who cares for
your children when you are not able
to be with them is important! What
really gets me is the expectations
they have for children entering K.
My children are ineligible to attend
Head Start and I cannot afford a
Preschool Program on my own. I
am ineligible for Subsidized care.
I am lucky to have found a great
childcare provider, but they do not
get the instructional time like they
would in a Preschool setting.
Today we own and operate two
small businesses and provide jobs/
income for 5 other people, all working hard to earn a living and some
working 2 jobs to support their families.
Either government funded education should be available to all
kids or it should be available to no
kids. If you are not going to provide
the knowledge base to all of them,
then do not have the standards set
in K so high that those who have
not attended a Preschool program
are already behind. It infuriates me
that my kids cannot attend a Head
Start program because my husband
and I are trying to provide a better
life for them.
I don’t agree that affordable
child care is what we need in our
country. I believe we need families to stay together and mom’s to
be able to afford to stay home and
raise their own children. I believe
that our government, especially PA,
needs to make it easier for people
to start small businesses and home
based businesses for extra income.
(including child care) .
There are so many tax, insurances and regulations in place that
make it very difficult for people to
start small businesses and keep the
money they earn! My husband and I
are both college educated and work
very hard and very smart and it is
a constant “battle” to keep things
going and nearly impossible to get
ahead! I think government needs
to stay out of child care. They are already too involved in my family life.
Seems to me like those of us that
are trying to make ourselves and
world better always get jiped when
it comes to getting help! The ones
really being punished are our poor
kids!!! Why don’t you explain to
my little girls why they cannot ride
the little school bus???
Shani
I don’t mind that good childcare
is expensive – my child is very important to me, and it’s crucial that
he receives excellent care while I
am at work.
MomsRising.org
But childcare is, to be sure, enormously expensive. And the opportunity to use pre-tax dollars to pay
for childcare is capped at $5,000,
when care for just one child costs
far more than that. If nothing else,
all childcare expenses should be
eligible to be paid pre-tax, for that
small savings.
But if families are important to
this country, they should be important enough to pay for.
Stacey
I am very happy with my daughter’s childcare provider. However,
she is enrolled only part time, three
days a week, from about 8:00 a.m.
to 3:30 (I teach). Though it is an
excellent provider, it is expensive,
$800 monthly. While I am willing to
pay top dollar to ensure accreditation, high standards, quality care
and the absolute best that can be
offered for my child (I cannot emphasize this enough)...I do not understand how middle class families
can make their way out of debt
(student loans, for example)...
Furthermore, childcare workers
are not paid enough, and yet they
have one of the most important
callings--shaping and influencing,
caring for the lives of children.
Congress needs to make children
the priority, not just through lip
service such as ‘family values’ and
‘back to the basics’, but through
funding and political/economic
support and focus.
As an educator I see children
daily who have suffered at the
hands of an inadequate ‘system’-and these children can become
apathetic, irresponsible citizens, or
they can blossom into exceptional
adults who contribute to the betterment of our society. The choice
is up to us and the leaders we rely
upon to do what is in the best interest of our neediest; children, elderly, disabled, and generally those
without voice who cannot advocate for themselves.
MomsRising.org
Without proper funding and
supportive policies we are failing
and whether we want to realize it
or not, we are all on the same sinking ship.
now and one is in college. We are
in the process of planning a daycare reunion for the children, their
families and me.
Stephanie
When my first child was 2 I
worked 25 hours a week and half
of my pay went to daycare. I had
no qualms about the caregivers
there, although they did have a
lot of children to keep up with; I
felt fortunate that I didn’t have to
leave my child there ALL the time.
The main drawback for me was the
illness factor. My son was always
catching something there and then
passing it to me.
I really don’t have a story except
that I am currently a single mother in the middle of a divorce and
can not find affordable, acceptable
child care to allow me to reenter
the work force. To work a minimum wage job and pay $10/hour
child care, just doesn’t make any
sense. The problem this is creating
is I am going quickly in debt. My
income to debt ratio is way out of
whack and I am creating all kinds
of financial issues.
I am extremely fortunate to not
have worked since I gave birth ten
years ago and was not going to until our son reached the age of 16.
That was our marital agreement,
but it doesn’t hold up in court. So
I need to find employment that
allows me to work from home or
over the internet or where I can
take my son with me. He is successfully cyber schooled and I will not
jeopardize that education over this
decision. It doesn’t make life impossible, only drastically challenging.
Tina
As a parent of grown children
who didn’t ever really need daycare. Many years later, I decided
to provide childcare in my home.
When I saw over the course of time
what I was able to provide and how
I could enhance the lives of the children, I became a great supporter
of childcare for families. The children were like their own little family, a little social network all their
own. They developed self-esteem,
friendships, a sense of community,
conflict resolution skills (as I was
trained in that principle) and much
more.
Those children are all teenagers
Ursula
After my second child was born,
I was a full-time mom for several years. Then I started working
part-time in the school system so
my hours coincided with my children’s schedule. After my divorce,
I became an overnight worker to
accommodate their care. I am living below the federal poverty level. My children are old enough to
stay alone now, because I couldn’t
afford daycare even if I needed it.
Maybe if I hadn’t spent the time at
home with my children, I would not
have gotten off the career track
and been forced into low-wage
heavy labor jobs, but at the time I
did what I thought was best. I really enjoyed those early years with
my children. Even though they
probably won’t be able to remember that, the memories will always
stick with me.
I am just sorry that they WILL
have to remember the stress and
uncertainty that comes with being
poor.
Vanessa
I have provided childcare in my
home over the years for a number of children, worked for several
months last year for a pre-school/
daycare and am currently a substi-
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65
tute teacher at a career center for
grades 9-12. I was laid off from
my job at daycare because of the
economy and the need for people
to find less expensive means of
childcare.
If financial aid is taken away
from single mothers and lower income families it will cause parents
to settle for less reliable, qualified
childcare or to have to quit their
jobs and stay home. I am also a
grandmother of 5 who range from
3 to 11 years old. I provide some
care for them but also work so am
not always available. All have attended daycare and preschool programs and 2 have received financial
aid... otherwise their mother would
be staying home and depending
on the system to keep these children. Financial aid allows single or
low income parents to continue to
work and contribute to the system
instead of depending on it completely.
RHODE ISLAND
Katherine
I work part-time and support my
family (my husband is a student), so
I need reliable childcare for my two
boys, ages 4 years and 7 months. The
cost of preschool for our older child,
and 3 mornings/week of daycare for
our baby, is more than our rent.
The cost of childcare is outrageous. We need real government
support for working parents.
loving,
Christian
environment
(which is only possible because as a
self-employed stay-at-home mother, I am able to deduct the cost of
his care from my taxes). Every child
should be as fortunate, and every
parent deserves to know that their
child is treated the same as if they’d
stayed home.
Frances
Months before giving birth to
our son (now 2 yrs. old) we started
our search for a day care (child development center) for our soon to
be born child.
It was the hardest experience
especially for me, being a first time
mom! We would show up unexpectedly to different day cares only
to find huge disappointments. I inquired about emergency contingency plans, curriculum, safety, training/
education of the staff, staff/children
ratio. I was shocked to hear/see the
things we came across. Especially
when you ask a “care giver” some
questions, she evades you and you
don’t get a good “vibe” from her is
the worst thing ever.
Finally we found a decent child
development center for our son,
and even though I met with the
staff, had reasonable answers to all
of my questions... it still broke my
heart to leave my 8 week old baby
with strangers. He is now 2 yrs. old,
and still goes to the same day care.
Early child development is so important to our children, they are the
future adults of tomorrow. How
can we not care about this?
SOUTH CAROLINA
Christa
I knew we had found the right
preschool for my 3 year old son on
his first day of school, when I walked
into his room – late, the last mother
there – and found his teacher holding him in her arms, snuggling with
him while they watched for me out
the window. He is not in a “mill”
style daycare but in a real, warm,
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Jessica
I pay $200 a month just for after school care. I work 40+ hours a
week and a 7.5% of my pay goes
just to paying after school care. I
could use that money to buy food,
clothes for my child or fix a car that
is 10 yrs old and can’t afford to be
fixed. If the government would
give all of us working parents the
same treatment that they give the
unemployed parents (help), none
of us would be struggling every
month to make sure our families
have want they need and bills can
be paid.
Kimberly
I am a mother of five wonderful
children. The girls are grown and
on their own and my youngest, a
son, is in college in Georgia. I provided day care out of my home for
five years, from the time my son
was born until he started kindergarten, and then started college
myself. Before I could finish my
education my husband was transferred to Florida.
In Georgia the state lottery paid
for my college as long as I made a
B or better! Even though I was 36
years old! Florida had no such program, and still doesn’t, so I went
back to work doing what I know
best...childcare. I worked for two
of the big daycare providers; Five
years at Kindercare and 3 years at
Primrose before my husband was
transferred again to North Carolina. I loved working in the one year
old room. They have so much energy, so much love! I was stunned,
however, by the cost of childcare
at these centers. The price for my
room at Primrose was $900/month.
That is staggering for most working parents.
There were other centers who
provided care for less money but
the quality of childcare was definitely affected. Kindercare had
centers in areas where individuals
had lower incomes and the centers
charged less for daycare but these
centers were so old, had much
less money available to supply the
classrooms, and were often found
non-compliant in state requirements for daycare centers. Salaries of teachers were definitely
affected by the demographics of
the center as well.
I can testify that regardless of
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what you pay for daycare services the service provided is only as
good as the teacher in each particular room. When you factor in
salary you can be certain that the
best in daycare providers will be
at the better centers.
Recently my youngest daughter moved to El Paso,Texas where
her husband is stationed at Fort
Bliss. She decided that she needed
to return to work and that meant
that her 10 month old son would
need daycare. There was no way
that she would earn enough to
provide the income the family
needed if she had to pay for daycare. The army daycare was backlogged for years so that was not
an option.
I moved to El Paso to take care
of my grandson so my daughter
could work. I stayed there for two
months while she looked for work.
Unable to find work we created a
budget that would keep my daughter and my grandson at home and I
returned to my home and husband
in South Carolina. My daughter
and her husband struggle to get by.
I don’t know the solution. I am very
aware of the problem.
Providing quality daycare will
mean lowering what an individual
must pay for the service, however
I believe that quality daycare providers must receive competitive
salaries. We cannot have our daycare workers being paid the same
as fast food workers. If we allow
this to happen then I can tell you,
with complete authority, that you
will have individuals suited only
for fast food work raising your
sons and daughters.
of my first child. I was a little disappointed when I found out that it
was one of the most expensive daycares in town and that I wouldn’t
receive any kind of staff discount if
my child attended but it was close
to my office and was supposed to
be a very high quality center so I
paid the $75 to get on the waiting
list.
After about a year and a half
of being on the waiting list, I was
finally told that they had an opening and it was just at a time when
we were ready to put our son into
daycare. It was January 2006 and
tuition was $162/wk for a child under 1 (he was 7 months old).
My son had never been ill up
until that point and almost immediately began getting ill w/ the
typical daycare illnesses: colds, ear
infections, etc. It’s bad enough seeing your infant suffering through a
cold or ear infection but having to
miss work, pay for expensive doctor visits, and still having to pay the
$162/wk tuition was just unbearable emotionally and financially.
On top of the stress of dealing w/
all that, my son’s daycare teachers and other staff that worked in
the building decided that they had
some kind of medical training and
constantly gave me medical advice
on everything from when and what
kind of non-doctor-prescribed antibiotics and over the counter medicines I should give my son (which I
didn’t listen to of course) to when I
should stop breastfeeding.
Martha
One of his teachers was adamant that I should stop by the time
he was one year old b/c otherwise
it would interfere w/ his drinking
from a sippy cup. When I called the
director to complain, she told me
that she agreed with the teacher.
I work for the University of
South Carolina and was very excited when I found out that the university, in partnership with a prestigious daycare chain, was opening a
NAEYC accredited childcare center
on campus just in time for the birth
Because it was a university daycare, students majoring in Education, Psychology, Public Health,
etc. all had access to the daycare
to observe and interact the children. Although the parents had to
give permission for their child to be
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the subject of a student’s research
project, there were always numerous college students in the facility.
We let our son be observed for one
student’s project right after he began attending but when the results
came back that he wasn’t talking
enough (at 7 months), we were
told that his deficiency was obviously because we weren’t interacting enough with him.
I felt that that “diagnosis” was
wrong but asked our pediatrician
what he thought. He said not to
worry because our son was meeting all of his developmental milestones. We decided not to let him
participate in the student studies
again, which really upset the daycare teachers and administrators.
I started to notice that everytime there was an illness in the daycare (Rota Virus, flu, etc.), the college students were restricted from
entering the building. It struck
me that as much illness is passed
around a typical daycare anyway,
my son was being exposed to twice
as much – everything he would get
at a “normal” daycare and everything that was going around the
college campus because of all the
students and faculty members who
were in and out of the building.
And I was paying more in tuition than almost any other childcare in the city. After 4 months of
attendance there – and ear tube
surgery at 11 months of age because he could never get over the
congestion because of the constant
viruses going around the center –
we took him out of that daycare.
Not long after we left, I heard
from a coworker whose child was
still there that one of the children
was found out in the daycare parking lot completely unattended
and not even missed. Thank goodness she had not gotten injured or
worse.
Shortly after that, the current di-
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rector was replaced and I’ve heard
over the years that several teachers have been fired. It has been 4
yrs since my son attended there so
perhaps it’s much better now but I
certainly won’t take the chance to
find out if my husband and I decide
to have another child.
We ended up putting my son in
a slightly more affordable ($130/
wk) non-NAEYC accredited daycare in October 2006 and he stayed
there until he began kindergarten
this year. It wasn’t perfect but we
had a lot less problems with them
than the “high quality” one!
TENNESSEE
Jocelyn
I would love to be able to say
that I have incredible childcare, that
my provider is reliable, my kids eat
healthy food, are being taught an
age appropriate preschool curriculum, and I have every faith that they
are safe. I would love to be able to
say that, but I can’t. The truth is that
I found someone who I feel cares
about my kids and that is the best
I can afford. She has no backup so
her many doctor visits and errands
require time off by my husband and
me, the kids watch questionable programs on the television which is on
the entire time they are there, they
are served highly processed easy
“foods” and there is no learning curriculum at all (unless you count PBS
kids).
When I had one child I could afford a small accredited center where
I knew there were safety measures
closely followed and a preschool curriculum. Most of the teachers loved
the kids and my only complaint
was that since they were on a state
funded food program the food they
provided was pretty terrible. Once I
had my second child I started looking
around and very quickly realized that
I could not afford to have two children in a center. I looked into home
day cares and found that I still could
not afford the majority of them, at
68
least not the nice ones where they
had big yards to play in, served organic food, went on field trips and
had back up caregivers in the event
of illness or vacation.
My kids went to three different
home care providers before I found
one that I could not only afford, but
trust. I can’t even begin to tell you
the emotional turmoil I’ve faced
knowing my children were not being
properly cared for but I didn’t have
any more time off or any other option for their care. I can’t even begin
to tell you the number of times I’ve
wanted to quit my job because I was
convinced that I would never find
someone I could trust. Unfortunately
I get my insurance through my employer so quitting was just not an option for us.
My son has health issues, which
makes it even harder to find someone willing and able to take proper
care of him, maintain an environment that is safe for him, and administer his many medications. I’ve had
one caregiver refuse to let him return
because of his health, one caregiver I
removed them from because she was
not giving him the care he needed
(and I strongly suspect was deliberately mistreating him), and now this
one who I’ve stuck with because although I don’t have faith that the
environment is a safe one for him I
have no doubt that she would never
hurt either of them on purpose. It’s a
pretty sad state of affairs when the
best you can say about your childcare is that you are fairly certain they
aren’t being abused.
I’m still looking for the perfect
place for my babies. Unfortunately
at the price I’m able to afford I don’t
know that I will ever find anything
better. It makes me so angry (and
sad) that I feel like I have to settle,
that MY KIDS have to settle for
something I know is sub par. They
spend the majority of their waking
hours there and I SHOULD be able
to say that while I miss them I know
they are safe and happy while they
are there. But I can’t.
Linda
My son and daughter-in-law
have always struggled with the high
cost of quality day care for their
family. It takes two incomes just to
pay the bills and the high cost of decent day care is a hardship on their
family. Our county only has after
school programs for low income
and children failing in school. Their
is no after school enrichment programs in the small counties of Tennessee.
I feel our country is doing a disservice to our children by not offering programs that would help them
compete with other countries as an
adult. We are also doing a disservice to the families of this nation by
blaming the parents when a child is
failing if we are not willing to support them by providing services that
they need as working and contributing members of our society. We
need family friendly policies in our
country that rewards hard working
families with services that shows
supports they so desperately need.
Marcelle
When my now 10 year was born
I paid $150 a week and on the
months where there were 5 weeks
that came to $750. (At the time I
made less than $13/hour) I was told
that the special handling of my
breast milk added to the cost. While
I probably could have gotten a more
reasonable price this was close to
my job, afterall who wants to have
their 3 month old a 45 minute drive
away.
TEXAS
Cheryl
As a grandmother, I had the opportunity to see 1st hand the struggles of my daughter’s trying to find
trustworthy, affordable
daycare
for my grandchildren. My husband
and I even picked up the cost of the
$150-$225 weekly daycare so that
my daughters could afford to work
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and contribute to the family finances. Not that we could easily afford it.
We made sacrifices for our children
and grandchildren but to us it was
worth it.
tree-oil-soaked bandaid firmly in
place over the offending spot, and
I stared them down at the door.
(Every sign of ringworm was gone
within a week, for the record.)
My biggest fear is that the cost
of daycare is out of reach for most
Americans to afford so they are left
depending on someone to care for
their child who might not be the
best person. My biggest fear is not
knowing what might be going on
with an individual and my child if he/
she is left in that type of situation.
We have had a good experience with
the daycare provider we used for our
granddaughter but not without sacrifice on our part to afford it.
Another parent got the same
treatment over a case of pinkeye.
Okay, that IS fairly contagious, but
only if you go out of your way to
get secretions from one eye into
another one. I’ve seen pinkeye go
chronic, and everyone would agree
that any such child sufferer should
be rigorously excluded from any
contact whatsoever with his or her
peers. (Sarcasm alert.)
All told, an amazing level of
medical ignorance from licensed
childcare personnel.
Debbie
And then there were the usual hazards of childcare.One child
brought back headlice from travel.
The entire preschool went ballistic
– they were going to continue to
charge tuition while banning kids
from the school. I brought back my
two the next day, clean – and they
insulted me to my face, told me I
could not possibly have rendered
my children lice-free in one evening. (But I had, and they couldn’t
find any traces - hot oil and the
right comb are essential.)
Another time, somehow my
daughter had developed ringworm. Clearly visible on her forearm, they phoned me, demanded I
leave work and collect my child IMMEDIATELY. She was HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS and had to stay out of
school until TOTALLY symptom-free
– while they continued to collect
tuition. I came on command, but
stood there and explained to them
at some volume that they seemed
to believe a fungus dermosis could
broadcast itself through empty air
in its genetic mandate to colonize
humans, when in fact any two children would have to hold their skin
in contact – for longer than a child
their age would willingly stand still
– for the fungus to proliferate. We
returned the next morning, tea-
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Jennifer
When my son was born with Hydrocephalus and I started calling
daycare centers they told me point
blank they would not take him because he is a liability. He has a VP
shunt so I had no choice but to be
a stay at home mom. I have the finances to do this but it is sad that
no one would even consider him.
Lana
My son loves school. We started
sending him to preK three days a
week when he was 3 years old. Last
year when he was four, in his teacher conference I was shocked to
learn that we should wait to send
him to Kindergarten. His birthday
is 2 weeks before the cut off, but I
thought he was a very bright child.
I toured the elementary school we
are planning to send him to, Merriman Park Elementary. This was the
evidence I needed to see. Children
are reading and writing already in
kindergarten! The day is so long
and there are not many times when
they get to just play, this is really
difficult for little boys.
We decided to hold him back,
and I am very glad we did. But it
has also made me think about all
of the parents that don’t have the
luxury we do, I stay home and we
can afford another year of preK.
What about the single mom that
works and can’t afford to send her
child to preschool, why can’t all of
our future leaders have this opportunity? And the children that
don’t, won’t they be impeding my
childs learning if the teacher is having to pay extra attention to some
children that weren’t prepared?
M
I am a single mother of three
children. I do not work. I attend
college five days a week M-F, 12
full-time credit hours. The income
I use to sustain me and my three
children is from my first husband’s
Survivors Social Security check. He
passed away in 2006. I get $915
every month. I have a vehicle payment, water, light, auto insurance,
and home telephone bill that I
have to pay for each month, plus
the necessities I need to run the
house (soap, shampoo, laundry
soap, trash bags etc., etc.).
I enrolled my daughter in Head
Start, but there’s a “waiting list.”
I tried getting assistance from the
Texas Workforce, and according
to their calculations, choosing my
own childcare provider and going
to school full time I’d have to pay
$85 a month. I can’t afford $85!
My daughter stays with her aunt
during the week. We live about
25 miles away so gas and traveling
back and forth everyday is out of
the question! This is how I’m getting my childcare. For all you parents that make “too much” don’t
think those that make “too little”
always get everything. It’s not true!
Everyone is struggling right now.
Melba
I am the grandmother of 3
granddaughters and the cost that
my children have to pay for day-
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69
care astounds me. My daughter
who has her 1 year old at a daycare
pays $187 a week. She is a single
mother struggling to make it in
this economy and the cost of daycare is killing her. My son pays for
two children in day care. I was very
fortunate to have never placed my
own children in daycare because
they stayed with grandmother who
is now 78 years old.
Melissa
I have three children, ages 5, 4,
and 2. I have a Masters in Teaching but am currently staying home
from a full-time career in education
and working only three evenings a
week at Starbucks. The decision to
put my career on hold came largely
because of the cost of childcare for
small children in my area, a suburb
north of Dallas.
The enrollment and supply fees
and monthly “tuition” (that’s a
very generous word given the lack
of true early childhood curriculum in most centers) for my three
children would cost at least $1700
a month, and that’s with my fiveyear-old only receiving before- and
after-school care. It would be very
easy to spend more than this for
quality care that is in an academic, preschool-type setting (Primrose and the Goddard School, for
example, both would have been
$2200 a month). In comparison, my
mortgage payment is $1090 each
month, and when I was teaching,
my take-home pay was $2800 each
month.
I’m confident that ours is not
the only family struggling to make
ends meet and making the difficult decision for one parent to stay
home from full-time work in order
to avoid the cost of child care.
Why, in this country, do we only
formally educate children beginning at age 5? What a waste of
young, developing minds. Public
preschools would benefit everyone, even those who do not have
70
young children, because we all
benefit from a well-educated populace. As a mother and an educator, I can’t think of a more glaring
lack of investment in our children
than to ignore this critical developmental time (birth to age 5) in their
lives. Please, do everything you can
to make public preschool a reality.
Ruben
Jobs don’t pay, child care is almost out of the question. Most jobs
want you to work steang hours. In
your 5 days or more, most being
splits. So to find a job with your kids
or someone to pick them up and
bring them back steady, is impossible to do. They may start but then
they quit or move, or give up. Then
you have if they get sick or have a
doc’s appointment, or dental. Then
you have to try and get off of work
to do it. Most jobs will tell you this
is the last time, or if you have to go
in the future, start looking for another job now.
And, above all, do not be of a
minority race cause you are gonna
be looking for a job guaranteed.
Low pay so they can make more
money not to be shared with the
real work mule. Only to high folks
get the bones, and promotions.
Then they come to brag about
their raise or promotion which they
didn’t have the slightest idea on
how to achieve the real labor effort.
You can not get financial assistance
for daycare unless you make $8 per
hour with 2 or more kids. At that
point, which is extreme poverty,
the $8 would not house and feed
that family.
It’s really a mess and everyone
here seems to think that is just the
way it is. I am from Oklahoma and
DHS there is very serious about providing a safe place for children to
be and learn while their parents go
to work or school. If a family had
3 kids and both parents made $12
per hour, guess what? They qualify
for assistance.
UTAH
Sheri
I am one of the fortunate people who have a daycare at my place
of employment. I can’t tell you how
much of a benefit that is for me. It
is so valuable to have direct access
to my child any time during the day
whether it is to visit, have lunch,
watch her play, or be there immediately if there is a problem. The
cost is subsidized by the company
so it makes the cost of childcare
more reasonable. It save me time
and money and most importantly,
allows me extra time with my child
because both my husband and I
need to work in order to support
the family.
Fix child care, and higher wages.
With health then you got a better
environment.
VERMONT
Words of wisdom from a single
father of 3 and the struggle to
bring mine up healthy and safe.
lonerider ex usmc sgt.
I had my oldest child soon after starting graduate school. This
meant that I was in the unfortunate position of having little to no
income and having to move frequently to complete internships.
Each time I would move, I would
contact the local child care referral
source. They were often very helpful in giving names and contact
information for childcare centers
in the area. However, they all had
Suzanne
Texas childcare system is terribly
flawed. They give the daycare 30
days notice before inspection, and
no surprise visits unless a particularly troubling event is reported.
Amy
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long waiting lists and exorbitant
tuition. I only qualified very briefly
for childcare subsidies and had to
find ways to pay childcare bills that
matched or exceeded my rent. I
also desperately needed the care so
that I could finish my degree and
become financially stable.
of rest, and has been growing up
without the rushed schedule that
so many daycare and pre-school
kids must live by. He has time for
play, for quiet, and for his mind to
roam into the creative worlds so integral and natural to a child’s world
and healthy growth.
I waited to have my second child
until after I graduated with a doctoral degree because I knew that
there was NO WAY I could afford
to put two kids in daycare full time.
My son has had the luxury of being
at the same daycare since he was 3
months old. That seems wonderful on the surface until I start to
count how many teachers he has
had (well over 20, and he’s 3 1/2).
He’s had 4 BELOVED teachers leave
because of poor pay, limited health
care/vacation benefits, and poor
working conditions. He still talks
about them all and I think those
transitions have had a permanent
effect on him.
All children and parents deserve
to see their children so fed in mind,
body, and soul, yet I count myself
among the few and lucky to be eking out this chance to stay home
and raise my son myself. We are
just making ends meet here in my
home, yet I know that I am far luckier than most, and I am grateful.
I would LOVE to see government subsidized childcare for most
people. It’s impossible to pay for
when you are low-income, and it’s
REALLY HARD when you are middle
income. I would also like to see infant and preschool teachers compensated at the same level as elementary, middle, and high school
teachers. They are treated so poorly and they have such an impact on
our collective future.
Joanna
Denise
I constantly hear comments
about how bright my nearly four
year old son is. Like most kids, he
is curious, and perhaps he is bright
(how can a mother judge such
things, since her own children are
always stellar at all things :) ). But
what I know for sure is that he gets
full-time nurturing for mind, body,
and soul by being at home with
me. Any curiosity he demonstrates
can be satisfied with explorations,
experimentations, and/or explanations. My son eats three homemade meals per day, gets plenty
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When we feel grateful for the
chance to raise our own, something
has gone very wrong with the system. If we cannot raise them ourselves, we should, as a distant second to the ideal, have the means to
choose and afford quality childcare.
care system, Head Start, is much
better funded. The Child Care Development Block Grant (CCDBG)
desperately needs to be re-authorized and increased. It helps many
more low income families afford
care and be better able to work.
(Tuition for our Head Start slots are
paid with funding from the CCDBG)! The child care system has not
really had any increases over the
past 9 years –- we have waited long
enough!
Head Start serves far fewer families, pays teachers higher salaries
and uses a large amount of their
funding for administrative tasks
than the child care system. I really see this since I work with both
systems. We do need Head Start in
the U.S., but it is now time to focus
on the bigger picture of the whole
child care system.
Rosemary
I work at a large childcare center. At the moment 37 families –
that is more then half of our community is subsidized that means
even though they are working they
can’t afford child care on their own
probably another 10 families don’t
qualify for subsidy but spend more
then half of their income on childcare.
Some families can’t have
their children in a quality center
because its to much for them. HELP
On top of that quality professional
we have teachers with BA’s who are
working on MA’s who make $12 an
hour. This insanity needs to stop
government get involved.
Maureen
I am the director of a NAEYC
Accredited 70 child center. We are
also a Head Start Collaborative (15
of our full time slots are dedicated
to Head Start eligible families). Legislators need to realize that “Head
Start” is different than “child care”
in that they have different funding sources. Compared to the child
I have been an Early Childhood
professional for 27 years. I have
practiced my profession in four
states, and I am currently an instructor of home childcare providers in the area of literacy-based
arts. Yet I continue to be distressed
at the lack of affordable, highquality childcare available to families who need it. When a friend
recently asked me for a recommendation for childcare for her toddler,
I found I had few suggestions for
her that I could feel good about. I
have been in the struggle for high
quality childcare that is both affordable for working parents AND
provides a livable wage to childcare
professionals for so long that I have
become rather pessimistic about
the situation ever changing, and
that is not my nature.
Rosemary
I used college students as babysitters, and interviewed them with
the children first. This worked well
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for my 5 children and for me, a
single mother. When the children
were grown I searched out a place
where I could volunteer and nurture children, because I think it is so
important. The best places turned
out to be HeadStart, a government
program, which hasn’t seen an increase in funds for decades.
I
think it definitely needs to be given
more money.
The HeadStart program is great,
but the money coming into it is terrible!
VIRGINIA
Barbara
I actually had to quit my job because child care cost more than I
was making.
Fatmata
So, I have five children. Three
school aged and two that are not. I
have been on the waitlist for Headstart for almost a year now. My two
youngest are waiting for a slot to
free up for them for Early Headstart. We have had places close in
my city. I keep getting bumped
down the list by people who are
in homeless shelters or pregnant
teen moms. While I understand the
importance of helping those who
are less fortunate, every time my
children make it to the top of the
list they get bumped by some other
child who is “less fortunate”. I am a
working mom, without childcare I
can’t work but I am forced to have
some random family member to
keep my children.
I have been having to take them
to places I can afford and often it is
not the best care available. It worries me what will happen to my
children when they become school
age with little or no preparation
prior to kindergarten. I understand
that I am my children’s first teacher
but when you have worked hard all
day the last thing you have energy
for is to teaching them everything
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school based child care centers do.
By the time I get dinner cooked,
baths done and read a book I am
more tired than my children.
Sadly, most childcare centers in
my city I cannot afford. I get paid
45K per year and I don’t make
enough to pay for a 2 year old and
10 month olds care. I used to make
too much money according to the
Headstart guidelines, until I had
the last child. I have been calling
and writing continually to the local
Headstart program in my city and
all they keep telling me is where my
children are on the list and when
they rise and fall on it. I never get
that call or letter saying, we finally
selected yours. I mean I can stay at
home and get some welfare benefits and government assistance
and live in government housing,
but I thought we lived in a society
that promoted self sufficiency. So
can we get a break and get some
good quality childcare that people
can afford?
Julie
Although I’m originally from
Virginia, I’m sending word from
France, the only place I’ve ever
been a mom, where public schooling, financed and organized at the
national level, begins when kids
are three. That means three years
of public school before first grade.
School days begin at 8:30 and go
until 4:30. It’s admittedly a long
day for a three year-old, and if a
parent doesn’t work, he or she often picks his children up and brings
them home for the hour-and-ahalf lunch break. But for parents
like me who work, it’s a reassuring
place to leave our children. And
free, to boot.
What happens when the school
day is over? That’s when the city
government kicks in. A second
team of people, city employees,
arrive AT SCHOOL, and provides
on-site, after-school activities for
our kids, who have snack and wind
down before we come pick them
up at 6. Tumbling, reading, drawing, jungle gym, bikes, etc. with
a young, dynamic team. During
school vacations, the same municipal team provides a sort of
day-camp, which includes more of
the above, plus field trips, movies,
special activities like ice skating or
pony-riding. What you pay per day
depends on your family’s revenue.
We’re middle-of-the road, where
salaries are concerned, so we pay
something like 10 dollars for a full
day of day camp, and peanuts (less
than 2 dollars) for each day of after-school care.
Needless to say, I am horrified
when I hear that my friends in the
US, after having first shelled out
thousands for private daycare until their children reached kindergarten age, must then have their
school-aged children bussed to
after-school private daycare, where
they continue to pay big bucks.
I know it’s a bad word in the US,
but let’s hear it for socialism.
All the best, and thanks for
keeping me posted on what’s going on at home and for giving us
opportunities to be heard.
Margarita
We lucked out with our first child
while looking for a care giver for our
first child. We found another mom
with a child about the age of ours,
they are best playmates and we love
our care giver to death. She has a
flexible schedule that has worked
out great for us, even now that both
children are at preschool and they
only see each other twice a week.
We have not been so lucky about
finding someone for our second
child, just today we fired whom we
thought was a good match. She did
not show up to work, again!
We are lucky that my husband
can stay home with the little ones in
the mornings while I’m at work until we find someone more reliable,
since I have taken all my sick days for
the year (yes we are fortunate that I
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have those, even when I only work
part time, not everyone is so lucky
and that should change!).
While we live in a place that has
a lots of formal day cares and home
day cares, not many are accommodating to a half day schedule (I only
work part time), or offer flexibility
on drop-off/pick-up schedule. I have
to be flexible at work but that does
not seem to translate to the outside
world. There are places that will be
happy to take care of our little one
for half a day at a full day cost, but
we can not afford that.
Naomi
My husband and I never had to
pay for childcare before. I worked
part-time in the mornings and he
worked the afternoon/evening shift,
so we were able to split childcare
duties for our son. My husband lost
his job last November and we have
since had our second child. My husband recently found another job,
this one a day shift. While thankful
for his new job, it came with a significant paycut.
We had a friend lined up to
watch our two boys for a significantly lower price than any daycare
could offer. When that fell through
just a couple of weeks before going
I needed to return to work after my
maternity leave, we were left scrambling. After searching for childcare,
we made the decision for me to quit
my part-time job because the cost of
daycare would be the majority of my
salary. The rest of my salary would
be eaten up by the cost of insurance
and groceries since our kids would
no longer be eligible for Medicaid
and WIC. It just didn’t make sense
for me to return to work.
We would love to get to a point
where we are no longer on financial assistance and can afford for
me to work, but we are not at that
place right now. It’s a sad day when
a mom has to quit a needed job because of the cost of childcare. I was
lucky in that I had a good paying
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part-time job. I will be looking for a
work-from-home job, but those are
also few and far between. At least
my children will be with me instead
of in substandard care due to costs.
WASHINGTON
Amy
As the Intake Specialist for a child
care subsidy program for families
who are homeless I see, every day,
families who are faced with the
tough decisions to either paying
their rent/mortgage or their child
care provider. In single parent/single
income homes, this is the difference
between being stably housed and
homelessness. Although we do not
hear or read about it much, there is
research out there that shows the
devastating impact of homelessness
on children. And for some children
that are homeless, child care may
be the only day-to-day stability that
child experiences.
For homeless families in King
County, our temporary child care
subsidy program is the only option
for families besides the state funded program; Working Connections
Child Care. Unfortunately, due to
budget cuts, WCCC has recently lowered their income eligibility guidelines to 175% of the Federal Poverty
Guidelines, throwing even more
working families further into the
cycle of poverty and homelessness.
For families slightly over income for
the state child care subsidy program;
there is the city of Seattle subsidy
program, however that program has
a year wait list.
The facts are pretty simple: every $1 spent on high quality earlyeducation programs saves society $7
in future costs in special education,
delinquency, crime control, welfare,
lost taxes and other areas. (Experts
Say Early Education Pays Off, August
2003, National Institute for Early Education Research.)
ALL children deserve a great start
in life.
Amy
We have learned through experiences of other parents that planning ahead is essential when finding childcare. And thank goodness
we asked ahead - when pregnant
with our first child, we had to put
him on a waiting list for childcare...
one year in advance! Childcare
centers require 9mo-1yr advance
registration, and then inform you
that you will find out if you receive
a spot in their program only a few
weeks before they go in. Try telling your employer that you may or
may not be able to come back to
work in 2 weeks due to childcare I had to, and thank goodness they
were flexible!
So why not sign up for multiple
centers to ensure you have a placement? Childcare centers on the
Eastside require deposits of $100200 just to hold a spot on a waitlist
- a costly pursuit if you sign up for
more than one. The cost of childcare for my two children is as much
as my mortgage, and I have them
in child care on a part time basis
(3x/wk). It is an expensive, but absolutely critical expense.
While we’ve had issues in
searching for childcare, we also
have to commend my employer,
who sponsors a back up care program for when I have to work and
childcare is closed or my children
are mildly ill. With only a few
hours notice, my employer will
send a licensed nanny to my home
or find me care at the phenomenal rate of $4/hr so I can return to
work. The more we can promote
and expand this type of benefit,
the more we will be able to retain
a critical workforce - the working
mother.
Anne
First off, childcare is only affordable for those with money.
The other huge frustration we
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have is trying to get our daughter into our neighborhood school,
which is an alternative school, I.e.
it is extremely popular and for 15
spots in K I believe 80 kids are on
a wait list. So now we pay for private school and drive across town.
We want more alternative schools
and they cost more money. Put
money into schools that families
want. Alternative education!
Anne
I have two children who are 21
months apart. From the time that
my oldest started in daycare at 6
weeks of age until the time that
my son finished at age 5, we were
in 9 different childcare settings.
Everytime I thought they were
both settled, a teacher changed or
they moved to the next classroom
or there was a modification that
changed the quality of the situation. It was extremely difficult took a great deal of time & energy
in finding new locations – as well
as lots of resources (both time &
financial.)
We need to find a way to have
more quality recognition in childcare. Otherwise, parents will continue to go through the struggles
that I did. Thank goodness I had
understanding employers and an
engaged partner who were willing to give me the time I needed
to make this happen.
Bree
I’ve had to pay ridiculous
amounts of tuition to find decent
pre-K education. I look for small
child to adult ratios and wellqualified teachers. I also like to see
clean and attractive play spaces
both indoors and outdoors. It’s
unfortunate that only those with
means can find such educational
opportunities for their pre-K children (and K-12 for that matter).
Please make AWESOME public
education for all ages a priority.
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Caroline
Christi Ann
Child care should not cost more
than college! As a former Board
member and classroom volunteer
of a Head Start program, I saw so
many families struggling to provide
their children with a meaningful
early childhood education and decent child care.
I had to put my daughter in childcare at 4 weeks old. That childcare
provider left her in her car seat or
laying on the floor as other larger
children ran around the room. One
month later a child of the provider
was arrested for murder. Stopped
going to childcare that day. Had to
take a week off from work – unpaid
and it was used against me in my performance review – to look at other
childcares. Finally my stepfather decided to retire and stay home with my
daughter. When she was one, I enrolled her at a church based childcare.
It was safe and that’s the best thing
I could say about it. For 3 years my
daughter has been going to a wonderful in-home childcare center right
by my work. All the families and children there are one big family. I am
blessed to have been able to get my
child there!
It is disgraceful that in our country people have to worry about
whether their children will be adequately cared for when they go
to work. Communities - and parents trying to build better lives
for themselves and their children
- need better options.
Christa
Most quality childcare in my
area has a wait list a mile long (6
months - a year - 2 years). And if it
is great, it’s expensive. Therefore,
I have chosen to stay home and
care for my infant, now a toddler.
It was a bit of a financial burden
and restructuring of our routine,
but we have made it work. I am
not trained in early childhood education, and my daughter, who is an
only child, has not come with an
instruction manual.
Thank goodness for co-op preschool. We were involved, for the
first year, last year, in toddler class.
Not only was it a safe learning
environment and wonderful socialization for my daughter, it was
an invaluable learning experience
for me (and my husband) as far as
parenting goes. And that we have
learned mountains of information
to be quality parents, hopefully we
are raising an A+ citizen who will
be ready for kindergarten when
the time comes, but who will also
be equipped for life. We are now
in the 2’s class.
I love that we have a child
teacher and a parent educator, but
also that the school is also run by
the will and enthusiasm of the parents. We are a huge part of the
school.
Christina
For every two hours my son is
in daycare my husband needs to
work three hours. I have been unemployed for several months and
would like to apply for jobs, but
this requires my son to be in daycare for at least a few hours every
day to give me the time needed to
devote to the job search. But for
every two hours my son is in daycare my husband needs to work
three hours...Need I say more?
Diane
People are afraid to committing
to caring for my son, Kai, now 12.
Kai started life as a gifted child, until the unexplained seizures started
when he was 2 and a half. He lost
his place at a Mill Creek preschool,
an home based day car centers
wouldn’t take him..his seizures
were unpredictable, to the point
of his having to wear a helmet. He
lost his ability to speak, and could
be aggressive when frustrated. No
one wanted the liability. He attended special ed preschool, Dev
kindergarten, and I learned that he
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was not a candidate for brain surgery. I lost more jobs of was turned
down from applying more often
than I can count.
He and his sister receive SSI,
and I receive 60 hours of respite.
Despite a college degree and a lot
of experience, no one is equipped
to nurture him while I work a set
schedule. He now attends school,
and some friends and the respite
help. It shouldn’t be this difficult.
Dina
My employer provides on site
daycare. They subsidize it, so our
teachers have good salaries, good
benefits, healthcare, etc. It is an
excellent center and the teachers
have great longevity. The convenience was key to me being able to
breast feed both of my daughters
beyond their first birthday. However, when my oldest child started
in the infant room (at 3 months) it
was $1000 a month for full time.
Each time she progressed into the
next classroom and the ratio went
up and the costs were supposed to
go down, they did a price increase.
So, even in the pre-school room
it was $1000 per month. My new
baby (now a year old) started out
at $1400 per month.
Between the two I was tempted
to stay home as it eats up most of
my paycheck. However, my employer partially covers the premiums
for dependent health insurance and
covers employee in full whereas my
husband’s covers him in full but we
would have to pay the full premium
to put me and/or the kids on his policy. so, I can’t afford not to work...
even if it is mostly just for daycare
and healthcare. And I have an MBA
and a management position!
We were relieved when our oldest was able to start Kindergarten
this fall (and take part in summer
camp at the school this summer).
Even though she is going to Catholic school it is still far cheaper than
daycare.
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Heidi
When the economy tanked, we
laid off half our office and my boss
and I took pay cuts. It was either
daycare or health insurance. I’ve
been without health insurance for
the last year. How is this a choice?
Is this a decision American’s should
have to make? I work full-time plus,
attend the local university part-time
and I’m the parent to a special needs
little boy. HELP!
Jackie
When we first moved here we
could not find good childcare that
didn’t have long waiting lists. We
ended up at a center that I had
reservations about and had to
pull my child out of there within a
month. We then found an au pair
who needed a new placement (she
wouldn’t have been our first choice
if we had time to find someone) and
she did not really have the maturity
to provide childcare full time for our
son who is mildly autistic. We were
left with the choice of quitting our
jobs or sticking it out with her until we could find someone else. We
had to stick it out for economic reasons and eventually found a great
au pair, but that time was really
hard on our son and on us. We are
lucky because we could afford an au
pair, but if we couldn’t the childcare
choices here were pretty awful unless you could wait for an opening
at a good place. Don’t even ask me
about finding afterschool care, ugh!
Jeanne
I was doing my best with my
first and only child. Fairing my way
through trying to figure out breast
feeding, first foods, and my new
physical and mental adjustments
as a mother and woman. La Leche
League was my first connection in
support. Meeting other moms with
children around the same age was
huge. I can’t even begin to explain
the support and connections that
were vital in my survival. Friendships were built and preschools were
sought. We came across Stanwood
Cooperative Preschool. A class for
Toddlers! WOW! A few of us joined
the co-op and found another amazingly supportive environment to
raise our children. One with other
families (community) that you can
share all the joys, sorrows, love and
aches about parenting. This was my
lifesaver as a mom.
They say there is no “Parent
Handbook” in life, but really it does
come in the form of an all-encompassing preschool! One that addresses the needs, desires, strengths
and goals of a family or parent. Life
long friends can develop. Take the
time to find a co-op or ECEAP Preschool if you have a young child.
Find one you love and can be involved in! Search out what fits for
you! It does take a community to
raise a child and you can choose that
community if you look for it!
Jennifer
Luckily our family has been able
to afford good early childcare for
our one son. Both my husband and
I work at decent jobs and combined
have a middle class household income. We also have an expensive
new mortgage (bought our first
house five weeks after our son was
born).
However, the fact that I had to
work much more than I wanted to
work when my son was young (I.e.
I did not get to spend enough time
with him in those early, formative
days), in part to pay the high cost of
daycare, will remain one of the great
regrets of my life. Ideally I would
have liked to work half time when
my son was an infant until the age
of 3. However, the double whammy
of paying for healthcare coverage
for my family (which would have increased to about $750 a month if I
reduced my FTE at work) and ironically the high cost of daycare for the
days I would have to work made it
impossible for me to ever go below
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0.8 FTE. Also, daycares usually have
set schedules where children need to
be there either Mon, Wed, Fri or Tue/
Thurs. You pay for a full day even
if you have your child there a short
day. Unfortunately, the schedule
that is convenient to run a business
doesn’t always match up with the
hodge-podge of childcare solutions
that an individual family may be able
to work out with their employers
and others who might help in caring
for their child more affordably (I.e.
family).
Because of what I considered this
forced separation due to financial
reasons, I suffered from post-partum
depression starting about the time I
had to go back to work and put my
son in daycare (when he had just
turned 4 months old). He had had
very severe colic and was just coming
out of it when I had to go back to
work. Because I felt what I was doing was wrong in some fundamental
way (against the natural order of
mothers and babies) I saw a decrease
in work productivity for the first couple of years after I returned to work.
A few years later, our daycare
was closed and we had to find a preschool for our three year old. We
then encountered extreme waiting
lists (75 kids at one place). Basically,
we would have needed to get our
names on a waiting list when I was
pregnant to get him into the preschools that were convenient to our
home or work and which seemed
like nice, educationally focused places for him to go. He did get into a
Montessori program which was fine
although we are now realizing it did
not prepare him well for kindergarten in the public school system. So
all in all - no big tragedies here but
lots of personal sadness, hassles, expenses and ultimately a baby and
mommy who didn’t get to spend
enough time together in the early
years.
Jerry
If we wanted our daughter to
have child care in the first three
76
months of her life we would have
had to get her on the waiting list
3 months before conception. We
were lucky in that we could afford
a nanny until Quality daycare was
available to us. When she finally
started daycare, she complained
that we denied her being able to
have earlier day care, because she
enjoyed it so much.
JL
My son and daughter attended
a fantastic pre-school that provided
art, dance , music, unstructured creative and structured play, lessons in
science (sea life, dinosaurs, water/
ice/steam, mathematics, seasons,
the calendar, ...), cooking, gardening, manners, and positive social
skills. My husband and I, who are
still leasing a home and have no retirement plan, both work full-time
to provide this quality care for our
children. I would have LOVED to
have had the opportunity to stay at
home and raise my children at least
until they started kindergarten, but
our cultural environment does not
allow lower middle class families
(by income, NOT education or quality of person!) that luxury.
We work, we pay full price for
everything, we can’t afford to buy
a home, we have no savings (it all
goes to medical bills, rent, utilities
like oil heat, and pre-school bills),
and we are not eligible for any special pricing or discounts for child
care or anything else...yet I firmly
support this legislation to provide
quality early care and education--perhaps it will help heal our society of the current “gang” culture
that is so prevalent among the lower echelons.
I would just like to see some inclusion of the lower middle class in
the “bones” you throw to the people supporting this government. It
would be “nice” to receive some
real assistance---like a cap on rents
in the Seattle area, or a cap on the
amount that the heating oil companies can charge their customers-
--that would pull people like us out
of this bottomless pit of bills that
keep us down.
Jodi
While pregnant, I got on every
daycare list I could find in Seattle.
Still, after my daughter was born
we had no childcare. Desperation
set in, I widened my circle, and I
found an opening! But there was
a catch. My family lives in Seattle. I
worked in Seattle, too. My husband
commutes 12 miles across a bridge
that is famous locally for its horrific
gridlock. He used to ride the bus
to work, but the daycare was also
across the bridge, near his work.
So, he and the baby would drive
across the bridge, spending over an
hour in traffic to go 12 miles. He
would drop her off at daycare, then
go to work. I would get to work
early so I could leave at 3:00, take
the bus across the bridge, pick up
the car from my husband’s work,
then get our daughter and spend
another hour stuck in traffic.
After 4 months, we gave up. Neither of us were especially productive since we had such rigid work
schedules to follow, and we spent
more time in traffic than anything
else. All this was costing us more
than our mortgage, too! While the
cost of daycare hurts, it’s even harder to swallow when it doesn’t make
your life easier.
Kathy
My childcare provider has a small
home daycare where she works her
magic. She is like a grandma and a
teacher to my children and I credit her for my girls’ good manners
and a good portion of their happiness. She knows how difficult it
is for working parents to pay for
good childcare and out of civic duty
charges the least possible amount.
At most I paid $950 monthly for
two full-time children. She has
been a godsend.
At the same time, I wish I could
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pay her what she is really worth so
that she could make a bit of money.
Currently the money she charges
just covers her expenses (mortgage
for the house she uses for daycare,
utilities, food, and other daycare
supplies). This daycare saint should
be making what any elementary
school teacher makes. I wish for the
day when daycare and preschool
are universal.
At the same time, I don’t want to
see the small home daycare feeling
disappear. There has to be a way to
keep kids in warm, cozy, loving and
structured environments where the
people doing the work of raising
our children can be compensated
for their work.
Kristina
My husband and I have to work
opposite shifts because childcare is
unaffordable. He works from 6am2:30pm, and I have to meet my husband at his job to drop off our son
so that I can be to work by 3:00pm.
I miss out on putting my son to bed.
I think it is unfair to have childcare
prices so out of reach.
Laura
One and a half year wait for
space at Montessori for our first
child. Now we have 2 kids and our
monthly child care bill is higher than
our mortgage. We are fortunate
that we can make this work. But I
describe this to make the point that
Seattle is not family friendly in terms
of cost of living vs. average wage.
Given the number of young families in at least metro area there is an
opportunity To capitalize on this
growth. Let’s change Seattle into an
easy place to live!
Laurie
As Director of The Learning Tree
Montessori Childcare in Seattle for
almost 30 years, I strongly support
childcare & preschool subsidies for
low income families. It is just not
fair that children from families with
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good financial resources are able to
attend high quality childcare/preschools, while low income children
can only attend very substandard
programs. This inequality must be
addressed by subsidizing low income children’s education and care.
Leah
Quality child care is difficult to
find. Affordable quality child care
is non-existent. And it’s almost impossible to run a household on one
income these days. We have paid
over $15,000 a year for childcare for
our kids. And no matter which way
we slice it, we are barely making it.
However, having one person stay
home hasn’t been an option. Until
we had a 2nd child, then we realized,
on an average middle class income,
we could no longer afford child care.
Now, we are trying to figure out a
new way to give our kids the social
outlet they need, and still make
ends meet on one income. Even coop preschools are a couple hundred
a month at least, and for a family
with a budget of $400 a month for
food and about $50 in disposable
income, it’s just not affordable. We
need better support for our kids and
families in this country that supposedly “supports family values.” I’m so
glad MomsRising is here to help us
mobilize!
Lyndsi
I’m a single parent and I have
worked full time since my daughter was 1. After paying for daycare
fulltime it felt like I was paying for
someone to raise my daughter because at the end of the month after
paying rent, utilities and $600-$700
a month for childcare it felt like I
was being penalized for being a
working mother.
I always swore I would not be
a statistic and become a “welfare
mother.” But after working 50hrs
a week combined with a commute
resulting in little time to spend with
my daughter and still unable to buy
adequate amounts of groceries it
seemed like it wouldn’t be so bad to
be on welfare. While I worked and
paid taxes I received no state assistance for childcare or emergency
food stamps. It begins to feel like
what’s the point? Why not be on
welfare? At least I would be able to
see my daughter more and get food
stamps
Luckily I made it through those
days and now I have an eight-yearold and only pay $385 a month for
3hrs after school. Things are still
very rough and something has to
be done about this. It’s not okay
that hard working people are working their knuckles to the bone and
hardly getting by and hardly being
able to spend the amount of time
needed to raise a well rounded well
taken care of child.
The American Dream is a joke
the American Dream has become
my nightmare. We need to do something about affordable quality childcare. They are our future right? Isn’t
that what our government shoves
down our throat but instead of using
our tax dollars to take care of our future they spend it on war or countless other frivolous things (their own
luxuries). We need to take back our
hard earned money and allocate it
to what really matters, our kids and
our piece of mind!!
Mamie
I am a program supervisor, cook
and center director. I have been in
the childcare business for 17 years.
I do not own or operate my own
business and have primarily worked
for private non profit facilities.
During my career I have raised two
children who are now living in the
southern states where they could
find affordable college tuitions, and
now have a second set of 4 who are
coming up - being partially raised in
daycare / preschool. I use the term
partially raised because all my children as a whole have spent more of
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there awake hours in the hands of
preschool teachers and non family
member care providers.
For the first 9 years I did it as a
single mom. Having to work and go
to school because to be really good
at what you do ongoing education
is required. I have the equivalent of
a BA in early childhood - if all of my
ECE classes were transferrable. However in reality I will finish my AS this
spring. I started 17 years ago making
$8.00 per hour.
Marching then in California for
the worthy wage campaign. Now 17
years later I make just short of 15 per
hour as a site supervisor / cook / sub
teacher / trainer / director. I continue
because I love to work with children.
Because I have four and fall just outside of the income guidelines I actually take home approximately 500.00
per month after childcare expenses.
However I am one of just a handful
of staff that have been here long
enough to maintain relationships
with our children and families and I
am committed to this field.
Recently my company was
warned that we would possible
loose the wage and ladder grant
which supplements our income. This
means very possibly a pay cut for my
family and our staff. School is not
free, childcare is not free nor is qualified staff who are committed to this
field. As childcare providers / early
childhood educators, it is essential
to continue to learn as our culture is
constantly changing. The children we
now care for often may come from
a one or two parent home but have
to compete with facebook, twitter,
TV and computers for their parents
time. They come in looking forward
to enjoying the books, songs and fingerplays that we do on a daily basis
as we teach them academics and life
skills under the radar of play.
In my second set I have a toddler,
kindergarten 1st and 2nd grader. I
feel blessed to be a part of a team
of professionals that provide quality
programs for my children and other
families. However this field contin-
78
ues to have to cut corners just to stay
afloat. My question is what about
the children and the adults that care
for them? When will they ever be
considered as important as the animals in the zoo whose keepers are
paid much more to clean the cages?
Children with special needs are
mainstreamed daily, parents come in
needing advice - many of them barely
out of their teen years. We provide the
foundation for future learning. Unless
centers are able to provide and maintain quality programs our elementary
and high school classrooms will slowly
become social and emotional emergency rooms. Please consider my story
as I am just one of the many people
who care for the children who will
some day care for you.
Nan
I’m a single mother with two kids
under 3, a full-time student, and
working, so I don’t have much time
to write. But I have to tell whoever
is willing to listen that the daycare
subsidy I receive has saved my life.
I’m able to go back to school to get
the kind of job that will help me afford to support the three of us on
my own and I’m secure in the knowledge that my children are well-cared
for and developmentally stimulated
while I can’t be with them.
They will be ready for school
right when I finish and together I
see us accomplishing great things.
None of this would be possible without that subsidy. It is our lifeline and
I thank god for it every day. Please
don’t take that away.
Nancy
I was able to stay home to rear
my son who is now twenty five. I did
take him to daycare two mornings
a week for social skills and enrichment and to preschool when he
turned four. When he entered kindergarten I couldn’t help noticing
how far ahead of many of his classmates he was in learning and he has
remained bright and curious ever
since that time. I know how fortunate we both were and I know not
everyone can have that same experience. But I want us to do our best
to come as close to that as possible
for every child and every parent.
I believe that the best hope for
our children is to have excellent early learning experiences. This is important for working families but it is
equally important for those families
who simply don’t have the ability
to provide a stimulating and educational environment for their children whatever the reason. What
we need to keep in mind here is the
child and her/his need to experience
the best opportunities to blossom
regardless of her/his home situation. We need early enrichment
for all children in order to compete
in the global world but most of all
simply to enable children to grow
into healthy, happy, contributing individuals.
Nicole
Mother of 2, both my husband
and I have to work. Our Children
spend the day with my 75 year old
Grandmother because we cannot
afford $800 per month so that my
son can go to PUBLIC ELEMENTARY
school by our house and provide
before and after school care. In the
next year we will be driving them 15
miles away to pay $300per month
for public kindergarten by Grandmas, and $200 per month pre school
for the younger child.
That is $500 per month for early
childhood education, they will have
to stay going to Great Grandmas
so that we can afford just that, if
we had to put them in daycare as
well we wouldn’t be able to pay our
mortgage and would have to live in
a 1 bedroom apartment.
I feel that I am sacrificing my
children’s environment because I
have to work and pay for them to
have the basic educations and care
that I had that didn’t cost anything
in 1980??? My young parents were
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able to live on 1 income and support
a family and never had to send me
to childcare, or pay for preschool or
KINDERGARTEN? There is something
seriously wrong with the system.
Rachel
I am a mother of two toddlers
and my story is about how difficult
a time I had finding affordable care
for my children. When I left to go
on maternity leave from my job as a
contractor for the Federal Aviation
Administration, I never imagined
not being able to return. Unfortunately, the cost of childcare for an
infant and a two year old would
have taken about 80% of my paychecks (even with the onsite daycare center at the FAA) and so I was
forced to quit my job.
Since then, I have worked part
time and have had to get state assistance with medical coverage for my
children, because I lost their benefits (and mine) when I quit my job.
It is really unfortunate that working mothers are put out of a job
and forced to accept state help with
medical insurance because they can
not afford quality childcare.
Sandy
My husband and I found ourselves
with a surprise pregnancy when our
two children were 10 and 12. At the
time I was working full time as a nanny. By the end of the pregnancy I was
working for the same family part
time. I took off just under a month
and went back to work for them part
time, toting along my tiny son. Hooray! A small paycheck and I was able
to be with my baby.
When he was 5 months old the
family enrolled their daughter in full
time daycare (it had been planned
so I was aware of it) and so I decided
to spend some time at home with
my son. We were desperately needing a bigger home, so when he was
1 year old I went back to work at a
daycare center I had worked at before nannying.
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Sadly money isn’t great as a daycare worker but I get a big discount
on my sons tuition and we are making enough to afford rent on a little
house with a big fenced yard that
we hope to be able to buy. My older
2 kids are in school during the day
and my husbands home asleep. He
works nights. They are old enough
to come in and do homework while
he sleeps. When he wakes up he
makes dinner and gets ready for
work. Then me and the youngest
get home and my husband heads for
work. He’s the supervisor to a cleaning crew at a state office building.
It’s crazy but it’s working for now.
Sharon
When my daughter was born, my
husband was in graduate school. I
was working full-time at a non-profit organization, supporting us both.
Because my husband was attending
the UW, we were able to apply for
and receive a child care subsidy that
allowed me to go back to work. The
subsidy gave us just enough money
to manage our expenses and make
it through that tough year while my
husband was finishing his degree,
and we had to fund infant childcare.
The childcare center that my daughter attended provided high quality
care. We never could have afforded
that quality of care without the subsidy. She is now in kindergarten,
excelling in all aspects of school and
loving learning.
Star
Childcare is nearly impossible to
find in King County and is not affordable to say the least. You are
required to sign up one year in
advance for childcare, essentially
when you find out that you are
pregnant. The lack of availability of
childcare makes it nearly impossible
for mothers to continue to work or
address issues with daycares for fear
that they will retaliate or allow or
further abuse or mistreat your child.
Additionally, the lack of options results in children and parents being
leveraged and mistreated by the
daycare staff, employer (including
government), medical staff and others closely involved in the child’s life
as there are no other options unless
they chose to remove the child from
daycare resulting in the loss of their
job which has even more dire consequences if you are in a single parent
household.
The childcare crisis is a serious
problem across the country and is
truly unacceptable in a country that
is supposed to be advanced such as
ours. The economy suffers tremendously when a huge segment of the
population (including those that are
highly educated) is disenfranchised
and children suffer even more under
these circumstances. The family is a
foundation for a nation and when a
nation does not value mothers and
children or families for that matter,
it will not survive. Early childcare
and education must be a priority.
Tara
We had great daycare until I was
laid off and we couldn’t afford it.
It is incredibly difficult to look for
work while taking care of a toddler.
All this talk about helping the unemployed and nobody has thought
about the challenge of the unemployed with small children. I can’t
take on part-time work because it
won’t cover the cost of daycare. I
can’t work retail or service because
they require flexible schedules and
don’t pay enough to cover full-time
daycare to accommodate that.
Our daughter is very social and
would love to be in daycare, particularly as winter comes on and opportunities to meet other children
at the park dwindles. When I do
find work, we will probably have to
pay for several expensive months of
a private nanny while we wait for
space in a daycare to become available. Very frustrating. All the daycares in our area have long waiting
lists, so it won’t be a matter of pick-
g
79
ing one that is quality and suits our
child, but merely of one that will
take our daughter so that I can work
again. Many of the waiting lists require deposits to be on the waiting
list, that is a gamble we can’t afford.
So I hope that I soon find work
and it is with an employer that is
understanding about the challenges of daycare, as well as can pay me
enough so we can afford it!
Tiffany
I have a 2 and a half year old son
Frankie. I am an stem cell transplant/
oncology ICU RN and I work two
twelve hour night shifts per week.
Our unit self schedules, so my work
shifts are different every week. When
I was pregnant, I looked into drop
in day care for infants and quickly
found that it doesn’t exist in Seattle.
Luckily, my husband is able to watch
Frankie on weekends when I need
to sleep and my parents who live
35 miles away come and watch him
on weekdays when I need to sleep.
There’s been some hairy moments
when my parents change their vacation plans or more recently when my
Mom started treatment for breast
cancer, but it has overall worked out
well. My husband’s work has been
very flexible letting him work from
home if my parents have a scheduling conflict.
WEST VIRGINIA
Amy
I was working part-time, so finding a childcare provider that was
willing to take a part-time child was
very hard. Once I had 2 kids, it was
even harder because in-home providers didn’t want to fill one of their
two under-2 slots with a part-timer
(in-home providers are allowed 6
kids, with only 2 under age 2). The
high quality daycare center in the
area has a 1.5 year waiting list and
my employer’s daycare center has a
waiting list and requires $25 per kid
to be on the list. I had found a nice
80
in-home daycare provider that my
kids went to for almost a year when
she had medical problems and had
to reduce the number of kids she was
watching, so she gave me 2 weeks
notice. I had been on one waitlist for
9 months so called to check but there
were still no openings. I called several
in-home providers and finally found
one that had availability. After two
weeks, she had a relative get sick and
had to close her childcare. Back to
calling in-home providers, I find one
who seems great, but then I drop the
hammer-my first child has a peanut
allergy. She’s not comfortable with
dealing with that.
Back to the phones. I find one,
they’ll take them and deal with the
allergy. I visit and the place is a bit
sketchy, but what choice do I have?
So that’s where they went for several
months. Did I mention that ALL of
these places are in the opposite direction of my commute to work? Luckily,
I eventually got funding to increase
to fulltime, making just enough
to hire a nanny to get them out of
sketchy care and save me the time of
getting them ready, driving to and
from the daycare, and dealing with
the emotions of taking and picking
them up.
The other issue I have with childcare is how the IRS regulates flexible spending accounts for childcare
expenses. If your employer offers it,
you can have pre-tax money deducted from your paycheck to reimburse
you for childcare expenses, allowing
them to be tax-free expenses. But
if you put your money in there and
don’t spend it, you lose it. You have
to have a big life event to be able to
change the amount deducted, except
for the annual open enrollment period. Changing daycare provider is
not considered a big life event, so if
you are forced to change your provider, too bad. If you do have a big
event, the change has to be submitted within 60 days of the event and
the change (increase or decrease) has
to match the event.
I had a part-time nanny for awhile,
but after her other part-time employer’s child started preschool she got a
part-time job at Walmart that did
not pay as well. Soon after I had my
second child, she asked for a big raise
that I couldn’t afford. I found an inhome provider for them so my childcare costs actually went down. I tried
to use my 2nd child’s birth to reduce
the amount going into my flexible
spending account, but decreasing
the amount didn’t match the addition of a child, so it was denied.
Leslie
When my second child was born
8 years after the first, I took maternity leave. Well, as the time soon
approached for me to go back to
work I experiences great anxiety
about leaving my baby. He was
a colicky baby and I was worried
someone would harm him because
he cried ALL the time, so I decided
to stay home. It was hard financially so I decided to be a child care
provider, after all I had a B.S. in
early education. Well, 10 years later
and 2 more children I went back to
work the year my youngest went to
Kindergarten. In those 10 years, I
enjoyed the children in my care and
felt a connection with them as they
“grew up” in my home, but found
some of the parents ridiculous. Parents who made late payments, unrealistic demands, etc.
The worst moment was when a
mother arrived drunk and late to
pick up her children. That was quite
a sight. And the funniest was when
a boy came with a pair of handcuffs
to take to school for show and tell.
Well, he put them on and didn’t
have a key, he went to school on
the bus with those handcuffs on, I
had called his mother and she said
the ladies in the school office had a
key... Hilarious!
The best thing about being a
child care provider was being able
to be at home with my own wonderful children, without sending
them to day care!
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WISCONSIN
Caroline
In this tough economy I have
been trying to find a part time job
to help cover my husband’s 20%
pay cut – since I have been at home
with my three small children the
past 6 years. However, between
paying for our own health care
and the cost of quality child care it
doesn’t make sense for me to work
when I’d end up making $2-$4 an
hour after those costs!
So my husband now works the
equivalent of three jobs (all without health benefits) to pick up
the lost income. If it weren’t for
a scholarship my son wouldn’t be
able to attend preschool this year
either!
Christie
I am so fortunate that my husband works at Fort McCoy and they
have a fantastic daycare there. I feel
so comfortable with my kids going
there and I know that they are safe,
they are being taught educational
things as well as working with them
on life experiences and emotional
aspects.
I know that there are good inhome daycares, but I am not willing
to put my kids at a potential risk. I
do have to say that with the cost of
daycare, it would be nice if we could
get some more credit for taxes, because we pay more for daycare each
month than we do on our mortgage payment! My kids are worth
it though and we will just make sacrifices in other areas.
Huckleberry
My oldest son went through a
few at home day cares before we
found Kim. His first day care was ok,
but after a summer off, they didn’t
have room for him. The second provider was new to the business. Our
biggest complaint was her son threw
fits, so our son tried to get his way
kicking and screaming. We were ad-
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amant enough about enjoying the
show, that he learned that wasn’t a
path to getting his way. After a few
weeks his finger got slammed in a
door and his thumb was partially
amputated. Luckily the head of plastic surgery was on call and sewed
him back together. We didn’t switch
because of that, she was new, but
she decided the job wasn’t for her.
The next provider was okay for
awhile, but then she got a baby, and
no longer watched the “big kids” – 2
year olds. She couldn’t tell me why
he had bruises and complained that
at 2 he never took the initiative to
clean up after himself. She always
had a locked door, which was cold
in the winter, and didn’t allow child
seats in her house, which was going
to be a problem when number 2 was
born. We then found Kim. Our oldest was 2.5 years old. She was and
still is, wonderful. She helped nurture my son and by the time he started kindergarten, he was well ahead
of the curve. My youngest is thriving
with her, he is confident and secure
in his world.
I was getting tuition information
and she informed me that, since January 2008, I had spent over $33,000
with her. She is hands down the
least expensive I have found in the
area, and the best. I wouldn’t wish
her earning any less, but, I was out
of work for awhile, and that is a lot
of money!
Lori
It is SO hard to find affordable
childcare. My husband and I both
have very good jobs and consider
ourselves in the middle class. But,
with both of us working full-time
at professional careers, we still pay
around $360 per week in daycare.
To quantify that, it would be
CHEAPER for us to purchase another
house in our area, pay the mortgage
and utilities on it, move my parents
or in-laws into the house, and have
them provide care in exchange for
free rent and utilities.
This is simply staggering to us.
In fact, it was a major point in our
decision to limit our household to
2 children. If we were to have another child, we’d be paying another
$190 per week. That would add up
to about $2200 per month in child
care expenses! And, when I was laid
off from my position for 1.5 years,
it was impossible for me to accept a
job that paid less than $25/hour because we would actually be losing
money after cover taxes and childcare.
Parent’s aren’t staying unemployed because they can’t find jobs
– it’s because they can’t afford to
take reduced wages and still cover
the cost of childcare.
WYOMING
Joanna
Working in early childhood education I have first hand experience
with young parents who try to do
the best for their children. When
a parent earns minimum wage and
has long hours a good day care center with well qualified professional
staff who earns a livable wage and
can offer counseling and child rearing advise means all the difference
to these fragile families.
Here in Buffalo, Wyoming money
is being spent on a new jail, remodeling and enlarging the senior center, but the day care center struggles
along with bake sales, bazaars, and
raffles for needed funds. Parents
struggle to pay all the fees themselves. There is a huge waiting list.
The staff barely earns minimum
wage and must rely on their other
family members for living expenses
in their own homes.
Numerous studies have shown
that early enrichment and care and
guidance for the young child and
his/her parents show great dividends
in family stability, higher test scores
and mental health.
g
81
MINIMUM WAGE STORIES
CALIFORNIA
Doris, Aptos, CA
My dad was a waiter, and always
felt poverty stricken with the small
amount of money from the owners.
He felt demeaned by having to hold
out his hand for tips. No workers
should be subjected to the generosity of the customers to receive a
living wage. All workers are entitled
to substantial salaries, benefits and
the dignity they are entitled to.
Jessica, Carlsbad, CA
I have two children that I chose
over education and career. The divorce made it necessary for me to go
back to work and minimum wage
just doesn’t cut it. No family should
have to choose between food and
medical care, or taking a government handout because working full
time is not enough, especially as the
only parent. Having to choose provision for your children over being
there to raise them is just insane.
FLORIDA
Rita, Indian Rocks Beach, FL
I was a server for 15 years and
raised four kids on a servers’ wages
plus tips. Depending on other people to tip you, which doesn’t always
happen, can be the most stressful
part of being a server. There were
many nights that I didn’t even make
enough to pay my babysitter without digging into money put away
for rent or utilities or groceries. We
struggle 80% of the time to even
make enough to pay the absolute
necessities, never mind anything
extra.
Cynthia, Jacksonville, FL
I am a married mother of one
who lives in Florida. My husband
works at a temporary job that he
82
has had for the last two years making minimum wage, and I work
for Red Roof Hotels, also at minimum wage. Our health insurance
through the new healthcare system
costs us nearly six hundred dollars
a month, and our daughter’s adds
over one hundred more to that now,
because according to the federal
government, we do not qualify for
assistance. My husband pays child
support for three children in their
later teen years, and our daughter is
eighteen months old. Our car insurance is nearly one hundred dollars
a month.
In order to pay basic health insurance and car insurance (which is
required in Florida), and have food
for our daughter, we went into debt
paying for our home, and were
evicted. We now live in a three hundred square-foot room at the hotel
I work for, which deducts three hundred dollars each two weeks from
my check. I have had to go on WIC
to be able to provide enough food
for our daughter, and both my husband and I eat one meal a day. My
husband is currently searching for a
second job, which puts us in the position of taking on another bill in order to have child care a night when
I work, and we can’t even meet our
expenses now.
When you say the minimum
wage (just under eight dollars in
Florida) is enough to live on, I don’t
know what cost of living you are
looking at, but to me it seems impossible to surmise that it would
come even close to being able to
meet even the most basic of needs.
and with the new healthcare laws,
it seems that if it was ever close, it
could not be anymore. Please consider our family when you think of
minimum wage and how it affects
American people. We are not the
only ones in this hard situation. In
the hotel I work at there are over a
dozen families (single or both par-
ents with children) trying, and failing, to make a life for themselves,
many of whom are making MORE
than the current minimum wage. Is
this the new American Dream?
CONNETICUT
Karen, Mansfield Center, CT
When my husband lost his job
in 2008 with the market crash, he
was unable to find another job
although he had a Ph.D. After a
couple of years of struggling I took
a second job at a department store
to help supplement our income. I
barely earned enough to pay for a
tank of gas. I had a full time job
as well, but for many of the others
that worked there this was their
only job. $8.25 an hour is just not
enough to live on for one person,
never mind a family!
GEORGIA
Sally, Calhoun, GA
Ever since I was sixteen I have had
a job and every job I have had except one I was paid minimum wage.
I have never been paid more than
the minimum allowed by the law.
The only time was when I worked
for a Burger King restaurant where
the owner started at minimum
wage but within ninety days everyone got paid $8.50 and that made
me feel great and self-sufficient. I
would welcome the minimum wage
to go up over ten dollars an hour so
that a person can live comfortably
and not worry how to cover bills.
IOWA
Diane, Fairfield, IO
My daughter is working two restaurant jobs, trying to pay back student loans, pay off credit cards, and
pay her monthly bills. She works 16
hours three or four days a week and
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8 hours the other 2-3 days. Working about 50 hours, she barely has
enough money to make ends meet.
She lives a very skimpy lifestyle,
hardly doing anything meaningful
or enjoyable because she can’t afford to.
She wants to go back to college
and get her degree, but is discouraged and overwhelmed by the financial pressure. She lives 4 miles
from her jobs to which she walks
every day since she can’t afford to
buy a car. She dislikes the home she
rents a room in but can’t afford anything nicer or closer to work. $2.13
doesn’t go very far. Tips are variable.
Her stress levels are very high - she
feels she is on a treadmill and can’t
get anywhere. Is that anyway to
live?
is not only slave wages, but most
people do not understand that
tipped workers are taxed based on
a percentage of their sales not how
much they make in tips. This often
means they are paying income tax
on tips they never received. In addition when a tipped worker gets
laid off their unemployment benefits are based on the $2.13 an hour
and NO TIPS are included!! I was
laid off from my last job at a 4 star
fine dinning restaurant. I worked
full time but unemployment insurance only paid me $46.00 a week
because of this rip off formula.
I was taxed on my full earnings
but the restaurant got away with
paying benefits based only on the
$2.13 an hour wage!
NORTH CAROLINA
ILLINOIS
Sally, Oak Island, NC
Martie, Chicago, IL
I worked my way through college because I could not get student loans. The only way to work
short hours and make enough pay
to live and pay tuition was through
waiting tables. I was astounded
when I found out that I was only
going to make $2.13 an hour. Because I made so little I could only
afford to go to school part-time
through out the fall, spring AND
through the summer. It was hard
to have to wait so long just to finish
my education.
I was a waitress and bartender
for 20 years. Let us not forget, that
not only is the wage minimal but
there are hardly any restaurant establishments that offer health care
coverage options. So the pay is minimal, the work taxing and the opportunities to get affordable health
care practically non existent.
MARYLAND
Ethel, Baltimore, MD
I’m a single mom of 3 working
on minimum wage and have to get
help from the state. There really is
no way to try and raise a family but
single moms have to do what needs
to be done: work, work, work, with
no rest and try the best to make
sure the family is ok but it’s hard.
Victoria, Hagerstown, MD
I worked for tip for over 20
years while my kids were in school,
so I could be home when they
were awake so we could spend
more time together. $2.13 an hour
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Most people think, well you will
make it up in tips but your tips are
taxed at a very high rate and most
wait staff I knew ended up paying
huge tax bills every April because
you are still taxed like you make
over $4.25 an hour. Add to that
most restaurant jobs do not offer
health insurance, vacation time or
sick leave and you would see us
work through the flu or go years
not taking a break because we
could not afford to take one day
off. These men and women work
very hard, on their feet and are no
compensated and often insulted,
accosted and unappreciated.
Myra, Kinston, NC
Not only do we make a mere
$2.13 per hour, which means we
never get an actual paycheck (the
taxes eat up that small amount), but
we work in an industry that has no
benefits - no health insurance, no
401k, no anything.
OHIO
Vera, Strongsville, OH
I have been a server for many
years. I started at the age of 16
in 1975. It is a very hard job.
In most restaurants you get no
healthcare, vacations, and forget
about ever getting a retirement
plan. You also get no sick days but
are expected to have a doctor’s
note if you must miss work. You
work holidays and weekends with
no extra pay. You can work from
open to close with no break. That
can be 14 hours with no chance to
eat or even sit down.
We make $2.13 an hour in
most states. ($3.70 in Ohio) and
out of that in most restaurants,
we must tip out the other workers like food runners, bartenders
and bus boys. If you have a table
that leaves a small tip or no tip,
you still must tip everyone else!
Plus, we have to pay taxes on a
percentage of our sales no matter
if we make the tips or not. We pay
for our uniforms and shoes.
What other job in America
makes such small wages? The
wage laws started a long time ago
for small diners, not large corporations! But who cares about poor
servers?
Working full time most of us
are below the poverty line. It is
wrong. I am always amazed when
they raise the minimum wage and
servers are excluded. We have to
pay the same prices as everyone
else for things. Why are we so undervalued as workers?
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SOUTH CAROLINA
Erin, Mauldin, SC
I am a single Mother of 4 with
2 still young and living at home. I
work for a local grocery store. I have
no choice but to have to receive
food stamps since I can only work
part time in order to take care of my
sons. Like most women I do not receive child support for my children
even though it’s court ordered. Ask
yourself, ‘do you think you could
feed two young boys on $7.50 an
hour?’ I am making myself ill not
eating so my kids can eat. I have
started to loose my hair due to malnutrition. Please, I beg you to try to
see reason and raise the minimum
wage.
TEXAS
Lorine, San Antonio, TX
I encouraged my grandson to
complete his college education because I thought a college degree
would help him land a job with a
livable wage. After graduation, he
applied to numerous companies
and got no job offers. He was finally
hired as a server at a restaurant, but
due to the low wage, he has a difficult time paying student loans and
meeting other living expenses.
When he called Sallie Mae to
make arrangements to repay his
student loan, the Sallie Mae rep
suggested that he sell his plasma
at a blood bank to supplement his
income so that he could repay his
student loan; my grandson would
rather have a decent salary. He is
grateful to have a job but it would
certainly help to be able to take
home a bigger paycheck.
Victoria, Dallas, TX
My husband and I work in the
food service industry. Combined,
our two salaries come to $22,000
per year. My husband works 40-50
hours per week, and I work 37-40
hours. We never see each other,
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much less spend time together as a
family. Every month we struggle to
make the rent and put gas in the car
that we borrow from my husband’s
family because we don’t have the
money to buy a car.
I haven’t been ‘grocery shopping’
in months. I believe that the minimum wage should be high enough
that, if you work full time, you can
frugally support yourself on it. As of
right now, to survive on minimum
wage is impossible.
Melanie, Houston, TX
I worked for years as a waitress,
cocktail waitress and bartender, basically it was slave labor, working off
the clock doing side work for $2.13
an hour, forced to breathe cigarette
smoke and depend on the goodwill
of others to tip me while I waited
on them. I had to tip out to bartenders who made 3 and 4 times as much
as me per hour. I never knew how
much money I was going to make a
week, it was a crazy nightmare.
VIRGINIA
Marta, Manassas, VA
I have been waiting tables since
2001. I have 3 children and it’s been
quite a struggle to make ends meet.
I am lucky that I live in a nice area
where people typically tip 15%. I
have always wondered why restaurants are allowed to pay their staff
such minimal amounts. Servers do
not see a paycheck, it all goes to
taxes. I do not mind working hard,
but it is extremely difficult to plan
or budget as one never knows how
things will turn out.
There are many people that
won’t tip, will undertip and will
leave you $2 regardless of the
amount of the bill or the amount of
work you did for them. Forget vacations, unexpected emergencies,
or having a sick day. Pretty much all
of that is out of the question if you
want to maintain your family’s basics up and running.
Samantha, Midlothia, VA
I am a server. I have worked in
restaurants for years. I cannot believe the minimum wage for servers
has stayed the same for ten years,
while the other minimum wage has
increased. I see so many parents
struggling to make ends meet when
the inconsistency of their tips is not
enough. One slow night, one customer who leaves nothing can make
or break rent. For many, this isn’t
just a roof over their heads, but the
heads of their families as well. Raising the wage for servers could mean
a world of difference.”
WASHINGTON
Cause, Seattle, WA
My mom was a restaurant worker
solely supporting two children. Our
father left and in those days enforcing child support payments wasn’t
high on many legislators’ priority
lists. My mom would count her tips
at the end of the day and whether I
could sign up for after school activities would depend on the generosity of her customers. Often I would
have to watch myself after school
instead.
Whether I could buy new tennis
shoes depended upon the generosity of her customers. Whether I had
any money put away for college
depended on the generosity of her
customers. Some days her customers were generous. Many days they
were not or just couldn’t afford to
tip much themselves. Financially,
we were at their mercy. My mom
deserved the same minimum wage
as any other citizen. Her children
deserved the guarantee of a minimum wage.
Christy, Ford, WA
In the 90’s when I was raising my
two sons as a single parent, I had 2
or 3 jobs at minimum wage and we
barely were able to make it. Now, I
would not be able to even get one
job in this messed up economy. I
MomsRising.org
had to get public assistance from
time to time to keep the family fed.
You have no idea how much that
affected my kids from not getting
the proper dental care, tutoring etc.
when they needed it. My kid’s father
abandoned them even though he
made a six-figure income. I was left
with all the financial responsibility
with only a high school diploma. All
workers should be able to support
their family, have universal health
care, and be able to raise their children in a secure and healthy environment.
WISCONSIN
Al, Milwaukee, WI
I met my wife while she was
working as a waitress trying to support four kids. She worked nights
at a small local community restaurant open 24/7. She was getting
minimum wages in 1980 (less than
$2.13) plus tips. I remember many
times she would count her tips in
the morning to cover the kid’s lunch
each day.
All too often someone would
walk out on her during the bar time
as they called it. She would have to
cover their ticket out of her tips.
This was not right but they did
it one way or another by docking
her pay or taking her tips into the
register. I had to admire her for her
drive to support her children. There
was no room for anything else in
life back in those days. Just the basics and she became very creative in
what she could make to eat out of
nothing. Those were hard days to
say the least.
PAID FAMILY LEAVE (MATERNITY & PATERNITY LEAVE) STORIES
ALABAMA
Rebecca, Toney, AL
Each time I had to take maternity leave, it left our house in financial turmoil. These days, households must run on a two parental
income or sink. When I got pregnant with my last child, we moved
to Alabama. I was (and still) unable
to gain employment because the
employer would be short staffed
for 6 weeks or more until a daycare
opened up a spot for the new baby.
Speaking of daycare, that is another issue that makes it difficult to
pay for the older siblings while the
mother is out for maternity leave.
Karen, Portland, AL
I didn’t have any paid maternity
leave, so with both my first and my
second baby I went back to teaching classes at the university one
week after they were born. The
first one was born in the middle
of the term, so my TA read two
lectures I had prepared ahead of
time while I recuperated from my
C-section; the second baby came
over winter break, so I didn’t miss
any classes. I prepared classes while
nursing babies, I taught classes
MomsRising.org
with my husband holding the baby
outside the door (I wasn’t allowed
to drive for six weeks after each Csection). Yes, the university would
have given me unpaid leave, but we
couldn’t afford unpaid leave. They
would have given me sick leave, but
I hadn’t been there long enough to
build up enough sick leave. I had
been in graduate school, finishing
my doctorate. Paid maternity leave
is what I needed, and what I should
have had.
Valencia, Irvington, AL
I had to go back to work three
weeks after having my first baby. I
convinced myself that I didn’t need
to take the full 6 weeks I had envisioned having; the reality was
entirely different. I was tired, still
sore because standing on my feet
for long hours made my body realize that it had just delivered a
baby, and I was missing out with
bonding time with my son. It is sad
that this country doesn’t recognize
that mothers and fathers deserve
to have time to adjust to having
a newborn in the house and to be
able to bond as a family. All without worrying about having money
to pay bills or a job to come back to.
We say we are the greatest country
in the world, but sometimes we fall
far short of that title.
ALASKA
Rosemary, Anchorage, AK
I was a stay at home mother and
raised 6 children on my husband’s
salary. I also write and I make and
sell craft items from my home. We
did without a lot of luxuries and
made ends meet, but not everyone can do that, even with just one
child. The mother-infant bond is
extremely important and not all
places of employment recognize
this. Please help new mothers and
fathers in this respect.
ARIZONA
Joanna, Mesa, AZ
Fortunately we were living in
Germany for my daughter’s birth
and Canada for my son’s birth. I did
not have work visas either place,
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85
PAID FAMILY LEAVE (MATERNITY & PATERNITY LEAVE) STORIES
but if I had I would have been so
much better off than the writer
in this article. In Germany I would
have been eligible for 6 months
paid leave, plus up to another 1.5
years that my husband or I could
take while retaining the right to go
back to our jobs.
In most developed countries
‘family values’ means it is possible
for the parents to actually raise
their own children without going bankrupt. Here ‘family values’
means the parents must go back to
work before the baby is close to a
proper age for weaning. Marginal
to no support for QUALITY childcare is the norm in the US. Why are
we willing to let underpaid, undertrained strangers raise our children? And why do we wonder why
we have so much disconnect with
our offspring here?
Neda, Scottsdale, AZ
Have two great kids but received
no help or support when they were
born.We need to support our families in this country.
Breeanne, Phoenix, AZ
I am a first time mom. My husband and I saved up as much money
as we could to prepare for our sons
birth. We never took sick or vacation days so that we could have as
much time with our son as possible.
My husband only got one week to
spend with his newborn son before
he had to go back to work.
One week is not enough to get
a routine down or bond with your
child. I had been working at my job
for 6 months before I left to give
birth. I was not there the required
year to get maternity leave. In those
6 months I worked myself from the
bottom to being the store manager. I accomplished a lot while I was
86
there. I don’t feel that the required
one year is acceptable. One year is
pretty much impossible with the
turn around rate at my company.
I feel it should be easier to obtain
paid maternity/paternity leave. The
first few weeks of a childs life are
crucial. It’s a very hard choice to
make between your child and your
job. Sadly many parents are forced
to choose their job.
Ann, Tucson, AZ
I cannot imagine having a child
in the USA. I am an immigrant
from India (yes, third world country) where women in most cities receive at least 4 months PAID
maternity leave. I cannot imagine
how this ‘beacon of democracy’
does not give women even a day’s
paid leave. Especially in light of the
fact that policitians claim the child
is so important, birth control is
highly controlled and abortions are
frowned on.
It seems to me that policitians
here refuse to take responsibility
for their policy the moment the
child is actually born, then to hell
with he/she. Cut Headstart, no WIC,
nothing. It is appalling to me.
Kathy, Phoenix, AZ
I continued to work part-time
so I wouldn’t lose my job entirely.
I had great difficulty finding child
care when my husband (a pilot)
was gone.
Stacie, Tempe, AZ
I feel very lucky that I had a 12week paid leave after the birth of
my daughter three years ago. My
employer provided six weeks paid,
and I had six weeks paid through
short-term disability insurance
(which I paid for through my employer). The 12 weeks went by too
fast, and I couldn’t imagine going
back to work any sooner. However,
I know a lot of women who only
had six weeks. A six-week-old baby
is tiny and in no way is mom ready
to leave them at that point. Not to
mention she is not rested or ready
to go back to work.
I have since left the university
that provided the paid leave option and am now working at my
family’s small business. I will not
have the same opportunity for a
12-week paid leave after my next
child is born. I will be lucky to get 4
weeks paid, and might need more
time unpaid. Our business is unable to provide such a benefit at
this point, and does not offer the
short-term disability insurance.
I’ve thought about this issue a
lot since becoming a mother. I have
met other moms from Canada and
Australia, and they are appalled at
the lack of benefits we have in this
country. Mothers in Canada and
Australia typically take at least 6
months off, most often paid, and
many take up to a year with a
guaranteed return to work. What
an awesome way to bond with
your baby and give them the best
start possible in their first year of
life.
I think one of the easiest solutions would be to offer some type
of short-term disability insurance
to anyone who wanted to pay for
it, and that would provide paid
leave, regardless of what their
employer offered. FMLA is great,
but it doesn’t apply to all employers, and obviously doesn’t offer
payment to parents. I know many
people who would be willing to
pay into this type of benefit so
that they would be able to take
the time off.
MomsRising.org
Jan , Tucson, AZ
As a counselor working with
young moms and babies, I strongly
agree that the very early days are
important for bonding issues. Having mother and baby together in
this process only makes for healthier
young children and is cost effective
in all areas...especially education.
Brain research is currently showing that this special bonding time
helps promote brain growth and
healthy emotional states. Please
consider this in the bigger picture of
our country’s welfare.
Cynthia, Patagonia, AZ
I needed money when my kids
were born, so paid leave to take
care of them would have been the
proper thing to have, but I didn’t.
My babies didn’t sleep well in the
beginning, and it was real hard for
me to concentrate on accomplishing anything other than caring for
them. Anxiety about losing my job
and being unable to pay my bills
made it worse.
Now parents need all the support they can get. Part time/flex
time work from home would be
a great option since managing a
small amount of work other than
infant care was all that could have
been done during the first three
months. It was difficult too even
take time for a shower, and I lost
weight since I had little time to eat.
Babies need a lot of care, so do new
moms!
Please support legislation that
gives New Born Americans and
their families a financial boost during the difficult newborn period.
Annette, Apache Junction, AZ
I was able to visit and help care
for my mother on a monthly basis in
1994 when we she was battling terminal cancer. She was out of state.
And again, in 2000 with my father,
also out of state.It was so nice to
MomsRising.org
be able to spend time with them in
their final months and days without
the worry of losing your job.
Nicole, Mesa, AZ
I was blessed in that my employer met the FMLA standards. I was
able to take the 6 weeks guaranteed leave for my first born (actually I got 8 since he was a surprise
C-section!) plus additional vacation
time I had banked. Two years later
when I had my second, I was still
with the same employer so got the
same leave plus my additional vacation time.
My husband was also able to
take time off to bond with his new
sons for both births.I am continually amazed at the stories of those
less fortunate than I. How can we
not provide this protection for all
new parents?!
Robert, Mesa, AZ
In early 2004 I took seven weeks
of leave, under FMLA, because my
job was getting to be too stressful
for me. The break has allowed me
to remain with the same employer,
now nine years later. I am getting
ready to put in a request to my employer, to take off two weeks, later
this month, under FMLA, as my
mother recovers from hip replacement surgery.
Altagracia, Tucson, AZ
My daughter Lindsey is due to
have her first baby in March. She
works for a restaurant, but they
have no maternity leave whatsoever, right now she is so stressed because she does not know what to do
once she has her baby, and has no
income coming in. What is it with
our government, we are supposedly
the top of the line country, yet we
are so behind in giving new moms
and dads maternity leave.
When I had my daughters I
worked for Uncle Sam, so I had
great maternity leave, and was able
to stary home with my girls. I don’t
know what is going to happen to
my daughter once she has the baby,
she can’t even get temporary disability, or unemployment, she is not
eligible for ANYTHING, that is not
right. Something has to be done.
Amber, Phoenix, AZ
My daughter came unexpectedly at a time which couldn’t have
been more perfect. My partner,
whom I had been with for 5 years
had said from the start of our relationship that he wanted to be
a stay at home father. Myself,
having the work experience decided I was going to be the working parent and found a full time
paid position with a small business
who hired me at 6 months into my
pregnancy.
After my c-section I was 5 days
in the hospital and then only 3
weeks at home before returning
to work in order to keep my job
and in order to be able to afford
to pay for rent/food/etc. I do not
blame my boss for not providing
me with more time paid to spend
with my family, but I do blame the
mindset of the ‘most prosperous
nation in the world’ who demonizes the concept of paying workers to bond with their new families. My boss expected what he
did because it is the nature of the
business to do so and that is what
needs to change.
Sarah, Laveen, AZ
When my husband and I
learned we were having twins, life
changed. I was working a retail
management position in order to
support us while my husband finished a masters degree program.
We knew that I would have paid
maternity leave for 8 weeks after
the birth and I had saved up some
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87
vacation days as well. I cannot tell
how crucial it was to have that income, especially considering I was
the sole source of income for our
family! Our twins arrived 7 weeks
pre-mature and stayed in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit until
their due date.
Our days were spent driving
back and forth to the hospital,
countless hours of pumping for
me and many more hours of work
for my husband trying to fast-track
his dissertaion. It wasn’t until my
paid leave had almost ended that
we were finally able to bring our
babies home.
When we learned that one of
them would need continued and
constant medical care for quite
some time, I eventually ended up
quitting while on un-paid leave
following maternity leave. We truely lived off of the money coming
from my paid leave while our boys
were hospitallized. It was the only
thing keeping us above water.
Tonya, Phoenix, AZ
When my twins were born 17
years ago, they came 3 months
early and had to stay in the NICU
for 3.5 months. Not only did I have
to leave the hospital without my
babies, I had to return to work
within 2 weeks because I did not
have paid maternity leave and I
needed to make sure my sons were
covered by insurance – especially
when they were so fragile. I wish
to this day that I could have spent
more time with my babies that
first year.
It was hard when they were at
the hospital and even harder when
they came home with sleep apnea
monitors and a host of respiratory
problems. I couldnt stop working
and not have them covered by
insurance and because of that, I
feel like I missed the most important bonding times with my boys.
It’s just something I will never get
back.
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ARKANSAS
Shawn, Ponca, AR
After the birth of our first
daughter in December of 2009,
we thought we had prepared
financially.
However, thinking
you are prepared and actually
being prepared are two different things. I was committed to
breastfeeding my daughter, and
knew that this meant I would
need to breastfeed on demand
for at least 6 weeks, which meant
that I would need to delay returning to work.
My husband had saved up vacation, personal and sick time
and was able to stay home with
us for almost 2 months, which
was amazing, because I couldn’t
really do much but sit and nurse.
However, even after we were
both back at work (me part-time
as a midwife and my husband
full-time as a teacher), we found
that our combined income didn’t
cover our expenses. We had to
make some hard choices and
ended up taking some loans out
against an annuity and relying on
student loans to cover the gaps.
While I am grateful that we
had these resources even available, I also realize that we basically put ourselves even more behind in order to pay the bills at
the time. It was a pretty horrible
feeling. In my job as a midwife,
I see families struggling to make
ends meet after the birth of a
child and it just breaks my heart.
No one should have to choose between spending vital and much
needed time with a newborn and
returning to work. It is a heartbreaking situation and absolutely
infuriating that our country does
not value parenting as much as
we do other vocations.
Lyuba, Little Rock, AR
I am currently staying at home
on FMLA with my second daugh-
ter. I am taking 3 month off as I did
with my first child. I saved my paid
leave (vacation+sick days) from last
year and the current year to pay for
about half of it, the rest is unpaid.
This means no vacation/sick leave
for the last year or this – I am not
sure what this means if my kid gets
sick at daycare and I have to stay
home with her after I go back to
work.
The point is, it is a huge financial and emotional burden on a
family to take unpaid time off like
this at the time when a young family needs all the support it can get
– having a child, though one of the
happiest events in our lives, is taxing in many ways! Most countries
recognize the benefits of parents
spending time stress-free with
their fragile newborns, it is time US
stepped up!
Sarah, Little Rock, AR
I’m an American mom of two
little boys, and I’m currently living
in Canada, where I have received
a full year – that’s 12 months! – of
paid maternity leave. It has been
the most incredible experience of
my life, and I know it has been
the best possible start in life that
I could have provided my youngest son. When my oldest son was
born I was only able to take three
months of maternity leave.
The next nine months were a
constant slog of anxiety and exhaustion, where I was neither a
good mom to my son nor a good
employee to my employer. I am
about to return to work after the
year of paid maternity leave I enjoyed for the birth of my second
son. I am returning to a happy,
well-rested mom with a thriving,
well-adjusted son. And I will be
forever grateful to this country
and to my current employer for
giving me the best gift a working
mom could ever have! American
families deserve this, too!
MomsRising.org
Kelly, Bigelow, AR
My kids are older now (24 & 27)
but even back then I was one of the
very lucky ones because I had paid
leave for my youngest and don’t
know how we would have survived
all the extra expenses if I was not
getting paid. I was not so lucky
with my first child and quit my job.
But was able to get another job
which is the one that I had with my
second child that had paid leave.
So I’ve seen it from both sides.
With my first child we were forced
to move in with my mother because without my income as well
as my husbands we could not make
it. After getting a job and moving back out on our own I had my
second child with paid leave and
have never had to move back to my
mothers again. I love my mother
and bless her heart she would do
anything for us but when you have
a family you want to be on your
own and not burden anybody else.
CALIFORNIA
David, Pacifica, CA
About 34 years ago my 3 year old
son had a high fever and I had to
take him to the hospital. The next
day after missing work that evening
the boss called me in to the office.
I asked for my union steward to
accompany me. The boss said I am
docking you the pay for yesterday
and putting you on a warning because of the absence. I said I had to
take my son to the hospital! He said
‘That’s why you have a wife.’
After the union settled the grievance I was paid for the day and
the warning was removed but the
absence still counted on their attendance policy. I became a union
Representative and I worked with
Labor’s Project for Working Families to get the first paid family leave
passed in California. My son used it
to care for his wife and bond with
my grandson. See the picture of
MomsRising.org
my family all of us were able to use
FMLA and other laws to care for
our family. I was able to care for my
mother in her last days because of
FMLA/ and not be warned for the
absence.
I worked on a case the first one
to enforce a sick leave law in California allowing employees to use
their sick leave to care for their kin. I
heard of a case of a woman in Connecticut who was fired for caring
for her infants while her husband
was deployed to Iraq and I wrote a
song and poem about it.
Laura, Sacramento, CA
After having my first son, my
family suffered such a loss in income
I was forced to go back to work
WAY before I was ready to leave the
baby. It created such a stressful time
for my husband and I, and I experienced some time depressed.
I also want to point out, my
heart was NOT in my job during that
time....and I teach grade school.
Lose/lose situation! Had I been able
to spend a longer time bonding
with my son without the financial
catastrophe on the back burner during an already very stressful time, it
would have made a world of difference, and a much smoother adjustment to our new lifestyle as a family.
Dhar, Campbell, CA
After our son was born, my
mother came to live with us to care
for him while I went back to work,
and my husband pursued his studies full time.We had tried a babysitting service in our neighborhood,
but the winter was bitter, and our
son caught every bug everyone else
had. It’s obvious that every parent
needs to have paid leave to take
care of his/her newborn.
Stephanie, Walnut Creek, CA
Almost 12 years ago, my son was
born with life-threatening GERD.
He was on strong medication, an
apnea monitor, and did not sleep
through the night (due to the pain
being so severe) until he was well
over 2 years old (meaning, we, his
parents, did not sleep through the
night either, as ‘crying it out’ was
not an option medically). Breastmilk was pretty much the only option as most formulas at that time
caused the GERD to worsen.Because of the need for nearly round
the clock constant attention, he
was not able to go to daycare and
hiring a nanny was not in our financial situation.
Thank goodness for FMLA!
While at the time FMLA was unpaid, my husband and I were able
to extend our vacation hours with
back to back unpaid FMLA to take
care of our son. I shudder to think
what would have happened if this
had not been an option: two parents working and not sleeping for
2.5 years; entrusting that our child
would get the care he needed with
a non-family member; no easily
accessible breastmilk; etc. FMLA is
necessary for all working families.
Marcella, San Diego, CA
As a full-time graduate student, paid family leave was not an
option. I just took a semester off,
which meant no student loans. We
had to take out a hefty loan to
cover what I wasn’t bringing in. My
husband had 2 weeks of sick leave
and 2 weeks of vacation saved up,
so he was able to cash those in and
still get paid while he took a month
off (starting with the day I went
into labor.) Unfortunately though,
that meant that he couldn’t go
with the baby and me to visit my
parents for Christmas.
Jennifer, Arcata, CA
As a graduate student when I
gave birth, I was fortunate to be
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a research assistant, but really was
supposed to pretend I was working
– no paid leave but insurance made
a big difference through this assistant-ship. We could only work out
this tacit arrangement for about
6 weeks; meaning my supervisor
just didn’t give me work for that
amount of time, but then visited
me with gifts from the office at 6
weeks and inquired gingerly, ‘Are
you ready to come back to work?’....
These were compassionate folks in
a bind – they couldn’t keep me on
the payroll but couldn’t ‘fire’ me
(in their hearts, legally they could
have replaced me as my situation
was not covered under the Family
Medical Leave Act).
I felt so terrible the entire time
– a bad, slacker employee, a bad,
slacker mother... I had had medical
issues and my midwife had urged
me to go on disability. She was
emphatic that going back to work
after really almost 5 weeks of my
child’s life with low birth weight
related to trouble breast feeding
(weighing him at every feeding and
writing down what he ‘took in’). At
5 weeks we returned the hospital
scale, he went to a women’s house
3 days a week – she only took babies. Came with recommendations.
I paid more than I made, but kept
my insurance (the driver in all this).
No family where we lived. And, of
course, in many ways I was ‘lucky’
in that I had some options-my work
tried where they could to be flexible and my time wasn’t entirely
sucked up with my job.
Just thinking about it now – 6
years later – brings me tears. It was
a hard, hard time. No one should
be forced back to work, but most
of us are. My child was okay, but
my situation was not as severe as
most people’s are.
Dera, Los Angeles, CA
As a mother and birth suport
professional I know first hand how
important paid family leave is to
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a new mom adjusting to her new
body, bonding with the baby and
other family members in their new
roles. It takes six plus weeks for
a womans physical body to heal
properly not to mention she is simultaneously in recovery. It is tantamount that women/families have
this time to bond and promote a
healthy vibrant family experience.
When families are cared for and
supported and protected the whole
society is able to thrive.
Graciela, Hayward, CA
At the risk of writing a novel on
this topic, let me pose a question:
what happens when this first baby
comes severely prematurely, at 25
1/2 weeks in my case, and spends
137 days in the NICU in the hospital? Even having paid family leave
through my employer proved woefully inadequate. I went back to
my global marketing job on day
85 (ish) while my daughter was
still hospitalized! She was in a hospital 15 miles north of my home;
my office was 26 miles south of my
home. Yeah....go ahead and imagine what my days and nights were
like. Then there was the pumping
of the breasts to get fresh milk to
my fragile baby and the associated
logistics of that endeavor!
I’ll stop before I get into the five
eye surgeries that took place AFTER
I returned to work, and the medical evacuation flight on a Learjet
to Michigan to attempt to save
her retinas. In the end, her retinas
mostly detached and she is blind for
life barring some miracle of stem
cell research. She is now 9 years old,
has a hearing impairment, and a
fluent reader of Braille who LOVES
books. We detailed her NICU journey at www.babymilagro.org as it
happened. It helped my hubby and
I cope. She’s also the older sister
to two younger siblings who were
(Thank God) born full term.
Anyway, without the paid leave,
I would have lost/quit my job. With-
out my job that paid the $1.5 million in hospital bills...well, I can’t go
there in my mind to imagine that.
Nobody should have to go through
hell like this. My German colleagues
were incredulous that I was back at
work; they get what 2 years of paid
leave? Thanks for taking this on.
I’m usually proud to be an American, and a military veteran even.
But when it comes to the topic of
paid family leave/maternity leave,
it’s utterly embarrassing! Surely we
can do better.
Tonia, Oakland, CA,
At the time I had my children
(1987-1995) I worked for the State
of California benefits was something called (NDI) Non Disability
Insurance I received about $13.00
per day while being off. If I had any
vacation or sick leave I would have
to use this first. This is a bad idea,
because what if you hadn’t built
up a lot of this type of leave. Also,
once it’s used up when you return
to work you have to build this time
up again. Say you need to take a
sick day with your baby you have
to work at least one month before
you can build up 8 hours worth of
sick-leave. You can take off but,
then you would be docked the 8hrs
or so.
You know that your baby will
need you in some point of time or
even an doctor’s appointment. The
State recently implemented State
Disibility and now a fee is taken out
of our checks for this type of Insurane and I believe you can use this
with Maternity Leave. I do believe
that a paid leave of absence program should be put into place for
All new Mothers and Fathers for a
least (1) year of paid leave.
Janet, San Lorenzo, CA
Both my children are over 30, so
this subject only applies to me as
a very loving and involved grandmother. I had to watch both my
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daughter and daughter-in-law cry
every day when they had to go
back to work within weeks of the
birth of their babies. This only adds
to the incredible stress of having a
baby, and all that surrounds it. It’s
intolerable.
Families today can’t make it on
just one salary, and the working
mom is a given. But, please, our
country needs to adopt a policy regarding family leave so that moms
may stay home with their infants,
at least for a while. It’s heartwrenching for the moms and for
the babies.
Mary Jane, Sacramento, CA
Both my husband and I, as workers in the state of California, had
six and eight weeks, respectively, of
paid family leave after the birth of
our daughter by c-section. Having
this leave was huge to us, and allowed us to save for the even longer period of leave – one year with
my job protected – that I was able
to take as an employee of the state.
Because our daughter was born 6
weeks early, I didn’t get to work as
long as we had expected. We were
counting on that six weeks of salary
to provide savings for the year that
I took off work.
If we didn’t have the pay provided by paid family leave, I would
have had to return to work earlier
than one year. I truly wished that
our federal government valued
parenthood more than it does.
Having that first year at home with
my daughter was priceless. It allowed me to breastfeed her for the
entire year, provide the one-on-one
attention that an infant needs, and
established a strong bond between
the two of us. The fact that my job
was there for me when the year
was done made this possible.
Philip, Mission Viejo, CA
Both of my sons were micropreemies (under one pound) and
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in the NICU for months. Although
the employers of my wife and my
own were very understanding they
offered no paid family leave for either of us. The hospitals that my
sons were at were an hour or more
away (depending on traffic). Both
of us had to continue to work (even
my wife after her medical leave for
her C-section) so that we could pay
our bills even though it limited our
time with our sons as they fought
for their lives. It was a tough three
months for our first son and five
months for our second son of constantly traveling to the hospital to
visit.
Even after they were home,
they both still required a high level
of care, many doctors visits, occupation therapy and physical therapy appointments. We did receive
some financial assistance from family and friends but additional financial assistance would have been
very helpful so that our sons could
have had more attention from us.
Lindsay, San Diego, CA
California’s Paid Family Leave allowance meant that I did not have
to put my daughter in daycare
starting at 8 weeks of age. As a result I was able to continue breastfeeding her until she was 14 weeks
old and I got the time my body
needed to further recover from the
pregnancy and labor. We are both
healthier for it which means I am
now a more-productive worker
than I otherwise would have been.
Vicki, Eagle Rock, CA
Due to having a c-section for
TWINS, I was able to get 12 full
weeks of FMLA time. However, I
wasn’t ready to return to work after those first 12 weeks. We were
still getting into a routine. So in
order for me to remain out for 3
more months I borrowed against
my 401k.
Upon returning to work I be-
gan paying back the money that
I borrowed. What I didn’t anticipate was being laid off my job, 3
months after I returned from my
leave. Unfortunately, 3 payments
didn’t come close to what I had
borrowed. I tried to continue making payments on my 401k loan, but
eventually defaulted on it. I know
that some countries offer a year’s
paid leave. It would have been nice
to have had the whole first year
with my newborns.
Ruth, Pomona, CA
Family values means NOT heaping real financial insecurity upon
new parents. Imagine: the loss of
a job can be devastating, and the
loss of 6-8 weeks of income can be
a desperate situation. Must we lag
behind most of the civilized world
in our willingness to support society as well as business?
As a teacher, I was grateful to be
able to cobble spring break onto
my short maternity leave and to
spend those early weeks learning
how to be with my daughter and
to establish breast-feeding. How
very difficult for those who must
lose their income or farm out the
care of their newborn.
Suzanne, Mountain View, CA
FMLA was very helpful after the
birth of both of my children. We
receive health insurance through
my job, so I wouldn’t have been
able to maintain our family’s health
insurance without it. Also, I am a
pediatrician, and I care for children
in the hospital.
Many families use FMLA to care
for their children after serious accidents and illnesses, so it’s not just
for maternity leaves. It’s very important for both moms and dads
to have this federal protection to
maintain their health insurance
and their jobs when accidents and
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illnesses happen and when new babies are born.
Koni, Turlock, CA
For the first child, 18 years ago, I
was a post-doc in a rather intensely competitive laboratory. I used
three weeks of sick pay to cover my
absence so I could recover from a
C-section. I raced back to work to
keep from losing my position – another post-doc had been hired in
my three week absence. Since I was
the sole bread winner, I had to get
back to defend my bench space.
Twelve years ago, Child #2
came before I had obtained tenure. Again, my job was in peril if I
took time off. I got lucky and the
birth was between terms. I had 5
whole weeks to recover from that
unplanned C-section after a VBAC
went horribly wrong.
Imagine teaching college level
biochemistry to 100-150 students
on sleep deprivation. I can barely
remember how awful it was. At
the time, I just did it. I wanted to
keep my job and there really was
no other choice.
Natalia, Castro Valley, CA
Having paid family leave allowed me to get to know my baby
and my baby to know me. I got to
establish a breastfeeding routine
that created a life long bond between me and my baby. I got to
have time to get used to being a
mom which is not an easy task.
Tara, San Jose, CA
Having paid family leave allowed
me to spend time with my children
when they were born. With my son
this meant being able to adjust to
life with a newborn and breastfeed without the added pressure
of my regular 40-hour a week job.
With my daughter, it meant that I
was the one who could cuddle her
as she was swaddled in the billy
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blanket to treat the jaundice she
came home from the hospital with.
With family leave patched together
with my vacation time I was able to
spend the first 4 months of each of
my children’s lives at home.
I am sure that this time helped
us grow and bond together and
allowed us to set productive and
rewarding routines that lasted far
longer than these baby stages.
Sylvia, Santa Moncia, CA
Having paid family leave was a
blessing for me. My husband and
i have 4 children and it would have
been very hard to support our family with my husbands income alone.
With me haveing c-sections and being out of work for a longer period
of time, it was good to know that
the paid family leave act was there
for us.
Unfortunately I still had to dip
into my vacation hours, but have
the paid family leave really benefitted out family. I think it’s important to continue with the paid family leave, because it give parents
a chance to take time off of work
and afford to stay home with their
new bundle of joy, even if it’s only
for a few weeks.
Melissa, Los Angeles, CA
Having paid leave was essential
for our family when my son was
born. I was able to stay home for 12
weeks at 65% pay. Although it was
not 100% pay, it enabled us to continue to pay the bills and especially
to keep up with health care and
health insurance costs when they
were at their highest. Aside from
this, the most important benefit
was for me to have the chance to
bond with my son and to establish
a regular breastfeeding schedule.
an civilized nation to provide support for mothers and fathers and
infants in the beginning of life.
For me I was lucky I guess. I had 12
weeks without pay but with a little
money from state disability. But
my husband was self employed and
could take only 6 days off.
Still I was simply amazed how
even having 12 weeks was not
nearly enough!! As it was I went
back to work exhausted at 12
weeks with a colicky baby who was
bounced out of three day cares in 2
weeks. It was a sad and confusing
time for our family, and one I deeply regret. We muddled through
somehow. The dividends of well
attached infants and happy healthy
families can’t be underestimated.
Michael, Los Angeles, CA
I always consider my self lucky
to live in the great state of California and to call myself a Californian.
This was more true than ever when
my son was born in September
2005. California had recently created a paid family leave program,
leading the nation as we so often
do in California, and I was able
to take six weeks of paid leave as
my wife and I adjusted to our new
roles as parents. I first took three
weeks right when my son was born
as we worked to find our feet and
establish good parenting patterns
and schedules.
Liz, Fairfax, CA
My wife was able to take nearly
5 1/2 months using her maternity
leave, paid family leave, comptime, and vacation time. When it
was time for her to return to her
workplace, I was able to take another three weeks of leave to facilitate her transition back into the
workforce and our son’s transition
into daycare. Even at six months, it
felt early to be placing him into full
time daycare – I can’t imagine how
parents do it after only one or two
months.
I am strongly in favor of family
leave and think its is essential for
I am both proud and gratful
to live in a state where politicians
MomsRising.org
don’t just pay lip service to ‘family
values’ but actually take action and
create programs which legitimately
value families. All American families deserve lengthy and generous
paid family leave.
Danielle, Sacramento, CA
I am a mother of one. I was going to be a mother of two. I lost my
daughter in my 6 month of pregnancy. I gave birth to her naturally, so I got to have 6 weeks off
just for having her. I want anyone
who will listen that it is important
to have that family leave. That 6
weeks wasn’t long enough after
her death. I didn’t even have the
FMLA on my side simply because I
didn’t work 7 hours or more. I had
to take up all of my vacation and all
of my sick for the school year,and
the year isn’t even out yet.
It’s so important to have whether your having or grieving the loss
of a baby you should still be entitled to it because you worked for it
and you deserve it. Give mother’s
and father’s there time with their
children. They need that time with
them. To bond with them, to learn
them, to really appreciate there
child as well as the child appreciating the parent. Let them have the
time.
Ellen, Spring Valley, CA
I am a school teacher, and had
to use my 6 weeks sick leave. WhenI questioned our union rep. about
not having maternity leave, I was
told I got 6 weeks (he was refering
to my sick leave). When I explained
that I was NOT sick – I was having
a baby, I wanted maternity leave,
he told we I was lucky to get paid
leave at all. My three girls are teenagers now, I hope to be retired by
time I become a grandma primarily
in the hopes of sparing my daughters the emotional strain of early
child care issues.
I was heart-broken and stressed
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having to leave my babies. And
with virtual strangers (no family in
town) I am the insurance carrier
and steady wage earner in my family, I had no choice but to return
to work. And return with no sick
leave left! With my third, I was to
overwhelmed to go back to work
at six weeks (three kids under 5), so
I took an unpaid leave of absence
and went on WIC. After seven
years of college and a masters degree, how sad.
Laura, Los Angeles, CA
I am an adjunct college professor and I am going to be having
my first baby in August. Since I am
hired on a semester by semester
basis I am considered a temporary
employee. Which means when my
baby is born in August I will not
be on leave for the Fall semester, I
simply will not be employed. I am
scared to death about how I am
going to cover those bills for that
semester.
My only hope is getting disability, but I honestly don’t know how
long it is for nor how much I will
get. All I can do now is work this
last semester and then hope that
somehow things are going to work
out then.
Lindsay, Walnut Creek, CA
I am currently 21 weeks pregnant and I worry every day about
what I am going to do when my
daughter comes. My husband and
I just bought our first home, so I
will definitely be returning to work
after the baby comes. My husband
has a Bachelor’s degree and I hold
a Master’s degree. We both work
full time, but we still don’t make
enough money for me to take off
as much time as we feel is necessary
after the birth of our child.
It’s so important to me to be able
to spend time with my baby when
she first arrives, but I am afraid that
it will be cut short due to financial
reasons. I am lucky enough to get
12 weeks off of work, which I am
grateful for, but this will not be
paid. Between the percentage of
my income I will receive from California state disability and the sick
and vacation time I have save up
(which is rapidly dwindling due to
many prenatal care appointments),
there will be at least 6 weeks in
which I earn no income at all. That
is assuming that all goes according
to plan and I’m able to work right
up to my due date. I don’t know
how we will fare without that income. I don’t know what will happen if I have to take time off before
the baby comes and don’t have 12
full weeks with baby before I have
to return to work.
Most childcare centers won’t accept a baby less than three months
old and I won’t have anyone to
care for her if I have to go back to
work early. I am afraid that I won’t
be able to breastfeed her for the
recommended six months because
going back to work so soon after her
birth will interrupt our routine. My
company is small and is not required
to meet the breastfeeding laws and
I’m afraid that I will have nowhere
private to pump.
All the research that I have seen
strongly states that more bonding
time (and more breastfeeding time)
has tremendous health benefits
(both physical and emotional) for
Mommy and baby. It is a travesty
that America is so far behind the rest
of the developed world in recognizing this. Pregnancy is supposed to
be a time for mothers-to-be to prepare to care for their new children.
It’s been shown that stress is harmful
to the fetus and yet so many of us
spend so much time trying to figure
out how we’re going to make it once
baby comes because we don’t have
the support we need. Please consider
improving policies around maternal
time off after giving birth. It will truly benefit everyone in the long run.
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Elizabeth, Sacramento, CA
I am lucky that I was able to take
advantage of the California Family
Leave time as well as disability and
some unpaid leave in order to stay
home with my new baby for the first
four months. I was able also to work
from home part time to keep up
with my work. My daughter, Payton,
was a cluster feeder which required
around the clock nursing. This would
not have been possible if i was not
at home to provide this important
nutritional start for my daughter.
Because I work at a small office I did
have to cobble together some time
and work while on leave but at least
my office was willing to work with
me.
This time should be extended and
the Federal Leave options should
be available to smaller businesses as
well. Lastly, I work for a nonprofit
organization were family leave benefits and flexible work arrangements
should be a key focus. If legislators
would do more to support this the
world would be a better place. My
moral for my organization is high
due to their support of my leave.
Feel free to contact me with any
questions. I am happy to say I work
for the League of Women Voters of
California.
Kristin, San Carlos, CA
I am lucky to work for a community college that offers flexible hours
and excellent benefits. Unfortunately, they handle maternity leave
through accrued sick leave. I had
just started my position 9 years ago
when I became pregnant.
I had to come back to work too
soon – after 6 weeks – which was still
more time than many other families
have. The consequences of this short
leave time; my husband and I ‘traded’ off the baby. When I had classes,
I dropped off the baby with him- at
his job site as a general contractor! I
still can’t believe we did this. He left
the baby inside one of the rooms not
in construction, and looked in on her
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between banging nails and running
the circular saw. Because we were
both working and sharing care as
best we could, we got even less sleep
than we would have otherwise. I suffered from severe postpartum OCD,
a condition that was exacerbated by
the short recovery time following a
very difficult birth.
LaSandra, Santa Clara, CA
I am on my second pregnancy
and am saddened by the fact that
I don’t have as much PTO as I did
with my first and my time with my
new baby will be cut short. My husband and I are looking at our finances to figure out if there’s anyway we can afford for me to take
any unpaid leave but it is unlikely.
I love my job and want to be there
but just want to be able to bond
with my child before doing so – is
that too much to ask?
Martha, Perris, CA
I could not see myself adapting
to parenthood so easily without
family leave. I had my first son
on Oct. 20, 2010 through cesarian
section. Although I was fortunate
enough to have my mother and
husband’s support, it was up to me
to wake up every other hour to
feed my son and assure he was taken care of. I too was healing from
my surgery and was able to go on
light walks to help promote healing. I could not imagine having to
worry about functioning through
my day, caring for my newborn son,
and having to also worry about
jeopardizing my financial security because I would be on lack of
pay. It is imperative that all women
have the opportunity to heal physically, care for their newborns, and
be able to do so without worrying
that this may leave them homeless.
Dina, Encinitas, CA
I found out I was pregnant after
a brief relationship with an unsta-
ble man. I was three months into a
new job, scared out of my wits and
wishing I could go back to my former job where I had 10+ years tenure. If it had not been for Paid Family Leave, FMLA, Pregnancy Leave,
Short-Term Disability – whatever
you want to call it – I wouldn’t have
had the critical time to bond with
my baby and still be able to provide
for him.
I was luckier than most: I have a
Master’s Degree, a professional career, immediate and extended family close by to help, and worked for
an employer larger than 50 people.
I am sure my boss would have been
happy to let me go, having four
other women under him who were
also pregnant with much longer
tenures than I had. I was also lucky
that I was pregnant in California,
where the Paid Family Leave is up
to 8 weeks longer than that of other states.
Had I known then what I do
now, I wouldn’t have worried every
day that he was going to fire me
because I was pregnant. I would
have taken the longest leave possible which was my right to take
and deal with the limited finances.
My son is now 3 1/2 and I realize
my time with him is very limited.
Please ensure that all women, and
men, are able to take Paid Family
Leave. With all the layoffs and the
economy in flux, family is all that
some of us have.
Renée, Los Angeles, CA
I got luck that my union had just
negotiated a month, instead of a
week of paid leave (less than a year
before my son arrived!). I was able
to bank 2 more months of sick and
vacation leave. As a single parent, I
must say, I don’t know what I could
have done if I hadn’t been able to
jury-rig things. It’s a shame that we
don’t have the same values of other nations, to support the care of
our most precious and vulnerable.
MomsRising.org
Jennifer, Whittier, CA
I got paid family leave through
the state of California for 6 weeks
and my husband was given the
same benefits that could be used
up until 1 year. So in total I took off
2 weeks prior to delivery on disability and used the 6 weeks after I was
allowed on disability for having a
vagina birth. I then immediately
used my 6wks of paid family leave
so I had a total of 12 weeks after
birth of time off with my baby.
I wish I had longer but 3mos is
better than nothing and I thought
the pay I received while on it was
more than reasonable to support
my family. I had my job waiting
for me when I returned and life at
work picked up like I never left. I
am pregnant with my second child
now and plan on doing the exact
same thing with my time off.
Jennifer, Oakland, CA
I got two months paid family leave. Those two months were
great – it gave me time to bond
with my baby and establish great
routines for sleep and breastfeeding. I wish I could have had more!
Two weeks was not enough time.
When I went back to work, I had
trouble maintaining my milk supply. I tried to make a more flexible
schedule so that we did not need to
pay for child care, but my manager
was not understanding. I ended up
quitting my job.
Elizabeth, San Francisco, CA
I had 2 months of paid leave, no
duties, 3 months of paid ‘reduced
duties’ allowing me to come to the
office only once per week and not
teach, and the usual summer off.
All at full salary.
Unfortunately, the ‘reduced duties’ quarter
screwed up breastfeeding because
I work so far from home, but that
wasn’t my employer’s fault.
What I got from this generous
maternity package was a child
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whom everyone has said, from
day one, is marvelously secure,
stable, and trusting, and who has
not had a major illness in her life
(she is now 5). Word has it that
in the old days at my institution,
female professors were expected
to show up and teach days after
having given birth. I’m grateful to
my older colleagues who pushed
for reasonable maternity leave
packages – without them, I would
have chosen either not to have a
child or to leave my profession. I
am a lesbian and a feminist, but I
believe infants are best off in the
home with a parent for the first 6
months.
Tamara, Los Angeles, CA
I had 8 weeks of disability leave
due to my C-section, and then had
to take the remaining 4 weeks of
my 12 week leave as unpaid due to
the fact that I did not yet qualify
for FMLA bc I hadn’t been at my
job for a year. As a new mom, I cannot imagine what would have happened if I’d had to go back to my
job at 8 weeks – I was still recuperating from surgery, exhausted, and
just starting to really understand
how to take care of a baby.
I would have loved, loved, loved
to stay home for another 2 months
with my baby, but we needed the
money. During my leave, we survived on my husband’s paycheck
alone by cutting back on a lot of
spending, and we made it through,
but we really could have used the
money, especially because when I
did go back to work, we had new
bills for childcare.
Everything I’ve read said that
bonding with a primary caretaker
is of paramount importance in developing healthy attachment in
newborns; if we lived in a country
that allowed for longer, paid leave
I really do feel it would have benefited my baby and made me a better mom.
Robin, Santa Barbara, CA
I had a C-section delivery of
my son in 2009, and was self employed as an attorney at that time.
I saved money to help cover costs
post-birth, but needed to return
to work after 4 weeks post-birth.
Financially, I needed to generate
income again to help support my
family. My husband was working, but we are a 2 income family just to pay the regular monthly
expenses. I took my son to work
with me, but it quickly became
counter-productive to try and
work while he was there because
he either needed to nurse or be
held. While I became proficient at
typing with 1 hand, it was difficult
to talk on the phone to clients or
opposing counsel, and meeting
with clients or prospective clients
was a challenge.
We couldn’t afford child care
until I was generating enough income to compensate for it. It was
very stressful for us as a family
during that transition time, and
the lack of sleep did not help my
working day. I was an emotional
wreck from sleep deprivation and
financial stress. I did not experience post-partum depression, just
stress from the transition to our
new life.
Had I been able to receive
some financial benefit (I applied
for it, but was not eligible since
I was not employed by someone
at that time) for at least 3 months
post-birth my life would have
been less stressful, and I would
have enjoyed the time with my
infant son more. Instead, I was
consumed with how to juggle my
work/income with his needs when
I should have been focused solely
on meeting his needs.
We live very modestly and
scaled back where we could on
our expenses. I feel that I missed
out on the first 6 months of my
son’s life because I was too wor-
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ried about other factors, and
while I was present with him for
much of that, I wasn’t really ‘present’ in the connected sense.
Wendy, Mill Valley, CA
I had absolutely no paid family
leave. I had two children in less
than two years and had no financial support of any kind apart from
my husband.
On the other hand, his company
had a 4 week paid leave policy for
new fathers (in the first six months,
so it didn’t have to be consecutive
weeks). Mothers at his company
get much more time to be with
their newborns. A minimum national standard is needed.
Samantha,
Half Moon Bay, CA
I had no paid maternity leave as
a self employed mother. Thankfully,
my husband was able to take one
month paternity leave from his employment and be paid accordingly
under California paternity law – to
help care for our baby and myself.
This required us to plan financially
ahead for the entirety of our pregnancy and stay on a restrictive budget until my husband and myself
returned to the office.Unfortunately
after three months post partum I
needed to return to the office due
to financial need. I wasn’t ready and
neither was my nursing baby.
I am not a woman who is able
to produce enough milk via breast
pump, so this was an added stress for
both myself and my baby. We redesigned the office to include a nursery and hired a caregiver to bring
our baby to me to nurse throughout
the day from the age of 3 months
to 3 years. Many years the amount
I paid the caregiver out weighed
the amount I was making. But we
wanted our child near one parent as
much as possible. The care and attention needed for mother and child are
great, but to add to it the responsi-
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bility of providing financial support
for your family is overwhelming.
Bottom line, if a mother wants
to care for, breast feed, see her child
throughout her work day, she must
redesign her life. Without financial
support for maternity leave and
childcare and mother/home assistance provided by the government,
we American women are placed
under more stress than anyone else,
particularly from the age of 0-3 years
old of our children.Universal Health
Care, 1-3 years maternity and paternity leave, government offered
caregiving and homecare as well as
additional time with your family are
in place throughout Europe. America should take a look at how much
healthier Europeans and their families are and learn from them beginning with paid family leave.
Tessa, Sebastopol, CA,
I had paid family leave through
the university I worked for after
the birth of both of my children. In
both cases, this allowed me time to
heal from delivery (I had emergency
c-sections in both cases) and bond
with my baby. The time at home
also allowed me to get breastfeeding established and I was able to
continue nursing my babies even
after I returned to work.
In the case of my 2nd son, my
time at home was even more necessary. He was born 1 month early and
was barely 5lbs at birth. He spent
nearly a week in the NICU due to
complications. After coming home,
it was critical that he feed regularly
in order to get his weight up. He
was resistant to taking a bottle. If
I had not been able to be at home
for the first few months, I am not
sure what we would have done – I
was literally his lifeline to nourishment. After returning to work, my
employer was flexible enough to
let me leave early if there were
days that he wasn’t taking a bottle
well at home. He is now a healthy 9
month old, eating well & growing
well – the generosity of my employer has paid off and I am now back
hard at work!
Because of my employer offering paid leave, I was able to get
breastfeeding established with
both babies – I nursed my first baby
until he weaned at 14 months and
am well on my way to doing the
same (or similar) with baby #2. The
current recommendation of pediatricians is that babies are breastfed
for 6+ months – something that
would be extremely challenging if
mothers are not allowed time at
home in the first few months to get
breastfeeding established.
Crystal, Livermore, CA
I had the opportunity to take
paid family leave, being a California resident, and I can’t imagine
having to go back to work any
sooner than 12 weeks after having
a baby. We as a nation should be
thinking about the children whose
development would be SO much
more positive if we allow the natural bonding to take place between
parent and child.
Holly, Los Angeles, CA
I had twins and thank goodness
for family leave. Though only six
weeks were ‘paid,’ and only partially so – I made about half my
salary – it was hugely beneficial.
My husband took it too. We don’t
have family nearby and were overwhelmed with the new responsibilities and it was a huge help not
to have to worry about our jobs or
money at that time.
Evelyn, Winchester, CA
I had two kids (now 9 and 4), the
first one as a single mom. I can’t
imagine what I would have done
without paid leave. I was one of
the lucky ones. Had I not received
paid leave, I would still be recovering from the financial damages.
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Every woman should have this benefits and the assurance that they
won’t be punished without pay or
even a job, for bearing children.
Stephanie, Malibu, CA
I have four sons, three birth children and one adopted, and have
experienced both paid and unpaid
maternity leave. With my first son,
living in Virginia, I had unpaid maternity leave for most of my leave
from my job and my husband and
I had to take out student loans (he
was in grad school) to make ends
meet, which we are still paying
back (our son is now 14 years old).
I was fortunate enough to have
some form of paid maternity leave
for our other three sons and I feel
very blessed by that. We live in California now, one of the only states
with a paid maternity leave program. I think about all of the families out there in the U.S. who have
to struggle when they have a newborn- one of the most vulnerable
times in a family’s life.
We should be supporting our
families and our mothers, not leaving them to fend for themselves. It
is shameful that the U.S. is one of
the most ‘developed’ countries but
does not care for its own mothers
and babies!!
to a government mandated ‘nanny’
of sorts that comes in to cook and
clean house or watch your children
during your family leave.
Why does a country as esteemed
as the US not have something like
this in place? Please consider offering assistance with a paid family leave to new mothers so we can
continue to be the GOOD mothers
we strive to be.
Joan, Los Angeles, CA,
I have two lovely girls – the oldest is 13 and the baby is 2. I had
not had a baby in over 10 years
and I was over 40. Not only could
I have used more time for my new
baby girl but it was harder on me
this time around. Having more time
to take care of me is the most important part to the puzzle. Without Mom being put back together
there will be lost pieces. It took
me a full year to get back to me.
Thank God.... I’m back..... We have
to remember that being pregnant
and giving birth is not only physical
but a mental state as well.
Anneli, Fairfax, CA
I have to say that after the birth
of each of my two sons, times were
not only difficult because we were
consistently sleep deprived and
dealing with feedings, changings
and colic, but I became unable to
work. I am a photographer by
trade and have my own small business.
I have two small children and
have never gotten paid maternity
leave by any of my employers. I
got disability which is only about
half of your pay after the birth
of my two babies. I do important
work as a school counselor helping children and families through
difficult times, yet when I needed
support none was offered. I had
to scramble and try to piece meal
money together so we could get
bye on the bare minimum. This is
not a healthy system for mothers
and children.
When I don’t work, I don’t get
paid. There is currently no paid
leave for people like me. So to
compound the stress of a new baby
we were also dealing with a deficit in our income. Some European
nations offer paid leave in addition
After the birth of a child the last
thing a new mom should be worried about is money. It is stressfull
enough! It adds undue stress and
fear on the new mom just when she
needs all her energy to bond with
and take care of her new baby. I
Laura, Torrance, CA
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think it is so sad that there is no
support for mothers and children
in this country. Its pathetic actually that a country so rich would be
so greedy and stingy with it’s own
mothers and children.
Andrea, Los Angeles, CA
I live in California and fortunately got 5 months of maternity
leave. Not all of that leave was paid
(full-pay) but I was lucky enough to
be in a financial position to have
time with my daughter. This time
was so important because it allowed us to bond. And although,
I was sleep deprived, I was able to
nap when she did and be with her
all day and night and not feel like a
total zombie.
I went back to work when she
was in a regular routine and feel
that time we spent in the beginning was essential to our development as a family. Being a working
parent is hard. The first few months
back to work were very hard on our
family unit. Ideally, I would have
loved to have a year off with my
daughter, so I can only imagine the
stress of those who have to go back
after 6 or 8 weeks.
The other implication of family
leave is the financial aspect. Some
families have to go back to work
right away (after 6 weeks) because
they cannot afford the partial pay
that maternity leave provides in
some states. I am writing this because I feel that families need more
time with their kids to develop
healthy systems in the household.
The more time parents can spend
less stressed, the better it is for everyone in the family unit.
Jennifer, Whittier, CA
I live in California so fortunately
I had Paid Family Leave for myself
and my husband. I was very thankful for that to get 6 weeks off in ad-
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dition of the 6 weeks of disability
to bond and be with my my baby.
I am grateful to have been given that time off and still have my
job protected but it would have
been nice to have even more time
off like the first 6 months to bond
with baby and breast feed. I think
it is too hard to pump and continue breastfeeding while working because of the time constraints
involved. If I could be at home
longer with my baby I would have
breast fed longer instead of stopping as soon as I began working
like so many women do. Pumping is
not easy and is a major hassle while
you are working.
Even though work places are
supposed to be accommodating
to women who are pumping at
work most are not. There is not a
private place to do it and women
are forced to give up pumping and
breast feeding or resort to do it in
there cars or public restrooms that
aren’t private or sanitary. I think
the government needs to take that
into consideration in the Paid Family Leave for new mothers to get a
total of 18 weeks off after disability time in order to breast feed and
bond with their new baby.
Donna, Granada Hills, CA
I only had a six-week maternity
leave when my daughter was born,
so it’s a good thing I went into labor on the second day of my leave.
It was a C-section, so I needed the
entire time for recovery, and didn’t
get the go-ahead to drive until the
week before I had to go back to
work.
Living on disability during that
period was rough – there were so
many extra expenses but no usual paycheck to cover them. Yes,
we knew it would be that way
and yes, we planned for it – but
it would have been better for my
baby and my family if I hadn’t HAD
to go back to work so soon after
she was born.
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My husband is from the UK,
and I looked on in envy at friends
living there, who could take off
for almost an entire year if they
wanted, with benefits and help
(social workers who came to visit
the house to see how mother and
child were doing). I feel like our
politicians all talk about family
values but it’s just lip service – if
they really believed in the importance of family, our society would
make it a priority to support working parents.
Holly, McKinleyville, CA
I took Family Leave when I was
pregnant with my son, but because
I had not worked at that specific job
for 12 months, I was not afforded
PAID leave. I also was not able to
keep my health insurance, so when
I had my baby, I had to go on Cobra
(which was ridiculously expensive)
or switch to my husbands insurance,
which was also expensive and did not
cover a lot of my hospital expenses. It
was terrible.
I thought Maternity Leave would
afford me with some pay, and health
insurance and it couldn’t give me either. It was so stressful and the LAST
thing we wanted to be dealing with
during the last few months of pregnancy and the birth of our first baby.
Larry, S. Lake Tahoe, CA
I took in my four year old nephew in when my sister died. My paid
leave allowed me to drive to Southern California from Lake Tahoe to
pick my nephew up.
It allowed me to spend several
days dealing with CPS and time to
acclimate my nephew to his new
life and home in Tahoe, spend time
bonding with him, as well as time
to locate child care. Without it the
transition wouldn’t have been as
smooth and my nephew wouldn’t
of transitioned as well.
Mara, Santa Cruz, CA
I was able to be at home after
the birth of our baby and I feel that
it was key to my survival and to the
physical and emotional health of me
and my baby. Childbirth is exhausting and so is the care of a newborn.
I needed that downtime to keep up
my reserves of strength while seeing
to my baby’s needs as well. It was
very important to have time to enjoy and bond with my daughter.
Our relationship got off to a very
good start and has continued to be
excellent and my daughter is now
a successful college student with
good values and a stable personality. Beginnings are very important. I
wish that every mother and father
and baby could have the advantage
of such a beginning. Please do what
you can to support family leave after childbirth.
Kasandra, Manteca, CA
I was able to take 14 weeks partially paid postpartum. My husband
took the whole 12 weeks but was
only paid for 6. We have lost so
much do to our decrease in income
just so we could give out daughter what she needs for as long as
possible. This time allowed me to
breastfeed for over a year.
Marie, Brentwood, CA
I was fortunate at the time my
son was born to have a good paying job and receive Paid Family
Leave while my son’s father was in
the military. It crushed me to have
to return to work when my son was
not even 4 months old but because
of PFL at least I was able to take the
little time offered.
Rosemary, Hawthorne, CA
I was grateful for the Family
Medical Leave Act. There were several instances when it benefited me.
My late husband had Diabetes and
several other medical issues. He’d
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had strokes, congested heart failure
and numerous issues. Prior to learning about FMLA I would use up my
vacation time to care for him in time
of crisis. I could not always get vacation time from my employer so this
would sometimes result in additional
stress.
Once I learned about FMLA, although I still had the stress of figuring out how I would manage finances since I was not paid, I was at least
able to care for my husband who was
constantly being admitted to the
hospital. Before he passed in 2002,
he had had strokes, several heart attacks, and amputations, above and
below the knee on his left side, and
eventually lost his right leg and became a double amputee.
Additionally, several years ago I
was home alone and had an Asthma
attack that started at work. I did not
know what was happening at the
time. I was fortunate to be speaking
to my daughter on the phone when
I went into a full blow attack; although she was several hours away,
she called 911, and paramedics arrived and rushed me to a near by
hospital. I was hospitalized for several days and was able to use FMLA
that week until I recuperated. This
time I was paid by my employee as
well. In both cases FMLA was a life
saver for me.
Julie, Ladera Ranch, CA
I was lucky enough to have
paid maternity leave when my
son was born. I had to go out on
leave about 4 weeks before he
was due because he was growing
poorly. I was able to relax before
his delivery, which probably gave
him enough time to mature to
full term. He was born by C-section, which gave me automatic 8
weeks of paid leave. With the surgery and a new baby, I definitely
needed that time to heal and to
nurture my baby.
My husband was wonderfully
helpful, but he couldn’t breast
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feed every few hours at night.
More amazing than that was the
next two months of paid leave
from the university at which I
worked. I was able to breast feed,
to watch his first smile and laugh,
to be there when he rolled over
and sat up, without the loss of a
job. When I returned, the first
quarter after my leave was over I
had only administrative duties, no
teaching required, again giving
me time with my infant.
Watching my son thrive for several months was a joyful experience that I would wish for all new
mothers. Knowing that I was being
paid and that my job was waiting
for me when I returned was key.
Kathy, Los Altos, CA
I was lucky that when I had my
two children (now ages 12 and 7),
I had decent family leave – by
US standards. Of course I worked
for a German company and I was
shocked when I found out how
much paid family leave moms get
over there! We didn’t get anything
like that!
Even getting 11 weeks of paid
leave after my first was born, it was
incredibly hard to go back to work.
If I could do one thing over in my
life, it would be to recapture that
time I lost with him as a newborn.
But now I work for a small company, and my boss’ secretary is pregnant. She is now discovering how
little paid leave and job protection
she will get, and I think it is just
WRONG!
Lissa, Culver City, CA
I was self-employed with my
first son, and naturally that meant
no paid leave. I remember pushing my baby in his secondhand
stroller, keeping an eagle eye
on the gutter in case there were
any coins there: a windfall might
mean I could afford to eat something for dinner. On recycling
day I was up at dawn, pawing
through other people’s bins to
find coupons because I couldn’t
afford a subscription to the
newspaper. I spent the only free
minutes I had in the day, those
precious few minutes of naptime,
comparing grocery flier bargains
with the coupons I’d been able to
scavenge, and did all of my shopping on double coupon days. We
ate dandelion greens, we attended lots of library lectures with
free refreshments, we made it
through. Barely. (Without WIC, I
doubt we would have.)
By the time my second son
came along, I had found work
as an elementary school teacher.
However, I was only part time and
did not yet have maternity benefits.
Fortunately my son was
born during Thanksgiving break,
and the school was understanding and sympathetic. I took unpaid ‘sick’ leave between Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, and
when school resumed January
3rd, I was there, with my onemonth-old baby on my back. I
nursed him in the supply closet
between classes. I hemorrhaged
a little and lost weight and never
fully regained my health in the
year that followed. But what
choice did I have? My children
needed me to work. I could not
afford to lose my job.
And I was not about to join
the ranks of the welfare moms,
not when there was a job I could
do, with supervisors humane
enough to ‘let’ me bring my child
along that all-important first
year. Childcare would have cost
more than what I made! Let’s
step back from politics and budgets for a moment here and just
look at the question we are asking: Is it a good idea for newborn
babies to have warmth, food and
the presences of their mother?
Well, duh. So just what is the
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problem here? This is fundamental stuff, folks. We have to take
care of the mothers if we want
the babies taken care of. And we
have to take care of the babies if
we want the species to continue.
End of story.
Keri, Los Angeles, CA
I was the major breadwinner
in my family before I had my first
daughter. Needless to say, that had
to change after her birth. It was a
financial struggle and the source of
much stress around what was supposed to be the happiest time in
our lives. At the same time, my best
friend in Sweden had had a baby
a month prior. Her experience was
altogether different due in part to
Sweden’s maternal (and paternal!)
leave programs. I was so jealous
at what seemed to be the most
common sense support. This is our
country’s future, and its security is
made up in part by the solid foundations of it’s families.
Louise, Carson, CA
I was very ill after our baby was
born, and he had terrible colic. My
husband was working delivering
pizzas, and he had to stay home
with us a lot, so money was tight.
I don’t know what we would have
done if we had to worry because I
didn’t have paid leave!
Joanna, Glendale, CA
I was working at an unsustainable
pace at a fashion company when I
got pregnant. I spent my first trimester working 10-12 hour days, five
days a week. My husband is a freelance producer, who thankfully qualified for health benefits, which were
much better than the ones my very
cheap employer offered. I quit my
job and spent most of my pregnancy
working from home, freelancing myself, but not with a steady income.
The baby came right on time, and
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my husband just happened to not
get any work for 5 weeks. It was such
a blessing for me to have him home
with me for that long. Two weeks of
having your husband close by helping is not nearly long enough. Women need at least two weeks for the
recovery pains of labor to subside, if
not three. And we had no pain leave
because we work for ourselves. But
thankfully my mom came for a couple weeks to help us. By two months,
I had to start working again because
opportunities came up that I couldn’t
turn down.
Even though I work from home,
it’s been very hard. My baby is breastfed exclusively, so I get 2-3 hour windows when I can work, if I can work.
I wish I could have taken another
month off at least. Having that extra cushion of time to get to learn
how to be a mom and take care of
my body/mind and my babies needs
would’ve been so helpful. Now I’m
faced with the reality that I have to
figure out some sort of childcare. It
seems preposterous to send my baby
away if I work from home. I hope to
find a nanny I can share with another family.
Cherrise, Bodega Bay, CA
I worked for the University of
California when giving birth to my
two daughters. We had the option
of buying into an insurance plan
which paid you up to 70% of your
salary after the allowed 6 – 8 weeks
maternity leave. UC did not give
paid leave, but your position was
secure and your health insurance
was paid, which is a huge relief. I
went back to work at 4 mos with
both of my daughters, but I quit 2
weeks later after my last child was
born.
It was so worth it to be home
with my children, and has made a
huge difference in all of our lives.
What would have been a huge
help would have been if my husband had not been laid off from his
job 6 mos later which left us with
no benefits and no money! Yeah,
who knew when giving up a great
job the economy was going to go
down the drain?
Berta, Palm Desert, CA
I’m a mother of 3 children, 16, 8
and 6. I came to United States 19
years ago with not family but my
husband. When my first and second child were born I had to leave
both of them under the babysitter’s
care at 3 months of age. This is so
hard especially when the one taking care of your loved ones are not
even relatives. When my son was
born I was given only 6 weeks to be
with him. My employeer requested
me to return to work. I couldn’t
leave my 6 week old baby. I was
not ready emotionally or physically
(according to the doctor I was fine)
ready to go back to work. I was informed that I have the option of
requesting time off throught the
Family Leave Act. I requested 6
more weeks to be at home with my
son. This time was granted to me
but with no pay.
It was hard to adjust to a one
salary for those 6 weeks having
an extra expense with the arrival
of my third son. I was grateful to
have the opportunity to stay home
for 6 weeks. However, I did not
received my salary and I also lost
a year of retirement for being absent for 3 months. I would like
for you to be more considered of
women that are not only mothers
but housewives, workers and many
more roles that we have to play in
a daily basis.
Stephanie, Folsom, CA
I’m lucky to live in California,
where we both from short-term
disability and paid family leave. I
was able to get paid, at 55% of my
salary for 13 weeks (this included
three weeks before my due date).
My employer also paid out my sick
and vacation leave, so I was more
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or less paid full-time for much of
my maternity leave.
I was, luckily, financially able
to use an additional four weeks
of maternity leave unpaid, but I
know not many new mothers are
able to shoulder that burden. My
PFL was an absolute blessing. I was
able to exclusively breastfeed for
three months, before I went back
to work, after which time I had to
supplement with formula as I could
not pump what my baby required.
In other countries, like Canada, you
can be on PFL for a year. I’m not
sure I would want a full year off
from my job, but definitely more
than the four months I took off.
I cannot imagine the mothers
who must return to work at 6 weeks
because that is all the time they’re
allowed. At six weeks, I was still
only barely recovered from giving
birth, along with being completely
sleep-deprived. I think my employer
and California’s PFL is a testament
to why every single woman who
has given birth in the past three
years (and that is about more than
a dozen women in our office) have
returned to work. If the environment was less family friendly, many
women would have quit, I’m sure.
Mila, Oakland, CA
I’m owner of a small residential
design and construction company
and feel that allowing for flexibility in paid family leave is crucial for
building healthy, happy families.
We support our staff with a modest paid family whether it is for
welcoming newborn children into
their families or caring for ill or aging parents.
There are realities to the human experience that we can support each other through and I’ve
found that supporting my staff in
this way builds loyalty and boosts
productivity.I support initiatives for
insurance for paid family leave as
companies like mine could develop
our employee benefits further and
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balance the financial impact that
family leave weighs on either the
employer or the employee.
Shannon, Los Altos, CA
I’ve been fortunate to be able
to quit my job to care for our baby.
I now realize the importance of a
child having a consistent caretaker,
preferably the mother, for breastfeeding and healthy psychological
and emotional development. On a
practical level, caring for a child is
a demanding 24 hour job. The first
2 months I could not have survived
without the help of my husband
and family members.
I cannot imagine having to go
back to work when my baby was
under a year old, let alone after 6
weeks or even sooner, but I know if
I was not as financially privledged
I would have to. This is incredibly
harmful for the whole family but
especially the child.
We need to invest more in our
families as they are the foundation
of our society and the reason most
of us work in the first place. It is
shocking to me how far behind the
US is in paid maternity and family
leave compared to most European
countries. We need to think about
our priorities and not force mothers to go back to work during the
most critical weeks, months, and
years of their children’s lives.
Heather, Santa Paula, CA
I’m on maternity leave now. Unpaid, but luckily I got 60% of my pay
from CA’s SDI. Just enough to make
it extremely difficult for us, but not
impossible. Along with the rest of
the concerns about our new baby,
our lack of sleep, general life stress,
we are fighting about money.
Paid leave should be a given nationally for companies bigger than
15 employees or so for a month at
least! It’s ridiculous what we go
through as women to have children
for our families, our country, and
how little those children are respected in this country. It’s just another extension of what we think
of children in this country.
Lisa, El Cerrito, CA
I was very lucky to have paid
leave through a combination of accumulated vacation days and disability insurance.
Without paid leave, my family
would not own a home, I probably
would not have a job, at least not a
full time job, and we would all be
much poorer. I am the main breadwinner of our family. My husband
works but makes less than half my
salary. I carry the health insurance
for all of us (self, husband and two
kids under six). Paid leave also makes
up for the loss in calculated social security income. I am still ‘behind’ and
when I hope to retire, my benefits
will be calculated at a lower rate
because I took ‘time off’. Maternity
leave is not vacation. It is important
bonding time, time to rest and heal
from a difficulty pregnancy or birth,
to establish routines to get the day
going when work starts again.
I hope that policy makers realized
the shortsightedness of putting the
economic burden of childbearing
and childrearing solely on the parent
or parents. The child starts behind in
terms of health and economic security. This puts the parent behind and
thus, it puts our society behind.
Roseann, Huntington Beach, CA
In 2003, I was laid off from my
job during my pregnancy and was
received unemployment payments.
I was really lucky, because on the
last day of my unemployment beneifts, my disability (SDI) became effective. I was then notified by EDD
that I was eligible for the California
State Family Leave benefit. I was really excited to have an additional 6
weeks to spend time with my baby.
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Having been unemployed during
the pregnancy, it very difficult to
find employment. It was a very
stressful time for my husband and I.
In Orange County, CA, two wage
middle income earners are a neccessity to own a home. We had been
saving for years. I knew that I had
to find a job and enter the workforce. This was a not an easy decision to make. Was it really worth it,
to find a job earning less than I was
earning before I was working, and
then pay for full-day infant care at
approximately $9,000 a year? It was
if we wanted to own our home and
live the American Dream.In addition
to the stress of not knowing how
we wouldget by financially on one
paycheck, I was also having some
moderate post-pardum issues after
the baby was born.
fertility issues, and I was not of advanced maternal age. It was simply one of those things – I dropped
three eggs that fertilization cycle
and we hit the fertility jackpot.
Fortunately, I work for a pharmaceutical company that has excellent benefits, and a generous
leave policy. I was put on limited
bed-rest at 22 weeks, and full bedrest at 29 weeks. In July, 2005, I
delivered 3 healthy babies at 34
weeks. But, they did have to spend
time in the NICU for ‘feeding and
growing.’ Our NICU was 20 minutes
from home, and our older daughter had just turned 4. We had some
family in the area, but no one was
prepared to handle all of these tiny
babies.
Deirdre, Camarillo, CA
Thankfully, because we live in
California, my husband was able to
take FMLA. His eight weeks home
were vital to our family. Shuttling
back and forth to the hospital, then
caring for one baby, then 2 babies,
then all 3 babies at home would
have been literally impossible if he
was working. By the time he returned after 8 weeks, we were on a
solid routine with the babies, that
continued throughout their infancy. I returned to work 12 weeks after their birth, and my company let
me transition part-time for another
6 weeks after that.Even though this
was quite generous by most standards, the hardest part was the reduced pay. We incurred thousands
of dollars in debt the first 6 months
of the triplets’ lives between reduced pay, childcare expenses for
my older daughter, and just day-today care and feeding for an instant
family of 6.
In 2004, my husband and I had
a 3 year old daughter, and thought
that it was time for a second child.
As luck will have it, I conceived
spontaneous triplets. No fertility
drugs or interventional procedures
were used. There was no way to
‘predict’ this would happen: there
is no history of multiples in my family, I don’t have PCOS or any other
We didn’t plan on having 3 babies at once, so obviously didn’t
save for them. I was on long-term
disability for much of my leave,
but it was not at full pay. The final 4 weeks I was home with babies were protected, but no pay.
My husband’s FMLA was also under reduced pay.I am happy to say,
though, that we survived. They
Having a paid family leave system is a necessary benefit for families caring for children or loved
ones because it provides the piece
of mind knowing that you can take
the time neccessary to care for your
child or ill loved one. It is also a benefit for the economy, because there
is extra money available to by goods
and services needed to sustain life.
I was lucky. I had my husband’s
income to keep us going. Some
women are not. Their husband
may have died or she and the baby
may have had to leave the home,
due to domestic violence or unsafe
conditions.I believe that if you have
worked and contributed tax dollars,
there should benefits available for
the time you were working.
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thrived, and I now have 3 happy,
healthy, active kindergarteners,
and after 5 years we are finally seeing the end of our debt. I am one
of the lucky ones. It could have
been so much worse.
Tara, Albany, CA
In order to stay home with my
newborn son 10 years ago, I relied
on state disability (I had a cesarean)
and cobbled together sick and vacation days from work. When I returned, exhausted from new baby
care, I had 3 sick days and no vacation days in my ‘bank.’ I was lucky.
My husband took a partial sabbatical so he could stay home when
the baby was sick. Otherwise, I
would have had to take leave without pay. Please support paid family
leave for new mothers. I was one
of the lucky ones and having to
return to work with an infant was
still the hardest thing I have ever
had to do. I can only imagine how
horrible it must be for women who
aren’t so lucky.
Collette, Auburn, CA
It is a challenging adjustment
when a baby is born and it takes
longer than 12 weeks to get it figured out. Parents should have the
time and energy away from a job to
do this. My older child needed me
constantly and I was lucky enough
to be able to stay home longer
than 12 weeks. However I gave up
my job to be able to do this and not
all parents can.
Margaret, Oakland, CA
I wish I had paid family leave
when I had my second child. I requested 3 months of unpaid leave,
which had never been requested
before from any other employee
(paid was not an option). After
less than 2 months off, I was told
I could have no more time since I
was being treated differently than
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the other employees (who had not
just given birth). It was very stressful.
To stay employed, I returned
to work at the 2 month mark with
only a week’s notice, unable to
pump enough to keep my baby
fed. I don’t have an office that I go
to, I drive from client to client and
so I used that time, while driving on
the freeway, to pump milk. Yes, I
drove at 70 miles an hour attached
to a breast pump. I was desperate.
I still could not pump enough to
keep my child fed. For any of you
wondering why I didn’t switch to
formula, it turned out my baby was
allergic to everything other than
breast milk. This is not an exaggeration, this was life or death.
I was lucky in that I found a Milk
Bank to supplement my supply and
paid $3/oz for milk. I spent around
$1000 a month for supplemental
milk to keep my baby fed until he
was 16 months old. I could not afford to quite my job, we would
have lost our home. I can’t imagine what it would have been like
to have not only had proper family
leave, but paid leave to get off to
a good start. I could have banked
away milk needed, I could have
prepared for the work to come
and proper scheduling. Our family
could have been far less stressed
and less financially drained.
Kim, Albany, CA
Like so many new moms, when
I had my first child, I was sleep
deprived, went on days without
showering and didn’t have a very
good appetite to keep my energy
level up. Taking care of a newborn
is extremely hard work. We didn’t
have any family nearby so getting
help from that area was not possible. Luckily we have really good
friends that brought us dinner and
occasionally sat for the baby while
mom and dad could get a couple
hours of zzzzs.
I can’t stress enough how imMomsRising.org
portant it is to have paid family leave. Without it, our financial
situation would be in a hardship.
I used all of my vacation days and
sick days from work when I went
on maternity leave. I also took off
an addition month and a half because I just physically and mentally
was not able to be productive as
an employee. It was far better for
me and my baby to get the rest and
recovery time we both needed before getting back into the normal
swing of things (if that actually really happens).
Rebecca, Santa Clarita, CA
Lucky definitely describes the
work support I’ve been given as I
started my family. In California,
we have 6 weeks of paid disability
for new moms + 6 weeks of paid
family leave. In addition, the law
allows us to ‘bank’ our vacation
time so that we can extend our
leave. For each of my two children,
we didn’t set foot in daycare until breastfeeding was established
and the critical first 3 months had
passed.
More importantly, my husband
is a trucker who spends time on the
road to help us survive. California
allows him 6 weeks of paid bonding as well. My first son didn’t
benefit – and his relationship with
his daddy is much less secure than
my second, who had time to grow
a firm attachment. My husband is
happier, too, as he feels that we
are more established as a family
after bonding.
Without
family
leave,
I
wouldn’t have achieved the full
year of breastfeeding recommended by the CDC and AAP. I would
have left my infants before they
were ready to play independently.
They would not have had time to
spend with their trucker daddy
who is here one day and gone the
next. In general, we would be less
bonded, less healthy, and much
less committed to a state and
job that made our family a priority. Americans shouldn’t have to
choose between their finances and
their infants. Babies need to be
home, where they can be free of
illness and held/breastfed as much
as they need, during those crucial
first few months.
Hilary, North Hills, CA
My baby boy arrived 2 months
early. Without the support of paid
family leave there would have been
no way I could have afforded to take
that amount of work off. With the
support of those funds I was able
to be at the hospital at 6:30 am for
the first doctor’s rounds and participate in my premature baby’s medical care. Research shows that ‘kangaroo care’ helps premature babies
develop faster and stay healthier.
You can only do this if you’re there
in the hospital. I’m so grateful for
the financial support that made it
possible for me to be there!
Sara, Redding, CA
My baby is 6 weeks old today
and we are still working hard to
establish a breastfeeding routine.
She had a setback with tortacolis, which was stressful for both
of us and made the breastfeeding routine even more difficult. I
am so thankful for my paid leave.
I couldn’t imagine going back to
work if I only had 6 weeks off. My
husband had 4 weeks off, which
was so helpful especially because I
had a c-section and again with the
diagnosis and doc pats due to tortacolis. We are forever grateful for
our paid leave!!
Rhiannon, Poway, CA
My daughter suffered two
strokes right after her birth, and
subsequently had uncontrollable
seizures for the first two days of her
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life. She spent her first week in the
NICU, and was on medication until
she was 19 months old to prevent
seizures. I am lucky to live in California, which does offer some limited
paid family leave after the birth of
a child. I am also lucky that when I
had my child, I worked for a company that allowed paid maternity
leave both before and after birth.
When I returned to work after
my maternity leave ended, my husband was able to take paid family leave for his bonding time with
our daughter, at partial pay. Having
paid family leave enabled us to care
for her like no one but her parents
could. It enabled us to bond with
her and watch over her and give
her the best care possible during
that critical time. It is unconscionable that today in the United States,
the wealthiest country in the world,
not every mother (or father) has the
right to paid leave after the birth (or
adoption) of a child.
Christine, San Francisco, CA
My early days home with Isabella were blessed with tiny miracles. I was lucky to see her unfold
and blossom. But luck should have
nothing to do with it – every family
needs parental leave in this critical
bonding time of discovery and wonder. So if you profess family values,
live them: value families with paid
parental leave for all new parents.
Dina, Citrus Heights, CA
I and my family have had to use
vacation and sick leave to take care
of family members. We as a progressive country should take better
care of our family and the family
fabric. In Argentina and Sweden,
these countries pay their mothers
to take of their babies (and not call
it welfare) and other family members. We are too behind the human
grid and there is no excuse not to
take care of what is most precious,
OUR FAMILIES!
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Ina, Sunnyvale, CA
My husband and I were both
working up until my due date.
However, the pregnancy was complicated (I had to work while on
bed rest), delivery was a mess, and
my son ended up in the hospital for
four days after birth and I had lost
so much blood that I was ordered
to rest for 12 more weeks!
We have no family where we
live, and had no one to rely on full
time. Thank goodness my husband
had paid leave! I was a contractor
and couldn’t do any new work; his
paid leave kept us going while my
son and I recovered. This was my
son’s life – and mine – on the line.
Please make sure all families have
the option to stay at home and
make sure that their kids are taken
good care of after birth.
Martina, Santa Cruz, CA
My patients who are new mothers are trying to nurse their babies,
and it is a 24/7 job, which is pretty
exhausting, especially if the work
they do is physically heavy. Being
up at night, and then having to
work the next day, many moms lose
their milk supplies before the baby
is 2 months old.
The old rules for maternity leave
were 8 weeks for a C-Section and
6 weeks for a vaginal delivery, but
this did not have to do with babies’
needs – it was for the time needed for the uterus and vagina to
heal. What needs to happen for all
moms in the country to be able to
have enough down-time to successfully nurse is that they should get at
least 12 weeks of leave – my own
preference is 20 weeks. WHY??
Because the American Academy of
Pediatrics has stated that babies
should be breastfed exclusively to
20 weeks, and then gradually add
foods. If a mom were off work
that long, the family would be
more stable, as she could rest when
the baby sleeps, and keep her milk
supply up. It has been shown that
babies have less illness and less hospitalizations when fed on demand.
Fathers need time with babies
too. But the mom needs time to
recuperate and keep up the milk
supply, as well as to bond with
the child psychologically, and help
build basic trust. In every state,
this petition should be made, to
give moms 20 weeks of paid disability leave. If women only have
2 children, let them have this small
amount of time out of their working life, to be able to get their babies started off right!
Megan, Sacramento, CA
My son was born last May and he
is my boyfriend and I’s first child. We
had recently bought a house and
taking unpaid time off would not
have been an option. Luckily I did
receive paid time off and the transition from an apartment couple to
home owning parents wasn’t the
stress it would have been without it.
Amazingly my boyfriend also receive paid leave and for the first 3
weeks of our sons life he was home
to help. And although I was still
crazy exhausted I can’t imagine not
having him there to help me with
all the new parent stuff I would
have freaked out trying to do myself. By the time he went back to
work I felt more confident that
baby and I would make it through
the day. We are so lucky.
Julie, San Francisco, CA
My twins are now 22. When I had
them there was no paid or unpaid
maternity leave...there was ‘disability
leave’ as though having a baby were
a medical condition!
My twins were premature and I
had a high risk pregnancy. Once they
were born I was supposed to return
to work after a couple of weeks when
the disability leave ended...I tried to
negotiate a part time position but
was unsuccessful. So I quit, because I
couldn’t manage preemie twins and a
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full time job. I tried to get unemployment because I didn’t have a choice...I
had to quit to take care of my twins.
However, my claim was denied.
How much better my situation
would have been if there had been
paid maternity leave, and the option
for part time work. I was thrilled when
maternity/paternity leaves were instituted in CA...but they should be paid,
like everywhere else!
Peter, Whittier, CA
My wife had Paid Maternity
Leave at her job as a CNA.She spent
the last 30 days of her pregnancy in
the hospital due to complications
and had paid leave then. Even then
she still had paid leave after the
birth, but suffered complications
with a hernia afterwards... and was
subsequently terminated.
Luckily within the year she was
able to get a CNA job at another
hospital that was part of the hospital network of the previous one.
She actually likes working at the
new one better. But still, compared
to other developed countries our
Paid Maternity Leave program is so
conservative as to be niggardly.
a self-employed attorney, and did
not have the benefit of an employer who could help pay the maternity leave costs, nor was I eligible
for disability for same reason.
That didn’t even cover the 3 days I
was in labor for my last child. The
rest of my shortened maternity
leave was covered by half-pay family medical leave.
I had a C-section delivery, and
because of financial necessity I had
to return to work 4 weeks postbirth (part-time at first). This was
physically challenging, to say the
least, and did slow my recovery a bit
because I needed to be mobile and
not resting. As we couldn’t afford
any childcare at that time I took my
son with me to work, which presented it’s own set of challenges.
We are expecting again, so we
are saving up as much vacation
and sick time as we can, in addition to as much money as we can,
to cover what will hopefully be a
full 6 weeks of leave. But I work
part time now, and I will only be
getting paid half of my salary during that time. My husband and I
will be staggering our family medical leave so that we are not both
getting paid half salary during the
same time, which means he won’t
get as much early bonding time.
My husband would have loved
to stay with our son while I went
to work, but because our health insurance was through his employer,
and we were relying heavily on his
employment he was not able to
take anything more than a week’s
vacation time to help after the
birth. We didn’t dare use all of his
sick days since we didn’t know if he
would need to use them down the
road. Our son was born in March
2009.
Patricia, San Pablo, CA
Neither my husband nor I had
paid family leave after giving birth
to our daughter, and as a result, my
family incurred more than $10,000
of debt just to pay our bills so I
could stay home and care for our
newborn. As a full-time teacher,
now divorced, I am still trying to
pay off this debt ten years later.
The sacrifice was worth it for the
benefit of my child, but I didn’t expect it to have such a long-term impact on my financial stability.
Only being able to spend the
minimum amount of time disability
allows with my new born twins has
been the hardest thing I have EVER
done in my life. Being the head of
the household I had no choice, to
this day it sadness me that I had to
leave them so young to be taken
care of by someone else. It is a hard
reality each women in American
have to face upon pregnancy which
is suppose to be the best time in
a women’s life. Worrying about
whether our jobs will be secure
upon return should not be in the
list of a new parent’s reality!
Robin, Santa Barbara, CA
Heidi, San Diego, CA
NOT having a paid family leave
act after the birth of our son impacted my husband and I significantly and in different ways. I am
Our experience isn’t much different than it is for many. I work
for the State of California, yet I get
one paid day of maternity leave.
Amy, San Francisco, CA
MomsRising.org
Kim, Simi Valley, CA
Our first son required surgery
at 2 1/2 weeks and even though it
was a simple procedure, he experienced a lot of discomfort in his early life and sleep was non-existent
for my husband and I for the first
6 months. At the time, I worked
for The Walt Disney Company and
they had probably the best maternity leave policy possible. I was
able to get my full pay for the 10
weeks I was on leave between disability and a salaried continuance
program that I was eligible for that
allowed me to stockpile my sick/vacation days.
But even though I was granted
an additional 2 weeks due to delivery complications, 10 weeks was
not enough time especially given
my circumstances. Parents should
be allowed to spend a minimum of
14 weeks with their newborn children. I will never forget my first
day back at work, I was so sleep deprived and my brain was fuzzy and I
was distracted, not to mention how
heartbroken I was to be away from
our son for 8-10 hours a day. I can’t
imagine what it would have been
like to not get paid during this time
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and to have had that added stress
on our financial situation.
Mariena, Culver City, CA
Paid Family Leave is extremely
important to me.
I spent three
months with my son after he was
born and it allowed me to establish
breastfeeding and bond with him
as well as adjust to my new life. To
spend three months at home I had
to go about a confusing process
with my human resources department and a 3rd party company to
use disability leave, family medical leave, etc. I received paychecks
from 2-3 places some of which
were taxed and some of which
were not taxed. It was difficult to
understand in advance how much
of my vacation time I would need
to use in order to stay at home for
three months and if I would have
enough.
This process needs to be simplified and those who have not been
with a company for a full year
should not be excluded.It was frustrating and tore me in two that I
had to choose between nurturing
my child and paying my bills.
I
always knew I wanted to return
to work but to have to do so too
early would have hurt breastfeeding and negatively impacted my
child’s development.I have a good
job and good savings so I was able
to make these decisions and do
what was best for my family and
baby. What though for those who
have to choose between paying
bills and their baby? What about
the fathers who almost all return
to work after no more than one
or two weeks off? Our babies deserve better. They deserve our love
and attention for these first critical
months.
Melissa , Placerville, CA
Paid Family Leave was VITAL to
my recovery, mentally and physically, from child birth. The adjust-
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ment to having a new baby is tough
enough. Both my babies were collicky and needed a lot of attention.
I was a sleep-deprived mess for at
least the first year of their lives. I
am so grateful that California has a
good Family Leave program. I cannot understand how my friend in
other States go back to work after 6
weeks. I just barely started bonding
with my baby at 6 weeks. It took me
at least 9 months with my babies before I felt like we had a connection.
Paid Family Leave is so very IMPORTANT for growing families.
Dennis, Modesto, CA
We didn’t have Paid Family
Leave with our children, and it was
a huge hardship and a definite
downturn to our economic status
for many years afterward.Wise up.
Without Paid Family Leave, economies do not grow. Europe learned
this lesson long ago. Why can’t we
learn from their experience?
Nancy, Santa Barbara, CA
We started our own business
so we could have children. Twenty
years later, we still work at home.
It’s been difficult at times, especially 2008 and 2009. We were
able to stay home with our children and manage our work and
clients with taking care of babies
and our family. We’ve had to reinvent our business and what the
product is that we produce and
market at least three times in
those twenty years. But we’re still
going strong! And our kids are
teenagers now.
Michele, Oakland, CA
When I adopted my daughter at
birth, I was not eligible for disability leave (maternity leave) because I
had not just given birth. I was only
eligible for unpaid leave under
FMLA. I used what vacation time
I had, but was not allowed to use
my huge bank of accrued sick time,
even though I was caring for a
newborn (being newly born and in
need of 24-hour care is not considered being ‘sick’). Having poured
all our savings into the adoption
itself, I could not afford to take unpaid leave.
ONE MONTH after my daughter
was born I came back to work parttime, and by two months was back
to full-time. I feel fortunate that I
had extended family members who
could help with my daughter’s care,
and that I was able to find an affordable and high-quality childcare
center that would accept a twomonth-old infant.
Not everyone is so lucky. Decisions like these should not be made
due to financial pressures, but
based on the needs and best interests of the child.
Elizabeth, Carmel, CA
When I adopted my daughter
in 1978, I did not have Paid Family
Leave and the first few months after her adoption were a real struggle. I do think it is important for
companies to offer several weeks
of paid family leave to ease the
transition into parenting.
Leanne, Chico, CA
My partner and I have been
dreaming of the day to be Mommies. We had waited a total of 5
years between trying to get pregnant and then waiting on an adoption list. Our dreams came true and
we became Mommies on 12/11/11.
I had planned my maternity leave
with my job where they said that
I had 6 weeks of leave. When I
called to let them know that my
daughter was born with serious
health concerns and was going
to need surgery, they told me we
made a mistake.
Adopting a newborn doesn’t
qualify for maternity leave and
there is no bonding time. I have
had to exhaust all of my leave and
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am now paying for a sub which is
eating away at my paycheck. My
daughter has medical needs on a
24hr basis....and I still don’t qualify
for leave? Bonding time? Family?
What is happening to family values?
Meagan, Alameda, CA
When I found out I was pregnant with twins my husband and
I were so excited! After 3 years of
trying to get pregnant to no avail,
you can imagine how blessed we
felt. I was able to get paid leave for
a while and my husband was only
able to get 3 weeks off. Though I
was glad that he was able to get
any time off. I suffered from post
partum depression (at the time
I didn’t realize) and I wished he
could have been home with us for
longer.
I really struggled that first year.
I was lucky to have a mom close
by to help out when I was feeling
overwhelmed. Other folks aren’t so
lucky. I think its important to spend
time with ‘your’ children in the first
year to really bond. My husband
and I would have enjoyed going
back to work if we both had the
time to spend with the kids.
Kimberly, Novato, CA
When I had my first child, I was
told I should be prepared to be
back in the classroom teaching a
week or two after giving birth, or
there was no guarantee my teaching contract would be renewed.
As a young, untenured professor,
working on contract (and thus not
subject to FMLA’s protections) I was
unwilling to take that risk, and I
was back working fewer than 10
days after giving birth. I was still
bleeding and blurry-eyed, struggling to master nursing my infant,
and away from my newborn for
long stretches at a time when we
should have been figuring out the
‘family’ thing together.
MomsRising.org
Laurinda, Goleta, CA
When my baby boy was born, I
took 3 weeks off then I had to return to work for financial reasons.
As a hospital nurse, I worked 12
hour shifts leaving the house at
6:30 AM and returning at 8 PM.
My husband tried to care for our
son, but even with the assistance of
babysitters for 6 hours a day he was
overwhelmed. I would arrive home
after 12 hours of work and immediately take my infant into my care
and soothe him to sleep.
Knowing that breastfeeding is
best for infants, I was dedicated
to pumping milk at the workplace.
I froze the milk to store it for my
son. Unknowingly I froze it in the
door of the refrigerator where it
is insufficiently cold, and it soured
there. While at work my husband
tried fruitlessly to get our son to
drink the milk which was sour –
and we didn’t know it! My husband resorted to bringing our son
to my workplace every 4 hours so
he could nurse. Thankfully my coworkers were understanding and
gave me breaks to nurse my infant
until we figured out the source of
the problem.
Meg, Oakland, CA
When my daughter was born,
thanks to California’s family leave
act, my partner and I were both
able to take leave to care for our
daughter for the first few months
of her life. Before her birth, I had
never imagined that it could take
two parents to care for one little
baby. Afterward, I knew better! I
was constantly exhausted, recovering from birth, not getting much
sleep, and trying to figure out
breastfeeding.
I can’t even imagine what we
would have done if I had had to
take unpaid leave, or go back to
work sooner. I am sure I wouldn’t
have been able to keep breastfeeding my daughter, as it took
several months for us to get a rou-
tine established. I also wouldn’t
have been a very useful employee,
as I was completely exhausted all
the time. I might have had to quit
my job, which would have meant
my employer would have to put
in all the effort to hire and train
a new employee, and would have
made it harder for me to re-enter
the workforce when I was ready.
The most important part for me
about having paid family leave is
that I didn’t have to choose between work and parenthood. I
got to be a parent to my wonderful daughter, without giving up
the job I care so much about.
Katie, San Jose, CA
When my husband and I decided to start our family, it was at
the peak of my successful career. It
was a hard decision, but thanks to
FMLA, I was able to balance the important needs of my new family as
well as have confidence knowing I
could return to work and pick up
where I left off rather than having
to start over at another company.
In doing this, both of my children are well-rounded and happy
kids because of the extended time
they had with me at home with
them. I’m also a more complete
person being given this time with
my babies to establish a very loving and nurturing bond. Now, they
are 2 and 3 years old and are light
years ahead of other children their
age emotionally and physically. I
know it has a lot to do with me being home with them for as long as I
was able to be with FMLA.
Amy, Los Angeles, CA
When my second child was born,
I was home, nursing, being sleep deprived, and was told by an administrator where I worked that I could
not have paid maternity leave because we had adopted her, not giv-
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107
en birth to her, so there was nothing
wrong with my body that needed to
heal. When I noted that I was still
sleep deprived, like every other new
mom, that I was still breastfeeding
every couple of hours like every other new mom, I was told that was my
choice. I had to use all my sick leave,
then vacation time, then take leave
without pay.
Laura, Oakland, CA
When my son was born, my husband was working for himself and
we fully depended on my income. I
used my sick days and vacation time
plus family leave to get about three
months at home with our baby. It
was barely enough time for me to
recover from a long, difficult birth,
start establishing a breastfeeding
and sleeping routine, and get familiar with the breast pump that
we would depend on for almost
two years. Without that time to
bond with my son and prepare the
three of us for my return to work, I
never could have functioned in my
job. Even if I could have afforded
to take unpaid leave (which I could
not have), my company would not
have permitted me any time away
from work that they were not legally required to allow. Paid Family leave is critical to American
families. Please protect this small
amount of help that new mothers
and their babies rely on.
Kelly, San Diego, CA,
My son was born six weeks early
for no reason the doctors could discern. (I had a healthy, normal pregnancy with no concerns about my
weight gain, blood pressure, blood
sugar, etc., and no history of premature labor or delivery.) My tiny baby
had to stay in the NICU for three
weeks, and since I was not working,
I was able to be with him every day
until he was healthy enough to come
home.
My husband, however, was not
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able to – it was necessary for him to
‘save’ his parental leave for when we
brought our son home so he could
help me with the grueling early weeks
of round-the-clock breastfeeding and
infant care. If I had been working,
it’s possible that our son would only
have been visited, talked to, held, and
fed by us for an hour or two in the
evenings after work. There were lots
of babies in the NICU whose parents
I never saw, and if I had to guess, I’d
say it was because they were not able
to take the time off work for both
time in the hospital and time when
the baby first comes home. I wish the
FMLA addressed those special cases
like premature babies, and enabled
parents to both spend time with their
baby in the hospital, and at home.
Laurie, Walnut Creek, CA
While I did have 12 weeks paid
leave, I only had 60% of my salary. I
did, in fact, worry about money because my husband had been laid off
from his job and was doing contract
work. If my parents hadn’t helped
us out, we wouldn’t have made it.I
think that maternity/paternity leave
should be paid at 100%, and also I
think it should be significantly longer. At least 6 months.
Terra, Los Angeles, CA
With my first baby (I’m pregnant
with #2 right now, due in May) I was
working at a small private school,
and although I was given job security, I had no paid leave. It was a
huge strain on us financially, especially because our insurance at the
time was fairly basic, so we owed a
LOT for medical bills. We prioritized
and had help from family, thank
goodness, because breastfeeding
was tremendously important for
me and he hated bottles from the
get-go. This next time around we
are so lucky to have disability insurance through my school’s program,
and we are paying extra for AFLAC
so my husband can take some paid
time off as well.
COLORADO
Phyllis, Wheat Ridge, CO
After having my first child by
c-section I was only able to take 4
weeks off of work. I had no choice
but to get back to work so that I
could provide for my child. The
doctor reluctantly released me to
go back to work because I told him
I would go back part time for 2
weeks and then return to full time.
Oh and by the way, I was a brand
new mother with a brand new
baby. The stress and pressure of
being a new parent (especially for
the first time) was dwarfed by the
stress I felt about getting back to
work and getting a paycheck.
Jorddan, Rollinsville, CO
After the birth of my third child,
my husband held a job barely over
minimum wage and I had a job as a
clerk typist My wages were greater
than my husbands. I utilized my accumulated vacation to stay at home
for ten days. After that time ran
out, I had to return to work or we
wouldn’t have been able to pay the
basic necssities of utilities, water,
rent, food, gas, etc. At that time we
did not have credit cards and were
unable to obtain a loan. I went crazy
trying to continue to breast feed my
child and finally had to go to bottle
feeding. I was exhausted when I
came home and often worked until midnight keeping up with the
household chores and other children. Ultimately, it took it’s toll on
my health--incurring heart palpitations and high blood pressure that
doctors had trouble controlling with
medication.
After daycare expenses, I netted $372.00 just enough to pay the
electric, gas and phone. Tragic to
incur such a cost to myself and fam-
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ily working forty hours just to clear
enough to pay the utilities.
Jenny, Nederland, CO,
At least I was able to take an unpaid maternity leave. Fortunately,
my husband was able to support
our family during both of the maternity leaves I took and my employer was flexible enough to grant
me the time off which I asked for
(3-4 months each time). It is hard
enough – especially as a first time
mother – to feel comfortable in that
new role of end-all-be-all for a helpless human being, not to mention
the physical recovery.
I honestly can’t even imagine how
hard it would be to return to work
only 2 weeks after giving birth. One
day during my first maternity leave, I
went into a coffee shop with my baby
in tow. The young woman behind
the counter asked how old she was
(probably 7 weeks or so at that time).
I was floored when during our small
talk, the woman mentioned that she
had just returned to work and her
daughter was 2 weeks old! How on
earth, I wondered, could she even be
standing there only two weeks later?
Later, as I returned to work, I left my
daughter in a day care. Her caregiver
had also given birth recently and was
really trying to breastfeed.
So while I came in daily to nurse
my child at lunch (because of the
amazing flexibility and understanding of my boss), she was struggling
to even be allowed enough time to
pump even twice a day. In a DAYCARE, she could not get sufficient
breaktime. How terrible for her
to watch other mothers bring in
pumped milk (or to watch me nurse)
when she was essentially being deprived of that experience by an inflexible work arrangement. I was
scandalized – I still am.
My story was good and ends
well. But these two little anecdotes
are shameful examples of how businesses do not respect the societal
and even workplace benefits that
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supporting motherhood through
generous leave and workplace nursing support. Unfortunately most
businesses in America do not support family and motherhood except
through legislation. If that’s what
it takes to protect families and give
them the best possible start, then I’m
all for it.
Julia, Boulder, CO
I am a full time working mom. I
only received six weeks at 60% and
took another 12 weeks unpaid. It
was very stressful to take that much
time unpaid because my 2 yr old
was in daycare. Since I had to go
back to work after a 4 month maternity, I could not take my 2 yr out
of daycare or I would lose her spot.
Ramona, Longmont, CO
I am now a grandmother, and
when I had my children in the late
70s and early 80s, finding good
child care and juggling being a
working mom was hard. Now that
my children are parents, I am sad to
see that not much has changed. It
is as if we in America do not value
family life and children. Our laws
and lack of benefits make it hard
for those who want to be responsible, good parents.
My daughter had to go back to
work after only 6 weeks at home
with her child. She and her family
simply could not afford for her to
be at home any longer. For a long
time now, we have talked about
things like allowing mothers more
flexibility by allowing job sharing.
Companies still do not do this, nor
do they make it easy for working
moms to get away when there is a
sick child. We’ve also been talking
about paid leave for parents for a
long time now. Can this really be
the richest nation in the world? We
should be ashamed of ourselves.
How can we be a strong nation
when we do so little to support
strong and healthy families?
Jessica, Colorado Springs, CO
I am still ‘ paying back’ advanced
sick leave I took when my son was
born. He is now 10 months old.
Teri, Denver, CO
I did not have paid medical
leave for either of my children’s
births, but I can tell you, it would
have releived a lot of anguish and
frustration had I had that.
Vanessa, Englewood, CO
I had no paid leave with either
of my kids, but I wasn’t too surprised by that, since I worked in a
restaurant. We had to scrimp and
save to get my standard six weeks
at home. The real tragedy was
when my husband had to go back
to work after only three days off
each time (no paternity leave). I
needed someone to help take care
of me, so I could take care of my
babies effectively. We need a policy that puts us on par with the rest
of the world!
Tienne, Centennial, CO
I had severe hyperemesis with
my pregnancy, so I had used up all
my sick and vacation days by the
time the baby came. The company
granted me six weeks of unpaid
leave, which I took. I then decided to go on unpaid FMLA, which
I could do because my healthcare
was through my husband’s company. If I’d relied on my company’s
healthcare, I would have had to pay
COBRA throughout the time I was
on FMLA, and couldn’t have afforded it. I went back to work when the
baby was 3 1/2 months old.
Basically, the company kept my
job for me, and that was it. If I’d relied on my job for income, I would
have had to go back after 6 weeks.
I was committed to breastfeeding, so after I went back, I pumped
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109
milk for my baby. However, I could
not pump enough during the day
to satisfy the baby, and we had to
supplement with formula starting
at 4 months. Returning to work absolutely required feeding my son
formula, although I did continue to
breastfeed in the evenings.
When my daughter was born
three years later, I did not return
to work, and she breastfed exclusively for 6 months. There was
no problem with my milk supply.
I have since quit my job and am a
full-time stay at home mom. We
are expecting again in March, and
when my husband looked into taking some time off to help me when
the baby comes, he discovered that
his company does not allow paternity leave at all. If he wanted to
take more than his allotted vacation/sick days, he would need to
take unpaid leave and pay for his
healthcare out of pocket. Needless
to say, he will continue to work and
my mother will come to help me
with the new baby.
Dolores, Fort Collins, CO
I was a stay-at-home mom with
health insurance. Today, however,
it is a crime that some mothers have
no health insurance and have to
worry about money to feed, clothe,
and shelter their babies. Paid leave
is just the beginning of care needed to give our new citizens a good
start in life. Why other developed
countries are ahead of us when we
are supposed to be the richest is a
crime. Education for all should be
paid for starting with pre-school as
part of our free public education.
My two daughters-in-law had to
work. One paid $1,100/month for
childcare! We can afford unending
wars and 750-plus bases around the
world. Our education system is behind most of the developed countries. Health care is way down the
list .I don’t know where to start in
how backward is our country in caring for its citizens.
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Ailla, Louisville, CO
I was lucky to have some paid
family leave at my job. Since I had
my baby, my company decided that
it was too expensive to maintain a
family leave policy of any significant time, and has now reduced
the paid time off (paid at 55%) to
6 weeks. Have you ever held a 3
month old baby in your arms? A 6
week old?
A baby belongs with his / her
mother 24/7 for at least 6 months!I’ll
take what I can get, but really the
people who have it bad, have it
really bad. Human Rights Watch
report called Failing Our Families
changed everything for me. I wish
it would change everything in government too!
remotely here, the company didn’t
need to comply with the FMLA so
they thought they were being generous by giving me 2 weeks paid
and up to 12 unpaid. Also, due to
there only be the few of us here,
there was no formal maternity
leave policy for the US employees.
Despite notifying my company
when I was 7 weeks pregnant, they
did not come back to me with what
I was allowed to take until 3 weeks
before my due date – leaving me
little time to prepare/save. Without
a decent leave policy for the US,
they were not under an legal requirements to give me more leave
or to even outline the policy in a
timely fashion.
Jody, Golden, CO
Tracy, Boulder, CO
I work at a major state university
as a non-tenure track faculty member. My university only offers paid
maternity leave to tenure-track and
tenured professors (the vast minority of female employees). The rest
of us have to use our diablity leave
if we want to have any paid time
off after a baby is born/adopted.
When my daughter was born, I
used up all of my diablity leave and
was simply fortunate not to get sick
enough in the ensuing two years to
need it. This obviously puts women
employees at a disadvantage, since
men are able to save their disabily
leave for surgeries, illnesses, etc.
And, after all, childbirth is not a
disability! To add insult to injury,
the employee handbook actually
states that employees should try
to plan childbirth for the summer
months so as not to interrupt student learning. Someone is clearly
out of touch!
Eleanor, Broomfield, CO
I worked remotely for a French
company where employees received 16 weeks of paid leave.
Since there are only 3 of us working
My employers standard ‘maternity’ leave (really short-term disability leave) was 30 calendar days
(NOT business days). My son was
born a month premature. Needless to say it was unplanned. Consequently, my 30 calendar days of
leave was spent in the hospital
with my son, and then I had to take
a combination of unpaid FMLA
leave, sick days and vacation to do
the ‘maternity’ leave time spending
time with him doing the normal
things a family need to do with a
new little being at home, including
his special needs due to his prematurity. While the policy of 30 days is
terrible, my employer worked with
me to accommodate extra leave
needed due to my son’s premature
birth.
Fortunately, I had been around
long enough to have vacation to
spare. So I feel fortunate that by
the time I had to return to work,
we had a pretty solid routine. My
son finally had the stamina to
breastfeed for full meals and he
was off supplemental oxygen. But
I couldn’t help but think about the
women and families who were in
my same situation who didn’t have
an employer that helped make it
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work. The extra stress of a premature baby with special needs, extra
medical expenses, would be an incredible burden for any new family
on a mere month or even six weeks
of maternity leave.It is extremely
important for the health of a new
baby and his/her parents to have
the time to ease into new life and
recover from birth. It is ridiculous
to assume that it could happen
with any quality within six weeks.
I understand that it is hard for
businesses to accommodate an employee on a longer-term leave, but
in the end they will benefit in the
saved health care costs of a healthier family and baby... and a much
happier employee. We need to
make a longer parental leave standard for all families.
Margarita, Denver, CO
My partner and I are in the process of adopting a child. As the
main bread winner, I fear that I will
not have the opportunity to bond
with my child because Colorado
does not offer paid family leave.
My partner has a serious medical
condition that doesn’t allow her to
lift more that 10 lbs.
I wish I could stay home to help
her out while we get into the routine of having a son/daughter in
our house, but unless paid family
leave was offered here. I am just
going to have to deal with going
to work because we cannot afford
to not have my paycheck for 12
weeks.
Michael, Boulder, CO
My wife could only take unpaid
leave, despite being a schoolteacher, so had to take a month of unpaid
leave just to have a few months
with the baby after her paid vacation/sick days ran out and the summer ended. Since she wasn’t going
to be paid, I couldn’t take any days
off (also unpaid) to help.
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Maureen, Lafayette, CO
Our child was unexpected, but
an absolute delight! Unfortunately,
we’ve had to make a lot of sacrafices in order to make ends meet.
We couldn’t afford daycare, so my
husband has chosen to stay home
and take care of him, making me
the sole income in our home. I had
less than a week of sick and vacation time built up, leaving us little
income to live on while I was out
of work.
Because we were only living
on my income, I had to go back to
work within a month of him being born, even though I had an
emergency c-section and was still
recovering from the surgery. We’ve
had to switch to partial formula,
because even though I pump at
work, I just don’t make enough to
feed him like I do when he’s only
breastfeeding. Formula is expensive! I make enough that we can
pay our bills, and eat meagerly, but
if any emergency would come up,
we would be in trouble.
it but the adoption itself took
up those savings – my adoption
was held up for most of a year
once I was in country. Looking at
my daughter and how well she
adapted, I am glad of the decision
I made to work less when we first
got home. It was a very tough year
last year but things are getting better now. Now I work 4/5 time for a
company with a very good sick and
personal leave policy.
Holly, Denver, CO
When I had my first child I had
to return to work within 3 weeks.
I was teaching High School science.
I was my families sole income because my husband was in medical
school. I only had 2 weeks of paid
vacation so I used all of it. I only
had a third week off because my
daughter’s birth came at spring
break.
If we would have had paid
leave, we could pay our bills, and
ensure that if something were to
happen, we would still have our
savings to cover it. Not only that,
but I wouldn’t have missed his first
smile, first giggle, and other important milestones that I have been
waiting my whole life to witness.
It was so difficult trying to work
when I was only getting a few hours
of sleep. I wasn’t a very good parent, nor was I a good teacher. I was
breast pumping in the closet during
breaks at school and staying up late
at night feeding my daughter. The
time was so difficult that I ended
up leaving my career in education,
which I loved so much. Paid family
leave is so important to the stability of our families and our nation.
Thank you for your consideration.
Joy, Fort Collins, CO
Leanne, New Castle, CO
When I adopted my daughter and brought her home, I was
an independent consultant. I had
worked hard at my former employer, a university, to provide leave for
adoptive families. Eventually that
policy went through, which I feel
good about. However, because I
did not have paid leave, I incurred
more debt and eventually had to
declare bankruptcy. It wasn’t the
only factor but it was a significant
one.
When my son was born, we
faced a really hard time. While my
husband and I both worked, we are
in our mid 20s and still getting a
good start in the world. We need
both incomes to survive, especially
in early 2009, right after the economy crashed. My son was 3 weeks
old, and my husband was laid off,
and my mother was battling fatal
cancer.
I had planned financially for
Not having an income during
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this trifecta of events was so critical
to our family, and we are still fighting to recover from the damage
that was done. Had we had even
6 weeks of paid leave I could have
been less stressed about our family,
and able to enjoy the limited time I
had left with my mother before she
died, and enjoyed the time with my
infant son. I would have been able
to afford to feed myself and my
family, to nurse my son, and to try
to get off to a good start like every
baby deserves.
CONNECTICUT
Louise, Lyme, CT
I believe there is no greater
human right than the right of a
newborn baby to be with his/her
parents and for new parents to be
with their infants. When I had my
children 35 years ago, I was able to
stay home. I loved them so much, I
would have felt devastated if I had
had to go to work.
Now I watch my own children
having children. They do have to
return to work, and I see how devastated they feel to leave their little
babies. It is cruel and inhumane to
separate parents and infants. We
have an economic system that offers no support for parenting, the
most important job there is.
five days a week. The answer? She
doesn’t have a choice. Unless she
sacrifices her prestigious fellowship
at Yale New-Haven hospital, she
had to accept their offer of TWO
WEEKS of paid maternity leave.
She was lucky, though – she
timed her pregnancy so well that
she was able to give birth right
around the holidays, giving her an
extra two weeks.
Here’s the irony: what she
doesn’t know yet is that my husband and I are trying to conceive.
I don’t know what I’ll do when I
have a baby of my own. I am one of
the lucky ones, in my field. I work
for a family who gives me paid vacations and pays me my full weekly
rate, even when there is a day off
for a holiday. They can’t do without
childcare of their own for months,
though. I’ll probably be lucky
enough to bring my baby to work,
but I already feel guilty about that
both for my baby’s sake and for
the sake of the precious girl I care
for. I don’t want to split my attention, and I don’t want the family to
worry that I’ll give my baby more
attention than I give theirs.
My worries are the worries of
the privileged – we have health
care and jobs and a steady income.
We have a financial safety net in
grandparents and parents. I don’t
really worry about us.
I had to use unused sick time and
vacation time when I had my child.
What about families that have to
care for the elderly that are ailing?
I worry about the families with
no family leave *and* no child
care. I worry about the nannies
who lose jobs when they have their
own children. I worry about the
nannies who are not hired because
they ask to bring their children to
work, when they have no other viable option.
Anne-Marie, New Haven, CT
Lois, Norwich, CT
I’m nanny to a beautiful twomonth-old baby girl. People assume she’s mine, because she’s so
tiny. I know that they wonder how
her mom could leave her with a relative stranger for ten hours a day,
One of my co-workers had a
baby born pr-term Her son only
lived a few minuets. She had the
baby on Saturday,and was back to
work on Monday-because she had
no paid sick leave ,no maternity
Amy, Wolcott, CT
112
leave,and she had to wait for her
day off to scatter her son’s ashes
because she didn’t even get a day
of morning. She had no choices because her families had to have her
pay check.
Valerie, Stafford Springs, CT
Paid family leave is a must-have
for American families; it is unbelievable that our policies have not
caught up to our reality. Guaranteed
and paid time off is needed when a
child enters our lives for the sake of
our own health, our child’s health,
and therefore, the health of our nation and the world. This should not
be a priviledge but a right... it is the
only common sensical thing to do
and the right thing to do.
Betsy, Westport, CT
This is important to me because
women are half the population,
men can’t have these babies, and
it is the right thing to do. Why are
companies with health insurance
paying for Viagra for any man who
wants it but not being willing to
ensure that our mothers and their
babies have the recovery and bonding time they need?
Women welcome their participation in the work force but no
man has to make the same type of
sacrifice when a baby arrives. Let’s
join the many enlightened countries around the world and provide
paid family leave for healthier and
stronger families!
Dawn, Westport, CT
Without paid leave I could not
breast feed my child nor bond.
Those early weeks are essential to
the development of a strong attachment. As the great Winncott
said there is no baby only the relationship between the mother and
the child.
Science has proven that this early relationship is essential to proper
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development of the child. Without
a proper attachment the child’s
ability to have a strong psyche and
good mental health in the future
are based on this important first
relationship. Give leave for the
health of the nations. Let us feed
our babies, nurture their souls, and
help build great people for a great
future.
DELAWARE
Amy, Clayton, DE
I had my baby girl slightly over
two years ago. As a public elementary school teacher, I was not given
paid maternity leave. My husband
and I began saving for my maternity
leave the minute we found out we
were expecting a child. We cut back
on our spending and worked to condense our bills. Being a teacher, I
planned my maternity leave around
my due date so my students did not
have to experience anxiety wondering when I would be gone. I had to
use every one of the personal days
that I had intentionally been saving
throughout my previous five years
of employment. I was able to use
three weeks of short term disability,
which allowed me to recieve 75% of
my pay during this time. After this
ran out, I used the rest of my saved
sick days. After my sick days ran out,
I was able to use FMLA in order to
prolong my stay at home with my
baby. During these three months, I
recieved no pay.
Taking this time to be the best
parent I can be cost my family a
great deal of sacrifice. Being a
brand new parent is challenging
enough, but worrying about being
able to pay the bills on top of it is
even worse. Worst of all though
would not having the ability to stay
home as long as I did. Some families
are not able to sacrifice enough for
a parent to stay home and the newborn must be put into the care of a
stranger.
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As one of the most advanced
countries in the world, it is a disgrace
that we do not support new parents.
Our country is supposedly concerned
with producing highly educated students, but we are not willing to be
a society that supports our students
and families. In order to experience
success, society needs to support
families.
It is embarrassing that we have
no support system in place for new
parents. My whole career is based
on taking care of other people’s children, however, I was not given any
support in taking care of my child. I
sacrifice my time on a regular basis
for other people’s children and to
help develop my students into productive members of society, but not
being given any financial support
during maternity leave makes it very
difficult to continue to be motivated.
Mothers need to give 100% of
their energy to the proper care and
love of their newborn. In order to
make society a better place, new parents need to be supported.
Judy, Wilmington, DE
I was fortunate to be able to
stay home with my child for three
months but it came with the cost of
leaving my job as a mental health
therapist without any option of
paid leave.
What I find absolutely appalling
is that the individuals I was working with, recovering drug addicts
and depressed and anxious individuals, would continue to receive
a monthly check from social security because of their drug addict
or mental health status and I was
unable to receive any form of compensation for being a hard working
woman who wanted to be there to
raise her daughter for the first few
weeks of her life.
Being a mental health therapist
I know the importance of forming
that early bond with a child, if all
mothers were able to stay home I
would have a lot less patients!! It
has been a struggle to afford food,
diapers, and our household expenses these past few months but
the bonding time I have gotten to
spend with my baby girl has been
absolutely priceless!
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Alexis, McLean, DC
Due to pregnancy complications, I had to burn all my leave prior to the birth of our son. I almost
feel like it would be better to quit
my Federal job so we will be able
to take care of our infant during
this time that is so critical, partculaly since we are breastfeeding. Going into the office, pumping breast
milk and sorting about refrigeration is taxing and stressful.
Cristina, Washington, DC
I am one of the fortunate ones to
have worked for an employer that
provided me with a little more than
3 months fully paid maternity leave,
of which I was so grateful for. This
was a combination of short-term
disability, bonding leave (from the
company), and my own vacation
time which I took after a difficult
cesarean.
Being able to take maternity
leave knowing that I was still getting paid and protecting my job at
such a crucial moment in my life was
a godsend. I wasn’t as stressed and
was able to nurse my baby and be
with her. However, three months is
not enough. I needed more time,
but could not take it due to financial constraints.
It’s time we moved on from being the only industrialized nation
in the world that doesn’t recognize
how crucial it is to have PAID maternity leave for everyone, AND for
MORE than just three months.
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Vanessa, Washington, DC
Julia , Washington, DC
I am self employed, so when i had
my first, I had no other choice. I am
lucky, my partner earns enough income to cover our bills. My friends
who have salaried work usually get
a few weeks of paid leave but then
they have to take several weeks of
unpaid leave in order to be able to
stay at home 12 weeks total. They
stress a great deal over these hard
decisions.
I had 3 weeks off after the birth
of my daughter and still telecommuted. I think my daughter thought
she and the laptop were twins! So
many other countries have a balance between work and family and
it is time the US caught up!
I now live in the Netherlands
and the laws here do so much more
to support families. My friends in
the Netherlands experience a lot
less stress compared to my friends
in the U.S.
Heather, Washington, DC
I felt relatively privileged to
have 6 weeks of paid leave and I
coupled that with all my vacation
and a few more days of unpaid
leave to take 11 weeks for my second child. I was still devastated
when I had to go back to work –
crying in the conference room because I wasn’t emotionally ready
to return to a job that I loved.
All of that was on top of the
fact that 11 weeks and up front
planning still wasn’t enough time
to find affordable, quality daycare (for a middle-income family)
in a major city like Washington
DC. The waitlists are sooooo long.
Luckily, my mother was laid off
and could cover for the additional
6 weeks it took to get a spot for
my infant daughter in a childcare
center.
Children and parents need
time for nurturing, bonding, and
adjustment to the new arrival. It’s
criminal the way we can’t find a
way to do this as a society. More
flexible arrangements at work
help but ultimately every new
mom is due unpaid leave to get
their affairs in order and to adequately care for their newborn
child.
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gets sicks, the nanny can’t work, or
I don’t feel well? I’ll have no sick or
vacation time left. It’s so important
that our country supports women
and allows us time to bring new
children into this world properly so
that they get a good start to life.
Jennifer, Washington, DC
Ralph, Washington, DC
It was wonderful to have paid
family leave. It gave our new family
structured time to connect and support my wife with our lives changing to having our first child. If we
want to build stronger families in
the United States we need to have
this benefit for us all.
Bela, Washington, DC
My company does not offer any
paid leave besides 4 weeks of short
term disability leave that allows me
to earn 60% of my pay. I am pregnant with my first child and I am
looking forward to bonding with
him and breastfeeding to ensure
he has a good, healthy and strong
start to life. I know that breastfeeding and pumping take a huge
toll on a woman and that if I wasn’t
able to take off at least 3 months
from work, it would be a nightmare. Fortunately I have worked
at my job for 7 years and accrued
a lot of sick and vacation time so I
will have to use it all to give myself
three months to be with my baby
during his first few month in this
world. I have been saving it for a
long time knowing that I would
need it when the time came. In
fact, one of the main reasons I have
so much time built up is that I lost
a baby last year and had been saving up my time for him. Since losing the baby, I continued to save
time to ensure that this time, I’d be
ready.
The trouble with having to use
all my time up front is that I’ll have
no time left over when I return to
work. What will I do when my baby
Neither my husband nor I had
paid family leave. We had to save
for a year before having our babies
so that we could take some time
off. I had a post partum hemorrhage after the first birth, which
made time off imperative for both
of us. I also needed time to get a
good start breastfeeding and to
pump and save a stash of milk to
use when I returned to work. As it
was, I spent most of my time trying
to find good and affordable child
care. I was anemic, exhausted, and
worried about money. I felt like
the victim of a cruel joke--really,
does it have to be this hard?
Mark & Djinni, Washington, DC
We recently adopted newborn
twins domestically. Having leave to
bond with adopted children is especially critical, but for every new
parent there should be assured
leave. DC has a relatively generous 4-month leave policy which allowed us to provide our babies the
love and stability they needed and
us to adjust to being parents.
FLORIDA
Annette, Miami, FL
Back in the days when I had
children I worked for a wonderful
company (IBM) that paid you after
you had a baby. I benefited from
it twice and wish we had days like
that again. I feel so sorry for my
children who are now at an age to
get marry and have children and
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start their families. Today is so different and things have changed so
much. I will do everthing possible
to help my children and other’s get
Paid Family Leave.
Sadiqa, Tallahassee, FL
Because the baby needs mommy
and mommy needs money to feed
mommy and baby. It also gives a
great foundation to bonding, love,
and home values.
Crystal, Brandon, FL
Being a parent is already hard
enough without worrying about
basic necessities. While some babies are ‘easy,’ all babies require a
LOT of care. I know I couldn’t have
made it through my kids’ infancy if
I’d had to worry about where the
food was coming or if we would
have electricity.
Elizabeth, Largo, FL
I am a teacher. I have taught 9th
and 10th grade English since 2000.
I am used to taking care of other
people’s kids. It’s a shame my job
won’t allow me to take care of my
own. I gave birth to twins 10 days
before Christmas. Because I had a
high-risk pregnancy and ended up
on bed-rest for the last week before my induction, I went on FMLA
12-week leave immediately after
Thanksgiving break.
Unfortunately, my husband was
also fired from his job 2 days before
I went on my unpaid leave! Now,
we are living off of our savings account with NO income except the
miniscule amount that unemployment offers him, which is barely
enough to cover what the school
district is CHARGING me to maintain my insurance benefits. (Yes,
you read that right...not only is my
leave UNPAID, but they CHARGE
ME $450+ per month on top of
bringing in NO money!). I would
LOVE to take the remainder of the
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year off to spend with my two newborn babies, because my husband
has a hernia (which we can’t afford
to have fixed because we can’t afford the $700 copay right now)
and has a hard time handling both
babies by himself. But I can’t. As
soon as my 12 week FMLA leave is
up, I HAVE to return to work, even
though I am not emotionally ready
to leave my twins alone all day.
After all these years of working
with other people’s children and
being the best teacher I could be,
I wish I felt appreciated enough to
spend a measly half of a school year
with my own kids!I don’t think that
is too much to ask.
Julie, Tampa, FL
I had paid family leave, and my
husband was the breadwinner for
the family when my son was born.
These factors allowed me to stay
home long enough to bond with
my baby and breast feed.
A friend of mine just had a
baby. She is the breadwinner of
her family. She was denied paid
leave due to a minor glitch. The
company where she worked for 4
years showed no loyalty to her. Financially, this was devastating to
her family. The laws must change.
American families and family values are the core of our country.
Lawmakers must protect American
families.
Jennifer, St Petersburg, FL
I had PTO/STD enough for 7
weeks. My daughter was in daycare from 7 weeks old. I work 50+
hours a week; my husband has a
full time job also. In the past 18
months of my daughters life, we
have ‘called out sick’ more than if
they would have just given me the
full 12 weeks of time paid off. Getting a healthy start on life goes a
long way. All employers should be
made aware of this. In the end they
will get a happy employee back,
ready to work and concentrate on
doing a good job...knowing their
baby is happy, healthy and ready to
be taken care of by someone else.
Valeria, Miami, FL
I had the fortune to have been
able to set aside some savings,
with great help from my husband
so that I could stay home during
my unpaid leave. However, being
a first time mom, I could just plan
for the expenses that had been familiar to me and just a few that I
imagined would come with a new
baby. I had no idea that a newborn
would be so expensive, starting
with the health costs not covered
by insurance, private health insurance on its own, baby furniture
and gear needed for the first few
months, etc.
My savings (supposedly for 6
months) lasted about two months.
I considered myself lucky that my
boss needed some help from me,
and allowed me to work from
home, so that I could work parttime, 9pm-1am, when my little angel was sleeping, reducing the time
I could rest, time with my husband
(incredibly minimal those days) just
to help a little with daily leaving
expenses. In addition we had to
live off the credit card...my husbands salary couldn’t cover for all.
Six months over, then back to work,
with huge daycare expenses, and
considerable credit card debt! We
spent about six more months just
paying off our credit cards.
My son is almost four, I would so
much like to give him a sibling, but
it is just stressful thinking about going through the unpaid maternity
experience again. Moms, parents,
need to stay with their babies, and
not just a few weeks but a few
months, until at least moms can
figure out the babies language so
that caregivers can provide for the
little one’s needs.
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Lynn, Ponte Vedra Beach, FL
I had to return to work about
a week and a half after the birth
of my son, even though I was technically on maternity leave. There
were important meetings going
on which, if I missed, I would be in
jeopardy of losing my job. I was unable to attend all of the meetings,
however, as I was still recovering
from complications suffered during
pregnancy. It was obvious that my
management was not happy about
me ‘not being a team player’.
Two weeks after returning to
work at the end of my maternity
leave, I was laid off. The entire
experience made me feel trapped,
and because of it, I have vowed
never to return to corporate America. I know many women in my position, and truly believe that much
talent is on the sidelines because of
these types of inhumane policies.
Barbara, Hollywood, FL
I thank God for my insurance, It
is a must, I, adopted three of my
grandchildren 10-years ago. I had
to take a short leave of absence to
get them into Florida system. They
were born in California, they had
to get immunized, get physicals
and so forth, enroll them in school
etc.
Ken, Jupiter, FL
I was a single FATHER with a
newborn and a 1.5 year-old. Family leave should be for the PRIME
CARETAKER, not just the mother.
It was 7 years of hell & my darling
kids absolutely suffered from this
‘great Nation’s’ shameful apathy.
Wanda, Palm Coast, FL
I was a state employee and had
worked long enough to have a few
weeks paid leave when my baby
came. Being the practical person I
am, I went back to work with one
week leave left since I knew I would
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have doctors appointments. This
meant that I had to return to work
well before any twelve weeks. I
HAD to work. I cried all the way
to work the first couple weeks I
left my baby with someone else to
watch her take her first step. I cried
when I was told that I had missed
that. PLEASE provide paid leave!
because they don’t get the time
off. I think there are a lot of issues
like this happening in this country
while other many other countries
follow other ways. Our priorities
have gotten twisted over the years
and it should not be work before
family. It should always be family
then work.
Julie, Sunrise, FL
Alison, Boynton Beach, FL
I was back at work within 3
weeks of having my first baby. I
was supposed to have 4 weeks paid
off time. I had worked at that company (small commercial print shop)
for almost 8 years and they claimed
that they did not have the money to
pay me for any more than 2 weeks
paid. My husband’s job wasn’t any
better to help out with finances.
I was lucky when my daughter
was born because it was a planned
pregnancy and I’d been working at
my job long enough that I’d saved up
quite a bit of leave time. I was able
to take off about 3 1/2 months and
have it all paid for. I couldn’t afford
to take off any unpaid leave, but if
I’d wanted to I could have qualified
for up to 6 months (unpaid) with
FMLA.
I had to go to work to be able
to help pay our bills, and the first
few months was the hardest for me
to do that... being up most of the
night for the baby, having to run
around finding someone to watch
her while I worked, and sometimes
I had to bring her to work with me
but that was not easy for me to focus on my work.) It was very hard
on my family, having to struggle
with getting some sleep and focusing on baby, work & household. I
think all mothers should have at
least 6 weeks paid time, and be
able to be there for their baby at
all times and not to have to worry
about bills and their jobs.
Anna, New Port Richey, FL
I was lucky enough to be home
with my babies during the first few
weeks, however, I think sending
our children to daycare at 6 weeks
old is absurd. I was forced to put
my first born in daycare at 6 weeks
old and I feel that is too young to
be separated from a mother. The
bond is barely there but yet we
have to rush back to work. And the
father never really gets to bond
with the child until they are older
When I came back to work I wanted to continue breastfeeding but
found it difficult to pump at work
so ended up giving up after a few
weeks. Also around the time that I
came back to work my daughter had
to start going to physical therapy for
an issue she had when she was born.
My mom was taking care of her during the day and was able to take her
to the PT sessions (about 2-3 times/
week), but I also would have liked to
go and since I didn’t have any leave
left I usually wasn’t able to.
I ended up having some depression/anxiety issues that I believe
were related to the fact that I had to
go back to work so soon. I think it
would be great if we could be like
many other countries and have paid
family leave.
Jamie, Clearwater, FL
It is extremely important for new
mothers to have paid FMLA. I recently was pregnant with my second
child and I unfortunately was put on
Bed rest at 7 1/2 months, so I had to
start taking my FMLA before I even
had the baby. I didn’t get paid FMLA,
but I did have short term and long
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term disability which was paid for by
employer. If it wasn’t for that I would
have had to work on bed rest or lose
my job.
After I had the baby, I was so less
stressed that I didn’t have to worry
about the bills and my job. My main
focus was my new baby and trying to
get a little sleep when possible. The
first couple of months after a baby
are extremely important for the
baby and mommy bonding time and
not to mention letting your body
heal. The emotional stress and imbalance from having a baby is enough
let alone having to add the stress of
financial problems on top of that.
This country is supposed to be the
greatest country in the world, but
yet we lack many of the great policies that are practiced in other parts
of the World.
Deborah, Hollywood, FL
Maternity leave was a blur, and
since I had to spend all my accumulated vacation and sick time, it was
also a time when my family was
struggling to pay our bills. Families should not be penalized financially for taking a few months off
of work to do the real work of humanity– having, feeding, and loving babies. I took 4 months, and I
couldn’t imagine taking a day less.
Pamela, St Petersburg, FL
My company did not have paid
maternity leave... they had short
term disability. Pregnancy and being a new Mother is NOT a disability. I wasn’t there long enough to
have gotten benefits (they require
6 months) – so between loosing
hours at work (and money) for my
prenatal visits, I also had to loose 6
weeks of pay, because I had a cesarean with complications and my
Dr would not approve me to work
sooner.
At 6 weeks old, I had to leave my
precious breastfeeding newborn
with strangers since no family was
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around that could watch her and I
was a single Mother. It was heart
wrenching every single day to have
to leave her. My mothering instincts
knew we were supposed to stay together – but it was either that or I’d
be homeless, without a job and an
infant.It is disgusting that out of all
Developed Nations, only America
does not have national mandatory
paid maternity leave... most even
offer paid paternity leave too! This
needs to change!
Jean, Orlando, FL
Over twenty years ago, my sister
who is a doctor and my sister who is
a geophysicist both had the experience of going back to work when
their first babies were two weeks
old. That had been a condition of
getting employment. Anyone who
thinks that is good for the family,
the mother, or the baby is insane
and a sadist to boot. We do need
laws to state and provide for the
obvious. Both tried to breast feed
but had little success. Gee I wonder
why?
More recently my grandchild
was born by C-section. Her mother
took two months of paid maternity leave and continued to breast
feed after returning to work until
she and her doctor felt it was time
for weaning months later. Her first
week back she only had to come
in twenty hours while she and the
baby were adjusting.
Jessica, Jacksonville, FL
Personally I did not have enough
paid family leave. I had to have a
C-Section, which became infected.
After a week of being home in extreme pain with my newborn, I had
to return to the hospital for an additional week stay.
I was still not completely healed
when I had to return to work. I also
lost most of my milk. I pumped
three times while at work during
the 8 hrs but could not keep in
enough milk to satisfy my child. My
child and I both suffered because
of the minimum amount of time I
received (or did not receive) to stay
home before having to return to
work.
Jeannette, Niceville, FL
Twenty seven years ago, when
my daughter was born, I was fortunate that I had worked long enough
at my job and for an organization
that allowed me to accumulate sick
leave.
Consequently, I had sufficient sick leave to take off two
months full time. In addition, the
bookkeeper pointed out that if I
spread my sick days out taking a day
per pay period, I would not lose my
health insurance.
Fortunately, I had saved enough
money to take another four months
part time, so I was able to continuing breast feeding which we now
know is extremely important for
organ and brain development. Our
nation’s future requires that we
join the rest of world by ensuring
healthy children by guarantying
maternity leave for parents.
Theresa, Cape Coral, FL
Twice I have used the Family
Leave. Once when my son was very
ill, I used this to take care of him in
the hospital. Now I have been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and Paid Family Leave allows
my husband to take time off work
to transport me to my doctor’s office out of town. Without the Family Leave Act I don’t what I would
do. I don’t drive due to my illness
and my doctor is a three hour drive
away from us. Please, don’t ever
change this law.
Michele, Orlando, FL
Unfortunetly during times to
care for child birth I had no choice
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but to not work and lived off of
public assistance for that time.
Which is public assistance that is
from tax payers money. I now am a
full time worker, single mother and
student. Survivor skills had to kick
in for the birth of my children but
it is very unfortuntate that one may
have no choice but to apply for
foodstamps and public assistance
and WIC to care for their children.
Ron, St. Augustine, FL
We both worked for the county
and my precious lady was paid for
what seemed like a long time after
the second onset of non-hodgkins
lymphoma. Due to FMLA she was
able to stay on her (our) insurance
for an extended period. I was allowed to take time off from work
intermitently to care for her.
Jamee, Sarasota, FL
When I was on maternity leave
with my first child, despite my husband and I saving money throughout my pregnancy, I had to return
to work after 8 weeks as we had
only $25 remaining in our bank accounts – total. We had planned as
much as we could but my husband’s
work was unexpected shut down for
3 months for construction issues a
month and a half before my daughter was born. He managed to find
some part time temporary work to
help with expenses, but we still went
through our entire savings before I
was forced to return earlier than we
would have liked.
and not being able to pump at work.
After learning that America was one
of the few countries that doesn’t offer any form of paid maternity leave I
was disgusted. We can do better! We
have to do better for our children!
Nicola, St. Petersburg, FL
When our second child was born
I didn’t have paid leave available to
me. As my family’s primary source
of income we could not go 8-12
weeks without my pay, so in order
to continue to pay our bills and absorb the additional expense of a second child, I had to take a 401K loan
which I will continue to pay back
over the next 5 years.
In addition, after returning from
my leave I subsequently owed my
company the health insurance benefit that was paid on my behalf while
I was on leave, unpaid. So, in addition to a pay reduction due to the
401K loan pay back expense, I had
additional expenses deducted from
my pay over a 2 month period for
the health insurance that I owed to
my company. Financially the impact
was very difficult for us to absorb so
I had to shorten my leave to only 8
weeks before returning to work full
time making it not only difficult financially but emotionally.
Kerry, Clermont, FL,
I was a nervous wreck trying to
budget childcare in with the added
expenses of having a newborn AND
struggling to pay for bills. I also feel
that returning to work after such a
short time disrupted our breastfeeding relationship as I began to have
supply issues almost immediately after returning to work.
When we were expecting our
first child, my husband and I were
joyful, but also anxious about the
strain the new arrival would put
on our household budget. This was
compounded by the fact that I had
only partial short-term disability
coverage through my job, so we
had to save up to replace 40% of
my income for a twelve-week period. Of course, at the same time, we
had to purchase baby gear, a crib,
and all sorts of things necessary to
properly care for a newborn.
I ended up giving up on breastfeeding after less than 4 months due
to the demands of working full-time
We have friends in other countries, including Canada, the U.K.,
Portugal and the Netherlands, and
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all – without exception – receive
lengthy paid maternity leave as a
matter of law. I’m disappointed
that my own country has not followed suit. Please remember that
children benefit our society as a
whole. Yes, they’re my children,
but they’re also U.S. citizens and
future community leaders (not to
mention voters).
GEORGIA
Grace, Roswell, GA
Caring for my 90 yr old motherin-law was a labor of love but also
great sacrifice. For the 10 years
she lived with us, I couldn’t really
work and local help was either
non-existent or way too expensive
for my husband and I. So now I’m
77 and my husband is 84 and we’re
trying to figure out how to suppliment our fixed income. This would
not have happened had I not lost
10 years of earning power.
Princess, Atlanta, GA
During my pregnancies, I was
trying to learn how to take care
of each baby (because each child’s
personality is different), trying to
heal from a Ceasarean and trying
to fight fatigue and lack of sleep.
Had I not been able to have paid
family leave, I would have lost my
job from fatigue and I would not
have had the opportunity to heal
properly but the bonding and caring process that builds and grows
between a mother and child would
have been even harder to develop.
Maybe someone out there has
had that perfect baby that sleeps
when they are supposed to and
only cries when hungry, sleepy or
needing a diaper change but I did
not. Therefore, the bond that was
established so that I would know if
my child was being well taken care
of or not, may not have developed
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at all and since each caregiver is
different, it would have prolonged
the frustration that the baby had in
establishing a routine.
Georganne, Athens, GA
I experienced a hard time when
I had a baby in 2007. I was a parttime worker at the University of
Georgia and unfortunately I had to
go without pay for 6 weeks during
my maternity leave. My husband
and I had to defer car payments
and rearrange several bills to make
sure I could eat properly and pay
bills because I chose to breastfeed.
Also, it took months after my
leave once I returned to work to
catch up bills, not including the
medical bill of having my daughter. It was a stressful time when
it should be more enjoyable. Of
course with my faith in God, I chose
to not worry badly and trust all
things will work out. However, I will
say even with the faith it doesn’t
take away the fact the leave without pay with having a new child is
hard. I couldn’t imagine what it will
be like in the future when I have
another one now that I have one
child.
Catherine, Marietta, GA
I am a single parent and have 5
children. I have been working since
the age of 15 and I’m now 34. It
was always a comfort when I was
pregant to know that my job supports families like mine.My last
pregnancy was the hardest so I
needed extra time off in order to
heal from the delivery.
My job supported me fully while
I was out. Unfortunatley I have
many friends who did not have the
benefits I had and had to get loans
or family help while they were out
on maternity leave. God forbid if
they were doing it all alone. Having a baby is supposed to be a joyous occasion not a worrisome one.
Its seem unhumane to not support
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women and families during this
process so please make it possible
for all women and not some.
Nakeshia, Lilburn, GA
I am currently 2 1/2 months
pregnant and have already started
fretting about what I am going to
do when it is time for me to take
maternity leave. Not only will I not
be paid for the time off, but due to
my loss of income I will have to unenroll my 4 year old from child care
because we won’t have the money
to cover the expense.
This all ties into the Paid Family
Leave as well as better funding for
Child care. Its a little alarming that
due to my husband and I not being
married when our first 3 children
were born I was able to receive
assistance that allowed them to
remain in daycare and additional
help through WIC. But now we
will have to pay for everything out
of pocket. Our income will shrink
drastically and the amount of bills
will just increase. There is a grave
possibility that I may have to take
a shortened leave, 6 weeks rather
than 12 due to the need for the extra income. Losing more time with
my new child and rushing myslef
back to work is something I am certainly not looking forward too.
Angelina, Atlanta, GA
I am lucky. I work for a company
with paid maternity leave. Well, it’s
not quite paid leave. I can cash in
my accrued vacation and sick leave
while I take my FMLA. I am so lucky.
Most of my friends don’t have that
cash-in option.
Most of my friends, all working
professionals, have had to choose
between staying at home with a
new baby or working to keep the
lights on, pay the bills, and keep
the house. None of us should have
to make that choice. It’s not fair. It’s
unrealistic. And it’s brutal. I work
for a union. I am a member of a
union. And thank goodness, too. I
can’t imagine what my life would
have been like if I had worked for
a company that cared more about
the bottom line than about a hardworking, committed employee’s
needs.
Amy, Augusta, GA
I consider myself very fortunate
to have been able to take 12 weeks
of paid leave for the birth of each
of my two children. I was able to
do so only because certain conditions were in place: the chair of my
department (at an academic medical center) was very open and willing to accommodate my request,
and I had accumulated enough
paid sick and vacation days that I
was able to cobble together leave
time. Those 12 weeks didn’t seem
like nearly long enough, but I cherished them and was able to establish breastfeeding that persisted
for more than a year. Other women at my institution have not been
so lucky: either their department
chairs are not willing to allow that
much leave, or they have not accumulated that much leave.
In addition, my husband had to
argue for his time off at the birth
of our child, since the policy to allow the use of sick leave for the
birth of a child does not specify
whether it applies to men. We will
soon be having my third child, and
this time, I have not been able to
accumulate enough leave to have
12 paid weeks. My husband and I
will be dipping into our savings account so that I can have 12 weeks
off, since a substantial portion of
it will be unpaid leave and I can’t
imagine having to return to work
sooner than that.
Having a paid parental leave
policy would allow both men and
women to spend time with their
newborns or newly adopted children, to participate in that crucial
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119
bonding time, without the worries
of financial burdens or job loss. It’s
time for the U.S. to join the rest of
the developed world in recognizing
the benefits of this to all of society.
Joanne, Atlanta, GA
I was lucky to be living in Colombia when my baby was born.
Colombia’s law allows 12 weeks
of paid maternity leave as well
as 2 hours of break time for as as
long as you are breast-feeding. Incredible that a developing country
would have more supports for families than the U.S.!
Paid maternity leave allowed me
to bond with my baby and provide
him with the sensitive, responsive,
and nurturing care all babies need
for healthy emotional and cognitive development. And because he
wasn’t exposed to other children,
he escaped the colds and ear infections that so many children get in
day care. Don’t all babies deserve
the best we can afford?
Kristen, Marietta, GA
I work as faculty at a state university, where a new mom gets six
weeks of unpaid leave after having
a baby. Many people, including
myself, cannot afford to go unpaid
for six weeks. I am lucky enough to
have accrued enough sick and vacation leave to continue to get paid
during my brief time home with
my new baby. But many of my colleagues are not so lucky.
A woman should not be penalized for having a baby.It is ridiculous that the only benefit a woman
gets when she has a baby is the
promise that she won’t lose her
job as long as she comes back in six
weeks. A six week old baby does
not belong in daycare, she belongs
with her mom. Being a new parent
is hard enough without the added
burden of lost wages. A woman
should not be penalized for having
a baby!
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Ryann, Woodstock, GA
Since I had no paid maternity
leave, and my husband at the time
could not get paternity leave, I
chose to quit my job in order to stay
home with my new-born for the
first few weeks before returning to
school part-time and slowly building up to full time.
The cut in our budget, however,
required that we move in with my
parents, who, fortunately, were
supportive of this decision. They
both work in field of mental health
and often with children and keep
up with the research and literature
in their field. They are therefore
highly aware of how important it is
for young infants to form bonds of
trust with their environment – particularly the primary care giver(s).
Everyone had to tuck in their elbows, but we did it. I sometimes
wonder how paternity leave might
have affected my ex-husband’s relationship to our daughter. If he had
seen more of her initially, bonded
with her, learned to care for her
more competently, would he have
felt like a better dad, a more important figure in her life, and therefore
that he mattered in her life? Would
it have changed his decision to drop
out of her life completely when our
marriage ended? He felt at the time
that he was a failure as a father (she
was only about two) and she would
be better off without him and nothing I could say could change his
mind. Would his attachment to her
have been stronger, giving him the
motivation he needed to overcomeor at least begin to work on- the
personal issues in his life that led to
our divorce? I’ll never know now.
HAWAII
Carmen, Honolulu, HI
For over a year I saved all my vacation time and sick time so that when
my planned pregnancy happened,
I worked all the way up until one
week before my due date. When
my son was born, I used up all those
days I had saved, which only totaled
3 weeks. Then I was on ‘unpaid’
leave and the ‘lucky’ part for me was
that my job let me take 3 months off
and return to the same position. This
wasn’t the law, this was just the ethical thing to do.
But health insurance was a major
problem, since after the birth, I had
coverage for only another 3 weeks
– the time I was getting ‘paid.’ So
the standard 6 week check up, plus
check ups for my son were not covered. We paid out of pocket for
those, depleting our savings entirely.
When I did return to work, I returned with no savings cushion, no
time to take off for sickness or doctor appointments but at least with
comfort that my office supported my
breastfeeding and pumping schedule – though I had no place to do it
so I had to purchase my own cubicle
structure to set up around my desk
for privacy. Another expense. And
this, my friends tell me, makes me
lucky. At least I had a job and was
able to spend those precious first 12
weeks with my son.
Tia, Wahiawa, HI
I, too, was lucky to have paid
leave since my first child required
constant holding. He had colic and,
after a round of MMR, he not only
got a high fever but he also started
a downward spiral into mental illness that now, he is out of. One
thing I want to point out to Congress is that if abortions become
almost impossible to get, there are
going to be many mothers who will
need financial support since the
‘father’ of the baby usually doesn’t
stick around when the pregnancy
has been caused by rape.
Since Congress wants to focus
on the rights of the unborn children – what about the rights of the
born children to be able to have
parents to take care of them?
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ILLINOIS
Hope, Chicago, IL
I am a 21-year-old woman without children, but I have lived briefly
abroad in Denmark, where paid
family leave is not only guaranteed
to the mother, but to the father as
well. Family units are altogether
stronger and more valued there,
and paid leave – along with their
highly sophisticated socialized
healthcare system – extends Danish
lives and makes the Danes the overall happiest people on the planet.
They are healthy and industrious,
creative and open-minded people,
and their systems of care facilitate
those qualities. I cannot fathom
birthing children in a country that
doesn’t mandate paid family leave.
Nora, Chicago, IL
I am a new mother of an eleven
week old baby boy. My employer
has NO maternity policy or paid
leave. It is barbaric. I am using up
every minute of vacation and luckily got 4 weeks of short term disability at 60% of my salary (which
is not much but better than nothing!). I am then taking unpaid
leave to get to about 13 weeks. The
sad thing is, everyone considers my
situation ‘lucky’.
Kate, Chicago, IL
I did not have paid leave when
my daughter was born, but I was
committed to staying home with
her for her first year of life. To
do so, we had to move into an
old apartment building, where it
turned out we had roaches and
no guarantee of getting hot water
when we wanted – I often had to
boil water to give my baby a bath!
I shopped at thrift stores and entertained myself borrowing videos
from the library.
I wish I had had paid leave so I
could have given my family a more
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comfortable life. Despite warm and
fuzzy media images of mothers
with their new babies, the reality
is that new motherhood is an exhausting, physically painful, emotionally challenging and often isolating time. Having enough money
to live comfortably can help mothers take better care of themselves
and their children, in turn dedicating more energy to the healthy development of their young and the
future of America.
Shelly, Woodstock, IL
I had access to FMLA for both
my pregnancies and cannot imagine what it would have been like if
I did not have that benefit. But in
reality so many women do not have
the ability to save and be supported while on unpaid leave.
It is long overdue for the USA to
join the modern era and recognize
that allowing families to settle in
and get a healthy start is more important than anything else. Another benefit is the ability to establish
breastfeeding practices and begin
pumping if desired to get ready to
re-enter workforce. This is nearly
impossible to do in just 6 weeks so
flex time is key and breastfeeding
friendly workplaces are paramount
to healthy families.
M, Chicago, IL
I had to go back to work and
drop my son at day care when he
was 10 weeks old. I couldn’t concentrate fully at work because as a
new mom. Both my mind and my
body were focused on my baby. I
would like to have another child,
but I can’t afford to take the necessary time off of work and I can’t
afford day care.
enough to cover childcare costs.
This plunged us further into poverty and prevented us from having
medical insurance as our insurance
was through my place of work. My
son had trouble nursing and gaining weight and I suffered from
postpartum depression. Paid family leave would have helped us immensely. We would have still had
my income and health insurance.
Jill, Chicago, IL
I used to work on staff in the
restaurant industry, and I was
amazed to see our kitchen workers
on their feet every day for 8 hours
late in their 8th month of pregnancy (something that exhausted me –
and I wasn’t pregnant!), and they’d
come back to work 3 weeks after
giving birth. It was hard on their
bodies, but it has to have been
even harder on them being separated most of the day from their
newborns. But they had no choice.
Morgen, Chicago, IL
I used up all of my vacation
days, sick days, and went on short
term disability in order to ultimately earn half my salary during
the 12 weeks I took for maternity
leave. I then returned to work half
time and our new family struggled
financially during the first year of
my child’s life. I had used up my sick
days and could not take any more
once I went back to work, and became I very ill to the point of being
hospitalized for pneumonia. I am
now back full time but the big financial and health setbacks we had
with our first child means that we
probably can’t afford to have another.
Kathy, Oak Lawn, IL
Katrina, Champaign, IL
I had to quit my job when my
son was born because the amount
of money I was earning was not
I was fortunate enough to have
paid time off. This consisted of STD,
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121
company paid time and vacation
days. I came back to work about
14 weeks after the births of both of
my sons. It was hard coming back
to work and difficult trying to get
daycare in place. I saved some of my
vacation days in case my kids were
sick (which they were). Breastfeeding did not go so well either.
I think I would have had an
easier time knowing I had time at
home to work through it. You are
going on no sleep, taking care of
existing kids, taking care of the
house, etc. It’s all a crazy blur. I also
had post-pardom depression with
the birth of my second son. No one
realizes how quick the time goes
and the first 6-8 weeks you are just
trying to survive. If paid time was
offered and you knew you could
work in PTO along with it, the
whole experience would be better.
I think I would be more prepared
to go back to work. I think I would
be more productive. I am also very
loyal. If my company was good to
me in this way, I would never forget it.
Andrea, Berwyn, IL
I was laid off in 2003 when I was
pregnant with my son. I ended
up being out of work for nearly
2 years. I have been working full
time for the last 5 years, and am
still trying to pay down all the debt
incurred in just 2 years off work. I
have been fearful of having a second child because of what it might
do to us financially. New moms
need to have financial guarantees.
Stephanie, Bolingbrook, IL
I went back to work full time
when my daughter was 6 weeks
old. I only had paid leave at 65%
of my salary. I am in a sales job, so
I lost commission not working also.
My company also did not adjust my
sales quota for the short amount of
time off because they said my quota was based on 12 months of work
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and just because I wasn’t there the
full 12 months wasn’t their fault.
So I didn’t hit my quota and lost
additional bonuses because of that.
In addition to lost sales and a reduced salary when gone. My boss
also gave away many of my large
accounts 3 days before I went on
maternity – and not just temporary
coverage – permanent. Discrimination is in full force. I told him maternity leave is also a sort of medical leave. He didn’t seem to care.
I was diagnosed with post-partum depression and was on meds
and seeing a therapist. Stressing to
get my newborn to daycare everyday and then having to drive home
with her for the hour drive home
screaming and crying because she is
hungry (and I am stressed and driving) didn’t help my depression. It
has been 2 years and I am still not
in a healthy mental state and I feel
like I missed out on a big part of
my babies life. Because I was on
anti-depressants, I didn’t want to
breast feed. Had I been able to get
help and relax more, I could have
tried to get by without meds and
would have been able to breast
feed. Something I will remember
the rest of my life. I know there
are many women in much worse
positions – especially single moms. I
wish I had time to help them myself.
I am lucky to have a supportive husband who helps.
Emily, Evanston, IL
I work for a university and was
lucky to have some paid maternity
leave. Exempt staff members at my
university can use accumulated sick
and vacation days. But paid maternity leave as such does not exist.
This is difficult because having a
baby is very expensive, and to have
your income cut at the same time
you’re accumulating medical bills is
hard. Some might say that families
should save adequately to afford
this time, but the truth is that life
doesn’t always happen so neatly.
Children are our future, and I
think our society should support
bringing them into the world. The
cost of hiring and training a new
employee if a mother quits working has got to be significant, possibly coming close to what her
paid maternity leave would cost. I
hope the United States will support
women in their childbearing–not
to do so is pretty barbaric.
Elise, Elmhurst, IL
I work part-time as an adjunct
college instructor at a community
college, and thus am not entitled
to any benefits – leave, healthcare, etc... How did I manage? I
cut wayyy back on the classes I
taught the semester I gave birth,
and called in ‘sick’ for as much as I
was permitted–3 credit hours/term.
The day my son was born I was
responding to emails from students
on my laptop computer in the hospital while breastfeeding him (good
thing this was my second child and
I had already learned how!). For
the first few months ‘back to work’
my mother came to the school with
me and watched the baby for me
while I was in class or holding office
hours. So... while I’d love to continue helping members of my community attain higher education, I
won’t be able to afford it any longer (I’m no longer out-earning the
cost of childcare) and have made
the decision to leave my position.
Judi, Elk Grove Village, IL
It is so important to take care of
your new baby yet so many people
must return to work for financial
resons. Paid Family Leave would so
help families. I am a firm believer
of breast feeding which should be
done at least 4 to 6 months. It is
essential for healthy babies and
maternal bonding. Fathers need to
be involved with their children and
should be given the option of paid
leave. I had to lose money because
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I was not paid for a leave after I had
both of my children. Please help to
put our children and families first,
not business as usual.
FMD, Skokie, IL
My oldest son was born 6 weeks
premature. At the time, my husband and I barely made over minimum wage, though we tried to save
a little money as well as accumulate
vacation time. My employer did not,
and still does not (after 18 years, I
still work for the same company) offer paid maternity time off to hourly
employees. The end of the story is
that for financial reasons, I had to
get back to work after four weeks –
my son wasn’t even supposed to be
born yet! He was small and scrawny
and it was so hard to pump enough
breast milk for such a small newborn. Babies need their mother. Babies need breast milk. Workers that
are sleep deprived cannot be very
productive. And if I was planning
on having more babies, I would consider moving to another more civilized country that supports parents
through paid maternity leave.
Andrea, Wauconda, IL
We feel extremely blessed and
lucky to have a healthy 1 year old
girl in our family. But it was a difficult start for us. Our little girl
was born 9 weeks early – very unexpected. I did not have any difficulty during my pregnancy and
nothing leading up to the delivery
date would have lead us to believe
she would have come early.
I am very fortunate to work for
a company that offers paid time
off and allowed me to take the
full 12 weeks allowed under FMLA
but I was completely robbed of my
FULL 12 weeks as 6 weeks of the 12
were spent by her in the hospital
and we had limited time with her.
6 weeks at home with any baby,
especially a premature baby, is not
enough and something needs to
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be done to help families spend the
quality time that is needed and deserved by all families.
Lynn, Chicago, IL
When I had my kids I was able
to take off work. It helped a lot,
especially since I cleaned people’s
houses. I didn’t get paid leave but
my then husband at the time was
working so it was ok to do. What
about women who don’t have husband’s or he might be out of work.
Or they can’t afford to lose part of
their income. we were luck since
were had some savings to help us
out and family to borrow from too.
Dierdre, Winthrop Harbor, IL
When I unexpectedly got pregnant last year, I was grateful that
my third trimester would be during
my summer break because with my
history I would be on bed rest. As
it was I had barely enough sick and
personal days to cover the 6 weeks
of maternity leave. I was lucky that
all my stays in the hospital were
during my break and that there
was a holiday during my maternity
leave.
Once I came back in October at
exactly 6 weeks, I had only 2 sick
days left until the next school year
started, the following September.
Normally I would not worry about
sick days, but with 3 children under
the age of 5, illnesses are expected.
If I must take any more than 2 sick
days, I will be unpaid for those days
which is something that my family
living check to check cannot afford.
More than once have I given one of
my children Tylenol before daycare
in the hopes that whatever is causing them to feel ill will go away. I
have also brought a sick child with
me to work until other family members are able to come to my work
and pick that child up and care for
them during the day.
I am not complaining. I have
cherished every moment of those 6
weeks I had home and am extremely grateful that this time I have a
schedule that allows me to pump
twice a day and someplace other
than a 4 by 6 foot closet. However,
I would have truly loved to have
not used all my sick days for maternity leave and spend the rest of
the school year hoping and praying
that my children do not get any illnesses throughout the long flu and
cold seasons.
Britt, Lake In The Hills, IL
When we had our son, my husband and I both worked for a company with a pretty good parental
leave program. Primary care givers
got 3 months paid at 100% and the
other parent got 1-2 weeks paid
at 100%. Unfortunately, our son
didn’t sleep through the night until
about 5-6 months old.
After I returned to work from
my 3 month leave, I was working
towards a promotion. So, my poor
husband suffered the brunt of the
sleepless nights to allow me to focus on work. As a result, his work
suffered, and he was let go. I left
the company a few months later,
with my new title in hand.
Five years later, we find ourselves without the second child we
always thought we would have.
Since my husband was out of work
for nearly year, our finances suffered tremendously. To add to that,
his new company doesn’t offer any
paid leave. And, my new company
only offers 2 weeks of paid parental leave. Yes, I have the option of
taking 12 weeks unpaid. But, we
are still trying to dig ourselves out
from the previous job loss.Put simply, as much as we want another
child, I’m petrified that we would
find ourselves declaring bankruptcy if we followed our hearts. Oh
how this brings tears to my eyes,
while I watch many of our friends
continue to grow their families.
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123
INDIANA
Katie, Chesterton, IN
As a full time working mother of
two children I know how difficult
it can be to juggle work and child
care. I had children in my thirties
and fortunately had savings enough
to afford three months of unpaid
maternity leave. However, I know
of women who had to put their 6
week old babies in child care so they
could return to work, both to avoid
losing their jobs (they didn’t qualify
for FMLA) and for financial reasons.
I think our country has not put
families first, and it is taking a toll
on our children. Education continues to fall behind other countries
and I have to believe that the lack
of work and family balance afforded in our country is partly to blame.
The less time parents can spend with
children undoubtedly will affect the
development (social, educational,
etc.) of those children. It’s time that
our country put our families first
and this type of legislation would
be a great first step in that process.
Aleksandra, Fishers, IN
Coming from the third world
country where maternity leave
is up to a year, 80% of it is paid
throughout the whole year, and
the government pays the mother
certain amount per month per kid,
I was very surprised to find out that
America is nothing like that. My
employer had 4 weeks maternity
leave for natural birth, and 6 for Csection. I was required to work all
through the pregnancy, and on one
occassion when I had morning sickness, I was scolded for calling it in.
I knew I could not leave my baby in
the daycare at few weeks, so I decided it was not worth dealing with
a pressure and stress of such an employer throughout my pregnancy
just to leave once I give birth.
I had to quit my job. If I didn’t
do it then, I would have done it af-
124
ter delivery. Now, we are down to
one income. I would love to have a
job, but I can not get out there to
try to build my career when I know
that I will have to quit next time I
am pregnant. It is sad that we have
to chose between our financial stability and our reproduction.
Manetric, Indianapolis, IN
I am a married, 27 year old
woman with two children. I work
and attend school full time. I am
what you would consider the working poor. If my husband or I were
to lose our jobs or our vehicles we
would be in a bad situation. In January of 2010 we would have been
between a rock and a hard place
if I didn’t have a job that offered
FMLA. Six weeks worth of paid
leave still wasn’t enough to help
and so I had to go back to work before my child was 3 months.
But I am thankful because there
are many people who do not even
have 6 paid weeks off with a job
that will still be waiting for them.
We need Congress to do the job
they were sent to do and help
American families and those looking to start families succeed and be
apart of the American Dream.
Amanda, Bloomington, IN
I am thankful for my paid leave
when I had both of my kids. Without it, I would have lost my job. The
job that allows me to work flexible
hours and also covers my health
insurance for the family. And it is
my career; one that I value and am
thankful to have. All women deserve this and our society needs to
do more to support new mothers.
Linda, Bloomington, IN
I had a very short paid leave.
Certainly not enough. It was embarrassing to share why I was going
back to work 3 weeks after having
my son to extended family living in
Germany. They have laws there that
actually support families and the
development of children. Let’s get
with the times and truly be ‘leaders
of the free world’ shall we? Family
leave is critical to our public health.
Nicole, Bloomington, IN
I was a newspaper reporter. I
didn’t get ANY paid time off – had
to use all my sick days, vacation
days, etc. I knew that as soon as I
told my employers I was pregnant,
I could not take any of those days
– I was told I’d have to use them
all for maternity leave – meaning,
even if I had horrendous morning
sickness, which I did, I couldn’t take
a sick day because I’d need it when
the baby arrived. So, I waited until
the last possible time to tell the employers I was pregnant (so I could
go see my family while I could, during early pregnancy).
I ultimately quit because I figured why work for such little pay/
benefits when childcare costs so
much? They cancel each other out.
Phaedra, Bloomington, IN
I was lucky to have Family Medical Leave and if I did not, I never
would have been able to breastfeed my child. The American Pediatric Association recommends
breastfeeding for the entire first
year of a child’s life – at minimum.
The health benefits to our children
in the short and long term are not
disputed. Yet, breastfeeding is very
hard and time consuming. In our
case, it involved feedings every two
hours (pretty common) and pumping. Yes, in the second six months
of my child’s life, I pumped at work,
but babies eat less after the first six
months. Pumping is expensive and
exhausting. It makes sense for a
country that is reflecting on healthcare to invest in our children, which
means investing in paid parental
leaves. How can we be so behind
Europe on this one?
MomsRising.org
Jessica, Greenwood, IN
I was not lucky enough to have a
paid maternity leave. I was one of
those that had to save as many vacation days as possible before the birth
of my baby. Luckily I am able to rollover PTO days from prior years. As
my husband and I planned to start
our family, I also had to start stockpiling my vacation days before I even
got pregnant. With this being our
first child, we had no idea as to as
much extra expenses came with a
child. I intended on taking a full 12
weeks off of work even though I was
only going to get 7 weeks paid from
my vacation time.
On top of all the other stresses of
having a new baby, I was scared we
wouldn’t be able to pay our bills but I
wanted to stay at home with my son
as long as possible. I did breastfeed
my son until he was 5 months old. I
did pump once I went back to work.
Luckily my employer was very considerate of me pumping and I was able
to do it for so long.
Angela, Fort Wayne, IN
Mine is a situation where I had no
leave. Even taking leave with no pay
was not an option. In April of 2004 I
gave birth to my third daughter. The
day I had her, I went into labor at 6am
but went to work anyway. Around
noon I announced that I was leaving
to go have a baby. At exactly 5pm my
daughter was born. Already being
a single mother with two other children at home, I was not one to lounge
around in the hospital for a few days if
it was not absolutely necessary.
The day after I had my daughter, we were both released at 11am.
Upon getting home and settling us
all in for our new life with a new addition, I sat down to send an email
to my co-workers and bosses who
wanted to see photos of the new
baby. Immediately after, the COO
sends me an email wanting to know
when I was coming back to work. I
was miffed to say the least. After
some going back and forth it was de-
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cided that I would work from home
(I was a web developer, the only one
actually). He conceeded to this after
I explained that I couldn’t even get a
daycare to take her prior to her being six weeks old.
Working from home and taking care of a newborn was no small
feat. I was breastfeeding, up every
two hours, and I was exhausted but
lived on caffeine to make deadlines,
sometimes not sleeping at all. This
lasted about a week before the
COO again emails me and says that
he needs me there in the office so I
was just going to have to bring my
baby to work. Being a single mom
with my only income as our support, I had no choice. This greatly
impacted my family and especially
my daughter.
I stopped breastfeeding as there
was only one communal restroom at
the office and I couldn’t be in there
for a half an hour every two hours.
I didn’t even get that six weeks to
focus on her, bonding with her, and
the bonding between the siblings. I
always felt that she got mom’s ‘second best’ because the first had to
go to my job. Without the job we
would have been homeless.
Jessica, Bloomington, IN
I’m on paid maternity leave now
with my first child. I’m so grateful
that I can spend these first couple
of months sleeping and breastfeeding on my daughter’s erratic schedule. If I had to be somewhere first
thing in the morning right now, I
know that neither my daughter nor
my employer would be getting me
at my best.
Mary, Spencer, IN
When I returned to my teaching
job after the birth of my first son,
the principal would call unscheduled teachers meetings after school
on sporadic Fridays. Unfortunately, my desire to continue to breast
feed my son left me leaking beast
milk while a hungry baby waited at
the sitter.
Even though I tried my best to
adjust to the workplace as a new
mother, the workplace makes no
allowances and takes no consideration of family priorities. As a
nation, we bemoan poor parenting, but in our behavior, we value
employee productivity over parent
time. Our broken schools and overburdened mental health problems
are symptomatic of our misplaced
values. Those who tout family values should support family leave.
IOWA
Timothy, Fairfield, IA
A mother’s presence with her
new born is by far the most important investment in the future that
a community can make, whether
that community is defined by immediate family, a village, a country,
or our entire planet. The emotional
and physical health of the individual is the basis of our survival, let
alone quality of life.
As a self employed musician,
prioritizing my wife’s presence
with our daughter was a challenge,
and the consequences of that decision are with us to this day, both in
our daughter’s sense of self, and in
terms of our financial situation. We
need to support this fundamental
level of life in every way possible.
Thank you for listening.
Barbara, Decorah, IA
By the time the FMLA passed,
my children were out of the home,
but my mother moved to the town
where my husband and I live. She
was already 89, but in quite good
health for her age. Nonetheless,
as she began to decline, I was able
to be available in an emergency as
well as to attend doctor’s appoint-
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125
ment with her. I was extremely
grateful for that experience.
Angie, Webster City, IA
I had a combination of paid and
unpaid leave after my daughter was
born since I hadn’t had a chance to
build up too much sick leave and
vacation time before her birth. It
was important to me to take the
full 12 weeks I was allowed (thank
you FMLA!!!), so my husband and I
budgeted for the weeks of unpaid
leave. I am so grateful for the time
I had to recover from a difficult
labor, learn how to parent my infant, establish breastfeeding, and
be sure that my little girl would be
properly taken care of when I returned to work.
Those first few months were a
fog and a blur, but I was able to
concentrate on my family with the
security of knowing I had a job to
return to. I firmly believe that all
families need paid family leave. I
think this would be a humane policy that would go far towards reducing poverty and child abuse in
our country.
LeAnna, Cedar Rapids, IA
I was domestically serving my
country in AmeriCorps when I
found out I was pregnant. They
had no leave policy in place for maternity, let alone paternity, and so
if I didn’t want to lose my Education Award (not to mention health
coverage), I had to work 50+-hour
weeks during my entire pregnancy to ‘earn’ four weeks off, after
which point I had to be back at
work. Luckily, I was able to bring
my daughter to work in a sling for
the last month of service, but my
experience of becoming a mother
was pretty hellish.
I was a single mother with no
family support for many hundreds
of miles. I had to go on antidepressants for the first time in my
life within days of my daughter’s
126
birth, and I’ve been on them ever
since. I look forward to a day when
I can become a mother again under
more favorable circumstances. I
think it would give me more emotional and mental resources to raise
a healthy child.
Our daughter had jaundice for the
first week and wouldn’t eat. Every time we tried to feed her, she
would take a couple of drinks and
fall asleep. We worried constantly.
Because I didn’t have paid leave, I
started to try and work from home
after 4 weeks. It was crazy.
Lauren, Solon, IA
They say sleep when the baby
sleeps, but you can’t do that when
you have to turn in a quarterly report or check someone’s work for
errors. I could barely focus. I felt
like I was being split in two. With
the hormones, I cried all the time.
I went back to work at 6 weeks
and had to leave my baby at a daycare. That was the hardest thing
I’ve ever done. The first day she
was only there for about 2 hours.
I cried so much. I missed her. She
missed me. It was terrible. She still
wasn’t sleeping through the night
(obviously), so neither was I. My
work was substandard and I’m sure
I could have been a better mother
if I could have focused on being a
mother.
I’m a graduate student and an
employee of my university. While
I have a right to 4 paid weeks of
vacation, both times I had children
while in school, I had to scramble
to make arrangements with my
department to find a substitute
teacher, ensure that my pay would
continue, and ensure that my sub
would be compensated. I would
have preferred to stay home with
my daughters for 6-12 weeks without the worry of returning to work,
but instead I went back to teaching part-time when they were one
month old. I had to pay babysitters
because we have no local family to
help out. I was exhausted, anxious,
and depressed both times.
My husband had a full-time
job at the time of our daughters’
births, but they pressured him not
to take the FMLA leave guaranteed
to him by law. It was implied that
he would be replaced if he took
this leave. Both times, he went back
to full time work after only three
days at home with us. This placed
an unfair burden of childcare, nurturing, cleaning, etc on a recovering mother, and undue stress on an
exhausted father.
KANSAS
Shawna, Lawrence, KS
I did not have paid leave when
I had my baby. I was lucky that
we were able to temporarily go
without my paycheck, using my
husband’s pay and money from
savings. We also had several generous gift cards from friends and
family members. It was very hard.
I still consider my self lucky because I have such an understanding
boss who let me be a little crazy
and even let me bring her to work
sometimes (or work from home
since it was the coldest winter on
record and there were days when
it was minus 20 and I didn’t want
to take a baby under three months
old outside). Our country’s parental leave policy is barbaric. Good
parents are present parents. Good
parents are not stressed out about
how they will pay the bills. Good
parents can devote themselves to
their children and not have to worry about their jobs.
Jennifer, Lawrence, KS
I got laid off permanently due
to the job contract ending just before I found out I was pregnant. I
collected unemployment benefits
and tried to look for work, but just
as jobs were becoming a little less
scarce and more available I was
MomsRising.org
starting to show. In this economy
no one was going to hire a pregnant woman.
Now that my benefits have run
out, there are no provisions for
pregnancy or leave for a newborn
that I could find. It is also nearly
impossible to talk to a live person
on the phone to ask questions. The
automated options are sparse. It
seems fruitless to even bother. I
have just spent all of my savings
and am now facing foreclosure. It
is a worrisome start to my baby’s
life, not to mention the blow to
our family’s mental and emotional
well-being.
Shari, Newton, KS
I had to go back to work one
month after my first child was born
because I had no paid leave. I was
barely even able to get around
much as I had to have a c-section.
I was fortunate to not have to go
back that soon after my second
child but again, no paid leave at all
so things were really tight.
Same with my 3rd child. I’ve
never had any paid leave and always had to worry about when I’d
need to go back to work and how
we could tighten our belts just a
little bit more (even though we
weren’t living on much to begin
with) because of my not working.
My husband took two weeks’
time off at her birth. He is union,
also contracted to another company, and as such does not get
paid time off. The two weeks that
he stayed home with me and our
newborn, we had absolutely no income. Then, just a few days after
he returned to work, when I was
not quite 3 weeks post-partum, my
‘bosses’ (self-employed, after all)
started asking if I was ready to start
working again. I all but had a nervous breakdown, ball of hormones
that I was. I managed to hold work
off another week, and then started
in with a light workload.
Part of this is simply the nature of being self-employed. I do
not get sick pay, vacation pay, or
holiday pay. I do not get insurance
benefits. They don’t automatically
deduct taxes or offer any type of
retirement plan. But if I could have
gotten six weeks of pay from the
government, even if it were less
than I was used to making, it would
have been something, and I would
not have felt as pressured to return
when they asked me. I’m not looking for a handout, but even $200
a week would have helped us out
and given me more time to recover
from what was a very traumatic
birth and continue bonding with
my daughter in her earliest days.
Jeanette, Wichita, KS
Susan, Overland Park, KS
I work from home doing medical
transcription for a company based
out of state. I am considered a selfemployed contract worker. They
send me work as it’s available, and
sometimes don’t honor my requests
for time off. I worked right up until
just before my daughter’s due date,
at which point I told them it might
be better if I started my leave then,
rather than going into labor when I
had a big batch of unfinished work
due. It was another week before
my daughter came, so I was able to
spend a week nesting.
MomsRising.org
My son had a difficult time
breast-feeding and I was lucky
enough to get paid short-term
disability for 6 weeks after delivery and my company set up a
home work station for me to telecommute for half of the day after
that. My son never liked bottles
and would wait until I was home
to nurse. I was so lucky to have an
employer that would work with me
to ensure my son was happy and received only breast milk for the first
six months of life. All moms should
have the ability to ensure their babies get the best start in life.
Laila, Sublette, KS
We have yet to have a baby but
are looking forward to the time
when we can, and yet, looking forward with dread, as well, because
my employment doesn’t provide
sick, professional, or vacation leave,
let alone, maternity leave, nor can
we afford to make ends meet if I
don’t work for any length of time.
It ought to be a standard provision
for women to be able to nurture
the future generation of laborers
and achievers during a most critical time, and would benefit us all if
legislation were passed to make it
so. Without that support net, getting pregnant is essentially a leap
of faith, expecting that somehow
things will work out once the baby
is born.
KENTUCKY
Lisa, Lawrenceburg, KY
After our 2nd child was born,
it cost more to go to work than to
stay home. I stayed home because
my spouse’s job paid the health insurance. He didn’t get to take much
time off after each birth, either. I
had an emergency C-section during the 2nd birth and needed more
at-home care. If he could have taken family leave, that would have
helped tremendously.
Rebecca, Louisville, KY
I have been very fortunate
to have been able to take three
months fully-paid maternity leave
with both of my children. During
that time, I was able to establish a
close bond with each child through
breastfeeding in addition to constant and consistent interactions.
Throughout those three months I
was home, neither child had any
health issues, both ate and slept
regularly and well, and both developed exceptionally well.
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127
My husband has not been so fortunate. He did not have any leave
when our first child was born and
had to return to work three days
later, having only had a few vacation
days (he was not allowed to take sick
days). I believe this to have been a
large part of the reason why he and
our daughter did not bond as well
as he has been able to bond with
our second child. With our second
child, my husband has been home
since birth (due, unfortunately, to
being unemployed, but the resulting
relationship with our son has been
amazing) and the difference in his
relationship with our son is obvious.
Luckily, he has now been able to
establish a close rapport with our
daughter and they have a loving relationship. However, I am confident
it would not have taken them nearly
two years to do so had he been able
to spend time at home during those
first few formative months, as is evidenced by his interactions with our
son. I believe strongly that the United States should enact legislation
that would make both maternity
and paternity leave mandatory such
that parents and children can establish an early bond that psychological
research proves is so crucial throughout the lifespan.
Robin, Newport, KY
My son was born in 2009. The 12
weeks paid leave I had was joyful
and stressful. I had all the normal assignments: my own recovery, getting
to know my baby and learning the
mysteries of how to be a parent. If
I had not had paid leave, the time I
would have had to spend at home
would have been much more stressful. I would have been very distracted from the most important and essential learning that takes place.
Without the paid time off, which
I had to accumulate by working, I
would have had to return to work
almost immediately post c-section.
Dr. Harvey Karp calls the first three
months of an infant’s life the ‘fourth
128
trimester’ due to it’s importance in
the baby’s transition to life outside
the mother and importance in infant development. In my work as a
post-partum RN and Lactation Consultant at a hospital, I have spoken
to several women who had to return
to work in 2 weeks or less, and others who didn’t know what they were
going to do. This is a huge consideration for women when deciding
about whether or not to breastfeed.
This must be a very difficult choice to
have to make, it is a choice between
your child and survival.
again I will go unpaid during maternity leave, but I cannot imagine only
taking 6 weeks again.
For a country that claims to care
about the family and family values,
our leave policy and compensation
for those growing their families is
laughable. I urge our lawmakers to
put their money where their mouths
are, and truly support the American
family.
LOUISIANA
Misty, Ponchatoula, LA
James, Crittenden, KY
The story will probably sound
familiar: After the birth of our last
child (#4 and a beautiful little girl),
neither my wife nor I received any
sleep for the first three months.
She was on an unpaid leave and I
continued working for income to
be coming in. I have never been
any more fatigued in my life. The
net result was that I had become
dangerous. I also was lucky. I work
in an occupation which has a high
rate of persons injured on the job. I
was a recipe for disaster and I had a
little angel that looked out for me.
I was very lucky to have 12
weeks of paid leave to use after
my youngest son was born. My husband lost his federal contract position during my maternity leave. If I
hadn’t had paid leave, this would
have left us in a very tight spot with
three young children.
As it was, we are able to scrape
by on one income until he is able to
get work again. Because I had paid
leave, I was able to still stay home
with my baby and breastfeed on
demand as planned. I was able to
give him the very best start possible
and am so thankful for that.
Carrie, Lebanon, KY
Anne, Abbeville, LA
When my first son was born, I had
only 2 weeks of paid time off saved
which meant that I would go unpaid
for 4 weeks. Anyone who has had
children knows that 6 weeks of leave
is not anywhere near enough, but
that was all that my husband and I
could afford.
When my 2nd infant daughter
was adopted, I was concerned because I was her 4th ‘mother’ in 4
weeks. She had been in two foster
homes between her birth and her
adoption. Luckily I worked for a
Catholic college which valued family bonding, so I was able to take a
reasonable paid leave in order to
bond with her.
Leaving him at daycare after only
6 weeks was the hardest thing I’ve
ever done. I am now 7 months pregnant with my second son. I will be
taking 8 weeks of leave this time, but
only because my current employer
offers short term leave hours which
pay at 60% of salary after full paid
time off expires. You earn these hours
as well and I do not have enough
to cover the entire 8 weeks. So once
On the other hand, when my
out-of-state parents needed care,
I spent six weeks and 4 months at
different times away from work in
the piecework fashion mentioned –
some sick leave, some limited family
leave. Each time I had to go to unpaid leave, but at least my job was
held for me.
MomsRising.org
Stacy, Metairie, LA
When my first of three children
was born, I was working as a teacher in California at a private school.
There was no family leave in place;
I was forced to apply for disability,
as my husband and I were barely
making ends meet even before our
daughter was born.
You can’t apply for disability until AFTER your child is born, as you
have to have a date of birth on the
application, and it takes six weeks
for the application to be processed
and the first check to arrive. Luckily my husband and I are frugal and
were able to save enough to make
it through those first six weeks, but
it certainly didn’t help to have that
financial strain over our already
sleep-deprived heads.
Childbirth is an emotional, exhausting, exhilarating time and it
is not a time that parents should
have to be worried about whether
or not they will be able to pay their
bills or not. I never have gone back
to teaching, as I found a job that
requires less of my time and has a
bigger salary (teachers don’t get
paid enough, but that is a different
blog altogether!), but I do believe
that if I felt that the company I
worked for was supporting me after the loyalty I had shown them,
I would have returned to work for
them. I hope that we can make
families a priority in this way in our
country, as other countries have.
MAINE
Sonia, Brooklin, ME
Basically I had no paid leave,
spent two months falling into debt
because my baby was sick and then
I was told that my job was gone. I
could have a cashier job back with
less flexible hours and less pay. So
I fell into more debt because my
salary would even pay for the child
care, let alone any thing else.
I almost lost my home and I did
MomsRising.org
end up moving... and haven’t had
another child.
The child I have now has a few
disabilities and I can barely hold
my head above water now- and
only do so because my son has
state insurance because no other
insurance company will cover his
preexisting conditions. I would
love to have another child, but it is
simply not financial feasible.
Kristine, Portland, ME
I had no time off because I was in
Law School when my daughter was
born. I ended up going crazy, literally and having to withdraw from
school. It was horrible and I would
not wish it on anyone. Women deserve better treatment than this.
Annette, Lincoln, ME
I was fortunate to have 8 weeks
paid medical leave after both my csections. It allowed me to establish
breastfeeding while I was recovering from surgery. I was able to
continue (pumping while at work)
to nurse until the babies were 10
months old.
I wish I could have been home
even longer but I am grateful that
my employer was as supportive as
they were because I know so many
others aren’t even that lucky.
Mianda, Saco, ME
Paid family leave is so important during this transition period
in a family’s life. Not having to
worry about finances and being
able to focus on your new little
bundle is a huge stress relief. Parents barely have the energy to get
through the daily necessities (eating, sleeping and nursing) those
first 12 weeks, let alone having to
worry about paying bills.
I worked for my employer for
eight years and had built up all my
sick, personal and vacation time
in order to have 12 weeks paid
maternity leave.
Unfortunately
I was so severely sick during my
pregnancy I had to use six weeks
of sick time, which cut into my maternity leave. On top of that, my
daughter arrived five weeks early.
I couldn’t imagine going back to
work after six weeks, especially
since my daughter’s adjusted age
would have only been one week!
Thankfully we have a savings cushion because I ended up quitting
my job.
A friend of mine recently had a
baby and has to go back to work
after four to five weeks! She’s a
hair stylist and has no paid time
off. She’s worried about how this
is going to affect the breastfeeding relationship between her and
her son, but doesn’t have much of
a choice.
Heidi, Monmouth, ME
With the births of each of my
children came the extreme financial stress of being out of work (and
not getting paid) for more than
half of my twelve week maternity
leave. Having a child is an amazing
thing, but it is also a very difficult
adjustment for many, especially
first-time, moms.
I think everyone would agree
that it can be very stressful learning the ropes and trying to figure
everything out, along with takingcare of yourself. The added burden
of financial setbacks, for our family, anyway, probably doubled this
stress.
Paid maternity leave would be
LIFE CHANGING for millions of family in this country, leaving more energy to focus on the new, amazing
miracle they just brought into this
world.
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129
MARYLAND
Jacqueline, North East, MD
After delivering my son last
April, to stay home I had to use all
my limited sick and personal days to
cover the first few weeks of maternity leave. Then I took several more
weeks unpaid (even though it was
financially stressful for my husband
and I) to establish an attachment
bond that allowed for a strong
breastfeeding and nurturing relationship between my son an I.
I feel grateful that I was able to
stay home for 4 months when my
son was first born. My husband
could only take one week because
he had to use his paid time off to
stay home. I believe that maternity *and* paternity time should
be paid so that parents are encouraged to stay home in those first
critical months with a newborn in
order to create a nurturing bond.
This nurturing bond is critical and
fundamental in fostering a healthy
and appropriate emotional, psychological, environmental, and biological relationship between baby and
family.
Julie, Bethesda, MD
Always remember that not having maternity leave makes everyone sick. As a federal employee,
I have no paid maternity leave,
though I do have paid sick days. In
the 4.5 years I’ve been a parent, I’ve
had approximately 37 bad colds,
but I have never once taken a sick
day for them. I come to work. Why?
Because I can use sick leave as maternity leave, I have been hoarding
it for my next child.
So in essence, I have no paid sick
leave, even though we’re all supposed to get it as federal employees. Every day of sick ‘leave’ I take
costs me a whole day’s pay – sometime in the future.
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Katrina, Reisterstown, MD
As a physician, when our son
was born, I had no option other
than to call on the Family Medical Leave Act to create the time to
care for him. This gave me three
months of unpaid time to breastfeed on demand, and bond. It was
a decision that was a financial disaster, since I still needed to pay my
medical school loans. We reeled
from that decision for a long time.
However, it was the best decision
we ever made. It guaranteed that
my son had the absolute best start
in life – one on one care, unlimited
on-demand breastfeeding, and a
strong attachment. These are all
priceless. I am convinced that if we
put our money where our mouth is
in terms of things like ‘family values’ that we would be a far healthier andd more sane nation. Adults
who create the opportunity to care
for an infant 24/7 are transformed
by the experience. It is incredibly
challenging, yet deeply nurturing
for everyone.
The documented health benefits
for the infant carry well into adulthood. Even more profound are the
myriad of emotional consequences
of having your needs met by a loving, devoted parent. I strongly support paid parental leave. I feel that
both mothers and fathers deserve
this – and it should be a right for
infants to be with a parent in their
early months. Also, by allowing
mothers and fathers paid leave, it
will hopefully not cause employers
to gender discriminate when hiring.
Erin, Silver Spring, MD
At the time we had our child, I
was in a very lucky position. I had
worked at my job for 5 years and
had accumulated sick leave, had
great disability insurance coverage
and had paid leave too. I took 4 full
months of leave that was paid. My
husband was on leave from his job
when the baby was born and was
working on the presidential cam-
paign from our home, so he got to
be ‘onsite’ for the first month as
well and after my leave was up 4
months later, he was able to take 2
months of paid leave from his congressional job to stay home with
our child too. He says it was the
best experience he’s ever had caring for at young baby on his own.
Juliet, Baltimore, MD
By not having paid maternity
leave, my ability to breastfeed my
little one was hampered. I simply
could not pump efficiently at work.
This affected my performance at
work and ultimately led to PPD. As
a public health issue, breastfeeding
is important as many childhood illness are averted by breastfeeding.
If the mother-baby dyad is broken
because of a early re-entry into the
workforce, it is likely that exclusive
breaastfeeding will be hindered.
Yvonne, Capitol Heights, MD
During my last pregnancy which
was ten years after my second
daughter was born, I had to leave
work early due to a few complications. I didn’t have any savings so I
had to get help from social services until I was able to return to my
job when my daughter was just 3
months old.
I was blessed to have a good,
supportive man who was the father of my daughter to help me financially and I did have three baby
showers that provided me with the
material things my baby needed
but I was breast feeding and it is
very important to be at home with
your baby and you need the bonding as well as the rest because babies do not sleep all night and we
as mothers are so tired and need to
sleep during the day or when the
baby sleeps in order to be able to
get on a schedule to make things
work for both mom and baby.
Therefore, we do need the ample
time off from work to be able to
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heal properly, be a good mother
and be able to function and return
to work as a healthy and productive employee when the time is
right for us individually.
Bayla, Baltimore, MD
I am a midwife, supporting other women through their pregnancy
and birth. Yet when I gave birth,
the hospital I work for doesn’t offer paid maternity leave for providers. We get our contracted annual 4 weeks of vacation/sick time,
and that’s it! Luckily I had a simple
birth and postpartum period, but I
care for many women who don’t.
I also have an understanding boss
who doesn’t mind me bringing my
4 week old to work. It is very difficult to pump breastmilk at 2-3
weeks postpartum and then send a
4 week old to daycare, considering
what an upheaval your life is currently in, not to mention the children and their germs a newborn is
exposed to in daycare.
We worry about how American
children are turning out. Latchkey
children with both parents (or just
one) working long hours to make
ends meet. This is something we
can fix! Almost every country in the
developed world provides for paid
maternity leave. Let’s take care of
our children at this most vital developmental stage and let their
mothers stay home to raise them!
Chelsea, Baltimore, MD
I am a professor at a local university. I love my career. I love
inspiring students and opening
minds. I have exceptional teaching evaluations and students who
crowd into my office to talk about
their lives, grades, and ideas. I
have made many sacrifices to my
family planning in order to get
through graduate school. I would
have liked to have kids earlier,
but I was trying to be responsible about when I could have a
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kid. I thought that it was my responsibility to plan my entire
life around having a child at the
right time in order not to inconvenience anyone. However, once I
got pregnant with my first child,
something was wrong. I was horrible sick. I vomited 6-8 times a
day and had to go to the hospital
because I was losing weight and
throwing up everything from water to ice cubes! This lasted the entire pregnancy. I had hyperemesis
gravadarium and now have a 50%
chance of having it with each of
my subsequent pregnancies. Forcing me to take off 10 months of
work or under perform.
I have no idea how I can have
a family under the current maternal rights and still have a great
job. I refuse to make my family
decisions around other people’s
convenience anymore. I’m a great
mother, we have a great family,
and I’m realizing that I have the
next 40-50 years to be a great professor, but only the next 7-10 to
be the mother to young children.
Right now is the time for me to
invest in my family, but unlike my
male colleagues I am physically
limited by how pregnancy affects
my body.
It is ridiculous that I live in a
country that has one of the worst
family paid leave of any country in
the world. It is ridiculous that we
are forcing half our population of
successful workers to either take
unpaid leave or under perform.
Mother’s need paid leave. We
need to invest in our future. We
need to invest in women’s unique
life trajectories.
Lisa, Baltimore, MD
I am an American who is married to a man from Sweden and
we purposefully chose to have all
three of our children there though
I missed my family in the US. The
reason: 13 months of paid maternity/paternity leave. Sweden also has
the best maternal and child health
outcomes in the world. Mothers are
able to successfully breastfeed for
the internationally recommended
6 months without having to worry
about how/where to pump when
they return to work.
Six months of breastfeeding
prevents many infections such as
respiratory and ear infections that
effect infants in day care settings.
Fathers also have an opportunity to
spend time with their children since
the maternity/paternity leave is often split between parents. I hope
that American families will one day
have the right to live in a truly family-centered country.
Maya, Baltimore, MD
I am extremely fortunate that
my employer offers up to 6 weeks
of paid maternity leave and allows
workers to extend that further by
using vacation and sick leave. Because of this, I was able to be home
with my children for the first 10
weeks of their lives. My daughters could nurse when hungry, and
I could build up a small supply of
pumped milk to send with them
to daycare. Best of all, the leave
time allowed us to get past those
initial sleepless nights so that I am
not prone to careless mistakes on
the job or fatigue on the way to or
from work.
Without paid leave, pregnancy
and parenthood would have been
unthinkable instead of a joy. Paid
parental leave should be a basic
right for all workers. All people
should be able to choose parenthood without putting their livelihood at risk. I was very lucky. But it
shouldn’t take luck to give children
a decent start or to give parents a
chance to recover, bond with the
new child, and return to the workforce as productive as ever.
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131
Elizabeth, Silver Spring, MD
I am one of the fortunate minority
of women who currently has access
to a small amount of paid maternity
leave provided by my employer. It is
not sufficient to cover my household
expenses during my maternity leave,
but given the terrible leave circumstances that most women face in the
U.S., I am thankful.
However, my career has still been
significantly negatively impacted by
the lack of federally-supported paid
maternity leave. Because women
are required to work at an employer
for at least 1 year to qualify for FMLA
benefits (and in most cases, any paid
leave that is privately offered by employers) I have had to put new job
opportunities on hold because of
my desire to have a child. I recently
received an excellent job offer – one
that would constitute a significant
promotion. But, because I am expecting a child, under FMLA I do not
qualify for any maternity leave (paid
or unpaid) in the new position.
I have had to put my career
change on hold because there are
no government laws to protect me
or my family during a job transition.
My husband and I both hold graduate degrees and we have very comparable earning potential. However,
because I am physically responsible
for carrying and bearing our children, my career is punished by childbearing in a way that his is not. Government-supported paid maternity
leave is essential to creating equity
in the workplace.
Michelle, Severna Park, MD
I decided to take a break from
my career when my husband and I
started our family. Partially because
I’d always believed that a child deserved your best, not a strangers
and partially because with the lack
of any paid leave and the cost of
childcare when I returned to work,
it made more sense for our family
for me to give up the security of being an employee and try freelanc-
132
ing in what little time I’d have in
my new full-time position of Mom.
Khalilah, Windsor Mill, MD
I had my daughter in 2007 and
I was working full time shifts then.
They were four 10 hour shift days
with 3 days off. I used my 2 week
paid leave and 4 weeks of unpaid
leave. I did not feel this was enough
to bond with my baby, especially
since I went through a depressed
period. I breastfed and had to pump
at work, sometimes in the car. My
daycare provider was on the other
side of town, when I lived 8 minutes
from work. I had to use sick and
vacation pay so that I could have
a workday that wasn’t so long, of
course this eventually ran out. I ultimately ended up quitting my job
because I didn’t feel that I being
there enough for my child. I have
been a stay-at-home mother for 3
years now, and even though I would
like to work, it has been hard trying
to get back into the field.
Deanna, Baltimore, MD
I had to take an early leave with
my youngest due to complications
with my pregnancy and was lucky
to have a period of paid leave but
it was not for the entire leave that
I needed. My husband continued to
work but with only one income it
was hard. we almost lost our house
and came close to the electricity
being cut off several times. I am
happy to say we are back on track
now but it took over 2 years to get
everything back on track.
Victoria, Hagerstown, MD
I was forced to return to work
after only 2 weeks after my second
son was born, I received a call from
my boss at 4 pm and I was told he
needed me at work, and I would
be fired if I was not at work by 8
pm. I was still weak and my breasts
leaked so bad my shirt was constantly wet. My son suffered also as
I had to put him on formula which
caused him repeated hospitalizations. What kind of society allows
the bond between a mother and
new baby to broken so soon. Who
benefits from this unfair system?
Not our families that’s for sure!
Michelle, Silver Spring, MD
I was fortunate enough to be
able to take 12 weeks off with my
first child and use a combination of
Short Term Disability, paid leave,
and unpaid leave to stay home for
that time. But, I know that other
families aren’t so fortunate. Almost
every ounce of research ever done
shows that offering paid leave benefits companies and our society as
a whole.
Heather, Timonium, MD
I was lucky enough to have 6
week paid maternity leave for both
my kids. This provided me invaluable time to bond, adjust to parenting, breast feed on demand, and
concentrate only on my newborn.
I shudder to consider what would
happen now if I found myself pregnant.
My new job does not provide any
paid leave, and my husband (like
so many in this economy) is out of
work so we would have no income
if I took any time off. This means I
would have to give birth and go
back to work within a week as every penny counts if we don’t want
to foreclose on our house. Can you
imagine how stressful to leave a
week old baby. I would not be able
to bond or breastfeed (pumping is
not feasible at my workplace there
is no privacy or time allocated).Giving birth is an amazing experience,
but women need to be able to recover and get accustomed to being
new mothers without the stress of
lost incomes. It should not be only
the lucky (with job benefits) and the
wealthy who have this benefit.
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Amy, Clarksville, MD
I worked for a large company
when I was pregnant, so was very
fortunate to have paid leave available. It was ‘short term disability’,
and it wasn’t 100%, but it was
something. Now, my husband and
I own a small business. I would love
to offer paid leave to my pregnant
employees (I now have 3!), but
there is no way I can do it. We do
not make lots of money; we are
in the mental health field–insurance reimbursements are sub-par
for mental health providers. But,
if everyone were mandated to pay
into a sponsored fund, then could
draw from it for leave of this kind,
then I would be all for it. Call it a
‘PSA’–pregnancy savings account;
tax-free, of course.
Donna, Damascus, MD
My husband and I are in the process of adopting a baby girl born
in November. We got the call in
early October and she was born 5
weeks later. I had 12 days of paid
time off remaining for the calendar
year which is what I used to supplement my FMLA (which is unpaid).
I haven’t been paid since mid-December when those vacation days
were exhausted. We have relied on
savings and family support to keep
our monthly expenses paid.
Because adoption is not considered a medical expense, I am not eligible for short or long term disability. Other mothers who give birth
can take advantage of this benefit
(which I do pay for) and receive 2/3
of their salary. I, on the other hand,
receive nothing. My company does
offer an adoption benefit but it’s
not paid out until the adoption is
finalized which could take close to
a year. There are many many adoption expenses that adoptive families pay out to create a family that
families bearing children do not.
My husband and I have paid out
$40K in adoption expenses and the
adoption is not finalized yet. On
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top of this, our baby’s birth father
who is in prison, is contesting the
adoption so we have future legal
expenses of $20-40K that we need
to come up with.
Michelle, Baltimore, MD
My husband and were fortunate that we did not have fertility
issues but that also left us totally
unprepared when we found out we
were having twins. I was fortunate
to work for a company that went
above and beyond FLMA. I received
twelve weeks paid leave. Which
was so important because my little
darlings spent two weeks in the hospital before they came home. We
still had 10 weeks together at home
to bond and it was a relief that we
had my full salary to help cover the
cost of not one but two new additions to our family.
April, Westminster, MD
My son was born 7/2 of last year.
As a federal employee, I had assumed that I would have the best
family leave available to me. I was
shocked to find out that the federal government offered NO paid
family leave whatsoever. As the
primary earner in my family (my
husband earns less than I do but
not little enough to justify him being a stay-at-home dad) it was very
very difficult to figure out how to
save enough money to take unpaid time off from work. Through
savings and going into debt, we
managed to get me 3 months off
– which was wonderful, though
not nearly enough. Twelve weeks
is far too young for an infant to
be away from his mother. And as a
result I am paying off several thousand dollars in credit card debt that
was necessary in order to remain at
home.
It is really a trajedy for our culture that there is no social support available for mothers who
want to do the right thing for thier
children. I cannot imagine what
it must be like for single mothers
who don’t have a second income to
fall back on. I would not doubt that
many women fall into a trap of
debt and poverty right out of the
gate – something that is expensive
for all of us.
Colleen, Kensington, MD
One of the most difficult things
for our family was that my husband
only had 2 weeks of paternity leave
(one of which was unpaid).
He
returned to work right when the
baby blues were setting in and despite having live-in support from my
parents, it was extremely difficult
having my husband at work all day.
Consequently, I think not only do
we need to think about paid leave
for mothers but it is also important
for fathers to be able to spend more
time with their children during the
earliest days of their children’s lives.
Research indicates that children
who have more involved fathers
tend to do better cognitively and
socio-emotionally because fathers
and mothers interact differently
with their children. In addition, I
think the support that parents can
provide for each other during the
first few months of the baby’s life
are important not only for the baby
but also for the couple’s relationship
– which indirectly affects the baby in
that these parents may experience
less conflict and may be more apt to
stay together longer thus remaining
a two parent family for the baby.
This support for each other and
the baby is most likely strongest if
the father is able to be home as well
as the mother. These are important
times of attachment-building, and
this attachment needs to be built
with the father, and is arguably
even more important given that the
father did not carry the baby inside
him for 9 months.
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133
Donna, Chevy Chase, MD
Paid family leave helped me recover from child birth and allowed
me enough time to rest so that
when I returned to work I was a
productive and focused employee.
Jenn, Baltimore, MD
When my daughter was born
last year, my husband and I decided
that I would take 12 weeks of maternity leave. I work for a company
that has less than 50 employees, so
there is no regulated FMLA policy.
I was the first person in the company’s history to take maternity leave.
My bosses were great in that they
allowed me to take whatever time
off that I needed, but they weren’t
going to pay me for that time.
Luckily, short-term disability
picked up a couple weeks and then
I had 3 weeks vacation (my entire
allotment of sick and vacation days
for the entire year) that I saved. So
I was fortunate that I was able to
get a portion of those 12 weeks
with some sort of pay. However,
now that my daughter is in daycare and constantly getting sick, I
am using the little time off that I
accumulate to take care of her. I
am worried that I will not be able
to accumulate that same amount
of sick time for our next baby. We
heavily rely on my income now to
pay for her childcare.
I don’t think we will be able to
continue to pay it while I am out
on maternity leave, and if I pull
her from daycare, we might not
be able to get her back in when I
have to return to work. Life would
be simpler if I just had guaranteed
paid maternity leave.
MASSACHUSETTS
Andreea, Bridgewater, MA
Almost 8 years ago when I gave
birth to my son I wanted to do the
best I could to breastfeed for at
134
least the first year. Unfortunately,
after 3 weeks of unpaid leave from
the job I had at the time, I had to
go back to work and pump with a
very bad and cheap pump, in the
bathroom. My milk production
went down the hill and soon we
had to supplement with expensive
formula beacause the baby was lactose intolerant.
Lack of information at that time
and support from the workplace,
made me lose the milk atfter less
than 3 months. With my secod
child I was fortunate to work in a
big corporation and they have paid
leave but only 5 weeks are paid,
plus one week of sick time out of
the 10 allowed. I had to go back to
work after the 3 months at home
and believe me it was even harder,
it was heart breaking. I am now a
working full time mom pumping
2-3 times a day for the past year.
My parents and mother-in-law
are main helpers with the baby but
it’s so sad to miss the best years of
our kids... I come home after 10
ours of being away every day and
see him crawling or talking and I
wish I’d been there to support him
every second... But I can’t....bills
have to get paid. How can other
countries afford pay for moms to
stay home and take care of their
kids for 1-2 years?
Brian, Easthampton, MA
Although I have no children of
my own I am an obstetric nurse who
works in one of the poorest communities in the state of Massachusetts.
I routinely care for new mothers and
families who have no paid family
leave. I recently took care of a new
mother who told me she had to go
back to work two days after having
her baby as her job with a cleaning
company did not offer paid maternity leave.
How lawmakers think this is
right is beyond me. These mothers
and families need time to recover
from the birth process and care for
themselves and new babies without
the fear of loss of income or their
jobs. It is appalling to know that
177 other countries offer this type
of care to their citizens, but the US,
the richest and most developed is
not one of these countries. It is time
to get our priorities in order.
Diane, Brookline, MA
Before our first child was born I
began saving vacation time, hoping
that when the time came I would
be granted permission to use vacation days to lengthen my time
at home with my newborn. (I had
no maternity leave or paid family
leave – I had six weeks of sick days
and short term disability to recover
from having given birth!)
The good news is that I was
granted that permission, giving
me nearly three months of paid
time off to care for our new child.
I breastfed my baby, (even though
I knew no one in my family or
among my friends who had done
so) which was a wonderful experience – until I returned to work and
was faced with a ‘must-go’ five day
business trip to Europe in the next
two weeks. I am certain that having
paid time off helped give our new
family a better start: my husband
had very little time off; we had no
relatives nearby to help; and my
breastfed baby was colicky for four
months! I knew I needed my savings to pay for childcare once I returned to work. We were exhausted, healthy and very fortunate.
Marisa, Easthampton, MA
Family leave is especially important for families that have lost
children too. Having recently lost
my second son halfway through his
pregnancy, I found it really helpful
to have a job that was flexible with
my return. However, not every parent has this luxury. Please consider
that when a precious loved one
comes or goes from our families,
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people need time to adjust and/or
heal without concerns of job loss
or pay cut or any further impact to
their current situation.
Tamara, Arlington, MA
Having a baby is enormous
physical work, not to mention hormone changes, emotions, and lack
of sleep. I received 6 weeks paid
leave and had saved up 6 weeks of
vacation and overtime to take 12
weeks off, and to be honest that
still was not enough. I did breastfeed. I breastfed both my children.
A three month old baby however is
tiny, and I think that it is still too
early to send to a daycare facility. It
was too soon for my son and I.
Tamara, Arlington, MA
Having a baby is enormous
physical work, not to mention hormone changes, emotions, and lack
of sleep. I received 6 weeks paid
leave and had saved up 6 weeks of
vacation and overtime to take 12
weeks off, and to be honest that
still was not enough. I did breastfeed. I breastfed both my children.
A three month old baby however is
tiny, and I think that it is still too
early to send to a daycare facility. It
was too soon for my son and I.
Dorothy, Concord, MA
Having two months paid leave
allowed us to plan and transition
into child care. Our baby had a
difficult birth, and we had follow
up medical visits that would have
been very hard to do with our 50
hrs/week job. New parents without
families nearby to offer time, help
and advice is the norm these days.
If children are a blessing, then paid
leave should be a sacrement.
Daniel, Salem, MA
I am a father, but this issue is important for all parents.
MomsRising.org
Charlene, Merrimac, MA
I am a mother of four, three
daughters and a son. My maternity
leaves were unpaid and made life
difficult. One of my daughters will
be delivering my first grand baby,
a girl, in two months. She doesn’t
receive paid maternity leave either.
Luckily, my daughter lives at home.
Her financial load isn’t nearly as
heavy as most.
I will be the one providing care
for my granddaughter while my
daughter works. Having a baby
is the single most perfect event in
life. We shouldn’t need to compromise anything with our children,
especially the first hours, days,
weeks of their existence. Children
are not toys. They are real live little
people, with hearts. They should
start being treated as such. When
‘big people’ get sick or take a vacation, hmmm they get paid! Sounds
a bit unjust.
Liz, Wellesley, MA
I am a physician, actually an OB/
GYN, and twenty years ago I had
to bargain for more than the six
weeks I was given. I had to pay myself during this time through productivity I had accrued before the
delivery. I wanted to nurse my son
and was exhausted as his schedule improved slowly. He was small
and needed to be fed frequently
through twenty four hours. I was
still in a sleepless haze when I got
a call from the only other female
partner in the group telling me
that they needed me to come back
after 6 weeks. I had to say no. This
was very difficult. They did not see
why I couldn’t just get a nanny to
care for my son. I was determined
to nurse until 6-8 months if possible. I needed the time at home.
If there had been an official
policy I could have rested easy and
been able to take care of my son
as I felt I should. They would not
have felt that they could ask me to
to return. Amazing that even when
working in a field of medicine that
takes care of women there was still
conflict.
Sonja, Somerville, MA
I am currently on FMLA to care
for my elderly father following a
hip replacement and also a horrible year of health challenges. He
is independent again because of his
health aides, visiting PT, and family.
I live far away so I cannot assist my
sisters and Dad but I can take FMLA
to be a live-in, all-around care giver
for a few weeks. I’m finishing up
and going back home to my own
family.
Elizabeth, Salem, MA
I counted myself lucky that in
three years of employment, I took
maybe 10 sick days total. I counted
myself lucky that at my job, sick
time and vacation time rolls over
from year to year. I counted myself lucky that by the time I had my
child, I had nearly 8 weeks of sick
time, 6 weeks of vacation time, two
personal days, and short-term disability that paid 60% of my salary
after four unpaid weeks. I counted
myself lucky that for three months
I was able to receive my full salary
to stay home with my son while recovering from a traumatic c-section
(the anesthesia failed during surgery). I didn’t have to worry about
paying my bills or buying groceries
or being able to pay my rent.
My husband was in graduate
school at the time and, while he received a lot more in stipends than
people in many other programs,
it was far from a regular salary. If
I hadn’t received my full salary, we
more than likely would have had
to consider food stamps and welfare. But then in my state, being in
graduate, dental, medical, or law
school disqualifies families from
those services, so it wouldn’t even
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135
have been an option for us to seek
public assistance. We would have
been in some serious financial trouble. So, I count myself lucky. But I
shouldn’t have had to.
All new parents should be able
to take time off after the birth or
adoption of a child and not have to
worry about keeping their jobs or
how they’re going to pay for groceries. PAID leave should be the norm.
And should be required. I count myself lucky. I shouldn’t have to.
7 weeks that were paid, but I really
feel the US should join most other
nations and offer a minimum of 6
months paid maternity leave. Our
nation’s children are the future of
our country and it is important to
make them a priority. This would
support the recent surgeon general’s call to action to support breastfeeding. If you are able to be with
your baby for at least six months,
it is much easier to breastfeed for
six months.
Nicole, Waltham, MA
Jennifer, Marblehead, MA
I had seven weeks of paid leave
from my employer, one of the top
100 working mother award companies. In addition to the stress of
having a new baby, my maternal
grandfather and paternal grandmother both died during my maternity leave. The thought of returning to work was crippling; I
was not sleeping more than two
hours at a time. I called my doctor’s office in tears, asking for additional paid time via a medical
leave to no avail since physically
I was ‘okay.’ I took an additional
five weeks off unpaid because I
could not find a daycare provider
who would accept a baby under 12
weeks old.
I just had my second baby 6
months ago and I’m just coming
out of the post-partum fog!
Shortly after that, my husband
was laid off and I had to work to
maintain healthcare benefits. I returned to work completely sleepdeprived and pumped five times
a day; three times at work. I figured if I couldn’t be the primary
caregiver for my daughter, I would
minimally provide her with my
breastmilk. I honestly have hazy
memories of the first three months
back at work. I cried everyday
when I left, every time I pumped,
and tried to hold it together the
rest of the time to be a contributing employee.
It was not until my daughter
was 6 months old that I felt rested
enough to think and excel at my
job again. I am appreciative of the
136
I was fortunate to have JUST
enough time saved up after my 3
year old was born to take 12 weeks
off from my job as a RN, but came
back to work without any sick time.
There have been a couple days that
I’ve been really sick but had to go
to work because I’d otherwise go
unpaid. That put my fragile patients and co-workers at risk, but
was a choice I had to make.Both of
my daughters suffered from severe
reflux the first 4 months of life so
almost all their waking hours involved crying.
When I went back to work, I
was delirious with exhaustion, up
all night and day. My job as an ICU
nurse is not one that I can give less
than 100%, so I was really burning
the candle at both ends, and at risk
for making a life threatening decision with my patients. But I had to
go back because I did not want to
lose the job I love.
Danielle, Cambridge, MA
I moved to the USA when my
fist child was about to be born. As
a College Teacher in Quebec, Canada, I was able to take 12 months
lease from work and to continue to
receive 80% of my salary. When I
discovered the work conditions for
mothers here and particularly that
the majority of them have no access to paid leave after the birth of
a child, I was absolutely shocked.
I could not believe that the work
conditions of mothers in USA were
so far from the norm in the rest of
the develop countries.
We women are counting for
50% of the labor force. The fact of
the matter is that paid family leave
helps give kids a healthier start
and gives families the economic
security they need to stay out of
poverty at a critical time – and at
the same time it can benefit businesses’ bottom line. This saves everyone – from parents to taxpayers
to businesses – money in the longrun. I would add also the impact
on health cost when mothers and
children have a healthier quality of
life. I was not so lucky for my second child with no paid maternity
leave, we start struggling to stay
afloat and in good health. We had
trouble to effort the preschool of
our older son and our family day
life became more stressful.
I would like every member of
Congress to understand the importance of paid family leave after the
birth of a new baby. That is primordial in our today sociaty.
Tamara, Arlington, MA
I received 6 weeks as per the
leave act. Six weeks is not long
enough as I learned once I gave
birth. The baby is still tiny and I only
began to recover by that point.
Luckily I had accumulated overtime and vacation time so I put in 6
weeks of my own for a total of 12
weeks. In order to have a healthy
workforce and healthy families,
I think our leave act should be 12
weeks. Even then the baby is still
so small but at least better than
6 weeks old! Most industrialized
countries offer a minimum of 4
months, and most are 6 months or
more. These months are not that
long in a lifetime of an employee.
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AnnMarie, Springfield, MA
I was fortunate to have paid
leave. This should be the rule, not
the exception. Otherwise you put
the most vulnerable of children in
a situation that could harm them.
Kate, Lowell, MA
I was lucky, I had my baby at
the end of the year and was able
to use all of my 4 weeks of PTO
towards my ‘maternity leave’. Unfortunately, my company offers no
short term disability or provides
any monetary help for women on
maternity leave (can’t blame them,
it’s expensive to run a business). I
had an emergency c-section so as
soon as I was back on my feet, I
was back at work missing my little
one. I was out two weeks of pay
and had a deductible of $1000 to
pay.
Emotionally, it’s hard. You desperately miss your child, making
you feel depressed and your worried about keeping up with your
bills which adds anxiety on top of
the depression. Nothing like crying your way to work each morning. No person can do a good job
at work when dealing with those
type of emotions. It is against nature to leave a 6 week old at home
while you sit at a desk for 9 hours.
The toughest part is seeing
women who are on every public
assistance program available living a pretty sweet life and being
able to watch their child grow. It
makes no sense that I work hard,
pay taxes and when I need help
so that I can better the life of my
child, I get nothing from the government.
Rebecca, Boston, MA
I’m self-employed, so there was
no option of paid leave. I’m fortunate enough that I could save some
for maternity leave, but I went back
to close to full-time after 8 weeks
and was completely full time with-
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in a year. I have enormous flexibility being self-employed, but on the
other hand, if I don’t work I don’t
get paid, so it has it’s draw backs.
It was especially hard as I don’t live
near family, and with my mother
already passed away when I had my
child, there just wasn’t that kind of
support.
It would be WONDERFUL if we
could devise a system where even
self-employed people could get
paid leave – perhaps by paying into
an account with matching funds...
one can dream no?
Rebecca, Cambridge, MA
If we value our children – and
they are ALL our children – we must
make paid parental leave the law
of the land. I was lucky enough to
be a full-time homemaker when
my children were born, but I can’t
begin to imagine how I could have
kept up with my job if I had had to
take unpaid leave.
I think both mothers and fathers
should be eligible for paid parental
leave. It’s the very least we can do
for our children – and again, they
are the children of our nation, so
the children of all of us.
Ana-Maria, Littleton, MA
It’s important to me because I
had a twisted pelvis, numbing/tingling painful back issues plus post
partum depression along with a 10
day old baby that had unnecessary
surgery and hospitalization. Even
though I had doctor’s notes from
literally 4 doctors, I was denied an
extension to my leave and subsequently depression took much longer to combat.
Amanda, Boston, MA
My baby boy was born 16 months
ago and I was lucky enough to have a
job that promised me my job would
still be there when I came back but
did not have paid leave. It was hard
for my husband and I. We had really
hoped he would be able to spend a
week or two at home with us helping and being there for the first
weeks of our baby’s life–but the reality was that he felt guilty about not
being at work and they put pressure
on him to be at work and he only
ended up being home with us for
3 1/2 days. I took 8 weeks off and
would have loved to take more time
but I felt guilty and pressured not to
be gone from work for tooooo long
and we were not in a financial situation where we could afford for me
to be out of work that long.
As it was we saved and saved and
saved as much as we could so that we
could afford for me to take any time
off. And did the time ever fly... I still
can’t believe it went by that fast or
that I ‘got so few things done’. All of
my time was caring for our newborn
(or relishing the few precious bits of
sleep I could have while he napped).
It was hard and it was stressful to
worry about work and money while
I was home and I wish we had been
in a situation where that hadn’t
loomed over our new happiness.
Donna, Lexington, MA,
My children were born in 1978
and 1981. With the first child, I quit
my job so I could stay at home; with
the second child I returned to my
part-time job after six weeks. I used
sick and vacation time to cover the
six weeks as I recall. In the current
climate, asking businesses to cover
paid maternity leave, I believe, is an
impossibility.
With a 20-something daughter
of child-bearing age, I am already
highly suspicious that employers
are discriminating against young
women who may plan to have children. Any further demands on the
businesses, I think, may make this
even worse.
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137
Heather, Canton, MA
Cheryl, Plymouth, MA
Margaret, Brookline, MA
My daughter was born with a
rare birth defect called tracheoesophageal fistula and an accompanying esophageal atresia (TEF/EA).
Kestrel required a life-saving surgery with the first 24 hours of life,
and another two surgeries within
the first three months she was alive.
Not having paid time off after the birth of our first child totally wrecked my husband and I
financially – and when you have
a newborn, getting three hours
sleep a night is alot, so it’s not like
returning to work was an option
for me...I was so tired I was afraid
to get behind the wheel of my car
to drive to work.To make matters
worse, after my son had been in
daycare for a year, I was actually
forced to take unpaid leave by my
employer because my son was constantly sick enough to need to go
to the emergency room more than
a dozen times.
Turns out having and raising a
child is the hardest thing I’ve ever
done. It pales in comparison to every other difficult thing I have done
– medical school, residency, medical
fellowship, getting a PhD and running a marathon. Not even close.
Providing paternity or maternity
leave is an investment in our country. Help get families off to the best
start possible.
Needless to say, I was out of work
for all that time, as well as numerous other times. I did not get paid
leave .It is impossible to describe
the financial impact this had on me
at the time. Aside from trying to
pay the bills and keep food on the
table, I had to pay for daily parking
at the hospital for the time she was
in intensive care, and for all of the
subsequent appointments and hospitalizations she had over the first
three months of her life. I used up
all the money I had spent the past
five years saving and was still crawling out of debt almost a year later.
Those three months easily cost
me upwards of $18,000 in expenses,
with no income to offset the expenses. To be so stressed out about
finances while dealing with such an
overwhelming situation as almost
losing my firstborn child was almost
emotionally crippling.
Erica, Randolph, MA
My employer does not provide
any paid maternity leave, and my
husband got 1 whole week of paid
paternity leave. So, I drained my
bank of sick and vacation time to
stay home for 12 weeks. When I
returned to work full-time, I had
no way to take half-days or days
off when my baby got sick or even
needed a routine pediatrician visit.
And of course, I was breastfeeding because this is best for my baby,
and had to find a place to ‘hide’ at
work 3 times a day, lugging that
pump everywhere. It is NOT RIGHT
that this is a typical experience for
a mother in the United States.
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Teresa, Middleboro, MA
This is one that is near and dear
for me since I am currently on leave
after having my third baby, a miracle that we thought would never
happen. I wish we could afford for
me to stay home permanently but
its not to be, so we decided for me
to just take the 12 weeks I am allowed under FMLA. Even this is an
extremely difficult thing for us financially since I am not being paid
during this leave.
Our family will be without the
extra income of over $10,000 for
the 12 weeks I am out on leave. Not
only has this affected my immediate family, but it has also affected
my mother as she recently became
unable to live on her own and her
children have all come together
to find a place for her to live with
some assistance. As much as I need
to and want to, it is nearly impossible for me to contribute much to
this cost since we are barely making
it with my income and now have 3
months without my income as well.
FMLA is a great thing but it should
be expanded to allow mothers on
leave to be paid during that time.
Its a tough enough decision to have
to work as a mother.
Uma, Taunton, MA
When I got pregnant with my second child, I had recently started work
with the federal government so I had
little vacation/sick leave saved up. So
I was able to use 3 weeks of leave
with vacation and sick but the rest
was unpaid leave. Luckily, my husband and I were able to save enough
money that we could survive for this
leave but it was tough.
I know that there are a lot of
families that have little/no savings
and can’t afford to be out of work
unpaid. So in addition to the stress
of having a new baby and adjusting
to these changes, a financial burden
is also added to the family. I believe
that our primary focus should be on
the well being of our children and
families and having paid leave would
allow these families to take this important time to care and bond with
their new baby without the added
stress of being out of work.
We talk a lot about the importance of our children and families
but when it comes down to making
decisions, it does not appear that
they take a priority over the financial
decisions of businesses. Let’s start
putting our priorities back on our
families.
Meghan, Somerville, MA
When I had my daughter, I had
6 weeks of pay at 60%–short-term
disability, and then 6 weeks of no
pay at all. My husband I were able
to make due, but when the time
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came for me to go back to work, I
was distraught. I had to work because I carried the health insurance
for myself and my daughter, and we
could not afford my husband’s family plan.
I was very concerned about
going back to work because my
daughter was waking up every 90
minutes. My job was an hour commute each way, and a 9 hour day.
The thought of being out of the
house for 11 hours and then coming
home and not getting more than 2
hours of sleep at a time was terrifying. I begged my job to let me go
back part-time, but they would not
agree. Finally, they just let me go,
realizing that I would be miserable
and my husband and I made budget
cuts and I had COBRA benefits until
I could find work closer to home. I
was finally able to find work when
she was 7 months old.
I would have so appreciated a
part-time return option, it was really impossible to go and function
45 hours a week with the level of
sleep-deprivation I still experienced.
Carter, Westborough, MA
When I had my first child I had
a very difficult time nursing but
I knew breasts milk was the best
choice for my daughter and I was
committed to making it work. In
order to do that I had to pump then
put the milk in a bottle with a tube
leading from it so my daughter
would get milk when she nursed
even if she could not get it directly
from the breast. After feeding her
and getting her to sleep I had to
clean the equipment and pump to
get ready for the next feeding. In
the beginning when my daughter
was feeding most frequently this
took up the majority of the day.
Without maternity leave I would
never have been able to offer my
daughter this healthy start and
give her an opportunity to learn to
breast feed. If I had not had maternity leave I would have been forced
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to give my daughter formula. This
is just one of the many benefits I
feel my daughter got from my being able to be home at first.
ever, my job did not have any paid
leave, and I was mandated to use up
my sick days first, and then my accrued vacation time, to pay for the
leave.
Erin, Cambridge, MA
After doing the math, I realized I needed sixty days of available
‘time’ in order to pay for a basic
maternity leave! Anyone who has
actually taken a vacation, or stayed
home with a 102 fever knows that
accruing 60 days of unused leave in
one’s early career years (the years in
which childbearing is most likely to
happen) is difficult. And in today’s
two-income household, with mortgages taking up huge percentages
of income, I don’t know anyone-even in my highly educated, middle
class group of peers – who can take
unpaid time off from work.
When I had my first child in 2006
I was laid off while pregnant. This
turned out to be oddly lucky as it allowed me to file for unemployment
and extend my health insurance, at
the subsidized by my employer rate,
beyond my daughter’s birth. I was
able to apply for new positions from
home while nursing and diapering my little girl without having to
worry about how we were going to
pay our rent or buy groceries. I was
called for an interview 4 weeks after
having my daughter. The interview
process was slow but I ultimately received an offer and was able to start
back to work when my daughter
was 4 months old.
I still have no idea how we would
have made it through that time if I
not been laid off. My husband owns
a small business, and purchasing our
own health insurance that way was
as unaffordable as buying it through
COBRA. Our daughter would probably have needed to go into full
time daycare at 6 weeks, the earliest
age possible at the nearby daycares,
so that I could return to work. After using my vacation and sick time
(roughly 3 weeks), I would have had
to take the next 3 weeks without
pay and cover the full cost of our
health insurance out of pocket.
Laura, Weymouth, MA
When my husband and I decided
to start a family, I stopped going on
vacation and I scheduled my pre-natal visits and other health appointments on evenings and weekends so
that I didn’t have to take a sick day
from work. My place of employment allowed FMLA leave for the
birth of a new child, and so I had no
problem whatsoever requesting 12
weeks of leave from my job. How-
ITo have healthy children,
healthy families, and healthy futures, we need a minimum of 12
weeks of paid leave for new parents
so that every parent can be guaranteed to have at least the basic
chance to start their children’s lives
off right.
Don, Attleboro, MA
When our daughter was born,
my wife was able to stay home
with her for three months. I can’t
imagine not having this right. Our
daughter now attends daycare,
and when I drop her off in the
morning and see babies only weeks
old, who should be home bonding
with a parent, it saddens me. As a
father, I would have loved the opportunity to spend more time at
home after the birth; I ended up
using some vacation time. There’s
nothing more important.
Thalia, Acton, MA
With unpaid leave for myself,
and unpaid leave for my husband,
we managed to keep our son at
home for the first 2.5 months.
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139
Once he started going to daycare–a
good daycare, with caring people–
he started getting all kinds of illnesses at such a young age. It was
extremely stressful, and a negative
medical impact.
MICHIGAN
Susan, Redfor, MI
A breastfed baby needs it’s
mother and access to it’s mother’s
milk, so that they can establish a
good nursing relationship. It is not
fair to either of them to separate
them too early. I have given birth
to 6 children and have breastfed all
of them. If I would have had to pay
for the cost of formula my husband
and I would have gone broke.
Michele, Ann Arbor, MI
All Americans should have the
option of paid family leave. I’ve
worked at the same university for
13 years now. And thank goodness they have a paid extended sick
where I could take off with pay to
take care of my two newborn children. Moms (and dads if they need
to help) should not be worried with
figuring out how to pay the bills if
they are not blessed to have paid
family leave. Everyone should have
this option.
I heard that in Canada new
moms can take off a year after their
newborn arrives. This paid family
leave should also apply to anyone
with sick family members or if they
are experiencing a major illness
and needs to be out of the office.
BobbiJo, Twin Lake, MI
As a mother to a 4 year old child,
it is pertinent that we get paid maternity leave. When I had my son,
I was fired from my job because I
needed the time off to take care of
my son.
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At the time, his father wasn’t
working, so we had to rely on his
grandparents to get us through until I could find another job. Some
people don’t have this support system. If they can’t keep their jobs
when they have a baby, how are
they going to be able to support it?
Ellen, Grand Rapids, MI
At the age of 40 I had my first
baby by C-section. I had to return
to work 2 weeks later! Just saying.
Dr. Cinthia, Brighton, MI
Having paid family medical
leave was essential for the wellbeing of myself and my baby and
it is essential for the health of my
patients and their babies.
Childbirth is traumatic for mother and baby much of the time and
both need rest and healing. newborn babies throw a wrench in the
whole family’s routine and need
non-stop attention and care in order to thrive and grow into healthy
and productive members of our society. Stressing out mom and baby
by expecting her to leave her baby
to work is wrong and foolish. Mom
will be unproductive, distracted
and distraught and baby will languish. It is unacceptable not to
have family-protecting policies in
our land of freedom and promise.
Gretchen, Grand Rapids, MI
I am fortunate enough to work
as a professor and to have had
understanding administrators so,
when my son came 6 weeks early,
I was able to have maternity leave
and had even banked time so I could
be paid. I don’t know what I would
have done without that leave given his need for constant care and
many doctors’ appointments. My
son’s father, on the other hand, had
a hard time getting even an extra
day to be with his son. We need
family leave for all the women who
are not as lucky as I am and for all
the fathers who should be able to
participate in their children’s care
in order to give those children a
healthy start in life.
Kim, Dearborn, MI
I did get paid maternity leave
when I had my daughter last year
but I only got 6 weeks off and I am
paid hourly at my work and any employee that goes on maternity leave
gets paid $200.00 a week no matter
what you make. I also could take 6
more weeks by the FMLA but they
would of been unpaid and I would
of had to use all my vacation time I
had up first to use any of this.
I only got 6 weeks home which
isn’t enough and it was hard taking a newborn to daycare. I didnt
use any of the FMLA because of the
little money I made the 6 weeks I
was gone, this made paying our bills
hard losing my income like that and
stressfull at a time we really didn’t
need extra stress and I didnt want to
lose all my vacation and have nothing to use during the year.
Angela, Ypsilanti, MI
I feel both lucky and incredibly
cheated that I was able to take 12
weeks off when I had my daughter.
I know not everyone in this country
is that lucky but I also know that just
north of my home in Michigan Canadian mothers enjoy a year of paid
maternity leave. My daughter was
just starting to get really fun – responding and smiling so much more
when I had to return to work.
My heart ached those first few
months when I was away. She’s almost 2 now and I still have days
where I feel I did a lot of things but
none of them particularly well. But
in the beginning that happened
more often than not. Youth today
have a lot to contend with and could
really benefit from spending those
early months with their parents.
MomsRising.org
Yodit, Ypsilanti, MI
I found out I was pregnant less
than two months after starting a
new job. We’d tried so hard to get
pregnant and yet it couldn’t have
come at a worse time. I remember
cowering at the idea of having to
tell my new boss. I, of course, had
no vacation time as yet. Heck, I
didn’t even have health insurance.
And NO, the company didn’t have
paid maternity leave as part of its’
offerings. Once I did get the courage to tell, my supervisor and I
talked about options for when the
baby would be born. The company
agreed to me to ‘banking’ the 17
days of vacation time I would earn
in the first year – I still had to fight
with the HR person who insisted
that I had missed a loophole in the
policy that stated I had to take half
the time in the first 6 mos. of employment and only wanted to give
me 9 days off.
Wow, three weeks and two days
with the baby. I couldn’t imagine
what I was going to do about nursing, day care, recovery time (as it
turned out, I had an emergency
c-section) or even being able to
keep my job (what if they changed
their minds?).Just out of sheer urgency and a deep and abiding maternal instinct to be home with my
first baby for longer than 3 weeks
and two days, I negotiated a part
time work arrangement with the
job and figured we’d just take it
from there. Now I had to figure
out health care for the baby and I.
I couldn’t afford the family plan at
work and didn’t qualify for coverage yet anyway (as a new employee) nor could we afford the policy
my husbands co. offered.
By divine intervention I remembered that at one time I’d paid into
a supplemental short term disability plan with my previous employer.
Could I still use that? Well, it turned
out, I could. Who knew that pregnancy qualified as short term disability? That would afford me another 6-8 weeks depending on the
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type of delivery – PAID. I couldn’t
have been more joyful! What I
wanted, more than anything, was
to be with that baby.
Heidi , Farmington Hills, MI
I got to take off nine weeks for
maternity leave, but was only able
to do so because I had paid for short
term disability and only for that
long of time because I ended up
having a c-section. Had I had a normal birth I would have been back
to work in six weeks. I worked as
much as a new mother could from
home. Add that with the stress and
emotional roller coaster that being
a new mom is, and I can tell you it
was no relaxing nine weeks at all.
I am now pregnant with my
second child, wondering how I am
going to manage logging in work
hours at home while on maternity
leave to pay for my medical while
on leave, with a toddler and a new
born in the house. Plus the added
expenses of daycare when I do have
to return to work. Having a baby
should be a joyful, family experience. It’s stressful enough having to
take care of another human being,
let alone trying to keep your job
and log in time so that you’re not
slapped with the premium costs for
your medical upon your return. My
boss is very understanding, thankfully. But I still feel the pressure
and the pain of leaving for a long
period of time, both with my work
and my family.
Lisa, Portage, MI
I had 6 weeks of paid maternity
leave with both of my children in the
1980’s. Why was that time essential?
Without pay, I would not have been
able to take off more than 2 weeks
with my children. During those six
weeks, I recovered from the health
stresses of pregnancy including recovering from pregnancy-related
high blood pressure, insomnia, acid
reflux and joint pain.
But most importantly, my babies
were breastfed for the first essential period of their lives, felt loved
and cared for, and bonded with me,
while I learned how to care for them
and meet their needs. This time was
the foundation of their happy childhoods because of the closeness and
love that developed in those first
weeks of their lives. Having this time
was a gift to all of us that could not
have been successfully replicated in
any other way. My only regret is that
my husband could not have had this
time like I did. Paid parent time with
newborns benefits everyone and
should be available to everyone.
Barbara, Shelby Twp, MI
I remember how important my
paid leave was when my children
were born over 40 years ago.
Barbara, Cadmus, MI
I took FMLA leaves on two occasions. In 2000, I used it to take care
of my mother. It was unpaid and
so was my health insurance. It took
over 2 years to pay the company
back for the health insurance payments. In 2009, I used FMLA to care
for my husband. It gave us time to
sort out our choices and decide how
to handle his care with Parkinson’s. I
took an early retirement. He passed
in 2011. The leave was unpaid and
so was my insurance. Both times, the
leave gave me valuable time with my
family. I wish FMLA leave had been
available when my kids were born
or at least when they were sick.
Joy, Eastpointe, MI
I was a graduate student when
I had my daughter. Because of my
excellent academic record, I won a
year-long fellowship the month she
was born. This allowed me to stay
home with her and not go back
to work. This turned out to be a
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141
Godsend because my daughter developed severe colic at three weeks
old. Her acid reflux was so bad that
if she was not held completely upright at all times, she was in severe
pain and would scream. We quite
literally could not put her down for
9 weeks. I slept sitting up, holding her. Bouncy seats and car seats
were not upright enough. I had no
one who would come over to help
with her, so my husband and I did it
all ourselves.
Jennifer, Plainwell, MI
I was a single women pregnant
for the first time. I had full insurance benefits and paid vacations
with more than 4 years on the job.
However I had to leave work at 8
months because of my doctor recommended due to physical stresses
of the job. I lost my insurance and
had to on state aid (Medicaid). I
used up all my savings and my only
source of income came from the
government (Welfare). Thank the
lord it was available because had
this not been available I don’t know
where we would of ended up.
I think if my employer had been
able to offer paid leave I would of
been able to make my savings last
and been able to return to work
and be able to pay for a babysitter.
Tawnya, Canton, MI
I was in a very unfortunate situation when I had my son. My husband died suddenly two weeks before I gave birth. Losing his income
and potentially not having any income during my leave, would have
put me over the edge. I’m fortunate that my company offers a voluntary disability insurance program
that I pay into. It gives me 60% of
my pay. It was a tough time, but it
would have been much worse without it.
The sad thing is that not everyone I work with can afford to
pay into that insurance. You never
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know what the future has in store
for you. It would be nice to know
that paid family leave for all is one
less thing to worry about. Remember that you do not know the life
circumstances of your constituents.
Think of worse case scenario and
how you can make it better for all.
Angela, Royal Oak, MI
I was lucky that my company offered short term leave for 56 days
and 6 weeks paid leave if vaginal
delivery, 8 weeks for C (I was pregnant with twins and had to go
on leave 16 weeks before my due
date). I ended up having the girls 9
weeks early so my short term ended and maternity started. I did have
a C section and received 8 weeks
pay and that was it... We did plan
for our babies and saved a bit.I was
offered my job back if I returned
within one year under the FMLA
and I did return part time but was
later laid off due to lack of work in
Michigan/Automotive Industry.
The care and cost of twins/daycare and/or nanny, work expenses,
etc. was more than we could handle so I decided to become a SAHM.
I had a friend who had a baby a
few months earlier but since she
had only been with the company
for 7 months she did not receive
any compensation.
Jamie, Davison, MI
I work at a dental office. I had
a baby girl 3-5-10. I had a 3 week
unpaid maternity leave. I feel like
a missed out on bonding time and
breastfeeding.
Melissa, Lansing, MI
In 1997, I was pregnant with
twins. I had pre-clampsia and preterm labor and was on bed rest for
7 weeks before they were born. I
then had serious complications
when they were born, and almost
died. Still, I returned to work af-
ter only 9 weeks. Why? Due to
company policy, my entire 16 week
leave was unpaid. I couldn’t afford
to take any more time off – we had
astronomical medical bills, and two
newborns to feed.
I ended up with serious mental
and physical issues due to all the
stress. While a paid leave wouldn’t
have changed my physical situation, it would have alleviated the
mental stress and strain caused by
the all the health issues and worry
over our finances. Instead of enjoying our new babies, I spent most of
their first months freaking out over
money. In the United States of
America, the richest country in the
world, this is inexcusable. Working
moms and their families should not
have to go through what I went
through.
Amy, Bloomfield, MI
My daughter was born 8 weeks
premature and spent a month in
the NICU after suffering a collapsed
lung within the first 24 hours after she was born. I was incredibly
blessed to have paid maternity
leave and good health insurance at
the time. I was able to be at the
NICU advocating for her care every
step of the way, and I would not
have been able to do that without paid maternity leave. It made
a huge difference in an incredibly
critical point in her life. It also took
a huge burden off of my shoulders.
If I had needed to be working
during this time I would have been
distraught at the thought of my
daughter in the hospital without
her mother by her side. Once she
came home I was grateful for the
opportunity to be able to be with
her non-stop for several weeks before I returned to my full time job.
C., Troy, MI
My daughter was born 9 weeks
early after I was already on bedrest
for 4 weeks. She ended up in the
MomsRising.org
NICU for 36 days. The large Automotive company I worked for as an
Engineer gave me a 6 week leave
and told me I must come back to
work after the 6 weeks were up or
be let go (since I had used 4 weeks
on bedrest already). How could I?
The baby had just come home from
the hospital 1 week earlier, only 3
pounds with tons of feeding issues.
I had to quit.
Gretchen, Grand Rapids, MI
My leave was crucial to the
health of my son: he was born
prematurely and my ability to stay
home with him for the first six
weeks of his life made all the difference to my ability to nurse him
(so important for a preemie) and to
care for him and get him to all sorts
of doctors’ appointments. Neither
he or I would have been as healthy
as we were without that crucial
full-time stretch together.
Maurine, Hillsdale, MI
Thanks to the 12 weeks of paid
leave I received from my employer,
I was able to get my baby started
right with breastfeeding and reading to her from the very first day.
Having those three months to get
started helped us to keep it up
once I was back at work by establishing a schedule and finding the
best pumping method. My daughter breastfed for a full year, and
has had text read to her daily, and
is now at the top of her class and is
rarely ill. That might not have been
the case if I’d had to rush back to
work right away, or if I’d not had
a supportive employer that made
sure I had a place to pump milk and
a flexible schedule once I was back
on the job.
Patty, Livonia, MI
There is no reason why a woman should go back to work with a
3 week old baby! There is so much
crucial bonding that takes place in
MomsRising.org
those first few months of life, there
is no replacement! Not even Dad!
Only Mom can breastfeed. Only
Mom smells like Mom. Only Mom
sounds like Mom. It’s heartbreaking that Mom and baby have to be
separated at all!
Adrienne, Lansing, MI
When I had my son in July 2010,
I had short term disability coverage
that paid a portion of my salary for
six weeks. After that was up, my
employed allowed me to use my
remaining vacation and sick leave,
along with unpaid leave to make
up another 6 weeks before returning to work. We had saved a few
thousand dollars, and it was depleted by the time I received my first
paycheck after returning to work. I
had to negotiate with my employer
to have them continue to pay for
insurance coverage, although I still
had to pay a portion of it when I
returned to work. It was very, very,
difficult financially and that caused
additional stress during maternity
leave and upon my return to work.
I also returned to work with just
enough sick and vacation time left
to take my child to well baby visits and vaccination appointments.
I am grateful I was able to save
money to cover maternity leave
and that I had short term disability coverage for at least part of the
time. Otherwise, I could not have
stayed home for 12 weeks and that
would have definitely impacted my
ability to breastfeed and bond with
my child.
I have one friend who ended up
having to return to work after six
weeks and decided not to breastfeed, and another who ended up
quitting her job because she had to
return after six weeks. I feel pretty
lucky, but it could have been better,
and I do wish I could have stayed
home longer. I would really like to
see universal paid maternity and
paternity leave that lasts at least 6
months.
Rebecca, Detroit, MI
When my daughter was going
through the process of adopting
her girls, she used leave time for
the home study, psych visits and
etc. Should she have quit her job
or not adopted the children with
out the availability of family leave?
Think about it.
Jacqueline, Lake Orion, MI
When our daughter Evaline was
born with Down Syndrome, not
only did we have the usual new
baby work ahead of us, but we had
more difficulty nursing, and no pediatrician for her when we left the
hospital.
We needed to find her a doctor,
educate the rest of the family, deal
with my PPD, and take care of the
many appointments that accompany a C-section.
MINNESOTA
Laura, Minneapolis, MN
After both my daughters were
born, I was able to take time off
of my teaching position but once I
used up the few days of sick leave
that I’d acquired, the rest of my
leave was unpaid.
This meant that we scrimped
and cut coupons and all that was
necessary to make it work since
going back to a full time teaching
position while having a tiny newborn (or a newborn and a 2 year
old) would have been bad for me,
my baby and my students who deserved a teacher who could give
them their all when there. We
were fortunate that my husband
had a job and that we had learned
how to live frugally when serving
our country in the Peace Corps.
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143
Amanda, Bloomington, MN
For the last five years, I have
been commuting 3 hours per day.
I have a wonderful job, and I feel
blessed to have a job in this economy at all, but it’s not been easy.
When we found out that we were
expecting out first child, I saw how
quickly my priorities were going to
need to change.
Right now, I have found that my
hands are bound. I cannot look for
a job closer to home without losing my leave benefits, which would
mean having to take unpaid leave
when my daughter is born. Additionally, I spoke with our HR representative, only to find that, if I were
placed on bed rest, by a doctor, I
could use up my protected leave
(FMLA) BEFORE my daughter is
born. Thankfully in Minnesota, the
law give me 6 more weeks, if that
were to happen. That means that
I would have the minimum amount
of time that doctor recommend
that women take to heal from
child birth. If I had a C-Section, I
would need to go back BEFORE the
minimum amount of time doctors
recommend to heal. Doesn’t that
seem ridiculous? It barely give us
time to adjust to having a baby, let
alone time to bond and get used to
being parents.
Now I am trying to find affordable daycare that will be open for
long enough and I am anticipating
having to rush back to work with
minimal time off. That way I might
be able to use my vacation time to
leave early daily so that I can afford the daycare.It is so frustrating
to know that I will not be able to
provide my daughter with the attention that she deserves right after she is born. It is amazing to me,
that, as Americans who have such
a focus on ‘family,’ that we spend
so much time prioritizing working
over the well being of the children
born into our families. I am well
educated and we live in a two income family. Both dad and I are
fully employed.
144
How do we expect families to
survive if they aren’t in our situation? America is broken, and we
have an opportunity to foster an
environment that allows parents
the ability to heal properly and to
take proper care of their children
while still paying their mortgages
and other bills. Isn’t that good for
the economy? Isn’t that good for
the future?Let’s do better.
Leslie, Brooklyn Park, MN
I am a mother and a barber. I
never had more than 4 weeks off
after giving birth, (and no paid
time off). I had only 2 weeks off after my second child was born and
only 3 weeks after my third child’s
birth. I think it was really inhumane
to expect this of anyone. I did manage to breastfeed all my children
but it was a huge struggle.It is time
for the US to catch up with the rest
of the developed countries of the
world and give our children the
best start possible in life.
Toni, St. Paul, MN
I am a school bus driver and
mother of three boys. After the
birth of my last child I took three
months off from work, unpaid.
Thankfully my family made the sacrifice with little complaint, but we
SHOULD NOT have to sacrifice! I
work hard for my paychecks, I volunteer in my community, I also run a
nonprofit that exists to help families
in my community. We need to support families! Mothers and fathers
should have paid leave, period.
Erin, St. Paul, MN
I am taking a six-month unpaid
leave of absence for my maternity
leave. We are running up credit
card debt, but my employment,
which requires I spend all day visiting clients or in the car, would not
allow for pumping of breast milk
without taking a significant pay
cut (I get paid by how much I can
bill for my services). I theoretically
could have pumped in the car, but
in the middle of winter in Minnesota, I did not see that happening.
Our financial situation is not
ideal, but the first six months of
my daughter’s life will only happen
once, and I am committed to breastfeeding her for the first six months.
Furthermore, although I have two
Master’s degrees, I am in a lowpaying, woman-dominated field
(social work), so my income after
child care expenses will not net us
much anyway. I am planning to go
back to work in a few months primarily for my professional growth
and in hopes of eventually earning
enough to make working financially worthwhile in the future.
Mona, Starbuck, MN
I did not have paid leave when
we had our first child. Due to complications from a c-section, I had
to take extra time off. That was 28
years ago and that unpaid leave affected our finances then and continues to affect our finances now. I
was not able to retire at the usual
retirement date due to the time I
had taken off. It also lowered my
retirement benefits. I was surprised
to see how many countries provide
for a paid leave and we here in the
United States do not.
Mona, Starbuck, MN
I did not have paid leave when
we had our first child. Due to complications from a c-section, I had
to take extra time off. That was 28
years ago and that unpaid leave affected our finances then and continues to affect our finances now. I
was not able to retire at the usual
retirement date due to the time I
had taken off. It also lowered my
retirement benefits. I was surprised
to see how many countries provide
for a paid leave and we here in the
United States do not.
MomsRising.org
Leslie, Forest Lake, MN
I didn’t have any paid leave, but
at least my spouse did. With our
first child, I decided to leave work,
as it was grant-funded & would end
soon, rather than return to work a
couple more months & jeopardize
breastfeeding. This made me ineligible for any unemployment benefits, despite that I’ve sought work
since.
My spouse was able to use accumulated sick leave for 6 of 12 weeks
FMLA allowed by law – he could
use another 6 weeks of vacation
for FMLA, except that his employer
(federal agency) said it wasn’t necessary for care of mother & infant
after vaginal birth, & wouldn’t
grant it, altho he had enough vacation accumulated to cover it. It has
been the same with the birth of our
second child.
We’ve made financial sacrifices
so that I may be home to care for
our children & breastfeed as long as
possible. I think my spouse should
be able to set aside $5K tax free
(dependent-care savings account)
to pay me for this work so that he
may work, same as any other outside childcare facility. My work at
home is not valued whatsoever.
Annie, Minneapolis, MN
I gave birth in an Israeli hospital to twins by C-section and most
recently, a VBAC. In both cases, I
was granted a sum of money (several hundred dollars, doubled for
the twins) to get us started with
our new baby, along with paid
maternity leave for 3 1/2 months
and optional unpaid maternity
leave for an additional 3 months.
Women who have worked for
the same employer for a number
of years are, in fact, entitled up to
a year’s unpaid maternity leave.
I was paid 85% of my full salary,
and for the rest of my three children’s lives as minors, will receive
approximately $100 a month di-
MomsRising.org
rectly deposited into my bank
account. Though this $100 is not
much, it certainly is better than
nothing.
My children benefited from
time with their mother, and I was
able to recover from the birth
naturally, on my own time, and
continue nursing my children.Of
course, I did not have to pay a
cent for my children’s births (and
this would be the case whether
or not I was employed), and I got
nothing but top-quality care in
both cases. Israel is far from being the best country in terms of its
healthcare and childbirth benefits
(we could learn a good deal from
Sweden or France, for instance),
but compared to the United
States, the wealthiest country in
the world, it sure is miles ahead in
its care and concern for the health
of families.
made choices that prioritize my
baby’s physical and emotional
health over financial security and
status. I am fortunate to be partnered and have the basics covered
(housing/food etc). But my school
loans are in deferment, we have
gone down to one car, dropped
cable, dropped our cell phones
and use a landline. I struggle to
make my credit card payments.
It baffles me that a country of
such resources is unwilling to provide basic benefits for families. No
wonder the crime rate is among
the highest in the world.
If I had a paid leave that was
LONG enough to establish breastfeeding I would have considered
keeping my job and returning to
work. But since I’ve had to quit,
I’m considering staying unemployed longer... and yes, will continue to use the resources that I
qualify for: WIC and state insurance. Would it cost the nation less
in the long run to provide paid
leave? Seems to me like it would.
I’d be back in the work force and
earning enough to provide for my
family. Instead, I’m home with my
precious boy, nursing and doing
laundry and trying to survive on 2
hour stretches of sleep!
Sharon, Minneapolis, MN
Cinnamin, Lindstrom, MN
I gave birth to a beautiful
baby boy on September 28, 2010.
Though I loved my job, I worked
for a small employer with no option for any kind of a paid leave.
Furthermore, the hope was that I
would return six weeks after the
birth of my baby. So, I did the
thing that made sense for my
baby’s well-being and my sanity: I
quit. I knew I couldn’t breastfeed
and care for my son adequately if
I tried to return to my stressful job
after only six weeks.
I gave birth to my first baby in
2007. I had to endure a c-section
and was not able to get help or any
assistance paying for my surgery
and/or hostipal stay. I opted to take
12 weeks off for recovery and healing. I was not allowed to get paid
for any of it from my employer. I
was not allowed insurance from my
job to help out with any bills.
My heart goes out to the all
the women who do so! I am now
an unemployed, WIC recipient on
Medical Assistance. I graduated
with honors and a 3.75 GPA from
college. I have a Master’s Degree
and worked in my field. But I am
now officially in poverty because
I decided to have a child – and
My husband and I not only had
this new wonderful baby to take
care but we also had to take care of
all my bills and our new insurance
for me and the baby on one salary.
We lived pay check to pay check
and now will have to do the same
when baby number 2 comes along
in August. It would be nice to have
some type of help with baby.
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145
Kyra, Minneapolis, MN
I had the luxury of being home
for nearly two years after the birth
of my first son – it was amazing!
My husband was laid off and I went
back to work while he stayed home
with our son. With our second son,
I had to pay for short-term disability to be able to have some income
for six weeks after his birth. Since
when did being pregnant and having a child become a disability!? It’s
clearly a sign of how little our society cares for women and children.
The night before I left for work,
I held my baby and cried. I was going to leave him in excellent care
with his daddy, but leaving for
work that next day was still one of
the hardest things I’ve ever done. I
can’t even imagine the anguish if I
would have had to leave him in the
care of strangers. I don’t know that
I could have done it. Unpaid leave
is not enough – we must offer paid
maternity and paternity leave. The
research shows the importance of
attachment, both for the parents
and the baby – time spent together
is not wasted time!
about three weeks off before I begin working again. We simply can’t
afford to go without paychecks any
longer than that. After some of the
stories I’ve heard from friends and
fellow parents, I’m just glad I get
to keep my job. I honestly can’t believe this is how we treat families
and children in the U.S.
Andrea, Andover, MN
I have two children and when
I was pregnant with each my employer allowed me to save up my
vacation / sick time and use it towards my maternity leave. I had
five weeks of short term disability
insurance that paid out at 100% of
my take home pay and my saved up
vacation time supplemented this
and allowed me to stay at home
for two months total. After that,
although I wanted to use the four
remaining weeks allowed to me under the Family Medical Leave Act, I
had to go back to work, because I
could not afford the unpaid medical leave and had to begin paying
for child care so that I could earn
money to pay other bills as well.
I have a nearly-five-year old son,
and a daughter due to arrive in late
March. I’m a self-employed writer
and editor, and I’ve worked almost
full-time for the same client/employer for about 5-1/2 years now.
While this employer has been generous about retaining my gig for
me while offering a few weeks of
leave – the notion of *paid* maternity leave, for myself or my spouse,
is something we’ve longed for, and
that we know is treated a basic
safety net offered to new parents
virtually everywhere else around
the world – but it sure feels like a
pipe dream in our lives.
I’ve been very blessed and am
not complaining. It’s a travesty in
this country that we do not support families more fully. Allowing
mothers to, during those crucial
first months with their infant, stay
at home and recover, while also
encouraging them to breastfeed,
would save tax payers millions in
health care savings as mother and
child bond, and the child receives
human manufactured nutrition
that helps their immune systems
throughout their lifetime and saves
the family money not spent on formula, not to mention the health
benefits to the mother that chooses to nurse (reduced risk of diabetes, cancer, etc.).
My husband is cobbling together a bit of vacation and sick time
(which amounts to two weeks off
for him to stay home with me after
the baby’s born); I’m going to take
And what about fathers? They
wake up at 3 a.m. when the baby
cries, too! Everyone needs time
to adjust to the change a new infant brings into a family’s routine.
Susannah, St. Paul, MN
146
Moms need Dads there to take a
break. Dads need time to bond
with their babies, too! We need
‘true’ Family Leave that focuses on
the needs of families.
Melinda, Forest Lake, MN
I was fortunate enough to have
12 weeks off, however the financial
stress of not ‘working’ had an inpact on me and my family. Having
to return to work because of financial reasons was a hard decission to
make.
Mattie, Minneapolis, MN
I was very lucky to have had
eight weeks of paid leave from
my job, with the option of combining vacation, sick and short
term disability time for another
four weeks – which I took. Now
that I am back at work we cobble
child care together with the help
of a relative, a paid sitter, and my
husband and I. I don’t know how
we would have done it if I had
had to return to work right after
our son’s birth – not only was my
body not ready, but he wouldn’t
have been able to establish good
breastfeeding and sleeping habits, and I would not have the skills
and experience to read his signs
and cries.
Moreover, I would not have
had that incredibly precious time
to fall in love with him and just enjoy being a mom. I am so thankful
for the leave I did have – though
I wish it were longer – and I believe every family should have this
opportunity. It’s important for the
health, well-being and happiness
of an entire new generation.
Susannah, St. Paul, MN
I work as a freelance editor and
writer. Forget paid family leave
– I didn’t even have access to unpaid leave. I simply took a couple
of weeks off when daughter was
MomsRising.org
born nearly a year ago, I started
working again after just three
weeks. I’m a key contributor to our
family’s budget; if I’m not working, we can’t pay our mortgage
and other fixed expenses.
There is no safety net for working people in my situation, no
guarantee of a job waiting for us
at the other end of even six weeks’
worth of maternity leave. Thank
goodness, my husband works for
the state of Minnesota, so our
family has access to good medical insurance through him. When
I consider the situations of other
women I know – entrepreneurial, self-employed, hard-working
mothers – I count myself really
lucky.
At least with my second child,
there were no complications for us
after or during birth; no c-section,
no serious recovery to contend
with. When my first was born,
however, he came unexpectedly
six weeks early. Between a week
of bedrest at the hospital, and
three weeks for the baby in the
hospital after delivery, followed
by a month of worry over a very
small preemie – I didn’t pick my
freelance work up again for two
months. We’re still paying off the
credit card debt we accrued then –
and my one-time preemie son just
turned six last week.
When I read about the months
and months of support for families
in other countries – in both the developed and still-developing world
– I’m appalled at the way we treat
parents and babies in this country.
I cannot believe, in a country so
prosperous, that we can’t do better than this.
Sarah, St. Paul, MN
When my daughter was born
5 years ago, I was able to use my
PTO until my short term disability
kicked in for my maternity leave.
I worked up until the day before I
delivered and was able to take off
MomsRising.org
3 months between the PTO and ST
disability. I was very lucky to have
had a very healthy pregnancy and
an employer who did offer these
options, although I bristle at the
idea that having a baby makes you
disabled!
For me, I cannot imagine having
had to go back to work as a first
time mother after only 6 weeks of
leave – 3 months was essential, a
year would have been better. The
first year of life for a baby is so essential and so important, but most
mothers cannot financially afford
to take off as long as they truly
need to care for their baby.
Denise, Minneapolis, MN
When my son was born in 2003,
my husband and I decided it was
important enough for me to be
home during the first few weeks
of his life that we would use our
savings to live and cover costs. I
ended up having a c-section and
was therefore eligible for short
term disability for about six weeks
after his birth. After using the
mandatory week of vacation/sick
time, I took the disability and then
used up remaining vacation time
combined with time off with no
pay to enable me to stay home a
full twelve weeks.
I needed this time to recuperate
from surgery and begin to make
the adjustment to parenthood.
Having decided to breast feed, this
time was vital to establish patterns
and work into the new routine.
When returning to work, I spent
about 30 minutes twice a day
locked in an office with my breast
pump. My employer happened
to be cooperative and allow this
routine for about six months until
my son was done breast feeding.
I know many employees aren’t so
lucky and the breast feeding time
is cut short when babies need it
most. I am grateful that we had
savings to allow us to have this
time together.
MISSISSIPPI
Heather, Tupelo, MS
I am a working first time mom.
My ‘maternity’ leave consisted of
my two weeks paid vacation time
I had saved, two weeks of sick time
I had saved all year, and 8 hours of
built up paid time off (PTO). I then
took an extra 2 weeks unpaid leave
because I had a cesarean and needed the extra time to heal before
lifting 50 lb trays in surgery where
I work.
I currently live in one of the
poorest states in the United States,
I work in A HOSPITAL, and I barely
had any benefits or rights. I would
have been fired for being pregnant
if I hadn’t been here as long as I
have, and this is a fire-at-will state.
I had to rush back to work and
could only breastfeed for 3 weeks
as I dried up from not having the
time to work with baby.
We NEED family leave to be
paid, or at least to be entitled to
a portion of our wages for at least
the first year. My only issues are the
mothers out there living off the
government that never got jobs
and got $9,000 in taxes for their
three kids, whereas I busted my
behind WHILE pregnant and barely
got 8 weeks leave before I had to
rush back to make money to pay
bills and only got $2,000 in taxes
filing JOINTLY.
Felicia, Southaven, MS
When my daughter was born, I
had to use what little vacation time
I had to pay for the time I was off
work. I was off work for 6 weeks,
but only had enough vacation to
cover 3 weeks. So I was without a
paycheck for 3 weeks. It was tough
and it took me a while to catch up
from the lost wages. The U.S. is
supposed to be one of the most sophisticated and progressive nations
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147
in the world, yet third world countries have better maternity leave
than we do? There is something
deseprately wrong with that.
MISSOURI
CB, Saint Louis, MO
For both of my daughters I
used all the paid vacation and
sick time I had accrued, and then
I took the remainder of my 12
week leave unpaid. This is the
standard for everyone I know.
Some women were refused the
possibility of having ANY unpaid
leave, but were forced to go back
to work as soon as they used up
their accrued vacation/sick time.
When I took my unpaid leave, I
was reminded that as I worked in
a small company, they were not
required to meet the minimum
maternity leave standards, but
did so to demonstrate that they
were ‘pro-family’.
My job was held for me, but
after the birth of my second child
I was unable to negotiate working even one day a week from
home, so I very reluctantly quit a
job I loved and that had a great
future so I could raise my own
children instead of turning them
over to someone else 40 hours a
week. We went to a one-income
family. Every woman I know plans
her pregnancy to include significant financial hardship due to the
loss of one income. We plan our
employment status and future
around the possible impact of a
child. Negotiating vacation and
sick days become critical in jobhunting, as it’s the only way to
reduce the hardship.
Most women go back to work
whenever their vacation/sick time
is used up. And then they hope
that nobody gets sick for at least
90 days. Not one woman I know
has received paid maternity leave!
148
Hilary, Columbia, MO
I did not have paid maternity
leave. We foreclosed on our home
one month to the day of my daughter being born. Cause and effect?
Tough to say, but knowing that we
would have a certain period of time
without my income greatly impacted our decision to stop paying the
mortgage so we could have money
on hand to care for our family, pay
other bills and keep some semblance of financial security.
My partner is in construction
and he had very little work due
to a slow building winter. He dissolved his business and picked up
work with colleagues as much as
possible. I was placed on bed rest
at 32 weeks due to signs of premature labor. I took FMLA for the bed
rest, but FMLA only secured my position at my company, it didn’t help
us in any way financially. We bled
our savings dry while trying to stay
healthy and keep up with some of
our bills. After my daughter was
born ten days after her expected
due date, we were exhausted of
nearly all our resources. We moved
when the babe was three weeks
old into a rental and I prepared to
go back to work in another three
weeks.
I was lucky enough to have a
great supply of breastmilk and a
quality pump to use at work. My
daughter is 19 months and we are
still struggling to get on our feet financially. We have sacrificed many
things to raise our daughter to be
healthy and happy. Should it really have to be a sacrifice? Mothers
should be respected in this country;
offering paid parental leave is very
important in showing this to mothers.
Nancy, St. Charles, MO
I had paid maternity leave with
my daughter. It was twelve weeks
of paid time. I was so grateful that
I had time with my baby and didnt
have to stress out about money. I
think every family deserves some
kind of paid time to spend quality
time with there new baby.
Susan, Kansas City, MO
I thank God that I was able to
stay home on 12 weeks of paid leave
when my son was born. Thanks
to this gift, I could establish a solid
breastfeeding routine (still breastfeeding at 11.5 months), pay my bills,
and learn how to effectively take
care of a newborn. I can’t imagine
how I would have been able to manage if it weren’t for this benefit. My
spouse had to use all of her vacation
days to be able to take 3 weeks off to
help at home. We could not afford
to take any unpaid leave.
Betsy, Kansas City, MO
I was one of the lucky women
who could scrimp and save so I
could stay home with my children.
Paid leaves for parents is just good
common sense.
Cathy, St. Joseph, MO
I was shocked to learn that I
would not get paid during my
6-weeks medical recovery time after
the birth of my son on July 4th, 1991.
My employer told me he didn’t even
have to allow me the 6-week medical
time, so I better just be thankful he
was going to be nice enough to let
me take the time without pay. I was
devastated. I was scared. I wanted
to nurse my baby and bond with
him. A co-worker told me I shouldn’t
breastfeed because I’d leak all over
the place and besides she couldn’t
wait to get back to work after her
son was born. I felt like there must
be something wrong with me.
I told my husband I wanted to
quit my job and he was worried we
couldn’t pay our bills. I told my mom
I wanted to quit my job and she said
I had no right to put that kind of
pressure on my husband. She said
life was not the same as it was in the
MomsRising.org
60’s. I had to work, so I quit nursing
my baby after only one week because of my fears and went back to
work when he was only 6 weeks old
because I had no other choice.
Thankfully, I found a book by
Dr. Brenda Hunter called, ‘Home By
Choice’. I read her book everyday at
lunch and cried everyday. My only
support to make the important decision to bond with my baby came
through the words on a page. I’m
so thankful President Clinton signed
the Family Leave Act, so I was able to
have a full 12 weeks to bond with my
daughter born in 1993. And thanks
to the support I found in a book, I
very proudly quit my job on July
22nd, 1994.
My son will soon graduate with
his Chemistry degree and my daughter will graduate from High School
this May. My other two daughters
are doing well in school. All of my
kids will be positive contributers to
society because they have parents
who cared to bond with them and
be actively involved in their lives. I
now work full time again for a Swedish owned company. When I learned
Swedish colleagues get a full year
to bond with their babies, I decided
Americans need to do a better job
to nurture our families and create
laws that protect families in order
to build a stronger America. Every
mother and father deserve the option to nurture their child from birth
as well as paid days for sick time for
their child.
Erin, St. Louis, MO
I work with many breastfeeding
mothers who have trouble returning so soon to jobs because they
need the money and they have no
paid maternity leave. Breastfeeding a newborn is a full-time job
in and of itself taking on average
7-8 hours of breastfeeding time/24
hours. This is breastfeeding time
only: each breastfeed takes 2040- minutes each and the newborn,
up until around 3 months of age,
MomsRising.org
usually needs 10-12 breastfeeding/24 hours. The time it takes for
the other care needs of a newborn
is extra time spent. If breastfeeding
is not done often enough then the
mother is unlikely to succeed with
breastfeeding and will wean early.
I see this all the time in my work.
Since the USA is promoting
breastfeeding and our 2020 goals
are to get breastfeeding rates up, it
makes since that we NEED to have
a national paid maternity leave so
that breastfeeding can get off to a
good start!
Jeanne, St. Charles, MO
I’m a single mother .... I had 3
children and their father basically
abandoned them. Why is Paid
Family Leave important? I think
it speaks for its ownself – Why
should children be abandoned by
both parents? I haven’t received
a paid vacation in over 15 years,
haven’t been on unemployment a
day in my life. I worked day and
night to provide for my children –
while the father went his own way.
Who would have to take off work
without pay to provide for my sick
child? How many employers should
a mother have to go through that
will allow her to care for her children?
The sad thing about all of this is
even after this goes into law – there
will still be employers that won’t
hire single mothers! Leaving women and children subjected to abuse
by strange men in order to support
them! Bottom line is WE are being
kept down by the lack of equal pay,
lack of paid leave and yet the abandoning fathers of these innocent
children are allowed to emotionally and physically abandon them
– without penalty for the years of
neglect. Is there any question as to
why this Paid Family Leave should
be LAW? There is no question.
Pass it.
Juli, St Louis, MO
I’m so incredibly grateful that
I work for a school district that
gives paid maternity leave! I’m a
first time mom with a 7 week old
baby girl and I can’t imagine the
last few weeks if I would have had
to work. My baby is a really good
baby (compared to some of the stories I’ve heard). She’s not colicky,
breastfeeds well, doesn’t cry without reason, but like a normal baby,
she needs constant attention.
Aside from the fact that childcare is a huge expense, if I’d put
her in childcare from birth, there’s
no way I would have learned all
that I have in these last 7 weeks.
There’s no way I could have continued breastfeeding her and both my
and her quality of life would have
decreased dramatically. I still dread
the day I have to go back, in about
three weeks, but I’m comforted by
the fact that my husband, who also
gets paternity leave, will stay with
her until the end of the school year.
Melissa, Imperial, MO
My daughter was born two
months premature in April of 2009.
She spent 3 weeks at the hospital
before coming home with us. 3
weeks later, my office was calling to say that my short term disability was over and I needed to
return to work. Never mind that
I was physically in no condition to
return to work, never mind that my
daughter had only been home for
3 weeks, and never mind that HER
doctors were saying ‘NO WAY’ to
group care until she was at least 12
weeks old.
I ended up taking another 6
weeks of unpaid leave, as it was in
her best interest. We are STILL trying to recover financially – 6 weeks
of unpaid leave on top of medical
bill after medical bill – we maxed
out our out-of-pocket on insurance
co-pays that year for both my hos-
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149
pital stay and hers, not to mention
the additional bills we incurred
because she was a preemie needing additional doctor visits, RSV
vaccine, etc, etc.Paid family leave
could have made all the difference
to us. It is astonishing that we consider ourselves so ‘advanced,’ and
yet we have no paid family leave.
Skylar, Springfield, MO
When my son was born, I was
fortunate enough to work at a
place that offered 1 week of paid
leave. The rest of my 12 weeks was
a mixture of vacation, sick leave
and unpaid time off. I started back
to work in the winter with an infant in daycare and no time off to
deal with a sick baby or doctor’s appointments for my child, let alone
myself. From that point on I was
constantly struggling to build up
any kind of sick leave.
Any leave that I earned had to
be saved in case my son got sick,
which means I went to work sick,
even when I shouldn’t have. Having paid leave would have saved
my sick leave for when I returned
to work, and that would have allowed me to take better care of
myself. Taking better care of myself would have allowed me to be a
better mom and a better employee.
MONTANA
Wendy, Bozeman, MT
I believe the Unites States’ lack
of support for working mothers to
be a dirty little secret that no one
really knows about until it happens to them. During the birth
of my second child I held a good
paying scientist position at one of
our nation’s top public universities.
However, the amount of paid leave
I had was only the amount of sick
and vacation leave I had stored for
that year of employment, which
amounted to less than two weeks.
I had worked at that institution for
150
only a year which is why I hadn’t
been able to build any more leave
than that.
that they wanted; in short, they
had a great start with parents who
devoted time and energy to them.
As a young career woman, I followed my husband on his career
path to postdoc so I wasn’t able
to build any kind of long term employment at one institution during that time. I was allowed to
take 6 months of unpaid leave as
my boss agreed to hold my job for
me. However, unpaid leave when
the other spouse is in a postdoc
position is not enough for a family of four. While I am not a person that believes strongly in large
government subsidized programs, I
do believe that our country needs
to take care of its working mothers
more like much of the rest of the
world does, perhaps looking at Europe’s model as an example. While
it does reflect a more socialized system, I believe that when the U.S.
invests in its families through working mothers, our entire country will
benefit and there will be less of a
breakdown in the family unit.
Parenting is the hardest job I
ever did, and I can’t imagine how
much harder it would have been
without that good start. Everybody
deserves time to bond, to get well
themselves, to be established as a
family. We, in America, are backwards in our approach to maternity
leave – many European countries
provide six to twelve months with
partial pay for working mothers.
My time was without pay, but I’d
do it again in a heartbeat.
Many mothers are at the beginning of their careers and unable to
have stored any kind of long-term
leave, which is why having no program for them is so damaging. I felt
like I was punished for having my
children at a younger age (26 and 28)
before I was able to build leave rather than waiting into my 30s when I
would have had more leave stored
up. Not at all a fair or just situation.
Patricia, Great Falls, MT
I feel so fortunate because I got
to have ten months with my first
baby and 18 months with my last;
in that time, we bonded, and I am
more sure every day that without
that bonding time, they wouldn’t
have turned out as well as they did.
They were smart kids; they both
could read before they entered
kindergarten; they went on to be
national contestants in speech and
debate; they both earned college
degrees; they both have great jobs
Jennifer, Missoula, MT
I have two beautiful children. I
had one week off ofter my son was
born and I had 1 day off after my
daughter was born or I would have
lost my job. I know that having
paid time off is essential. I also had
to work the day my Father died in
order to keep my employment.
Beverlie, Bozeman, MT
Kyle was born on 10-23-83 he
was born by c-section. I worked
until I went into labor. It was 56
hours of labor and he was stuck in
the birthing canal. Believe it or not
50 years previous we both would
have died. I had to write several
letters to get the time off. I taught
first grade at the time, lived 10
miles from West Yellowstone with
no neighbors, had to ski or snowmobile a mile to our car in sub-zero
temperatures. The closest hospital
90 miles away through a treacherous canyon which could take you
anywhere from an hour and a half
to four hours in one direction.
Roundtrip, 3 to 8 hours and that
doesn’t include the time you need
to see a doctor or get fresh vegetables. Time with your children
when they are young is essential.
Time for Fathers as well as Mothers. There is no more precious time
spent on earth.
MomsRising.org
Lisa, St. Ignatius, MT
My daughter was 11 weeks premature, and so required a 6 week
hospital stay. Fortunately for us,
my husband and I were employed
in Germany and so, although she
was born in Montana, we fell under the laws of the EU. Not only
did I receive a salary for the year
of maternity leave I took after her
birth, my husband was also able to
take 2 months of paid leave within
the first year, allowing him to return to see her in the States and
accompany us back to Berlin. We
believe what we gave her that year
has made a huge impact on her development and our connection as a
family.
Melissa, Missoula, MT
When I had my first child, Owen,
I had a job that paid for maternity
leave. Becoming a mom was the
most challenging thing I’ve ever
done, and if I’d had to worry about
finances on top of trying to figure out how to care for a baby, I
would’ve been completely overwhelmed. Thankfully, I had 12
weeks to get to know my baby,
care for my baby, breastfeed and
ultimately, decide whether I could
stand to leave my baby at the end
of maternity leave and return to
work. I decided I could not leave
my 12-week old baby with someone else and left my job. I’ve been
home with Owen ever since, and he
is now almost 3.
Women should not be forced
to choose between caring for their
brand-new babies and going back
to work too soon. 12 weeks in a babies life is the blink of an eye, and
it is the most important time in a
mother and baby’s life. If we as a
country do not show mothers that
they have value, what does that say
about us? MANY other countries
have amazing maternity leave policies. We really should do more to
support mothers (and fathers) during this incredible transition. Lastly,
MomsRising.org
I will say that I experienced some
post-partum depression.
ANYTHING that eases the load
of a new mother helps reduce the
risk of having post-partum depression. If I were worried about
money, it would’ve just added that
much more stress to an already difficult (yet wonderful) situation.
NEBRASKA
Bambi, Omaha, NE
I was getting ready to have my
3rd son. I had discussed with my
boss that I would be required to
take more time off to attend doctors appointments for the last
month of my pregnancy but that
it appears I would be induced so I
could plan the date I was having
the baby. I did not want to lose my
job and so I discussed potentially
taking maternity leave early so that
they could cover my shifts temporarily. I was assured everything was
fine and a week later, 2 weeks before I had my son, I was fired and
told that they could not afford to
hold my position while I was away
having my baby.
It could not have been a worse
time to lose my job as I had 2 children and getting ready to have my
3rd. If paid leave had existed, they
would have been required to allow for my leave instead of making it permanent. No one will hire
someone 2 weeks away from having a baby. So instead, we made
due the best we could by cutting
back in expenditures. It is sad that
not only is there no pay, but often
times, jobs and benefits are lost
with the experience. This only adds
to postpartum depression as having a brand new baby is stressful
and then mount money and family
worries on top of it and you have a
sure fire recipe for disaster. Please
help families to make having a
child memorable in a positive way.
It seems they are being punished
for growing their families.
Alison, Omaha, NE
Please make life better for
young parents and young children
by making quality daycare and paid
parental leave standard in the U.S.
In my family, we marry young (between age 18 and 22) and have our
small families while we are young
(before age 25). We have used
birth control for generations, and
we plan each child. Raising kids
with healthy minds and bodies, a
strong work ethic, and the spirit
to think for themselves has always
been important in my family.
So when a woman in my family
has a baby, we don’t work. As soon
as my mother found out she was
pregnant, she quit working. I decided to not work until my children
started grade school. But none of
us has been wealthy enough to do
this. We were all at poverty level,
but we scraped by to spend quality time with our kids rather than
risk them growing up without the
capacity to bond with other human
beings. And we didn’t want to put
our children at risk around strangers in our absence, through the
substandard daycare that was typical when I was raising my children.
Quality daycare is crucial, and many
young parents must work. More
of us would work when we have
young children if quality daycare
and paid parental leave were standard.
My daughter and I have put ourselves through college after we had
kids. Today I have 3 undergraduate degrees, and my daughter is a
special education teacher in public school – she is working on her
masters. We are hard workers who
sacrificed years of income to insure
our kids had proper care when they
were young. Please make life better for young parents and young
children by making quality daycare
and paid parental leave standard in
the U.S.
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151
Danielle, Kearney, NE
I am a stay-at-home mother of
three great kids, all under 5. I wasn’t
able to get paid leave for any of my
children. After our first, my husband
and I swore I would stay at home and
we would be fine. Nope, didn’t happen. My income went and so did our
hopes of prosperity! So I went back
to work when our son was only a
month old so we wouldn’t get evicted.
Baby number two, again went
back to work but this time after the
standard 6 week leave. I actually
ended up not making a penny for almost 3 months due to owing for our
health care benefits while on my unpaid leave which sent up into a bad
financial spiral. With our last child,
who is only three months old, I had
built up some sick time and used that
along with all the vacation hours I
had available from my job as a store
manager. Still didn’t get us very far
after the hours were used up within
a month and we still had to pay out
for our health insurance. After the
hours were gone and things looked
bleak, I ended up putting in my resignation and I am, as stated above,
now a stay at home mom.
Money is beyond tight. With
each child we have gotten a little
more behind because with the increased cost to raise our family we
lost money from me not working
while recovering from childbirth.
We are responsible people, those
who paid for our health insurance
and took care of our selves instead
of living off of the government and
it ended up making us worse off. So
now guess what? My family has to
rely on help from the government to
survive. Paid family leave just makes
sense. Having a child is supposed to
be the most joyous time in your life
so why is it that the US makes it one
of the most stressful? Why are we
penalized for having babies? When
families need money most, they get
nothing. Is that right? What would
you say, what would you do if that
family was you?
152
NEVADA
Shana, Las Vegas, NV
I am one of the few privileged
people in this country actually able
to use FMLA to take a full 12 weeks
off of work following the birth of
each of my 2 children. I worked
with my organization long enough
to have accumulated sick leave
and vacation time so that I could
receive full pay. As fortunate and
privileged as I am, even 12 weeks
didn’t feel like enough time. My
babies needed me, but as the primary income-earner in my family I
needed to work to support my family.
Annette, Henderson, NV
I had my son in 1979. I worked
for Eastman Kodak Company and
at that time all, or most companies
paid 6-8 weeks of Maternity Leave.
It was a given. I had complications,
had to stay in the hospital for 10
days after his birth and had bed rest
for 3 weeks after that. All it took,
at that time, was a phone call to
Kodak from my doctor and my paid
leave was extended for 3 months.
If I didn’t have that afforded to
me, I don’t know what I would have
done. I can’t imagine a woman giving birth and not having time from
work for bonding with her newborn, time for her hormones to
get back in sinc, and the time just
to heal and get her strength back.
In my opinion, we have become a
society of greed...and mean-spiritedness.
thing for our community, but we
don’t help eachother out!!! What
happened to it takes a village?
Melissa, Las Vegas, NV
My daughter was born 2/26/12. I
was ‘lucky’ enough to have worked
long enough at my job to be ensured three months off and have
a job to return to. Leave with my
company is unpaid and the premiums for health insurance have to
be paid by me during my time off. I
fortunately had hardly used any of
my paid time off that had accrued
and was able to ask for six weeks
off.
Unfortunately, my daughter had
to spend seven weeks in NICU. So,
in order to be with her and have
six days with her at home I took an
extra two weeks of unpaid leave.
My PTO was calculated and paid to
me incorrectly so I actually had two
pay periods where I did not receive
pay and am now paying out a little
each paycheck to cover the weeks
where my premium was not paid.
This in addition to seven weeks
worth of NICU treatment and currently five doctors and one in-home
nurse that I have to pay for. So, I
must work full-time at a crappy job
making very little money to pay for
not only our everyday bills, but for
the privillege of having a baby that
also now has special needs and I
can hardly spend any time with at
all (as well as time away from a six
year-old too) because our country
is so far behind when it comes to
family leave. My daughter can’t
even have breastmilk anymore as it
has dried up due to being unable
to pump at work.
Cristen, Henderson, NV
I had to earn my sick leave as
school teacher and I tried to plan my
pregnancy for summer. I endended
up taking a leave of abscence for
a year, no pay or affordable insurance and I couldn’t go back to the
same school when I returned. Having children is the most important
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Esther, Sanbornton, NH
My daughter had a difficult time
breastfeeding at first. I spent the
first month of her life with recurrent mastitis and painful, bleeding
MomsRising.org
nipples. Finally, when she was four
weeks old we discovered she was
tongue-tied and had it remedied.
Still, it took several weeks more
for her to learn to nurse properly
and comfortably. If I had not been
able to take an extended maternity
leave, I probably would not have
been able to continue breastfeeding. This would have been detrimental to her health and to my
feelings of success as a mother.
Rhonda, Manchester, NH
My story has a happy ending,
despite the fact that FMLA does
not apply to any business that employs less than 50 people in NH.
My employer is a family man who
owns his family’s business. Even
though he was under no obligation to offer me Maternity Leave,
he generously gave me the full 12
weeks....unpaid, but 12 weeks with
a guarantee that my job would be
in place when and if I wished to return. For that and many other reasons I will be forever grateful. He
was also kind enough to give me a
‘bonus’ to help defray some of the
lost income. It wasn’t as much as
I would have earned while working, but it was a lifesaver. He was
not required to do any of this under the law. I have no complaints
as my boss went over and above
what NH requires for maternity
leave (which is next to nothing).
I was able to bond and establish
a strong breastfeeding relationship with my baby due to the time
I was allowed. My only complaint
is WHY are there so few paid and
unpaid provisions made for new
mothers and fathers at the NH
State level?
I appreciated EVERY day of the
12 weeks I received as I don’t think
I opened my eyes until week 6.
This was a time in which some of
my fellow moms were required to
report back to work.
MomsRising.org
Janine, Milford, NH
When I had my baby I was not
going to let anything interfere
with her (and me) getting the
health and emotional benefits of
breastfeeding. Pumping at work
eliminates the emotional benefits,
plus it would be mostly impossible
at my job.
I had to quit. There would always be jobs but there would not
always be a baby who needed me.
Fast forward a few years and I am
working part time, we entered
the Home Affordable Modification program to avoid forclosure,
we have compiled large credit card
debt, family members have bailed
us out at times, and we are still
scraping by.
My daughter will not be going to preschool with her peers
because we can not afford it. Paid
family leave would have allowed
me to start off with income and
keep a job to return to. That would
have us in a very different position
today.
Heather, Derry, NH
When my second son was born,
I hadn’t accrued enough vacation
days to allow for a 12-week paid
maternity leave. My husband’s salary couldn’t support our growing
family; missing even a month’s paycheck would have made it impossible to pay even our most urgent
bills.
So, I spent the weeks before
and after his birth desperately trying to negotiate with my employer,
trying to find a way to care for my
baby while maintaining my paycheck. This was emotionally draining at a time when I most needed
my mental resources. Luckily for
me, everything worked out in the
end. But luck should have nothing
to do with it. None of that should
have happened to me, and none of
it should happen to the women of
America.
NEW JERSEY
Mariel, Midland Park, NJ
A child is not ready to be separated from his or her mother at 12
weeks. A mother is not emotionally
ready to leave her baby either. It
is very difficult to find affordable,
quality child care for a child of that
age.
Many companies and small
business do not have a place for a
mother to pump milk when away
from the baby so the mother is
banished germ filled to a public
bathroom to do so.
Sara, Roselle, NJ
As an employee of the State of
New Jersey, I was eligible to receive Family Leave Insurance for a
period of twelve weeks after my
disability insurance had expired.
All in all, I was able to stay home
for three months after my son was
born. However, my disability / FLI
benefits were only 2/3 of my regular pay and our family struggled
to make ends meet during this
time. We still are not back on our
feet (18 months later).
While I consider myself lucky
to have been able to bond with
my son for as long as I did, it
breaks my heart knowing that in
other countries, new moms are
given longer periods with better
benefits to stay home with their
newborns. My son was exclusively
breastfed for the first six months
of his life and continues to nurse
today (though, as a busy toddler,
he is much less interested in ‘na’
than he once was). I do feel that
our time together contributed
greatly to our successful breastfeeding relationship but I also
feel that the support I received
from my family and from my local
La Leche League chapter made it
possible.
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153
Giselle, Maywood, NJ
Megan, Bernardsville, NJ
Virginia, Princeton, NJ
I am fulltime working mom
and just this past year in September I had a baby. Luckily, thru my
employer and the state of NJ I received paid Family Leave. This was
a blessing for me because I had 12
weeks to first of all recover from
a C-section and also bond with my
new baby. Because I did not have
to worry about where my income
was coming from to support my
two other children,I was able to
have a good pregnancy, delivery
and recovery period.
I can’t imagine life without paid
family leave or maternity leave.
The thought of women having babies and not having some type of
leave that is paid is quite sickening to me. If you are a mom then
you know the amount of work that
goes into taking care of that precious gift you bring home from the
hospital.
I had about 4 months paid maternity leave over the summer of
1988. Although I was in excellent
physical condition, the 24 hour a
day care, sleep deprivation, plus the
pain and weakness caused by the Csection kept me in that weakened
condition long after I returned to
work.
Now I am back at work at my
current position that I had when I
left. I also have been able to find
quality daycare for my baby which
I most likely would not have found
if I had to rush to find someone. I
CANNOT imagine having a baby
and rushing back to work right
after because lack of income. That
would have only caused stressed
for myself, my baby, and my family. I probably would have been
forced to make a decision that
would have negativelty affected
my family. I beleive that every parent should have an opportunity to
enjoy the first weeks of their baby
life without the added stress of
money and job security. The statistics are sad and disappointing.
Something has to change in this
country.
Tara, Robbinsville, NJ
I am lucky enough to have a
partner who can support our family while I and take care of our two
boys. It is invaluable to have one
of the parents home with thier children, particulary during the first
year – for bonding, health, safety
and everyone’s well being. Contribution of employer to insure every
parent has a chance for paid leave
is imperative to raise well-adjusted
and secure children who will one
day grow up and take over.
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Women need that time to take
care of their baby, bond with their
baby, and become acclamated to
this new role and new member of
the family. There are some things
that we need to examine in this
country and cut $ putting toward
them. This however is not one of
them. Let’s be honest, is there anything MORE important than raising
a child? Don’t think so...so why do
we make it so hard on women?
Jennifer, Glen Ridge, NJ
I did not have paid family leave
time when I gave birth to my daughter. She was due on July 9, 2008. I
commuted into NYC up until July
4th because I did not want to use
any of the precious time I had saved
for before she arrived. I had to save
all of my vacation time. My company did give 2 weeks paid for maternity leave, but that was not nearly
enough time. I had saved enough
vacation and coupled with the 2
weeks, I would be able to be home
with my daughter for 6 weeks.
Leaving your child too early can
impact you & your family in very
negative ways. It took the better
part of a year for me to recover
from the devastation of having to
leaving my baby girl so early on.
Women should have the ability
to stay home with their newborns
for at least 3 months – paid. The
ability for a mother to care for her
child is such an essential part of
becoming a mother. When that is
stripped away from you, it can be
incredibly difficult to deal with.
The paid leave was vital to
our health and well-being. I appreciated it fully and remained
at my job another 4 years. Going
through childbirth with the respect
and assistance of an employer was
support I needed in every way. I
would not have been able to plan
having a child without it.
BJ, Basking Ridge, NJ
I had paid leave and job security
when our son was born. I went back
to work, and kept my career on
track. And it was a good thing I did,
because when our son was 12 years
old, my husband, his father, died of
leukemia and I needed that job.
Jane, Wyckoff, NJ
I had paid maternity and do
NOT know how I could have made
it without it. An added pressure on
top of those three months would
have been awful, to me and to the
baby, as I would have been an anxious mess. Three months in general
is NOT long enough for maternity
– this country needs to start adopting a longer maternity leave. Many
countries offer upward of 6 months
and there is a good reason for it!
Jennifer, Jersey City, NJ
I have an 11-month-old son and
only now am I getting my life back
on track after the turbulent time I
experienced due to a complete lack
of paid maternity leave. Looking
back to the bright, unseasonably
warm March morning my son was
born, I can barely believe the op-
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timism my husband and I felt. In
fact, in my current stressed, overwrought state I can barely believe
I ever felt that optimistic.
Because I worked for a company with fewer than 50 employees,
I wasn’t covered under FMLA and
wasn’t technically entitled to any
leave (paid or not). As it was, my
company grudgingly allowed me 6
weeks completely unpaid – 8 in the
event I had a c-section (as I did indeed end up doing).
We had about one paycheck’s
worth of savings, which quickly
evaporated through medical costs,
buying baby care basics or supplementing my husband’s income in
trying to keep the house going. I
had a very stressful 8 weeks.
When I went back to work 8
weeks later, we didn’t even have
childcare for the first few weeks, as
there was an extremely long wait
list, so my sister-in-law charged us
to watch my son during the days.
I was exhausted, still in pain from
my c-section and still attempting
to pump whatever milk I could.
My supply dried up completely less
than a week later.
The combination of working fulltime, getting behind on bills while I
was out and then trying to stretch
a paycheck to cover those and daycare has had a huge impact on my
mental health. I developed what I
now know is PPD, which affected
my ability to concentrate – something which has led to my being disciplined at work. It’s a battle I still
face every day. It’s only now that
we’ve managed to reign everything
in and get it back up-to-date, but I
worry about what impact the first
year of my son’s life – which I spent
desperately trying to overcome our
financial and emotional burdens
– will have on our relationship forever. The system failed me and our
family. I can’t help but think that if
I’d had some more security and a little more time I might be in a much
different place right now.
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Nancy, Fort Lee, NJ
I have so many friends who become so stressed out with worry after they deliver their babies. They
are forced to go back to work much
too soon – while they are still recovering from C-Sections, and before
real bonding to their babies can occur. What are we doing? Where
are our priorities? We should be
taking a lesson from Europe on
this one. They are putting children
first, and we should be doing the
same.
Paula, Kearny, NJ
I just had to use paid family
leave for my son who had open
heart surgery. It is amazing that it
was paid although I only received
the money when I returned to
work. It helped us continue to pay
our bills and catch up.
Linda, Merchantville, NJ,
I live in NJ but worked in PA
when I had my son. I was told by
my employer to apply for FMLA but
was told that I would not be paid
until I returned to work! I was immediately stressed out thinking
that we would have to only rely on
my husband’s salary for 3 months
after the birth of my son.
I started to research other country’s and learned that in Europe
and Australia women get up to one
year paid maternity leave!! So disappointing to know that this country does not value family. Needless to say the day I went back to
work I cried the whole day because
I missed my son and needed income
to pay the bills. I am lucky I had a
normal birth there are some women who are burdened with large
medical bills and have to go back to
work sooner.
Jane, Guttenberg, NJ
I was working for a hedge fund
where my benefits were just start-
ing to be paid, when I got pregnant. I was asked over and over
by the manager of the fund if I intended to continue working once
the baby was born. I was an administrator and my daughter was born
in January.
My boss called me days after the
baby was born to get me back to
work. I was lucky that I was able
to work from home most days, and
that he continued to pay my benefits for some time. But I was actually told that the baby doesn’t do
anything but eat and poop the first
3 months so I should have all the
time in the world to work. I’ve since
left that position and continue to
work freelance, paying for my own
health benefits. I am under water
financially and continue to look for
a full time job with benefits.
Megan, Laurel Springs, NJ
I went on maternity leave when
my daughter was born in May 2009.
I was going to be out for 6 weeks.
After that, my husband was going
to take his family leave for the next
6 weeks. Both of our leaves were
‘disability paid leaves’. We weren’t
allowed to even file the paper work
while we were still work so when
it was time to go to the hospital, I
pretty much mailed my paperwork
on that day.I didn’t receive any compensation until I was into my 2-3
week of motherhood. We hadn’t
paid any bills for about a month and
my parent’s had to help us pay our
rent so at least we could keep a roof
over our heads. When the payments
finally came, they were a fraction of
my already small paycheck. We paid
what little we could but all of our
bills fell behind. A lot of our creditors tried to work with us but they
could only do so much. We were
struggling to feed ourselves and our
baby. I also had to pay out of pocket
to keep my health insurance going
while I was not at work. I contemplated cutting my leave short to go
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back to work but we didn’t have
childcare set up yet. We couldn’t afford it anyway.
We struggled for the next 12
weeks until we were both back at
work and it took us nearly a year after the baby was born to get caught
up. We borrowed tons of money
from family and friends. It was a
very stressful time for us. New baby
and no money. We’re thinking long
and hard about having another
baby any time in the future because
we don’t want to go through all the
drama. It’s sad really because we
wanted to have two kids.
Jean, Princeton, NJ
Much to most women’s dismay,
I had the easiest pregnancy in the
world. No morning sickness, I felt
terrific, I glowed. My husband not
only had planned to take his three
weeks of maternity leave, but he
had worked extra hours the final
months of my pregnancy and thus
had two additional weeks of comp
time...Five weeks for us to be together and figure out who this tiny
new person was and how to deal
with him.
It’s a darn good thing my husband had all that time. The day after I left the hospital all hell broke
loose – I sank into post-partum
depression, not caring to eat the
plates of fruit, crackers, cheese
and deli meats my husband made
up for me, not caring if that little
person died in his sleep (aarrrgghh!) Then to add insult to injury,
I had severe problems with clogged
ducts. I’d have a heating pad on
one breast to get things flowing
prior to feeding and immediately
after nursing, I’d have an ice pack
on that breast to close the ducts.
If my husband hadn’t been there, I
don’t know how or if the baby and
I would have gotten through those
initial weeks! Pregnancy and birth
may be the most natural things in
the world, but they do not always
happen naturally smoothly. Need-
156
less to say, my son is an only child!
Becky, Collingswood, NJ
My husband and I were so excited for our son’s arrival! He was
our first and we couldn’t wait to
meet him :) I worked right up until
my due date, since PA doesn’t offer
short term disability leave and my
company doesn’t offer paid maternity leave. My leave was only paid
for as long as I had vacation days to
burn, leaving the last couple weeks
unpaid. The last few weeks of my
pregnancy were exhausting; it was
tough to get through work battling backaches, swollen ankles and
humidity but I wanted to have as
much time as possible with my son
when he arrived.
Ryan was born 9 days past his
due date, leaving only 8 weeks for
us to get to know each other before my little family went its separate ways during the day: I to my
job, my husband to his job, and
Ryan to daycare. It was very painful. It was like missing a limb to be
back at work when my baby was so
new, and I wished that I had taken
more time off despite the fact that
it would have been unpaid. I can’t
understand why in a country where
politicians love to wax poetic about
‘family values’ our legislation does
so little to actually support families.
Paid maternity leave should be
the norm, not the exception. Paid
paternity leave should be a realistic
expectation, not a luxury. Families
need those blessed early days together, before the rest of the world
presses in, to share the joys of being together, to love, to discover
what it is to be a family.
Marya, Tuckahoe, NJ,
My son Joey, four years old at
the time, was diagnosed with leukemia in 2001. I was working as a
nurse then and don’t know how I
would have gotten through that
experience without family leave,
even though it was unpaid. Being
able to have those weeks off without fear of losing my job was essential, especially since I was the one
in my family who was carrying our
health care benefits!
We still needed our family and
friends to provide lots of help during that time (mainly with the care
of our two other children when I
had to spend long days and nights
at the hospital), but the FMLA was
absolutely a pillar for us, without
which we would have felt truly lost.
Jasmine, Randolph, NJ
On July 6, 2002, I gave birth, via
emergency c-section to my daughter, whose due date was September
6, 2002, and weighed in at a mere
2lbs 1oz. Given my daughter’s birth
weight and the fact that she was
born with Down Syndrome (which
was diagnosed before birth), along
with a partial hole in the heart
and respiratory difficulties, she remained at the Hospital’s Neonatal
Intensive Care Unit for almost 8
weeks.
I strongly believe that things
would have been a little easier if I
had paid family leave since my family, like most American families, depends the income of both parents.
Angela, East Orange, NJ
Paid family leave is vital! I am
soon to be a mother of 4 children.
I say soon because I am writing this
from my hospital bed expecting
to deliver our fourth child in the
next 2 weeks. After three healthy,
normal, deliveries I was shocked to
wake up in the middle of the night
at 29 weeks when my water broke.
Due to that and other complications, I was labeled a high risk pregnancy and immediately admitted
to the hospital where I have been
on bed rest for 4 weeks.
My husband, the sole earner in
our household, has been left with
the burden of caring for our 3
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young children at home, managing
his time & responsibilities at work
all while trying to be involved with
the doctors & my care in the hospital. We are thankful that New Jersey has passed a paid family leave
act that covers spouses during the
arrival of a new baby. This was not
an option available to us for the
previous three children. Between
the flexibility of my husbands gracious employer, his paid time off
and the payment available for family leave we have calculated that
we will still be able to pay our regular bills – but just barely.
Next comes the question of how
we will cover the endless medical
bills. Our health insurance coverage has been so drastically cut
back, due to rising premiums, that
we will be left with so much of it
to pay! Family leave is the only way
we will have a chance to make it
through this with our finances even
remotely intact but we are afraid
that even that may not be enough!
Virginia, Maplewood, NJ
Research shows how vital quality infant care is. If moms are not
given time to care for their babies,
our future generations will not be
as prepared to lead and care for us.
As an aging adult and a teacher, I
strongly support paid family leave.
Beverly, Basking Ridge, NJ
Since women bear the burden
of producing the next generation
of Americans, paid maternity leave
should be guaranteed to all.
Cheryl, Lebanon, NJ
Thank God I had paid family
leave for the birth of my 2 children.
As the primary breadwinner in our
home, there is no way we would
have been able to survive, let alone
be comfortable, during either of
my maternity leaves. My husband
works hard too, but he does not
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have the bigger paying job and he
cannot stay home and breast feed
an infant. It just doesn’t work that
way. It took strategic planning, but
we were able to continue to pay
bills without interruption, make
the purchases needed to run our
home, and nurture both of our children for the most important first
few months of life. That NEVER
would have been possible if I didn’t
have those regular paychecks to
count on.
Parenting, first time around
or third, is hard enough. Add in
the stress of not being able to pay
bills and no one can relax, bond,
or grow healthy together. Again,
thank God this was one thing I
didn’t have to say ‘I wish I had...’
Karen, Dumont, NJ
Unfortunately for me the FMLA
is useless. I work for a small company under 50 people and it does
not apply, which angers me as a
working woman who is also currently pregnant. It would be nice if
FMLA recognizes that woman/men
work for big and small companies
and extend their services.
seemed it was mainly my choice,
but that has long since ceased to
be the case. I now feel my skills are
so far behind current practice that I
cannot work in my field.
Having a paid family leave and
flexible scheduling would certainly
have made it easier to continue
working. I would have earned (and
be earning) much more money and
contributed more in income taxes
and social security. Currently my
family is able to get by without two
full-time wage earners. But we are
very concerned about the future.
Anne, South Orange, NJ
When I had my second child I
had to quite my job in order to give
her (and myself) the time to regain
strength after giving birth. The
main reason I quit my wonderful
job was to be able to breast feed
my daughter for a full year to give
her to best start in life I was able
to. Now, getting that job (or any
comparable one) is VERY difficult.
So, my career is now compromised.
I wish I had full-time, full pay child
birth leave in my state and in the
whole country.
Sarah, West Orange, NJ
When I had my first child I was
working full time in my first professional position after completing a
masters degree in landscape architecture. My employer was required
to provide maternity leave but this
was unpaid. The uncertainty that
the lack of a continued paycheck
introduced to our lives led me
quit my job. Somehow I figured,
if I wasn’t getting paid anyway, at
least I could control the terms under which I would return to work.
Not having a position to return to
made stretching out my maternity
leave much easier, but it made returning to work much harder.
It is now eight years later and
I have yet to return to full time
work in my profession. At first this
NEW MEXICO
Marianne, Las Cruces, NM
My daughter adopted and was
able to stay home with the kids
when they brought them home.
Her sister-in-law gave birth to a
preemie and needed to be at the
hospital and then stay home with
him.
Those things were never possible in my day, before FMLA. Women have become far too valuable
to our county and economy to lose
their productivity and children are
our most important resource.
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Eytan, Santa Fe, NM
Cornelia, Aztec, NM
My wife was able to recieve unpaid family leave for both of our
children. It was great that she didn’t
lose her job, but those were tough
months financially. Additionally, I
did not have time off and missed
out on some of those precious first
months. As a result of my experiences, and those of others I know,
I feel society suffers when parents
choose between work and parenting, especially during the very critical first few weeks and months. Science shows that the longer mothers
breastfeed, the healthier the child
is. If mothers and fathers can have
a little time for their families, and
reduced stress, America will be
heathier and stronger.
When I had my first child, I went
through a perfect LaMaze birth
until she had left my body. At that
point the placenta wouldn’t separate from my uterus, the docs had
to fully anesthetize me and scrape
it out. Bottom line was that I contracted a uterine infection, had to
have a blood transfusion and was
very much not healthy.
James, Ruidoso/
Mescalero, NM
Personally, I am 55 years old now
and past the age of having newborns, however, I’d like to weigh in
on the issue of Paid Family Leave.
When I had my 6 children, it was still
in an age of more ‘traditional’ values and culture in America, which
is to say, a ‘nuclear family’ of a female mother, and a male husband
with the husband being the primary
bread-winner. Since then, about
1977 - 1993, the values and culture
have changed fairly dramatically, as
you are well aware of.
I’ve since received a Master’s degree in social work and understand
the complex dynamics that have required both parents enter the work
world to make ends meet now. As
such, I went out into the work-force
and became the primary breadwinner and my wife stayed at home
and reared our children; that era
has ended. Today’s families need the
Paid Family Leave Act to be implemented immediately in order to stay
in-step with changed times. This will,
in the long term, assist not only the
families of America but you as law
makers to alleviate one of the many
your faced with.
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No maternity leave was available
to me at the job I had, which was
as an on-air news anchor. KSL, my
employer, assumed all news people
would be male and thus did not offer such coverage to its female news
personnel. Pretty ironic, since the
station was owned by the ‘family
friendly’ Mormon Church. But then,
the church assumed women didn’t
work. I was allowed to use my annual vacation of two weeks, plus my
one week of sick leave. I came back
to work after that time, but did not
fully regain my health for about
eight months. It was absolute and
complete hell. Don’t make other
women have to go through an experience such as mine.
Veronica, Las Cruces, NM
While I do have FMLA coverage, I do not have paid leave. I had
managed to cover, with an accumulation of sick and annual leave
around 9 weeks of my 12 week
leave. When the leave hours ran
out, so did my paycheck. We were
forced to cash out our IRA and use
it to cover bills, food, medical insurance, diapers and the like.
When I returned to work, I had
no sick leave or annual leave left
to cover me and my child in case
of emergency or illness. I have
yet to be able to accumulate any
significant amount of time since
then either. Children get sick and
schools have days off...so, moms
and dads can’t afford to miss work
when they are ill or just need a bit
of downtime. It seems to me that
America can do better.
NEW YORK
Katinka, New York, NY
I saved up my sick days for 5
years in order to accumulate one
month of paid time off for when
my husband and I ever had a baby.
It was a constant source of stress
for us because we desperately
wanted a child but couldn’t comprehend how we would take care
of him/her if we both had to work.
How does one take good care of
a newborn if one can’t BE WITH
the newborn? Not to mention the
fact that working mothers can not
breast feed well if at all.
As a an early childhood specialist with the NYC department of Education, I know very well that the
foundation of a well-balaneced,
social emotional well being of children starts at home with their parents. There is no point in discussing
bettering our education system
unless we first establish a foundation for our children at home as
babies! My family is in Sweden and
Finland and so comparing their 18
months paid parental leave with
us who have NO FEDERAL parental
leave, is very difficult to fathom.
I am lucky enough to be in the
teachers union which therefore
‘allowed’ me to take an unpaid
(with no health benefits), leave.
We are barely able to sustain ourselves right now on my husban’ds
salary and I am going back to work
in June. However, our calculations have shown that when I do
go back, my entire salary will go
towards child care. I am purely returning to work to reinstate our
health insurance. We are paying
for COBRA which is shocingly expence. We are paying $1,100.00
per month on one person’s salary.
How does this make any sense?
Yes, I will be forced to go back to
work which means that I will be
paying for someone else to raise
my child.
I thought this nation was so
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concerned with ‘Family values’?
Really? Which and whose family?
Certainly not mine! I am sickened
by the choices and sacrifices we
had to make to have our wonderful son. Having and raising children in developmentally appropriate , caring ways should be a
first priority for this nation. How
can we get to point C and D if we
haven’t even made points A and B
a priority?
likely contributed to my postpartum depression.
I was fortunate enough to have
a full time job with benefits before
the birth of my daughter, however,
so I was able to focus on my baby
rather than finances. Not surprisingly, I had a much less stressful
(and longer) maternity leave –
which made it easier to establish
breastfeeding and a pumping regime before returning to work full
time.
Selina, New York, NY
A friend gave birth two weeks
ago. She was diagnosed with hypertension, as was her new baby.
neither was allowed to leave the
hospital, and having paid family
leave allowed the mother to recover and provide for her child without worrying that her job would be
gone when she was ready to return
to work.
Mary, Malta, NY
After the birth of my 2nd child in
July 2010, I received just over $100/
wk for 8 weeks and utilized what
little vacation/sick time I have – and
still had at least 2 weeks of unpaid
time towards the end of my FMLA.
I would do anything to spend that
time with my baby, but it was INCREDIBLY difficult financially... and
I was forced to go back to work full
time at the end of my 12 weeks
maternity leave. It’s so disappointing the hoops that people have to
go through to spend quality family
time in this country.
Christina, Mechanicville, NY
After the birth of my son, I had
6 weeks of disability pay and NO
other paid benefits with which to
pay my bills. I worried every day
that the financial strain would be
too much for our young family and
actually begged my boss if to allow
me to come back earlier than I had
originally planned. This was definitely not an ideal situation, and
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Clemens, New York, NY
As a family therapist and psychiatrist I have large experience
with the rhythms of family life, and
I know no useful work can be done
either in therapy or in the office
when the hormonal and emotional crisis of birth is combined with
sleeplessness and disorganization
at such times. Requiring work from
either partner within a month after
the arrival of a new baby is either a
foolish expectation that flies in the
face of experience, or an encouragement of gender inequality, with
men getting sleep because ‘they
have to work’ – or both.
weeks of FEMLA. Although I had to
take out a loan just to get by, I was
fortunate to be able to stay with her
for that amount of time. It allowed
both me to get adjusted to having a
baby in the family, and to look for
adequate child care options when I
was going to go back to work and
school. It also allowed me to establish nursing and my daughter was
able to breastfeed exclusively for
the next few months until it was
time to introduce solid foods and
then for the next two years.
We were able to establish routines in our lives and because she
was breastfeed, the only visits to the
doctor were the ones for checkups
and immunizations. Those doctor
visits I was able to do on the weekends, so I had very few sick and
vacation days lost. Having a paid
family leave, even if for just those
12 weeks would have helped a lot,
because I would not have to go into
debt just because I had a baby. There
are a lot of expenses when it comes
to raising our children and the first
few months are critical and having a
financial support during that time is
extremely important.
Susan, West Seneca, NY
Melissa, New York, NY
Having no paid maternity leave
from my waitressing job threw my
husband and I into financial chaos.
It was so stressful – on top of having
a newborn, not even knowing how
we were going to make what little
savings we had last, having to stress
about buying diapers and basic survival items. We had tried to save as
much as we could before I stopped
working but what should have been
a very joyful time with a learning
curve of new parenthood, was a
very desperate time financially.
Marta, Jackson Heights, NY
At the time that I had my daughter I was working in a position in
which I was able to get unpaid 12
Back in March of 2010, my Mom
was diagnosed with Stage 4 Lung
Cancer and although we had the
much needed assistance of Hospice, much of the burden was left
to the family to take care of her
and make her as comfortable as
possible. My sister Kelly, who had
obtained FMLA for this very reason,
is more or less our hero. She used
her FMLA so she could go to Mom’s
treatment with her at Roswell Park
Cancer Institute and to be able to
spend as much time with Mom as
she possibly could.
Mom lost her battle with Lung
Cancer on October 25th, 2011
and were it not for FMLA, I don’t
think Kelly would have been home
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enough to spend time with her.
We thank our lucky stars for FMLA,
please don’t take it away. we may
need it someday for our widowed
father.
Joanna , Brooklyn, NY
Because I knew that receiving
paid leave from my job was highly
unlikely, I quit my professional job
when my husband and I started trying to conceive. I was certain that
I wanted to stay home with my
baby for an extended period, and
in order to guarantee this, I quit
my job and our family suffered the
economic consequences. If I had
thought that paid leave was an option, I may very well have stayed on
at my job until my child was born,
thereby benefiting both my family
and my employer.
Heather, Jackson Heights, NY
Five months into my first pregnancy, I had to have a cyst removed
from my ovary. It was invasive, abdominal surgery which took me the
rest of my pregnancy to recover
from. After my birth, I had three
months paid leave and my husband
had two weeks. As a result, my husband was able to be there to bond
with our son and give me time to
rest and recover from the surgery
and subsequent birth.
I was also able to exclusively
breast feed our son until he was
six months old, which has proven
health benefits. This would not
have been possible if I had to return to work earlier. This time allowed us to adjust to being new
parents, and allowed me to better
take care of myself before the hectic stress of being a full-time working mom began.
Isadora, Kew Gardens, NY
Being a first-time mom, I could
not face going back to work full
time. I worried about who would
care for my baby, would they do a
good job, would they put my baby
face up, not shake my baby, give
her only what I say? I went back to
work becuase I had to. I needed to
pay my bills and have a home. My
husbands income was not enough
to stay home full time, not even
part time but I did...for one month
I went back 4 days a week, then
resiged getting a job much closer
to home. Becoming a mom is the
most powerful, and valuable thing
anyone can offer the world. Why
doesnt it get the respect it deserves? Let’s make it happen.
Jennifer, Cheektowaga, NY
Both parents should be able to
have access to paid leave when a
baby comes into the picture. Both
of my children are grown and I
didnt have that luxury. I also had
an abusive husband on top of dealing the a new baby.
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Astrid, Bronx, NY
For each of my three children, I
took an unpaid maternity leave, a
total of three years, as I wanted to
breast feed my babies for their first
year. I got job security, that’s all.
Of course this has had an adverse
effect on my retirement benefits.
In contrast, my women cousins in
Norway get 80% of their salary for
the whole first year after delivery
if they choose to stay home with
their baby. Their husbands also
get a month’s paid paternity leave.
which country really values its children?
Rebecca, Rosendale, NY
For financial reasons, I could
only afford to take maternity leaves
for 4 and 6 months, respectively.
Although my job was fortunately
protected, my lack of income made
life a hardship. My husband’s income was not enough to support
our household and keep all the
bills paid. So, while staying home
with a new baby was joyful, it was
also marred with a constant anxiety about paying the rent on time
and all the other bills. Then I had
the additional fear of finding and
affording good-quality child care.
This was a serious problem after
my first child was born and I had to
return to work.
Although child care providers
offer an important service, they
are paid very poorly; yet low and
middle income earners struggle to
pay their child care bills which can
seem astronomical. So, after baby
#2 came along and my maternity
leave was ending, we realized that
it would cost more to pay for two
small children in day care than my
husband was currently earning.
So he quit and stayed home for
3 years, which was good for the
kids but very hard on our finances.
What a relief when the kids were
old enough for school. How sad
that we couldn’t enjoy our children’s early childhood more due
to constant financial and child care
concerns.
Alisa, Brooklyn, NY
I adopted my children internationally, and was not entitled to
paid ‘maternity leave.’ I needed to
use my vacation time and then add
UNPAID family leave. We were in
their country for 2 weeks, and then
home. When we returned, we were
faced with a child that was severely
sick, with a diagnosis of ‘failure to
thrive.’
Being jet lagged, sleep deprived,
having to deal with a child that
had been housed in a orphanage
for the first year of her life, we had
a multitude of issues to contend
with. The medical appointments
were numerous, the surgeries were
many and we were still dealing
with attachment issues.It would
have been nice to have considered
this under the same conditions and
opportunities and any new child
entering into a family. Paid family
leave would have allowed for a less
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stressful adjustment, without the
predjudice of having the government not recognize ‘an adopted
baby’ as having the same needs
as a child born out of ones own
uterus. Family is family, however
that comes to be. The law should
be universal.
Erica, Brooklyn, NY
I am 2 months away from having my second child. I used a lot of
my own days (that I’ve banked over
the years) to stay with my daughter
when I had her. Now I do not have
enough days saved in my bank to
stay home very long with the next
baby. I must decide between staying home with my newborn baby
and establishing a good breastfeeding routine with him or returning to work after a c-section in order to obtain a paycheck. By the
way, I work as an educator, caring
for and nurturing other people’s
children all day.
My home country provides up 14
months paid leave for both parents
and up to 3 years of paid and unpaid
leave without loosing your current
position. When I was pregnant with
my now 6 month old son and I had
to find out about the shocking maternity policy of my company, I was
really embarrased to tell my family
and friends in Germany that I would
have to go back to work after only
12 weeks of which only 4 weeks
were covered by my employer.
I was so torn between the decision to return to work or stay at
home and be ‘UNEMPLOYED’!! My
personal opinion is that it is very
very sad how little the US government supports families. And instead
of tax benefits and reductions or
even child support from the government (as you get 185 Euros in
Germany every month) I just found
out that I even owe tax money even
though I lost 2 months of my earnings & the time with my wonderful
son!
Ali, New York, NY
Robin, Bronx, NY
I am a freelance worker and so I
really get no benefit that I can see
from the Paid Family Leave Act. But
that doesn’t stop me from seeing
the overwhelming importance of
it. Especially because I know how
challenging and difficult it is to live
without any sort of financial support in the face of motherhood.
I am currently an asssitant professor at a university in New York.
There’s no standard put in place for
leave. Knowing this and knowing
that it would put my department
under strain for me to take time off
to have a baby, I did what some consider crazy: I planned to have a baby
around the school calendar. When
it came time to plan to start a family,
I thought about my due date more
than anything else. Lucky for me, I
didn’t have any trouble conceiving,
and I had the due date I dreamed
of: April 28th – leaving only 3 class
days left of the semester.
I wish there were more done
on a federal level for parents who
don’t have employer benefits. That
would go a long way towards emphasizing the importance of motherhood in our society. But living
without benefits lets me know exactly how wonderful a thing this
act is! It is a crucial start towards
all dedicated parents being treated
with support and respect.
Christina, New York, NY
I am a permanent resident in
the US, originally from Germany.
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For those remaining days in the
semester, I was lucky to have three
supportive female colleagues who
covered each of my three courses
in those three sessions.Because I get
paid on a 12 month cycle, I knew
that my summer ‘maternity leave’
would be covered. However, I don’t
know what would have happened if
I wasn’t so lucky. My family needs
my paycheck – with the cost of living so high in NY, not getting a paycheck is not an option.
I also was lucky in that I didn’t
have to risk any resentment that
might come from my job for having to take time off to have a baby.
It worked out for me – I was lucky..
but I know many other women out
there who are not as lucky..and it’s
time for things to change.
Erin, Bronx, NY
I am expecting my first child
this year. If I did not have paid
leave, I would have to quit my job.
The knowledge that I will have 12
weeks to focus on meeting the first
needs of my child enables me to focus on my job now, before I deliver
the baby. It also means I can make
a promise to my employer, my colleagues, and my clients, that I will
return 12 weeks after the baby is
born. If I didn’t have the security
of knowing that my job would be
there for me, and my bills could be
paid while I am caring for my child,
I wouldn’t be able to guarantee
that I can pickup where I leave off
on the projects I’m about to put on
hold.
Paula, Ithaca, NY
I am lucky – as a teacher, I was
able to save up my sick leave over
the course of several years in anticipation of my maternity leave, so I
was able to stay home with my son
for the first 13 weeks of his life. I
do not know how I would have
been able to manage otherwise, as
he did not sleep more than an hour
straight, had GERD and hip dysplasia requiring a brace worn 23 hours
per day.
I did need a doctors note to use
my paid sick time. My husband
had to take a weeks vacation. It
was very challenging. I believe it is
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wrong to separate a mother from
her newborn and force her to undergo financial hardship in order
to nurture her infant. Why can’t
the USA join the rest of the world
and give mothers paid leave? That
would be a true expression of family values.
Felipa, Kingston, NY
I am signing this after spending the day with my six week old
daughter, who cried all day because she forgot how to nurse after being given a bottle to get her
ready for my return to work next
week. I am heartbroken at having
to return when she is this young.
Six weeks is not enough time to securely establish breastfeeding. Our
laws need to change in order to
enable families to provide the best
care for their children and for nursing mothers. Our children are our
future.
Pam, Geneva, NY
I am the insurance carrier for our
family, so when I took maternity
leave I had to have enough cash
saved to cover my portion of health
insurance. The company I worked
for let me pay in cash or took my
contributions out of my paychecks
following my leave until the balance was paid in full. I was able to
collect four- to six weeks disability
and then I was on my own. Because
disability checks are around one half
your earnings, I was really taking six
weeks of unpaid leave as opposed
to four and paying for my health
insurance as well. Then after my
first child it was necessary to keep
paying daycare expenses, as I would
lose my ‘spot’ in daycare. Yes, ‘poverty spell’ is an apt description.
Zoey, Brooklyn, NY
I did not have a job when my
babies were born, partly because
I couldn’t figure out how to keep
a job doing all the craziness that
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was involved in having babies. We
MUST make it easier for women to
have children and be employed.
We are losing some of our best
people for extended periods of
time due to the inability to work
and deal with newborns at the
same time. On the other end are
the people who MUST work and
therefore, risk short-changing their
children. A whole country of shortchanged children is not going to
keep us in the lifestyle to which we
have become accustomed.
Kathryn, Brooklyn, NY
I didn’t have paid family leave,
so I meticulously planned my savings over the course of my pregnancy. How much did I need to save
so that I could take off 3 months? 6
months? I thought I had it all in the
bag. I was careful on the grocery
bill, and avoided added expenses,
like ‘entertaining’ myself with a
movie, or a date night. I worked
extra jobs in the last few months of
my pregnancy to make sure I had
enough.
And then the unthinkable happened. My husband got injured on
the job. He would be out for a total
of almost 6 months, pretty much
identical to my planned maternity
leave. He was covered by workers compensation insurance, so we
didn’t lose all his income, but it
wasn’t what we had expected. We
knew that our maternity leave reserves would be exhausted sooner
than expected. I had to take on
part-time work to make ends meet.
We ended up taking on debt.
Alina, New York, NY
I feel very fortunate that I had
paid family leave. I could breastfeed and bond with the baby
through this time of little sleep. I
was laid off two years later, so I feel
very lucky that I had my baby while
I was employed.
Irene, Wantagh, NY
I grew up in NY, but moved
(back) to Canada 10 years ago.
Through Facebook, I’ve read how
my friends in the US have had to
go back to work at 4 or 6 weeks.
Some were able to string together
all their vacation and sick days and
squeak out 8-12 weeks. We were
all sharing stories of how the first
couple of weeks were (if we could
actually type anything coherent)
and fairly quickly they all were talking about finding child care, going
back to work... I am so grateful I
was able to stay with my son for a
full year – while collecting employment insurance – and I am lucky
that my employer topped up my
salary to 93% of my usual wage.
Even without a top up, being
able to spend the whole first year
with my son was amazing... I didn’t
have to worry about whether I’d
have a job when I went back...I
wish all parents are given the opportunity to enjoy watching their
baby grow in the first couple of
months – without having to worry
about job security.
Ines, New York, NY
I had my mother very sick, she
was admitted to same hospital
where I was working and had a very
hard time to take days off or even
going to see her for a few minutes.
The excuse was that I was not sick
and was not suppose to take time
off after spending the entire night
with her at the Emergency.FMLA is
one of gratest acomplishments of
our unions.
Isabel, New York, NY
I have two kids. It’s simply impossible to work immediately after
giving birth. You’re so tired that
you can’t think straight anyway –
I hardly remember anything from
those times. I am lucky enough
to manage my own schedule, being self-employed, but what I am
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writing about is my husband’s being home to help and how essential
it was for our family to have him
there.
I had two c-sections and couldn’t
lift the baby or even, at first, get
out of bed. Especially once we had
a toddler and had another baby
arrive, having him home was essential. It’s hard to describe it unless you’ve been through it – but
imagine being tortured and only
allowed to sleep a few hours here
and there for a week, and then being asked to do anything at all.Now
it is easier if you don’t breastfeed,
although you still have to share
bottle duty with someone. But
breastfeeding is really important
to a child’s and a mothers’ lasting
health. So making people choose
between their job or breastfeeding
is a really bad idea.
this year. I wish I would have the
opportunity to focus on parenting
and its accompanying opportunities
without having to work on the challenges that arise financially.
Celene, Brooklyn, NY
I teach in a college and my
daugher was born in June over summer break. I was lucky. I was able
to spend the summer at home with
my daughter and my husband. Late
in my pregnancy – the spring before
my daughter was born- I found out
that my husband had advanced cancer. I took care of my daughter and
my husband over that summer. He
died a year later. I don’t know what
I would have done during that summer if I didn’t have the comfort of
having that summer leave and a job
waiting for me.
Stacey, Bronx, NY
Melissa, Hopewell Junction, NY
I recently adopted a 23 month
old daughter from an orphanage.
She has dramatic delays due to the
care she received in the orphanage.
I am taking three months leave to
help bonding, adjustment and to
get her the services necessary for
her to flourish. This is an unpaid
leave. I wish I could have financial
security while I, a single mother, am
expanding my family and giving an
abandoned child a chance to have
a promising future.
I was able to take 6 weeks paid.
Then I took 6 more weeks unpaid.
It wasn’t even until 8 weeks that I
started to feel like myself and the
‘haze’ started to lift. In addition,
I know so many mothers who stop
breastfeeding in order to prepare
to return to work. (I was very lucky
that I had a place to pump and I
made it work.) Giving moms more
time at home often leads to longer
breastfeeding which can lead to
healthier kids...and cost savings to
our country that is far greater than
the few weeks paid to the mother.
S, Flushing, NY
I returned to work recently when
my daughter was 8 weeks old.
While I work for a large hospital
and therefore had my leave guaranteed, I did not have pay guaranteed. I returned to work before I
felt fully recovered, as financially I
had few other options. I spent much
of my maternity leave trying to figure out how to juggle the bills, and
continue to try to figure out how I
will manage my expenses despite
a significant reduction of income
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Adriana, Brooklyn, NY
I was fortunate to have paid maternity leave. After 5 years at my
company I was entitled to about
six weeks’ paid ‘sick leave’ at about
60% of my salary. Not much, but
better than nothing.
After a perfectly safe, healthy
hospital delivery I was still amazed
at how sore I was and how much
time the recovery took. I needed
all 12 of those weeks. But I also
needed all 12 of those weeks to
bond with my new son. I returned
to work full-time and will always
be grateful with the time I spent
making sure my son felt loved and
secure from the very start. There is
no replacement for that, and you
definitely need more time, not less.
Janis, Pittsford, NY
I was fortunate to work for an
understanding employer who ‘allowed’ me to extend my six-week
paid maternity leave to 12 weeks
by my ability to cobble together
accumulated sick and vacation
days. The negotiation process was
still very stressful. I was the first of
my company to have a baby. It still
would have been nice to have the
right to paid maternity leave, without needing to negotiate or lose
sleep over the worry of it. It also
would be reassuring to know that
all American women could have
the same opportunity as I.
Maryann , New York, NY
I was given disability while on
maternity, a fraction of my salary.
Yet I was among the more fortunate of pregnant working women.
My husband took unpaid leave to
help me at home. We struggled immensely to pay the bills and cover
mounting expenses. Why do American work places function as though
there is a full-time caretaker at
home? Please make the U.S. the
family-friendly nation we have the
potential to be. Expenses skyrocket
when a baby is born, and that is not
the time to take pay from parents.
Emily, New York, NY
I was lucky enough to have 3
months of paid maternity leave
when I had my first baby. I have
since learned that that was actually quite rare for our country. Af-
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ter 3 months I realized I was not at
all ready to go back to work, so I
quit. I wish I had been given the
option to have simply taken a longer maternity leave. Having a new
baby, especially if it is your first, is
such a haze of sleep-deprivation,
life changes, hormones and the
like, all of which makes it very hard
to make important decisions as to
whether or not a person wants to
truly stop working, or just not work
during that important time in our
life.
When our babies are so young,
we naturally want to be with them
all the time. That doesn’t mean
that we won’t eventually want to
resume our careers. Women should
be given this option by having LONGER MATERNITY LEAVES. How can
we talk about family values when
we force women to make decisions
that sometimes go directly against
what is good for a family – to have
the mother stay home for the first
year of a child’s life?!
Beth, Rochester, NY
I was lucky to be a teacher and
have am unpaid summer ‘off’, but I
was forced to return after 2 months
because my employer would not
let me use paid sick time in the fall,
only unpaid FMLA. I was no longer
considered ‘disabled’ after 6 weeks.
I left my two-month old at home so
I could pay my bills. I would have
taken another month off if I had
been able to use the sick time that
I had banked.
Dawn, New York, NY
I was lucky to have 4.5 months @
home but nice I went back to work
I had to cut back on breast feeding.
It was a hard adjustment. We were
lucky to have someone live with us
6 days a week to take care of my
son but I would have preferred to
stay home and be the care taker for
my son.
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Rebecca, Brooklyn, NY
I was semi-lucky as I got 2
months of paid leave, which basically paid for my health insurance
while I was out. Losing that extra
month of pay, though, meant we
were completely broke by the time
we needed to start paying for childcare. The fact that I was on top
of pumping while I was still nursing allowed us to not have to buy
formula, and our son almost never
gets sick. My employer was very
generous with me and allowed me
to keep my vacation time, which I
used to see family and introduce
the baby. I can’t imagine not having had that two weeks for that.
Celeste, Brooklyn, NY
I was very fortunate to have paid
maternity leave when my son was
born in 1989. It made it possible for
me to be present for his milestones
and to keep a close watch on his
health. At 2 months old he came
down with pneumonia and needed
11 doctor visits during that illness.
If I’d been forced to take off work
every time he had to see the doctor
I probably would have lost my job.
Meredith, Fairport, NY
I work for a company with more
than 50 employees. My husband
does not. Therefore, he is not eligible for FMLA. When a child is
born, if his or her parents do not
work for a company with 50+ employees, does this mean that the
child needs less parental care during those first few months of life?
When our daughter was born, I was
able to take 10 weeks of paid FMLA
and two weeks of vacation time.
This helped me establish a breastfeeding routine, but due to the
exhaustion that comes with caring
for a young infant, I suffered from
walking pneumonia the first three
months after returning to work. In
addition, our daughter contracted
several respiratory illnesses at day
care during this time and experienced breathing problems which
required a nebulizer to help alleviate. Therefore, I believe six months
of paid family leave would have
made a huge difference in my family’s health and well being.
Heather , Astoria, NY
I work for the city of New York.
I am entitled only to the paid time
off that I can save. For my second
child, this amounted to ONE week.
Much of my time off accrued went
to caring for my older child and
my own maternal health appointments. The rest of my 12 weeks off
was covered by FMLA and a cash
advance on our credit card.
My husband is a PhD student
and I earn the majority of our
household income. Now 80% of
our income goes to rent and day
care. Then we have regular bills
and food to buy. It is going to be
a very long time before we can dig
ourselves out of this debt. I know
it was a choice to stay home for
12 weeks. But doesn’t my baby deserve the time to bond with me? I
couldn’t leave her care to someone
else at such a tender young age (3
months is bad enough). This time in
her life only comes once. Our hope
is that someday we’ll be debt free
and only remember the wonderful
early moments of our child’s life.
Meghan, Brooklyn, NY,
I worked full time as a personal/
executive assistant to the president
of a textile company in New York
City until two weeks before my due
date. My company allowed maximum of 3 months maternity leave
with out pay. I was the breadwinner in my family. Although I had 3
months off, I was still responsible
for paying my half of our health
insurance, which sky rocketed with
our new addition.
My three months of maternity
leave was sprinkled with a large
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dose of stress on how to make ends
meet. I had read about laws in other
countries for new mothers and was
shocked to find that many countries
even help new mothers financially
for the first six months! I thought
I was living in a progressive society, boy was I wrong. Making ends
meet in NYC is not an easy thing to
do. Making ends meet without pay
for three months, a new born baby
and gigantic insurance payments is
really freaking hard!
Jennifer, Brooklyn, NY
I’m a mother of 3 I have never
had family leave. With my first
baby I returned to work when she
was 5 weeks old my job gave me
my saved up sick and vacation days
wich added up to a weeks pay it
didn’t last long and we then needed to rely on my husbands income
to support us all.
With baby number 2 I had been
let go from my full time position
which would have given me family leave but they offered me a part
time position which didn’t I took
it so I could continue to help monetarily but again I needed to go
back pretty quickly because with
that position (which I still hold)
there was no leave. The same was
true with my 3rf child though child
care got more complicated so I’m
still not back as I’d like and I can’t
really afford but I can’t afford the
child care either.
Nancy, Coram, NY
In Feb. 2009, I got laid off from
my job 3 months into my first
pregnancy. I job hunted for a few
months, but gave up looking until
Oct. In the meantime, I was collecting unemployment. It did not
make sense to start a new job, only
to have to go on maternity leave a
few months later. Also I would not
have been covered under the FMLA
after the baby was born. I was actually better off staying on unem-
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ployment because I would not have
had any right to maternity leave
whatsoever, much less paid maternity leave. What is wrong with this
picture?
Lillian, White Plains, NY
It has been many years since
I was on unpaid maternity leave
but I do remember it very clearly. I
worked for a non profit social service agency helping families deal
with their issues among them drug
abuse. I was working to help couples strengthen their coping skills
so they wouldn’t lose their children
or be able to regain them. The irony was in my agency like many other non profit social service agencies
there was no paid maternity leave.
It was a matter of sick days, vacation days and short term disability.
The financial stress and pressure
is enormous to return to work as
quickly as possible so that you have
a salary again and don’t lose your
position. We were lucky that we
had the support of family but after 8 weeks I had to return to work
and be away from my baby for long
days. It is important that there is
paid family leave so that the family can bond with their child and be
there in the earliest months of development.
Leslie, Purchase, NY
Maternity leave is a critical time
to bond with your baby, provide
needed care, and establish a breastfeeding routine. I was lucky – I was
able to patch together sick leave,
short-term disability leave, and vacation to spend 2 1/2 months with
my son. Of course, this was a fraction of what my colleagues working for the same company in other
places – Brisbane, Brussels, London,
Nairobi – get, but still I was grateful. I have many friends in the US,
who lost their position at a company, sometime even lost their jobs,
after having or adopting a child.
Nancy, Lancaster, NY
My first (and only) child was
born in 2000. It was necessary for
her to be delivered via c-section so
my recovery took longer. I decided
to nurse because her Dad was type
I diabetic and the longer I could
nurse the better her chances of
not developing that dreadful, unforgiving disease. I had challenges
producing enough milk so I had
to either nurse or pump EVERY 2
HOURS! I was exhausted and barely slept for months.
My husband ended up taking 2
weeks of his paid vacation to help
take care of our daughter. I took
4 weeks unpaid family leave. This
was a hardship because I had the
higher salary. Women need more
than 4-6 weeks paid leave to care
for their newborns. Imagine the
change your body goes through
physically and mentally after giving
birth!
Maryann, New York, NY,
My husband and I are blessed to
live near both sides of our families.
When my son arrived, we were inundated with grandparents, aunts,
and uncles who wanted to help.
As well, I was granted 12 weeks of
maternity leave by my employer (a
nonprofit women’s rights organization). I was grateful to have that
time with my child, which allowed
me to devote time to breastfeeding
successfully, caring for him, reading
to him, and exposing him to the
wonders of our city. However, I was
most certainly in a minority.
Most of my friends and colleagues came to the city for work,
and left behind family. When it
came time for their children to be
born, most of them feared losing
their jobs while on leave (often
much less than 12 weeks) and were
riddled with anxiety when they
should have been enjoying their
newest addition, and had to rely
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on costly childcare when they went
back to work, as well as whenever
their children were sick. The political rhetoric these days appears to be
very pro-family, but the laws state
otherwise. Paid leave should be
available to everyone who cares for
children, the sick, and the elderly.
Jennifer, Jay, NY
My husband and I were very
lucky – he used vacation time and
personal time to take a month off
after our son was born in 2008, and
it was a good thing he did, since I
wound up needing an emergency
c-section and had a much longer
recovery time than we anticipated.
As for my job, I had resigned from
my ‘traditional’ job as the executive
director of a local historical society
and was working from home as a
freelance community development
and grant writing consultant, so I
was able to continue working from
home.
I’m incredibly lucky now because
I have since rejoined the work force
through a telecommuting job I
have as a freelance writer for a major website. I don’t know what we
would do if I didn’t have the flexibility I do with my job. I have a
hard time understanding why the
American workplace is so hostile
to new families with their policies
about paid leave time – we do want
and need a new generation of welladjusted, well educated American
workers, don’t we? So why do we
penalize workers who decide to
have children by not offering any
kind of paid leave time for fathers?
Maternity leave in the U.S. is pretty
much a joke, and we need to wake
up to the importance of allowing
parents to bond with their children
if we want to have a happy, productive society in the future.
Alice, Brooklyn, NY
My mom went back to work 6
weeks after having a baby in 1977,
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to keep her job. I assumed the
world would have progressed since
then. When I was pregnant, imagine my horror when I found out
that my company was not required
to give me ONE DAY of maternity
leave, paid OR unpaid! We have
fewer than 50 employees – as does
the employer of almost every single
one of my friends – so FMLA does
not apply to us.I fought tooth and
nail to get some paid leave from
my company.
Because we live in the U.S., the
company felt it was being ‘generous’ by giving me 6 weeks paid
leave, considering that FMLA did
not require them to give me any
leave at all. I took 10 weeks leave
total, which sounded reasonable
BEFORE I had a baby. It was incredibly hard work – more than I was
prepared for – and I barely felt
ready to go back to work when
I did – even though I was lucky
enough to have 10 weeks off. We
had heartbreaking breastfeeding problems, largely because I returned to work when I did. Even
two weeks more would have made
a big difference for us.
As it was, since I’m the primary
breadwinner in my family, those
two lost paychecks cleaned out half
our savings! And I’ve seen the rest
dwindle over the 5 months my baby
has been in this world. I wouldn’t
trade the experience of having a
baby for anything, of course.
My baby is the light of my life.
But I wish I lived in a country that
didn’t just preach about ‘family
values’ and how great it is to be
a ‘grizzly mama’ but actually supported the decision to have a baby
in the ways that matter most – like
guaranteeing paid family leave.
This outdated, retro reality has
GOT to change. I am looking at my
little daughter and hoping that if
she decides to have kids, it will be
in an America that is so much more
supportive of that decision than
it is now, or than it was when my
mom had me.
Rena, New York, NY
My mother was dying of cancer,
I was raising my baby alone and
my job demanded constant travel.
A leave of absence allowed me to
keep my job during a break where
I could care for my mother, my baby
(and myself a little bit). I went back
to work stronger and more able to
handle the bumps of life as a result
of the leave.
Jennifer, Cheektowaga, NY
My sister took care of my mom
who had alzheimers disease. After
our mom died she moved in with
our dad to was legally blind. She
didn’t get paid for these caretaking
duties which she would have gotten paid for if either of my parents
would have been put into a nursing home. She saved this country
a lot of money doing this without
any payment.
Astrid, Bronx, NY
My university gives a woman on
maternity leave her full salary for
one semester now, but there was
no such arrangement during any
of the three years I was out with a
new baby. Trying to feed the family
took a lot of creativity; we became
vegetarian by necessity. But I still
managed to breast feed each baby
for its first year. I think it would be
much harder to do this today.
Lauren, New York, NY
My work does not offer paid
maternity/paternity leave, so I had
to use a combination of my paid
time off and short-term disability.
Unfortunately, I was extremely ill
during my first trimester and was
not able to work for four weeks, so
by the time I had my baby girl I only
was able to get short-term disability for two weeks.
Luckily, we had saved enough
money so that I could take 14 weeks
off from the time my daughter was
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born. It was important to me to
spend as much time with her as
possible to make sure that breastfeeding was off to a good start.
That was especially important to
me since I had had breast surgery
14 years ago and had a low-milk
supply and needed to pump several
times a day and use an at-breast
supplemental feeding device.
But I wanted to give my daughter all the breastmilk I could, since
there are so many benefits to
breastmilk and breastfeeding.Now
my daughter is seven months old
and a very happy baby. I’m lucky to
have a family member take care of
her while my husband and I work. I
enjoy my work but wish I had more
time to spend with my daughter.
Kathleen, New York, NY
No sick days, no pay. We just
earned less money. Time for the
United States to provide this very
minimal help to working parents.
All parents should have the ability
to care well for the next generation. It is in society’s best interests.
Galit, New York, NY
Not having a paid maternity
leave meant that for my first baby
it took us nearly 6 months after I
went back to work to financially recover from the unpaid leave I had
to take (I only had 6 weeks of 50%
paid leave and had to supplement
it with unpaid leave).
I am now pregnant again and
saving every penny because, again,
I will have to take leave without
pay, only this time I am also paying
child care costs.Women shoud have
more protection to take the time
needed after their child is born.
Even FMLA is only 12 wks long and
for some moms that is not enough.
Elizabeth, White Plains, NY
Now with both parents in most
families being forced to work in
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order to make ends meet, it is important that the employer sector
should modify its stance and allow
more generous maternity/paternity
leave. If there are two parents, one
should be allowed plenty of time to
take care of the new baby. In singleparent families, the parent should
be encouraged to take care of his
or her baby by having paid leave as
long as possible. If my daughter’s
husband had not been interested
and concerned about their babies,
her career would have suffered.
Betsy, Brooklyn, NY
Officially, our work policy was:
one month of paid leave, second
month at half pay, and the third
month at no pay. But my supervisor was extremely helpful when we
were planning my maternity leave
and we were able to cobble together together sick days, vacation days,
and comp days I had saved up. That,
in combination with disability checks
from the State of California (where I
gave birth), I was able to have three
months of paid leave, which I am so
thankful for.
doula called the first 12 weeks of an
infant’s life, ‘the fourth trimester,’
and in my experience, it truly was
that. I was ready to go back to work,
but at any time before my 12 week
mark, I was not ready at all. Please
advocate for paid family leave for all
families in the United States.
Jennie, Sodus, NY
Paid leave is so important because the care of our tiny babies is
so important! Luckily my husband
had a good enough job when we
had our children that I was able to
stay home and breastfeed my children. To this day they are healthier
than most of the children I know!
Dr. Emily, Livonia, NY
Since the birth of my son, I have
not been able to earn enough money to keep us financially stable. The
only way we have survived is by the
kindness of my mother, who has
welcomed us into her house to live
with her. When we speak about
the feminization of poverty, this is
where it starts, at birth.
My son had to be delivered early,
and he needed a LOT of extra care
in the first three months of life. He
needed to be swaddled tightly, held
close to me, and breastfed constantly
to keep him happy and satiated. I
was able to establish a healthy start
for my son, and the relationship that
we built during those important
weeks were irreplaceable. After I returned to work, I was able to pump
at my workplace, which enabled us
to feed my son almost exclusively
breastmilk for the first year of his
life. The evidence is widespread that
this is the best way to stave off later
illnesses for children, including obesity and diabetes.
As soon as I had a child, my earning capacity, scheduling, childcare
and expenses all sky rocketed. As a
single mother who receives absolutely no child support, this is particularly difficult, and without the
assistance of my Mother, we would
be on the street. Paid leave would
have made a huge difference in
my life, at that point when I really
needed it, there was nothing available to me and my son. Having a
child in this country is an economic
trap, and in fact, I have chosen to
have no further children because of
the insane financial demands placed
upon me as a single mom.
At the three-month mark, I almost immediately saw a change in
my son, and he was able to be more
independent, less fussy, and better
handled by my husband and other
family members besides myself. My
Annemarie, Bellport, NY
Supporting families builds communities. By giving parents time
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167
to bond and get to know their children, you strengthen families and
give children a head start.
Lauren, Yorktown, NY
Thank God my company sees the
benefit to baby and parent in providing paid maternity and paternity
leave. I received 12 weeks of paid
maternity leave and was able to
then add on my vacation and sick
time to extend my time off with my
daughter. We had a hard enough
time establishing breastfeeding and
bonding due to my c-section, if I had
to go right back to work at 8 weeks
or worry about where our next pay
check was coming from I would have
been that much more stressed out.
Our children are our future, and
when we realize the incredible disservice we are doing them by taking
their mothers away from them or
creating stressful situations during
their first few weeks of life we will
hopefully be on the right track.
Megan, New York, NY
We had a child and barely were
able to make ends meet while living off one income. Eventually we
were forced to leave our apartment and move.
We ended up having to move to
Norway, which in the end provided
us with the opportunity to have a
second child, which we think is very
necessary for our first:)I had a paid
maternity leave here in Oslo and it
has been a nice experience, rather
than a scarey, stressful and sad experience. We have been subletting
our apartment and hope to hold
onto it long enough to come home
again.
Emily, Brooklyn, NY,
What is more important than
raising healthy children to the future of the world and our country?
Paid maternity leave is the least
that any company can offer for the
benefit their employee is offering
to the country and world by raising
a healthy, happy child.
was stressful to find the time to
fit those in. An alternative family
leave policy is required that doesn’t
require to exhaust your banked
days, and paid family leave is necessary so that all mothers can afford to stay home with their babies
during those precious first months
when babies need their mothers
more than anyone else.
Alysa, New York, NY,
When I had my second child, I
did not qualify for any paid leave,
as I was a part time employee. Even
though we saved everything we
could before the birth of my son,
there was not enough to keep up.
I had to rush back to work as soon
as I could when he was six weeks
old. With a 1.5 hour commute, and
not enough time or space to pump,
I quickly lost my milk supply and
the ability to nurse my son, and
the financial effects of two months
without pay led our family to bankruptcy, which will affect us until my
son is over ten years old.
Joann, Owego, NY
Twelve years ago, I worked for
a small nonprofit and planned to
bring my new baby to work with me
after my six weeks of paid vacation
time that I had saved up. The board,
all seasoned parents, said ‘No way!’
(men and women), ‘you will get
nothing done.’ Instead, they offered me an additional six weeks of
maternity leave AT FULL pay. When
I returned, I negotiated part-time
hours until I left after my daughter
was nine months old to pursue a
consulting business.
I will never forget what they
gave to me, not having to worry
about our bills (my husband was
self-employed), and allowing me
to adjust to the enormous stress of
becoming a first time parent. Dedicating time to your children makes
you a better parent and makes your
children better citizens of society.
It’s really important!
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Verena, New York, NY
Jessica, Woodhaven, NY
When I had my daughter in 2008
I took almost 6 months of leave,
about two weeks of which were
paid and only because I was required to exhaust my sick leave and
vacation days while I was out. Yes,
I was lucky to be able to afford to
take so much time off unpaid, and
lucky that my employer, at the time
The City of New York, had generous leave policies (48 months for
first time mothers, the would hold
a job at your same salary level, not
necessarily your job though).
When my husband a I decided
that we wanted to try to get pregnant it was a very exciting time
in our life. We were thinking of
names, looking at cribs, and planning for so many wondeful things.
I always thought that when it was
time for me to have my children I
would be able to stay home with
my children and raise them just like
my mother did for my brothers and
I. But things are just not the same,
times are hard! If you want to give
your children just the basics, tou
need two incomes. Especially if you
own your own home.
But it meant that I returned to
work with a little baby at home
and with absolutely no sick days
or vacation days/personal days if I
needed them if either she or I got
sick or some other emergency came
up that required me to take time
off from work. Babies go to the
doctor a lot their first year, and it
When my first daughter finally arrived, we thought we saved
enough to get us through a least
a year of me being home so I
wouldn’t have to send my daughter to a sitter. Before making the
decision to stay home for a year, I
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had to use all my vacation and sick
time at work. Then I collected unemployment for several weeks. All
I wanted to do was enjoy my time
with my daughter, time I could never get back. Unfortunalty I spent
many of my days worried about
money, worried if we could pay
our mortgage ! I loved my time at
home with my daughter, it was the
best decision we ever made but it
would have been so much more enjoyable if we did not have worry so
much about our finances. I wanted
what ever other mother wants , to
be with their child during the most
important time of their life.
Yvette, Bronx, NY
When my mother became very
ill And I was her primary caregiver
I had to exhaust all of my vacation
plus leave no pay. The hardship this
caused was overwhelming financially as well as emotionally. This is
the memory of her passing I’ll always have and fear for my children.
Janet, Astoria, NY
When my son was born, he
needed heart surgery. He recovered quickly, but I didn’t. I ended
up with post partum depression
and only ‘came out of it’ about a
month prior to going back to work.
I had to pick up my life and after
finally being able to enjoy my son, I
had to leave him. I had paid leave
and was lucky my company offered
it after only having been there 7
months. However, I could only take
3 months since I needed to leave
some vacation time and sick days
for potential sick days of my children (any myself). I couldn’t afford
to take unpaid leave.
I really hope that paid leave will
be extended, like it is in England/
Europe. Look, I don’t need a year
off, but that’s just me. I could’ve
used 6 months to really feel like
things were back on track. While
I’m not classified as having PPD
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anymore, I know that I’m still traumatized and could have used more
time to recover, regroup and to be
the best mother possible.
aged to go back and complete my
college education but the first ten
years of parenting were more difficult without paid leave.
Janet, Liverpool, NY
NORTH CAROLINA
When my son was born, I was
fortunate to have my parents living
nearby. Without their help, I would
not have been able to manage. My
husband and I were both working
full-time at the time I delivered our
baby. My husband was not able to
take any paid time off to help me.
Therefore, my parents (retired)
were a God send. I realize that not
everyone has parents to help them
and it should not fall on Grandma
and Grandpa to carry the load. I returned to work in four weeks even
after having a C-section because
of the financial burden of staying
home. I had one week paid by vacation time I had coming and was
not paid for the other three weeks.
Kit, Jeffersonville, NY
Without paid family leave my
wife and I, with our first child,
worked alternate shifts to ensure
our daughter was never without
one of us. This also served the secondary purpose of minimizing the
daycare bill. Breastfeeding was not
even a question since she went back
to work within the week. I worked
1st shift, she worked 2nd shift and
we both slept 3rd shift. With our
second daughter my wife took unpaid leave and ultimately stayed
home because as a Nurse Aide she
made less than the daycare bill. I
eventually found a living wage job
but it was tough for the first year.
Thankfully when our third was
born I had a good job but we were
definitely worse off and had less
time as a family unit because of
the lack of paid leave. Mind you
we had the finances for her to stay
home with the children because I
was working 75+ hours per week.
Things are better now that I man-
Angela, Hillsborough, NC
I’ve had three children and only
allowed to take the time I had
saved from sick & vacation leave for
their births. Six weeks with my first
two children and nine weeks for
the third. When I returned to work,
sleep deprived, physically sore, and
still shedding pregnancy weight;
I was expected to re-enter my job
with the same stamina I had prior
to giving birth, having depleted all
my sick/vacation time. All ten of
my birthing years were prior to the
Family Medical Leave Act.
Now my children are having my
grandchildren and I would like my
daughters & sons to be able to enjoy this time in their lives without
worrying about paying the bills. It
would be nice to say that Family
Leave has been implemented and
improved in the last 25 years. Why
not allow new mother’s to ease
back into their jobs over a period of
time instead of immediately? There
are many ways to make the transition back into the work place without placing the new mother under
pressure to perform.
Roxane, Raleigh, NC
A friend of mine told me that
she has to choose between keeping
her job and taking her daughter to
the doctor. That is outrageous!
Becky, Cary, NC
A little over a year ago I had my
second child. Using the FMLA I was
able to use my remaining Paid time
off that was accrued at the time to
stay home with my daughter. I had
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2 weeks (10 days) to recover from a
c-section before having to return to
work. Unpaid leave was not an option as I have bills to pay.
I am lucky that I work from home
and it is not a ‘physical’ job. I cannot
imagine having to leave the house
and go back to work. My husband
also works from home so between us
we were able to overcome any obstacles. Working at home did foster
our great breastfeeding relationship.
It’s tough feeling like you have to
choose job or baby. We did what we
had to do, we made it work but it’s
heartbreaking to know it doesn’t always work out as smoothly for some.
Amanda, Asheville, NC
After laboring for 28 hours, my
beautiful red-headed son was born
via cesarian birth (he was posterior) weighing in at a healthy 8lbs
3oz. Due to the cesarian birth, my
breastmilk did not come in for nearly a week. During that time, I woke
up every 3 hours to put my son to
my breast, then pump to encourage my milk to come in. Because
of the surgery, I could not change
diapers right away, and so my husband did. My feet remained swollen
for weeks, so I wore slippers to doctor’s appointments until my shoes fit
again. Although my job was a part
time position as a Minister of Christian Education, as a justice issue my
church offered six weeks of paid
maternity leave. I then took an additional two weeks of unpaid leave.
I don’t know how we would have
survived without paid maternity
leave. Upon returning to work, I was
provided with a space for pumping
and encouraged in my determination to continue breastfeeding. I
successfully breastfed my son until he
was 14 months old. My son is 4 and
he has never had an ear infection in
his life, and I attribute some of his
good health to extended breastfeeding. I wish that every mama had the
paid time off that I had to figure out
first-time parenting.
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I wish that every mama was as
empowered by her employer to
continue breastfeeding even after
returning to work. I will advocate
for every other mother and father
to be afforded the same treatment
under the law. Being home with
your newborn is essential to their
wellbeing, and our bills do not stop
just because we’ve had a baby. Paid
maternity leave is one of the smartest, best investments a nation can
make in the next generation.
Suzanne, Wilmington, NC
As a certified nurse midwife
and a mother I know that paid
family leave is essential to moms,
dads and babies. I have seen the
nurses I work with struggle with
going back to work at 4 weeks
postpartum because they’ve used
all their vacation time and their
families can’t survive without the
paycheck.
I have seen first hand what
happens when the healing time
is rushed and women end up with
infections, stop breastfeeding and
become depressed because they’re
working full time and trying to
raise an infant. I was one of the
lucky ones: when I had my son, my
husband picked up extra work and
we were able to make ends meet
while I stayed home for the first six
months of my son’s life.
Those first six weeks were a
blur, but I distinctly remember
not even being remotely ready to
leave my son at that time. And
that’s when most working mothers
go back to work.
Many other countries value this
important time in a family’s life
with paid family leave. A parent’s
time with a child at the beginning
of their life is so critical to optimal
physical and emotional development. If we value families, we
should put our money where our
mouths are and support them!
Nicole, Raleigh, NC
I am fortunate enough to work
for an organization with a great
family leave policy. When my son
was born in October, 2010 I was able
to spend the first three months of
his life with him.
Those months were both priceless and sleepless. I can’t imagine
not having that time with him. I also
can’t imagine having to function at
my job with such little sleep.I’m so
thankful that my work values my
role as a mother. I wish that all companies did the same.
Brenda, Salisbury, NC
I gave birth to my child 39 years
ago, and at that time ‘paid leave’ for
birth of a child was unheard of. You
were given the ‘opportunity’ to take
an ‘unpaid’ maternity leave of up
to 3 months. If you did not return
by that time, then you were automatically fired.No parent or parents
should ever be placed in a position
where they must choose between
giving care to their child, or giving
that responsibility to someone else
in order to keep a job.
Jordyn, Wilmington, NC
I had moved to NC when I was 28
weeks pregnant. While I was able to
find a job, as a front desk clerk at an
acupuncturist’s office, I knew that
paid time off was not something a
small office could offer. As I got closer to my due date we discussed my
leave and all they could do for me
was 6 weeks unpaid leave. I didn’t
blame them, I knew that as a small
business their hands were tied. It
was going to be expensive to hire a
temp agency to find a replacement
for me. Also, I wasn’t sure how soon
I wanted to come back, and whether
we could afford childcare or not.
In the end I became a stay at
home mom. We sacrificed a LOT. We
do not have cable TV, we do not go
out to eat, we don’t buy new clothes.
My husband had to work nearly 70
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hours a week to make ends meet. He
didn’t get to spend much time with
me or our new daughter. But without paid leave, or affordable childcare, we didn’t have a choice. I love
staying home with my daughter,
and now I take care of another baby
to help pay the bills. But the work
that mommies do needs to be recognized and appreciated, and paid.
Rachael, Barnardsville, NC
I had paid maternity leave after
my children were born. This was
very beneficial for myself and my
children because I was able to rest,
recuperate, and bond with my babies. Without having to worry about
earning an income during this important time!
All women should have the opportunity to spend time with their
newborns after they are born and
relax and get back to health after 9
months of pregnancy and hours of
labor & childbirth. This time should
be paid leave as many other medical conditions and situations are. I
believe it is so important that maternity leave be treated as important
and necessary for women and men
to have so that families can spend
time together at such an important
time in their lives.
Joyce, Greenville, NC
I received paid leave when I had
my children. It was great. I could
not have return to work without.
Those were important days to bond
with my children. In fact, i think
when should be allowed to use their
spouses sick leave to continue out
for six more weeks.
You think about, the first two
to three weeks or more you spend
time getting the child on a schedule. The mother really does not
have ample time to rest as her body
heals physcially and her mind mentally. Especially when there may be
other children in the home and God
knows the husband is just another
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child.Women makes up a large number in the work force and we need
this time.
Lindsay, Apex, NC
I took the full 12 weeks off
with my new baby, but only a
small portion was paid. I received
4 weeks of Short Term Disability
pay at 70% of my salary and I had
two weeks of vacation saved up
to use also.
My husband and I did have
some money in savings to use for
my time off, but it seemed to go
rather quickly and by the time I
went back to work, our savings
account was lower than we usually like it to be. But, I must say
also that pay or no pay, even 12
weeks is not nearly enough time
to be off with a newborn.
Most other countries get at
least 6 months. I was mortified at
the thought of having to put a 12
week old baby in daycare, which
added a lot of stress to the end of
my maternity leave. Fortunately,
I was able to work from home 30
hours a week for my first month
back and then I found a nanny to
take care of my son at our house.
I like my job and I do like having
a career, but I would’ve quit my
job if I would’ve had to put my 12
week old son in daycare. He still
seemed so fragile to me.
Kayron, Seven Devils, NC
I was a new mother and was
working for a family owned company with only 3 employees. When
I took maternity leave it was only
for 4 weeks because I did not get
any type of pay. This put a finiacal
burdon on my new family including the costs of delivery and new
expenses incurred with a child.
I started working from home
after 2 weeks just because I needed the money, I wasn’t even allowed to drive yet because I had
not healed. But there I was sleep
deprived, sore/hurting, and on
edge trying to work from home
with a screaming infant who constantly needed to be fed, changed,
burped, or bathed. It was ridiculous! However, I considered my self
lucky, because what about those
mothers who had complications,
or their babies are still in the NICU
at the hospital because they were
born too early or with problems.
Then, after I went back to work,
I had to take my infant with me,
because there is no childcare available for infants under 8 weeks old.
I was so stressed and there was not
a place at work that I could breastfeed, so therefore I had to give up
the breastfeeding. This is terrible, I
had to put my baby’s wellbeing on
the line because I needed to make
a paycheck. Other countries insure
that mothers get time to take care
of their newborns and themselves
before returning to work.
Kelly, Charlotte, NC
I was back working in my home
office the evening my daughter
was born. When she was 6 weeks
old, I flew with her (along with
my husband) on a business trip at
my own cost. Regardless, when my
daughter was three months old,
my boss told me that she was going to have to change some things.
She said, ‘I feel like your daughter
is a distraction for you.’ Within
a few months, I was replaced. I
worked for a small employer, so
all of this was perfectly legal...and
perfectly devastating to my family.
We need family leave because
children and family members
needing care are not ‘distractions.’
In fact, children are necessary to
the economic reproduction of any
society. They are assets as future
tax payers and workers. No aging
parent should be left alone to suffer because their adult child has
an employer that thinks a stroke
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victim is a ‘distraction.’ No worker
should have to go through what I
did. Today I teach at a university
where I enjoy some protection and
benefits. Compared to what I experienced, I feel blessed. But compared to others around the world,
the fight is not finished. I will fight
for family leave for other families
and for my daughter’s future.
Agnes, Raleigh, NC
I work for North Carolina State
University as a faculty. The Head of
my Department is very supportive
of families, so he arranged that I
had paid leave for one semester after the birth of my daughter. I was
one of the lucky ones. However,
this arrangement was individually
made, and is not guaranteed for
every employee. I strongly support
this cause, the paid leave made a
huge difference for us.
Robin, Pittsboro, NC
I worked for a small, social justice
not-for-profit organization and was
so fortunate to have received three
months paid maternity leave when
my son was born. Despite not being
required to do so by FMLA (since we
had under 50 employees) and that
this small, grassroots organization
had to pay a contractor to continue
my critical work during leave, the
organization modeled itself after
more progressive countries, even
though 3 months is actually minimal
in comparison to other countries.
They weren’t required to by law,
and it was a hardship, but they did
it because they believed it was right.
And I was a far better employee for
having had it. I had incredible gratitude to my organization for having
received the gift that I did.
When my son was three weeks
old, my husband was laid off with
no severance. I would not have had
the option financially to have stayed
home when I did with unpaid leave.
Since we weren’t bound by FMLA,
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I wouldn’t have even had the option for unpaid leave even if we had
been able to afford it. My son was
briefly in the NICU after birth and
so establishing a breastfeeding relationship was more of a struggle than
it would have been even as a brand
new mother. Having the ability to
overcome the initial difficulties while
on leave I am sure contributed to my
ability to continue to breastfeed my
son exclusively for six months, then
to add supplemental foods thereafter, with no formula or cows milk, as
recommended by health authorities.
That strong foundation, and the
ability to pump at work (I had a private office, a hands free pump, and
could just work away as I expressed
milk with no loss of time), allowed
me to do so. It wasn’t easy, even so,
as my milk supply dwindled towards
the end of his first year, but increasing my pumping sessions made up
for it. Would I have liked even more
time at home with my newborn? Of
course. Luckily in some ways, my
husband didn’t find a new job until
my son was six months old, so even
after I had to return to work, he was
at home with his dad. I still cried every day for weeks after I had to leave
him to return to work.
I can’t imagine what it is like for
mothers who have leave their babies
after six weeks, or even less, and who
have the financial pressures that unpaid leave means. It seems like so
little, in a way, when you think of
providing some sort of paid leave to
an employee for a few times in their
lifetime (depending on how many
children they have) against the costs
of replacing valuable employees. If
other countries can figure out how
to make family life economically
workable with paid maternal and
paternal leave, I have faith that we
can figure it out too.
Gwen, Ayden, NC
More than once I have gone
on maternity leave knowing that I
would only be paid for 4 weeks even
though my company would require
me to take 8 weeks. It adds a huge
amount of stress to you pregnancy
and leave knowing that you have
to be especially careful about your
spending at a time when you have
new expenses.
Melissa, Salisbury, NC
My son is now 2 years old, and
I still look back on the weeks after
his birth with sadness. My employer
does not provide paid family leave,
and so I was forced to use all of my
emergency leave and then go on disability for the remaining weeks that
I was home. Because I was ‘fortunate’ enough to qualify for disability, my family only had to do without
20% of my salary for the time that
I was on leave. However, when I
returned to work after 12 weeks, I
had no emergency leave and had to
put my son in daycare so that I could
continue working.
He became sick immediately and
stayed sick continually, and I had to
make arrangements to care for him
without being able to take leave.
Unpaid family leave is meaningless.
While I was able to keep my job,
having to use my emergency leave
and go on disability put a tremendous burden on my family for many
months following my son’s birth,
and I was one of the lucky ones!
Bobbi, Kannapolis, NC
My son is now 40, but I had to quit
my job since there was no maternity
leave at that time. I went back to
work when he was only 3 weeks old
since I had no income. It caused me
to lose my apartment. Had to move
in with my parents until I could save
enough to get another apartment.
I was fortunate enough to find a
great babysitter who did not charge
me a lot. Took me almost a full year
to get back on my feet.If there had
been maternity leave that would
have paid me while I was out and
then let me come back to work, I
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would not have had to struggle.
Women should not have to suffer
like this just because they elect to
have a child.
Beth, Durham, NC
My son was born 9 weeks early
in 2005, weighing 2 lbs 14 oz., a very
tiny, sick little fellow. Over the two
months he was in the hospital, I sat
by his bed in the NICU every day,
putting my hand on his tiny body in
the isolette, and holding him against
my skin. The doctors said research
showed skin to skin contact improved outcomes and helped babies
go home faster.
Unfortunately, on many days
I was the only parent in the whole
NICU. Most of the parents had to go
back to work almost immediately after the birth of their child. For those
lucky enough to have maternity
leave at all, most had to choose between being with their child in the
hospital or being with them when
they came home. For those without
any maternity leave or with unpaid
leave, they realized that their child
was likely to come out of this experience with special needs, and they
needed all the paid work they could
get before the child came home.
It broke my heart to think how
painful it must be to go to work and
think of your child all alone at the
hospital. One of the mothers cried
as she described going to work every
day, getting off, driving the hour to
the hospital, spending time with her
baby, eating in the hospital cafeteria,
driving home, then doing it all again.
Her son was born 4 months early
and ended up in the hospital for 5
months facing lots of challenges. No
mother should have to do that.
As we have moved through all my
son’s therapies-speech, OT, feedingto help him overcome his early birth,
I’ve often wondered what I would
have done if I still had to work and
had to find ways to take enough
time off to get him to all his appointments.
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Billie, Williamston, NC
Rachel, Hillsborough, NC
The company that I work for has
fewer than 50 employees, so they
are exempt from the FMLA. When
my daughter was born, I could
choose between six weeks of unpaid
time off or I could return to work
part-time (20 hours a week) for two
weeks and would then be paid for
the full six weeks.
When I gave birth to my daughter three years ago, not only was I
fired from my position but my health
insurance was terminated the day
she was born. Unfortunately, since
I had chosen to work in a small business instead of a mega-corporation,
the FMLA did not apply to my situation as there were less that twelve
employees. This led to a great number of hardships including lose of income and the added stress of having
to secure emergency medicaid for
both myself and my daughter as she
was born one month early and spent
eight days in the NICU.
It was an agonizing decision, but
we simply could not afford for me to
have no income for six weeks, so I returned after four short weeks. I borrowed a breast pump and pumped
in a private bathroom, usually while
sitting on the toilet seat. It was unsanitary, disgraceful, and humiliating. But I was determined to breast
feed exclusively and I did so for nine
months. I began to supplement
with formula not because my supply
was insufficient, but because of the
amount of time that I was away from
my desk during the day.
There were some ‘not so subtle’
comments and jokes made about
why I was away from my desk so
often.The love of my daughter and
my determination to continue to
breast feed for as long as possible
really pulled me through. Looking
back, it was a very emotional, stressful, and lonely time. I really lacked
the support of my company during a
critically important time.I constantly
felt like I had to choose between my
child and my work.
Elizabeth, Durham, NC
We’re expecting our first in August! Like many employees, I do not
get maternity leave. I have saved up
enough vacation and sick time to
stay with my new baby for 8 weeks.
Colleagues donated an additional 3
weeks. To do this, I have skipped vacations. When I return, I won’t have
enough time saved to visit family for
the holidays – even though it’s baby’s
first. What’s worse: I know I won’t be
able to afford taking time off if we
have a second child. It took me three
years to save up the time I have now.
I find it reprehensible that people who chose to have children are
not protected or given any amount
of paid time off to care for their new
family member. The present situation pregnant women find themselves in is an incredibly hard place
to be. They can either care for their
newborn without pay for the first six
weeks after birth and then place the
care their very precious child into
the hands of someone else to return
to work OR they can try to make
ends meet while providing the best
care possible for their child. Not
only does this cause undue stress
on a new mother and baby, but it
jeopardizes the health of our future
leaders.
If a mother must return to work
because of financial hardships, there
is a good chance she will not be able
to breastfeed as frequently or for as
long as she may like. Time and again,
research has proven that breast-milk
is not only healthier for the baby,
but also helps create that nurturing bond that is so important in the
first six months of the newborns
life. Even if a new mother makes
the choice to sacrifice her income
to be able to care for her baby, the
sheer stress of financial hardship can
adversely affect breast-milk supply
and interfere with the mother-child
bonding process.It is clear to me and
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many others (including whole countries) that this is an injustice visited
upon those who choose to welcome
children into their homes.
upon you enough the cascade effect
this has on the mother’s health, babies health and overall success of the
family and community.
Perhaps it is time to rethink our
priorities as a country and finally recognize that we are jeopardizing the
health and well-being our smallest
citizens, the ones to whom we will
look in the future to become active
and productive citizens.
I urge our government to realize that investments in family leave
and early childhood are returned to
us 10 fold in a more stable, successful and prosperous society. Navigating the stressful patchwork system
of maternity leave has changed my
life and now I hope to improve this
foundation of society as part of my
life’s work. It’s time we take care of
our own.
Jeannine, Durham, NC
When I was pregnant with my
first child, I thought I was in good
shape. I worked for a reputable nonprofit organization that was ‘family
friendly’. Boy was I surprised after
presenting my maternity leave plan
to my boss (meticulously prepared
to cover my absence). My employer
told me that not only could I NOT
take more than 6 weeks leave without losing my job (thanks to a gaping loophole in FMLA that requires
more than 50 employees within 75
miles), I was also denied a flexible
work environment. That meant no
working from home or compressed
work week.
But again, I was a lucky one. I was
ALLOWED to use all my accrued sick
time and vacation time as paid maternity leave. Our state has no paid
disability so that wasn’t an option.
I reluctantly, sadly and tiredly went
back to work after 6 weeks of round
the clock baby care. Still I went several weeks without pay.
My bad experience with my employer prompted me to leave that
organization and find another
that would honor the idea of ‘family friendly’ not just because its the
ethical thing to do, but because its
good business. Happy, supported
workers are loyal, productive workers. Today I direct a non-profit nurse
home-visiting program for parents
of newborns. I see first hand how little support parents receive. Some go
back to work as early as 1 week because they simply can’t afford to stay
home without pay. I can not impress
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NORTH DAKOTA
Jennifer, Wahpeton, ND
I had my son in February 2010. I
did not have the option of paid maternity leave, but I was able to combine my sick and annual leave. That
amounted to 9 weeks off, I also took
3 weeks of leave without pay. I split
that time off with some part-time
hours. So my son was only 2 months
old when I went back to work. I am
lucky that I had enough sick and
annual leave built up to take that
much time off, but when I came
back to work I was left with almost
no leave built up at all. This made it
very hard to bring my son to his well
checks and doctor visits. Also, taking
3 weeks off without pay put a huge
burden on my family.
My husband and I don’t make a
lot of money. My husband was allowed to take 2 weeks off, but he
had to use his sick and annual leave
as well. Also, he was pressured into
coming back to work after only one
week. We are a two income family, but not by choice. I would much
rather be home with my son. For the
first year of our son’s life, we were
lucky to find affordable daycare and
to have help from the grandparents.
He will be going to a more expensive
one now. I am still nursing my son,
but at times it has been a struggle.
Finding the time and place to pump
at work is hard, but it is worth it.
I am determined to give my son
the best start in life, even though
it has not been easy for me or my
husband. Going back to work after
9 weeks (part for 6 weeks after that)
was nowhere near long enough, especially since my son did not start
sleeping through the night until
10.5 months old. I was and still am a
very tired, working mother. Having
more (or any!) paid maternity leave
would have made a huge difference
in our lives. My husband and I would
love to have more children, but we
will have to wait until I can accrue
enough sick and annual leave again.
I do realize that there are people
out there that have it far worse than
us, but it’s time the US got with the
program. We are supposed to be a
country that leads the world, but we
cannot take care of our own families!
OHIO
Johanna, Columbus, OH
As a doctoral student at an institution with no maternity policies, I
was, like all of my peers, reliant on
the goodwill of my professors and
advisers after giving birth. While
some of my mentors were supportive, many were not. The unspoken
message seemed to be that I was
not taking my studies seriously even
though I was working harder than
ever before, trying to do research
while the baby napped and write
papers while nursing. I do not wish
this level of exhaustion on anybody,
nor the humiliation of having to try
to pretend that you are not a new
parent. We need to support new
mothers and fathers and give them
the space to fully dedicate themselves to their babies without the
fear that they will lose their jobs /
positions if they take some time off.
Ron, Northfield, OH
Being from a low middle class
family, the added pressure from
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money worries – while my wife takes
maturnity leave – will/is unneeded.
The country and society should be
more than willing to help families
and companies provide this sort of
support for famil as it encourages
family growth and childrens education from an early time on. Allowing both child and mother to be secure and healthy before leave is up
and a more ‘normal’ way of life is
achieved.
Marta, Westerville, OH
I am an academic woman. At R...
University, I had to go back to my
classes after I gave birth only two
weeks after the event. I saw it as a
violation of my daughter’s and my
human rights. But as an assistant
professor one could not even whisper a complaint or you didn’t get
tenure.
Well, I didn’t get tenure any way
because I got pregnant in spite of
warnings...and one of my senior
faculty colleagues had admonished
me that ‘it wasn’t a good time in my
academic life to have a child.’ She
suggested an option which really
violated my right to choice, yes, my
choice was to have my daughter. No
maternity leave there...
Emily, Bowling Green, OH
I am due to have my second
daughter around March 12, 2011. I
am currently a non-tenure-track faculty member at a state university in
Ohio. Besides my teaching duties, I
also have administrative responsibilities as the director of a course of 3040 sections per semester and around
25-30 teaching assistants.
The university I work for does not
provide paid maternity leave and I
cannot afford to take it unpaid (to
top it off, if one does take unpaid
leave, she would be responsible
for paying 100% out of pocket her
health insurance costs with no subsidy from the university until she
returns to work full time). While my
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immediate supervisors in my department have been as accommodating
as they can be, given the university’s
policies (I am teaching online courses this semester), I will only be taking two weeks away from the office
after my daughter is born. This is a
huge problem for me because I will
be breastfeeding my daughter. On
the days that I have to go into the
office, I will be running home every
2-3 hours to feed my daughter. This
scares me because I had huge problems breastfeeding my older daughter at first. With my older daughter,
I was at least fortunate enough to
give birth right before the December
break, so I had 5 weeks off before
returning to work which allowed me
to work through the breastfeeding
problems I had.
This time, even on the days that
I am not in the office, I will still be
tied to my laptop and my cell phone
for work, complicating that precious
time I should be spending with my
new baby and my toddler. If an employer as supposedly progressive as
a state university has policies this
bad, I can’t imagine how bad it is for
moms in the private sector!
Lynn, Beavercreek, OH
I did not formally have paid leave
with my first child but was able to
shift my work so that I worked just a
few hours during the firs few months
and then made up that work later in
the year. This schedule allowed me
to breastfeed.
We need to recognize that parents of infants are making a contribution to society and we should support them in that contribution with
paid family leave. We should also do
a much better job of supporting and
encouraging breastfeeding which
results in healthier people.
Mary, Cincinnati, OH
I did not have paid leave after
my last chid was born (who is now
18 months) and we had to go to the
free store for food for myself and
my other 2 kids and receive cash assisatnce which did not even cover my
rent each month! I ended up having
to stay with family cause I couldn’t
pay my electric bill and then I went
back to work after only 4 weeks off
(c section) cause I couldn’t live on the
OWF check.
Carol, Columbus, OH
I had 6 wks paid and took 6 more
weeks unpaid when I had my son.
My son had acid reflux which resulted in lots of spit up and lots of inconsolable crying. I can’t imagine if
I would have had to return to work
right away. I felt like I was just finally
figuring out how to care for him at
3months. Luckily my husband and I
could afford for me to take 6 weeks
unpaid. Also, I breast fed until 5
months but only exclusively until he
went to daycare.
My job is in sales and I spend my
days in different places with a variable schedule. It became too difficult
to find the time to pump while at
work. If I had more time to be home
with the baby, I could have breast
fed longer. While I am grateful for
the time I did have, I still would have
liked to take longer! I am lucky to
have gotten the time that I did.
Thelma, Otway, OH
I had a co-worker who did not
have enough sick days to cover her
leave. Administration offered to use
sick days she had not yet earned but
she said if my baby gets sick I will
have no sick leave so she chose to
take dock time. I passed an envelope
to collect money to help out as her
husband was laid off at the time.
Bridget, Perrysburg, OH
I interviewed for a great 9
month faculty position at a community college and the interview
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went very well. I was told I would
hear back by the end of the month.
The end of the month came without a response. I gave it an additional month and, when I still
heard nothing, resorted to plan
b – having a second baby. By the
time that employer, called me back
for a follow-up interview, I knew I
was pregnant. I went to that interview and was up front about
my situation. I disclosed the pregnancy and assured them that as an
experienced working mother I was
confident that I was the right candidate. Happily, I was offered the
position. At that point I checked
their policies. By delivery time, I
would be past my 6 month review,
but short of the 12 months of service necessary to qualify for their
paltry 6 week maternity leave.
The same rule applied to FMLA.
The only time off I would be allowed is whatever ‘medically necessary’ time my physician would
write for, which could be as short as
3 weeks! I appealed to my wouldbe-supervisor, knowing that he
had the authority to approve an
unpaid leave. I explained that I
would need 6-12 weeks and that
I was willing to take the time unpaid. He refused my request. Because of that, I knew I was stuck in
my under employed, part-time job
for at least another year. If you’re
not going to hire the 6 week pregnant woman, you’re certainly not
going to consider the visibly pregnant candidate. That decision has
rippled through my family’s life. I
am back to being fully employed,
but at a 12 month job where I am
making less.
This has hurt my children’s
development and my financial
status.I am writing to say that not
only do we need paid maternity
leave, but that we need to extend
the benefit to employees at the
time of hire. We no longer with
hold healthcare, disability insurance or other benefits – why maternity leaves? This cripples working women from making strategic
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career moves during their reproductive years and, at base, is discriminatory.
Eva, Solon, OH
I put it in writing that I wanted
to take some unpaid leave after my
children were born and I intended
to return to work. Both times I was
placed on the layoff list anyway;
however, my employer hired me
back on both occasions. Supervisors feel more comfortable laying
off a person that they do not have
to deal with face-to-face, and I was
one of those people at home with
a newborn. I did not even get a
phone call telling me I was laid off
with my first child; it was a surprise.
I am so glad I had these letters
signed by three levels of engineering management.
My first child, a boy born a week
early had serious colic for about
ten weeks (it started in his second
month of life). When I was ready
to return to work my boss told me
I was laid off when I called him. I
came in to sign the separation
paperwork only to be told that
my boss wanted me to start right
away. The problem was I could not
find a babysitter to take care of my
screaming (in pain) colicky baby. I
put the baby on several different
medications which reduced the
symptoms, but he still needed a lot
of attention. Fortunately, the colic
was starting to subside and I finally
found someone willing to put up
with it. She complained a lot, but
I kept telling her it would get better and it did within a month of her
starting. What about mothers who
have children with a even more
serious condition like a premature
baby or a birth defect?
Sometimes having that extra
time is all a parent needs (I am
including Moms and Dads in this
statement). Of course, parents
need paid leave and a job with a
paycheck after a child is born too.
How are they going to support a
new dependent otherwise? Other
forward looking countries recognize the value of newborns getting a good start; what about the
USA? Children are not important
in our country? Now with prices
high and wages stagnant, people
are postponing or deciding against
having children. Just look at the
recent birthrate statistics. How is
our country going to have the scientists, workers, soldiers it needs to
continue to rule the world if people stop having families? Where
are the income taxes going to come
from to support our expensive government programs?
Children are an investment,
even more important than stocks,
bonds and hedge funds. What do
our leaders not understand about
this vital function that parents do
for our country, just raising the
next generation, that’s all!
Maggie , Akron, OH
I was lucky enough to have been
able to take 16 weeks off with the
birth of my premature child. My
job gave me 12 weeks paid leave. I
don’t know HOW I could have left
my tiny baby ANY earlier! When a
child is developmentally a 3 month
old, they are just barely getting their
bearings on the world, finally eating
well and sometimes sleeping well.
Just when they are comfortable,
Momma has to go back to work.
It’s very scary to leave, even at 3
months. But, how grateful I was to
be able to stay home that long and
know that I have a job waiting for
me. I wish all Moms had that right. I
wish all Babies had the right to have
their Moms be with them so they
can get a little stronger. What is
good for babies will be good for the
future of our world.
Carol, Loudonville, OH
I was lucky enough with my
first-born to have paid-leave for six
weeks – just long enough to estab-
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lish breast-feeding and get our new
addition integrated into our family.
At the time I was the primary breadwinner and we depended on my
income to pay rent, buy food and
diapers. Without paid time off we
would have had much more stress,
and certainly much greater financial
difficulty.
12 weeks at 60% of our pay. I was
happy to take the time to be with
my new baby, but was left with no
sick/vacation time. I also could not
make 60% of my pay for very long,
so I returned quicker than I would
have liked.
Crystal, Dayton, OH
I was very ill during my pregnancy, so as of the day I had my
daughter, I had no paid sick leave, or
vacation available. Luckily though,
my work place offers 6 weeks paid
parental leave. No having to worry
about how I was going to make up
for lost income, and how to buy diapers was a real load off of my mind.
A mind that was scrambling with so
many other things with a new baby,
other children, and comittments. I
am truly grateful for the paid leave
time.
I was lucky to have the ability to
use sick days as part of Family Leave
when my son was born. Wow, what
a terrific time. I was able to nurse
him, working continually to build a
low supply, nap with him, and build
my confidence as a new mother. My
son still reaps the health benefits of
my breast milk.
This time was more wonderful
because my family leave meshed
right up with summer break (I’m an
educator). A side benefit was that
my husband, too, took family leave
and we were both able to spend
precious days building our bonds as
a family. During this time we built
extended family relationships, community relationships-all of which are
sociologically imperative to preventing post-pardum depression and infant abuse.
Never before in history have
mothers been asked to leave infants
at such an early age. Past generations were able to baby wear, nurse,
and carry on duties with an infant.
No job in today’s society allow for
this. This is a necessary time off for
new families. Why can the USA not
join other wiser countries to develop
the necessary time off for the first
year?
Rebecca, Columbus, OH
I was very fortunate to work for
a small business who values employees. They had set up a short
term disability coverage to allow us
to take some time off. We had to
take all of our sick/vacation time,
however and then would get up to
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Amber, Kettering, OH
When my first child was born, I
had to take leave with no pay, and
then had to quit my job as I couldn’t
afford childcare after the pay loss.
The Parental leave really made a
huge difference.I think that all children should be b=valued in our society, and by paying for the leave of a
a parent, you ensure that for at least
a small amount of time, the care
of the child, and mother’s recovery,
comes first. I say that the US not only
joins the other countries that have
mandated leave, but that we lead
the way, finding the best practices
and showing that we value the parents and next generation who will
only make us stronger.
Amy, Columbus, OH
I was very lucky to have paid maternity leave for my 2 children- and
my employer was lucky too- no way
could I have afforded to take unpaid
time off- and trust me, no one would
have wanted me working for them
during those 10 weeks after giving
birth! I couldn’t even tell you wanted I wanted for lunch if asked- I was
so sleep deprived and my brain was
so fuzzy, I really didn’t even trust myself to drive very far. Women are not
themselves after childbirth – they
need time to heal and time to get
into their new rhythm of life – i.e.
life with much less sleep.
Workers who have barely slept
are not productive; and, depending on their job, could be downright
dangerous. Please don’t make a
brand new mom come back to her
job as a nurse or air traffic controller a week after giving birth! I think
people tend to focus on the impact
of not having paid time off on the
individual mom, when the impact to
society may be much greater and is
definitely felt by the employer, no
matter what the field. Without paid
time off, women will tend to come
back to work before they are ready
because they can not afford to stay
home. Paid leave benefits ALL of us.
Andria, Kent, OH
I was working to put my husband
through graduate school. During
that time, I gave birth to our first
child and took my 6 weeks of UNPAID leave. I felt penalized for being
a devoted wife and mother. When
we needed my paycheck the most,
it wasn’t there.Several years later, a
job offer was rescinded after I told
my potential employer that I was
pregnant with our second child. Fortunately, I found another offer. Also,
unpaid leave. At the time, my husband was working on a post doc.
Three weeks after our son’s birth,
I was taking him to the office and on
photo shoots since we could not afford childcare for two. It was fortunate my employer was understanding enough to allow this.This country
says it values its families. It does not.
It values the bottom line. I am now a
graduate student and teach several
undergraduate classes. A high percentage of the young women I talk
with say they will not be having children. There is little incentive. They
g
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feel it will be hard enough to find a
job in this economy. I can’t say that
I disagree.
Tara, Lexington, OH
I work part time in order to
spend more time at home with my
children. I have had to save sick and
vacation time for a year to use after
the birth of my third child. I am getting paid for about 4 weeks, I’ll take
another 4 weeks unpaid and then
I’ll have to go back to work before
I’m ready or my newborn in ready.
I am committed to breastfeeding
and I will have to introduce a bottle
to him at 7-8 weeks of age and I’ll
spend 10 months pumping at work
so he can have breastmilk while at
his babysitters. Not having paid time
off could be the end of breastfeeding for many mothers and it means
going back to work before families
are ready. Paid time off makes for a
happier, healthier family!
Ruth, Middleburg Heights, OH
My daughter was delivered
through an emergency C-section,
which threw all of our careful planning out the window. We also had
tremendous difficulty with breastfeeding, which is not an intuitive
process for many moms. Having
paid maternity leave along with
unpaid paternity leave for my husband was the only way we got
through those first few months.
My daughter and I needed to get
to doctor’s appointments, sessions
with the lactation specialist, and
so forth, but I wasn’t allowed to
drive for 6 weeks after the surgery.
If I hadn’t had paid leave, my husband would have had to go back
to work, which would have left me
alone with the baby at a time when
I couldn’t even pick her up by myself, much less drive us to appointments, do the grocery shopping,
etc.
Although I wish I’d had longer
leave – 8 weeks after the birth
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seemed very short – it was enough
time for me to heal and for our
family to bond before I had to return to full-time work. I’m a federal employee, so those 8 weeks were
a patchwork of sick leave and vacation time, and it will likely be more
of the same for our next child. I
truly wish I had been able to take
more time off, though, as we never
really did master breastfeeding – I
felt so much pressure to have it
down by week 7 so we could get
her used to the bottle in time for
me to go back to work. As with
many babies who start bottles early, my daughter’s interest in nursing tapered off significantly once
I went back to work, which meant
she was only even partially breastfed until 5 months of age. Longer
maternity leave would have meant
more time to figure out this aspect
of parenting.
My husband is an incredible
caregiver, and we are very lucky
to be able to afford the ‘luxury’ of
having one parent stay home with
our daughter, but nursing is something that only a mother can do!
And while some women are very
successful with it right away, and
some babies take to it from the
start, it takes some nursing pairs
longer to figure things out.
Sending Mom back to work 6
or 8 weeks after giving birth with
a breast pump and a cooler seems
to be a surefire way to set up our
mothers and babies for a shorter
nursing period. I hope to take
more time off with my next child,
and truly hope that we’ll do better with nursing than I did with my
first, but nothing will ever give back
to us the months of good health
(and lifetime of health advantages,
according to many recent studies)
that I couldn’t give my daughter
because I went back to work before
she and I were ready. And nothing will ever replace the months
of sweet snuggles that I lost when
she turned from the breast to the
bottle.
Sharon, Cincinnati, OH
My first child I only took 6 weeks
off from work and returning to work
was a stressful blur of trying to work
well, trying to breastpump and provide for my infant while gone. I was
fortunate with my second to be able
to take 12 weeks off, however some
of this time was unpaid. It makes
the process of breastfeeding much
easier and much better established
when returning to work.
I nearly cried when a friend of
mine in Finland told me she didn’t
have to think about returning to
work for a year after having her
child and could have another year
off unpaid. If we want to encourage
women to breastfeed and provide as
best for their children, we need to
come out of the dark ages and do
what is best.
Leslie, Akron, OH
My son was three weeks early
and I was planning to take the full
12 weeks knowing that I only had
enough sick, personal, and vacation to cover 5 weeks of that. It was
a choice I made because I felt those
first 12 weeks were so important to
my child’s development. I am so glad
I did it, but we financially struggled
due to the lack of income. Not the
ideal way to have a baby come into
the world with a stressed out mother. I focused on my son’s needs and
that was what was more important.
I strongly feel that paid family leave
is needed. Please consider this for all
the families.
Michelle , Whitehouse, OH
When my middle son was born,
I had to take unpaid maternity
leave. I had not built my sick time
and vacation time back up from
having my first son. Furthermore,
I was denied several promotions
for my ‘excessive use of sick time’
(all of which was used for the first
maternity leave). This unpaid leave
was extended due to my son hav-
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ing to have two surgeries before
his first birthday. He also suffered
from severe colic, crying 18 hrs. a
day (the nurses from the pediatrician’s office would call and ask me
if they could watch him so I could
get a break from the crying).
There was no way I could go
back to work as a police officer after my 12-weeks of unpaid family
medical leave. This lack of income
caused my husband (also a police
officer) and me to use our credit
cards to survive on. If it wasn’t
the mortgage payment (which we
had two of at the time because our
house wouldn’t sell), it went on the
credit card. It took us almost three
years (during which time I had my
third son and another unpaid FMLA
leave) to get the cards paid off and
our credit back on track. It was
only because we sold one of our
vehicles that we were able to do it
in three years, not five.It completely befuddles me how little value is
placed on family in this country.
For all the talk of ‘family values’, you need to only look at our
workplace policies to see that we,
as a society, do not truly value family. Any time my husband took for
newborn childcare was taken out
of my FMLA. This is turn shortened
my FMLA time, putting me on ‘unpaid leave’ sooner. Once I was on
‘unpaid leave’, my health insurance
was discontinued. He was also labeled a ‘sick time abuser’ for using
his sick time when the boys were
born. The laws we have in this
country show how much we value
family, and our most precious asset,
our children. What a shame. We
really need to take a cue from Europe and Canada.
Kirk, Columbus, OH
When my wife and I had our
first child, we were in college and
it was during summer break, so
we weren’t concerned so much
with paid time off. Now we’re
both working and plan on having
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another child soon. Luckily, her
and all our friends are also fortunate enough to have paid time
off for maternity leave, but not all
are so lucky.
Even with three months of paid
maternity leave, it’s heartbreaking to leave your helpless 3 month
old baby in the care of strangers
at a daycare center, but what else
can you do? You have to go back
to work. The only other option is
to give up on your career until the
child is in preschool. A 4-6 year
lapse in work history makes it difficult to find a job again, so most
parents just bite back their tears
and entrust their infant’s care to
someone else.Not only should maternity leave be guaranteed to all
mothers, but it should be longer
and fathers should get at least
2 weeks when they have a new
child.
OKLAHOMA
Sarah, Ardmore, OK
After the birth of my son, almost
a year and a half ago, I was entitled
to 12 weeks of unpaid leave under
FMLA. My husband was able to use
two weeks of vacation to stay home
immediately following our son’s arrival. After my first 12 weeks off
of work, I was able to work parttime for 16 weeks before returning to work full-time. Everyone I
talked to during and since this time
has told me how amazingly lucky I
was to have so much time at home
with my son. It was wonderful to
spend time bonding with my son...
but, I do not believe I was ‘lucky.’
First, my husband was only able to
spend two weeks at home, a fact
that we both still regret. Second, I
did not get paid for three months
and then only received half of my
pay for the next four months. Plus,
when I started back to work parttime, we had to begin paying for
full-time daycare, because we had
30min/day where my husband and I
were both at work.
For those four months almost all
of my paycheck went to daycare.
This means that for all of our bills
and groceries we were taking money out of savings for seven months.
Of course we would do it all over
again, but it was a stressful time,
financially, for us. The addition of
a baby turns every parent’s life upside down without adding the incredible stress of financial and job
uncertainty. If we really want to be
a global leader and innovator, then
we need to take care of our greatest asset, our children.
Misha, Norman, OK
As a university professor, I am
acutely aware of how fortunate I
am. I have flexible hours, supportive
colleagues, and my own office with
a door that locks. When I was pregnant, I kept a cot in my office and was
able to rest when I needed to. When
I was nursing, I could pump in privacy.
When I had a traumatic birth, my colleagues covered my classes until I was
well enough to teach again. Why
should this be exceptional, especially
in a wealthy country?
My colleagues support the scheduling of my classes and other responsibilities around childcare needs so
that either myself or my husband
(also a professor) is able to be with
our child if he is sick and can’t go to
preschool (which we can afford because we have good jobs). As a working mother, I have been profoundly
aware of the advantages I enjoy because of the kind of work I do, and
know that even though I want the
best for my child, I want the best for
other women’s children, too.
Susan, Tulsa, OK
I had no paid leave and child
care was very difficult as my baby
had colic. It was the hardest working six weeks of my life.
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Eileen, Oklahoma City, OK
I have three children. When my
first was born, I took 8 weeks off
to care for her. I had no idea how
difficult breast feeding could be, or
how emotional those weeks after
giving birth could be. Even after
8 weeks, it seemed too early to go
back to work. It was a struggle to
be back so soon. So when my second and third chidren were born, I
took 12 weeks with both of them.
Only the first 6 weeks were paid.
Fortunately, my husband and I
were able to forego my income for
a month and a half. I know that
most mothers aren’t so fortunate.
After 14 consecutive years, I am still
happily employed with the same
company.
Pauline, Tulsa, OK
I was 23 when I had my first child.
Yes, I was naive and inexperienced.
Yes, I was married, (still am), but I
did not expect the changes in life
a baby brought. I lived in Toronto,
Canada at the time so for one thing
I didn’t have to worry about the
Health Care. However, I did work
for the Ontario government and at
that time the maternity leave was
6 weeks before and 6 weeks after
birth. Whenever I reflect on this
time in my life I can now see why I
was not a happy Mom and I can now
see why I was a ‘rushed’ Mom. I had
to have a C-section when I had the
baby and 6 weeks later I had to rush
back to work. What was I thinking?
And, what were they thinking?
Canada has now realized that
this kind of life is NOT healthy for
both Mom and child! They have
changed the maternity leave now.
They did their research and the results proved that this was one of the
causes for society to have deteriorated so much. A mom in Canada is
now given a year off to bond and
care for her child and if needs be another year off at 50% pay. Now isn’t
this what the USA should be thinking about?
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Whenever the family structure
is flawed, society is flawed. I really
would not like to have a baby anytime soon, but I do look back with
envy at the positive changes that
the new maternity leave in Canada
has brought. I wish the USA would
look to other countries and try to
research or even adopt some of
their principles or laws.
Cheryl, Moore, OK
I was fortunate to have paid
leave with each of my children. We
would not have been able to survive without it!! If we truly want to
compete with the rest of the world
then we need to start with raising
our children right, right from the
start.
Laura, Okmulgee, OK
I was lucky when my children
were born. With the first, I’d already quit my job 5 months pregnant. By the time I was pregnant
with number two, I’d begun working again. I worked for a school
as a librarian’s assistant it Texas.
My son was born three weeks before his due date, during the summer break – exactly six weeks before the next school year began.
(Paycheck deductions allowed us
to continue our salaries over summer break).
The daycare I had my children
enrolled in would not take him
before he was six weeks old. If he
had been born on his due date,
or after, I would have had to take
the time unpaid until he was six
weeks unless I found an alternative care arrangement.
By the time I had my third
child, I was active duty in the
army. I got the full six weeks at
full pay convalescence leave, then
I took an extra two weeks of regular leave (I’m usually sitting on a
month’s worth at any given time).
I was glad to have the pay
because one: the pregnancy was
unexpected and two: my husband
is the stay at home parent. If I’d
not had paid leave, I do not know
how we would have handled it
financially. We were living paycheck to paycheck and still using
credit cards to keep afloat. There
was no way I could have saved
two month’s worth of expenses
in 8 months. I can understand
how, in a similar situation, some
women might decide to terminate the pregnancy. Yes, in a perfect world, all babies would be
planned to come at a (fiscally) optimal time. However, deployment
at the age of 9 months of my baby
forced premature weaning.
Stephanie, Tulsa, OK
When I was pregnant with my
2nd child, the doctors discovered
a previously undiagnosed heart
condition and decided to take me
off work a full 36 days before she
was due. Somehow, they figured
staying home and chasing after
my 2 year old would be easier
on me, physically, than sitting at
a desk-but this depleted our savings to the point that I could not
afford to take off very long when
she arrived...so I bit the bullet,
went on welfare, took out all the
loans and grants I could, and went
back to school full-time.
I supported myself, my son, and
my daughter on $800/month from
August, 2002-June, 2004-with the
help of foodstamps, Medicaid,
and student loans, while earning
my Bachelor’s degree. The sad
thing is if I were in that situation
now, with my degree, I would
probably have to do much the
same thing, because our financial
picture has not improved all that
much, overall.
Paid maternity leave would
have meant that I could have
spent that time with my kids, instead of stressing about the money, studying, and the embarrassment of welfare. I am proud of
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the creative way I worked around
our situation, and glad I got my
degree, but I wish I hadn’t had to
go to such extremes.
Mel, Tulsa, OK
Yesterday we celebrated the
third birthday of our twin boys
and with each of birthday I find
myself reminiscing. I recall many
beautiful and joyful things: the
moment my husband and I discovered I was pregnant, the doctor’s
office visit that told us to expect
twins, the period of bed rest before the boys were born, and,
of course, the blur of cuddling,
feeding, and loving that followed
their birth.
But I also recall some of the
less than perfect facts of this period. I work for a small firm and
have no paid maternity leave so
the period of bed rest combined
with the short period of time I
was able to stay home with the
boys drained all of my PTO time
and then some. I will forever be
grateful to my employer who continued paying me and allowed me
to ‘pay back’ my hours over time.
Nonetheless, I was back to
work only six weeks after the
boys were born out of necessity
and spent more than a year working to pay back my time. This also
meant having no PTO time to use
for more than a year. Every doctor’s visit or sick day with the boys
was a cut in our income.My husband and I don’t expect to have
any more children and I can’t help
but look back with regret that I
found myself in a position where
I had to seek outside help for my
children so early.
It is difficult enough to leave
them for a moment but I simply
was not ready to leave them for
8 hours every day at such a young
age. I can’t believe it has been
three years and that we’ve come
such a long way. I don’t want any
new mothers to experience what
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it is to choose between your children and the income you need in
order to provide for them.
addition, the costs of child care plus
the commute to my job (and the
out-of-pocket expenses all teachers
pay) almost equaled my salary.
OREGON
Finally, I couldn’t take it any more,
and I quit teaching. I returned on
and off to the teaching profession,
always quitting when I had another
child. This had a severe impact on
our finances. After our third child,
my husband lost his job. Although I
tried to find a teaching job, it was
the middle of the school year and
no one was hiring. We eventually
lost our house. If I had received paid
family leave, we would not have lost
our home. I believe that the fact
that our country does not have paid
family leave has had a very negative affect on our economy. It also
illustrates the fact that our society
as a whole does not value children,
which I think is one of the reasons
our schools are so bad.
April Rose, Portland, OR
Although I did not officially
have paid family leave, I did have
accrued sick and vacation time,
which equaled about five weeks of
full-time pay. Of course, this was
not enough to cover all my families
expenses and we quickly sunk into
poverty. Yet, I was lucky to have at
least some kind of saftey net. Most
of the mothers I know did not have
any paid leave.
There has been much talk recently about improving our education system. The first step is to reduce the number of children living
in poverty! Children, and babies
especially, need a secure nurturing
environment so they can learn. Paid
family leave can help keep families
from slipping into poverty, reducing
family stress. The early years are vital
to a child’s development and is a significant predictior of future success.
Let the United States finally join
the rest of the world in taking care
of our nation’s children. Consider it
an investement in the future of our
country.
When I lived and taught in Asia,
I found that the people were appalled – actually horrified – at the
fact that the United States does not
offer family leave. How can a country that is so advanced in so many areas not offer this basic need? What
does this say about our values? Other countries get it – why don’t we?
Especially when so many statistics
show that paid family leave benefits
children and families in every way
possible. If our children are the future, we need to take care of them.
April, Eagle Point, OR
As a teacher, I have devoted my
life to children. And yet, when I had
my first child, I was not given any
paid leave, which meant I could not
care for him. Perhaps this was in
part due to the fact that I worked at
a private school, and they simply did
not have the money to pay me and
a substitute teacher. How ironic that
I had to have someone care for my
child so I could care for my students.
I had to cobble together a plan that
involved several different caregivers, from grandma to an infant care
center. This was not only bad for my
children, but also for my students. In
Naomi, Ashland, OR
During my working life I raised 3
children alone and never had family
leave of any kind. I was also refused
employment because I had children.
I was also denied a home rental for
the same reason. But beyond shocking is the universal acceptance of
of the correctness of such behavior.
Any country that can find such behavior acceptable has no right to
hold its head up in this world, or
even individuals espousing such ig-
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181
norance and arrogance deserving of
discourse with decent people. The
arrogance and blind stupidity of
such behavior is an abomination.
Natalie, Portland, OR
I am currently on maternity leave
with my second child. Both times, my
leave has been unpaid. I am grateful
for Oregon state law’s liberal parental leave laws that allow me to stay
home for quite awhile after baby
is born, but earning at least part of
my salary during this time would be
very helpful. I work for a nonprofit
and my husband is a teacher, so it
is a significant financial burden to
be home, unpaid, during maternity
leave. A teacher’s salary is simply
not enough to cover all expenses for
most families, including ours.
Stacey, Coos Bay, OR
I am the sole bread winner for my
household and when I took time off
to have our second child I used all my
sick and vacation time because I didn’t
get any paid time off. I ended up able
to take six weeks off then went back
to work half time for two months
and then back full time. I was sleep
deprived and couldn’t breast feed after returning to work. It makes me
very sad that both I and my daughter couldn’t spend that time together
getting her the best start I could give
her. I felt overworked and underappreciated for the first year of her life
and we both missed out on some very
important bonding.
I am an attorney and I am certain
my performance was seriously lacking
during that time as compared to my
normal standard simply due to the
lack of sleep. Paid leave would have
made the biggest difference for me. I
could have taken sick time when I was
sick and some vacation time during
pregnancy as well. This may not be
the saddest or most compelling story
but I assure you for my family paid
leave would have been a godsend.
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Ingeborg, Portland, OR
I come from Germany and my
boys where born over there. ( I was
a citizen).I was with both of the
children home for 3 month, paid
leave. The Goverment now allowes
3 years ( like unemployment ) with
reduced pay. The Mother should be
home in the formative years.Not
like the States you have a child you
on you’re own sometimes with no
insurance. It’s good for big business.
Sonya, Beaverton, OR
I didn’t have paid leave. I had to
go back to work a week after our
first was born. I was back to part
time in two weeks and full time
after a month. With our second
child I went back to work part time
when he was 4 days old. I wanted
so badly to have some one-on-one
time with my children at these precious ages....my husband is racked
with guilt (he lost his job in the
real estate business and has only
had misc. jobs here and there since
2007).
We want more kids but the reality is we can’t afford to have them.
Even with WIC and other assistance, we can’t run the risk of losing our jobs.
Keska, Portland, OR
I had a complicated pregnancy;
all of my sick leave was used up,
and I had already taken 2 months
unpaid leave to stay on bedrest.
Added to that, by not working, I
had no insurance. I spent a large
portion of my pregnancy and the
first few months of my daughter’s
life losing sleep over making ends
meet.I was lucky though- my partner was able to take paid leave
once our daughter was born. I also
was able to be pulled onto my partner’s insurance.
The difference between my
partner’s experience and mine with
our employers and our experiences
with the birth of our daughter are
huge. I was stressed and strung
out, not a particularly healthy or
good employee, not a particularly
good parent. Without my partner’s
way more generous paid leave with
insurance, I would have had to take
on debt and would not have been
able to make payments on house,
student loans. I and my daughter would have likely gone without insurance at a time when our
insurance helped us receive care
for jaundice, under-weight baby/
breastfeeding issues.Thank you for
considering mandatory paid leave;
I believe all parents should be able
to take a paid leave to get their
kids off to a healthy start.
Frances, Newport, OR
I received maternity leave when
my husband and I adopted a little
girl in 1979. It gave us an opportunity to BOND with our new baby
and adjust to becoming new parents.
This was such a wonderful experience for our whole family. I
have been forever grateful that
my employer supported families. I
worked for that employer for fifteen years. This was in 1979!!! It’s
hard to believe that this is such a
huge issue for new parents today.
Jamie, Fairview, OR
I spent my pregnancy worried
about how I would recover and
learn to adapt to my new responsibilities as a parent. We saved money each week to try and cover my
loss of income postpartum. I also
could not use any of my meager vacation or sick time so I could use it
after the birth of my daughter.
It was stressful and difficult. I
was only able to be off 7 weeks before I went back to work. I had to
stop breastfeeding because of the
time constraints and my co-workers
did not like the time I spent pumping during work. I know other
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mothers have a much harder time
than I did, but no mother should
feel they have to decided between
caring for their child and paying
the bills. You want a better society,
then let mothers be mothers and
stay with their children as long as
possible!
Dr. Ron & Paulette, Aloha, OR
tire 12 weeks. Thank you for supporting healthy families.
Lori, Newberg , OR
I was lucky enough to have my
baby in the state of California,
where I had paid maternity leave.
This made a world of difference in
our family.
I think any American who works
hard and is regularly at work on
his or her job should be able to
get paid family leave for emergencies and/or necessary family duties.
Employers should support families, and family units, if they are
straight, gay or whatever.
Unfortunately, now that we
have relocated to Oregon, I would
love to have another baby but I am
the only one working so it would
be near to impossible to keep our
family supported financially without me working. We need to make
ALL states have paid maternity
leave.
Shari, Hillsboro, OR
Carolina, Portland, OR
I was fortunate to have saved
up sick leave to use as my maternity leave. Thankfully I was never
on bed rest and didn’t have a cesearian.
I was very fortunate to have paid
leave. I’ve been working for the
same company for over 10 years. I
have never been ill and have never
taken more than a few days of sick
leave a year. With that, I was able
to accrue 4 months worth of paid
leave. However, I had to reduce my
FTE from 1.0 to 0.8. The luxury of
having four months with my little
one is one I will never forget. However, what this means is that I cannot afford to have a second child,
because I would not be afforded
the same luxury.
As a doula I see lots of women
who have complications and it
causes them to have to decide between leaving the workforce or
making sure their babies and themselves stay healthy. We are so far
behind the rest of the world in this
area. It’s time to really do what it
takes to put families and especially
babies first!
Rachel , Portland, OR
I was lucky enough to have 6
weeks of my paid time off (PTO)
saved up to use for my maternity
leave. The other 6 weeks I stayed
home caring for my infant were unpaid and it was very difficult financially for us. during that time my
insurance from work also lapsed
until I returned at 12 weeks.
We used credit cards, borrowed
money from family, and went without many itmes to make it work. I
believe that all moms and dads caring for their newborns should have
access to paid time off for the en-
MomsRising.org
Those four months of bonding
are times I will never forget. They
helped ensure a strong and trusting bond between my son and I.
I feel sad for the many moms out
there that are not able to take the
necessary time to bond with their
newborn.
Kimberly, Portland, OR
I went on maternity leave for
12 weeks with our first child. My
leave was partially paid – I first
used all my vacation and sick hours,
then I was able to access a short
term disability insurance package
through my employer, which I had
to sign up for and begin paying for
prior to becoming pregnant (once
pregnant, it’s a pre-existing condition, rendering you ineligible). I
stayed home with our son for those
12 weeks, then went back to work
full-time.
My husband then took some
parental leave, though his was
only paid when he used vacation
and sick time. After he returned
to work full-time, we worked with
another family with a new baby to
share child care – none of us could
afford child care, so we each adjusted our work schedules so we had
one day off per work week, and
on each person’s day, that person
would care for both newborns. It
was exhausting and left almost no
room for schedule changes because
we then would have to coordinate
adjusting four adults’ work schedules. It lasted about 3.5 months
before it became too difficult to
coordinate; the arrangement fell
through and our friendship ended. I then reduced my work hours,
which made us financially on the
edge, and when I needed to further reduce my hours to accommodate my husband’s work schedule, I
was told I could stay at 30 hours per
week or reduce to 12, which was
not enough to live on. I reduced to
12 because we still could not afford
child care and someone needed to
be with our son. We kept that arrangement until our daughter was
born 2.5 years later.
I again went on 12 weeks of
parental leave (partially paid with
sick and vacation hours – short
term disability was only available
for full-time employees who were
eligible for health benefits, so I was
ineligible). My husband had no parental leave at his job at that time.
I returned to work after 12 weeks,
only in the evenings to accommodate my husband’s day job, but our
daughter could not adjust to my
absence and the absence of breast-
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183
feeding to soothe and feed her, so
I quit my job.
My husband luckily had received
a raise just in time to fill in for my
missing income. But the whole
thing fell apart when he lost his
job one year later. He was without
permanent employment for one
year, cobbling together unemployment, public assistance for food
and health care (just the children –
we did not qualify and had to pay
hundreds of dollars a month for
COBRA), and temp work. I found a
part-time job, he found a full-time
job, both of us making less than we
did previously, and we are still paying off our debt and making up for
savings lost from that year. We live
paycheck to paycheck, despite both
being college graduates (and I hold
a masters degree).
Anna, Hood River, OR
I worked for a small non-profit
for 2.5 years when I became pregnant with my second child. My boss
promised me that he would bring
me back after my unpaid leave, telling me I was ‘instrumental to the
success of the organization.’ During my 3 months of unpaid leave,
our family continued to pay for
daycare for our older son in order
to keep his spot available so I could
return to work. A week before I
was scheduled to return, my former boss emailed to tell me he only
had 5 hours/week available instead
of the 20 I was promised. I refused
that offer (who works 5 hours a
week and can pay their bills?!?!)
and filed for unemployment. My
former employer contested my unemployment claim (jerk!) so I had
to wait until the claim was resolved
to get the money we needed to pay
rent.
We ended up on WIC, food
stamps, and with serious credit
card debt just to stay in our house.
Thank goodness these other programs were available – otherwise
we’d have ended up with no hous-
184
ing and 2 young kids! As it is, we’re
still digging out of the financial
hole we dug out of necessity. I am
still angry about this terrible treatment by people who called themselves my friends. I was shocked to
find that there is no legal recourse
for this kind of treatment because
the company has fewer than 20
employees.
Every new parent has enough
stress – fear of losing your home
or your job should not be added
on top of lost sleep, healing from
birth, learning to breastfeed, and
all the other tiny and large struggles we experience each time a new
baby joins the family. Had I known
how things would have turned
out, I might not have had a second
child. One look at him and I know
it was worth all the struggle. Still, I
think we can do better here in the
US. Let’s help each other out, and
build stronger families and healthier communities in the process.
Amy, Lake Oswego, OR
lunch breaks! I also had thyroid
problems during that time and I’d
never have managed if I’d had to
answer to a boss in addition to my
child and husband. It’s high time
the U.S. government began to recognize, appreciate and compensate women for all the hard work
they do. And if Americans are to
keep having children, the government is going to have to do their
share to make it possible for the
working public.
Jean, Portland, OR
My daughter recently had
her first child. In addition to all
the stress related to becoming a
mother for the first time, she is
struggling financially because her
employer does not provide paid
maternity leave. It is hard for me
to watch her and her husband coping each day with the fact that they
have not one extra penny, or even
enough money to cover the basic
expenses.
I’m an American who’s been
living in Germany for a number
of years. When I found out I was
pregnant, I knew I had nothing to
be worried about. I had six weeks’
leave before my due date, and
three years’ after. I didn’t receive
my full pay, but about 75% of it
during this time. My sister-in-law,
who lived and worked in the U.S.,
was pregnant with her second child
at the same time. She told me hairraising stories about how her boss
had told her she’d either need to
quit or she would have to wait until
she went into labor before taking
any (unpaid) time off. I was absolutely shocked!
My husband and I were thrilled
to welcome our second daughter
in April of last year. I was working
for a local school district as a school
psychologist, and while I was ‘approved’ for leave, I had not been
working there a full year... so none
of it was paid and my insurance
would not continue unless I chose
to pay for it. At a thousand dollars a month, that was not an option. While I was on unpaid leave,
my husband was not able to go on
leave as well. His company did not
offer paid leave, and so he took just
5 days off after I had Madi. 5 days.
Having and raising children is
hard work, much harder most of
the time than any other paid employment. During the year after my
child was born, I put in more hard
work (physically, psychologically...)
than I ever had before. I envied my
husband because at least he got
After that, I was at home with
an infant and a 4 year old. We had
only one income through the summer months, and money was very
tight. We ran our credit cards up
and it will take awhile to pay them
down. And while technically, I still
had a month of leave left in the fall
Tara, Gresham, OR
MomsRising.org
(since the summer months didn’t
count), I was unable to take it as we
needed to money so badly. I often
get upset that families are put in
such horrible positions. Why do we
have to chose between the precious
bond of mother and child, and having to put food on the table? Hopefully, one day this will change.
Cherish, Beaverton, OR
When I had my daughter I had to
have major surgery the very same
day. I spent my first weeks in severe
pain, weak, and very sleep deprived
with no help from friends of family. My husband’s job takes him out
of town 3-4 days a week. Since he
could not afford paid leave to help
me with our newborn and to help
me recouperate it was a nightmare
for me and for him. He called several times a day worried and felt torn
and tempted to take leave without
pay, though that would mean we
would have no income and no savings since the medical bills took
all we had (That was after medical insurance paid their part) and
were living paycheck to paycheck. I
suffered from post-partum depression, had to be medicated and was
told by the doctor not to be left
alone, yet he could not be there to
help because we could not afford
missing a paycheck.
Amy, Beaverton, OR
When I was pregnant with our
first child, I was the primary bread
winner. I planned to come back
to work in 8-12 weeks, however, I
became sick and my healthy pregnancy turned high risk and I was
put on bed rest 9 weeks before
the baby was due. This means
I used up all my short term disability insurance. I ended up having her 3 weeks early and in an
emergency c-section. It took a
long time to recover, more than
10 weeks, and my job needed me
back. I needed more time but
they couldn’t give it to me so I
MomsRising.org
had to make the choice to resign.
I felt less than adequate and really down.
Thankfully, we had created a
hefty nest egg & my husband immediately took over the bread
winning and we had to make
swift/drastic changes and make
big sacrifices in our lives. I wish
I’d had the opportunity to recover and return to work based on
my situation, not the American
standard 6-8 weeks. This just isn’t
realistic for most women. Where
is the VALUE in all this talk of
American Family Values? American women are told that bonding with their new baby isn’t as
important as getting back to
work. Obviously these standards
are set by men who have no idea
what is like to give birth and then
bond with your child. It’s more
important than anything in this
lifetime.I was lucky enough to
have a husband who feels the
same way and sprung into action
and took over as the financial
provider of our family but what
about all the families that don’t
have that option?
I once worked with a woman
who had a baby on Friday and
was back to work on Monday because she couldn’t afford to take
time off. It was appalling to me
that she was forced to make that
decision and lose those precious
bonding moments with her new
baby.
That’s America for ya. This
country needs to stop working
everyone to death. Hard work is
important but never when it interferes with family & everyone is
overworked, underpaid and angry. We need to respect women
more and recognize that having a
family is still important in America. Not every woman can be back
to work in 6 weeks after having
a baby! Nor should they. I’m in
favor of paid leave for all women.
Leora, Portland, OR
You could say I was lucky. I had
12 weeks of unpaid leave and my
husband had a decent enough job
that we could manage without the
money. A three month old baby
really should be with its mother,
but that’s not what we support
in this country. However, because
my baby came early and because
I worked for a school, my unpaid
leave ended just as the school year
ended, extending the time I could
be with my baby, still unpaid, of
course. So I was able to be full time
with my son for the first six months
of his life. That’s lucky for someone in the U.S.I know better, however. My cousin in England had 18
months (yes, a year and a half) of
PAID leave, with the option to return half time for a full year after
that. That seems real family values
to me.
PENNSYLVANIA
Brandy, New Brighton, PA
After a long time of trying, I
recently had my first child with
plans to have at least 1 or 2 more
in the future. For many years I
have worked like crazy and saved
as many sick days as possible. Still,
no matter how many I tried to save,
I had enough for what was allowable for child number 1 and all the
prenatal care appointments leading to our birth – which leaves me
questionable if/how we will be able
to have another one! In addition, I
travel for my job, at times well over
an hour. Closer to my due date,
it was found that the baby was
breech and was recommended that
I try to ‘lessen’ my distance in case
I went into labor before the now
newly scheduled C-section.
Unfortunately once you start
your leave, even if the baby comes
a week later, the paid time clock
starts at that time as well. I found
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185
it very difficult to work right up
to my due date, which in the end
is what I had no choice but to do.
Upon filing for leave, I learned that
(1) I was only going to be paid for
the number of sick days I could
‘cash’ in and (2) although I had
saved many days over the years, I
was only able to use 30 or 40 sick
days (for a 6 or 8 week leave) and
that although I had some additional days banked, anything beyond
that was unpaid. I had no choice
but to take an extra 2 weeks of unpaid leave and found myself having
to go back to work while we still
had no set sleep schedule, dealing
with ‘colicky’ evenings, and right
as we were getting the hang of
breastfeeding which is suppose to
be a natural process – however was
very difficult to get going.
The subject of ease and promoting of breastfeeding in the workforce is another experience... In
the end, I cannot believe that I was
happy to have a C-section (major
surgery!!) just so I was able to use
an additional 2 more weeks of my
banked sick days to help with the
care of my little one. Eight weeks,
let alone 6 weeks, was not enough
time at all!
Stephanie, State College, PA
Before my first baby was born,
I was able to save up a lot of vacation and sick time so that I could
take time off with the baby without losing income. My husband is
a graduate student on a stipend,
so living without my salary is not
an option. I was able to take eight
weeks off and then work part time
for three months. I am now just a
few weeks from delivering baby #2,
but I haven’t been able to save up
very much sick and vacation time in
the last two years, because my son
is in daycare and gets sick like daycare kids do and I have to take time
off fairly regularly.
I have about five weeks of combined vacation and sick time this
186
time around. I will take leave without pay for three weeks because I
can’t stand the thought of my 2nd
baby getting so much less time with
me than the first. I honestly don’t
know how we are going to make
ends meet that month, but this is
time that can never be replaced, so
we’ll do what we have to do. Sadly,
we won’t be able to do the slow
transition into full time daycare
like we did with the first.
I also want to say that unless
someone has pumped breast milk
for their baby, they could never understand how heartbreaking it is
to use a machine to express breast
milk while your baby is in someone
else’s care, drinking from a bottle.
There is just no way to communicate that pain.
Miriam, Narberth, PA
Having the opportunity to stay
home with my son for the first four
months was really important, as
was my husband’s opportunity to
work part-time while my son was
little. I have worked with women
who have to go back to work within a week. They lack the opportunity to recuperate physically from
pregnancy and child birth and to
attend to their child’s needs. The
U.S. is barbaric, in my opinion, and
denying human nature in denying
parents the possibility of paid leave
at home with their newborns.
port paid family leave and feel that
is a core family value.
Martina, Media, PA
I am European and was shocked
when five years ago, heavily pregnant with my first child; I discovered that the state in which I live
does not have paid maternity leave.
I did not even consider that one of
the most wealthy countries in the
world would not have this basic necessity and I am still ‘flabbergasted’
to think that its educated citizens
still continue to be denied what I
feel is a basic human/ female right.
This could really be detrimental in
any number of situations – an unplanned pregnancy for a decent
young couple with mortgage payments for example – what is their
alternative – to terminate? In truth
we were ok as my husband has a
good job but of course we could
have been better!
Amy, Philadelphia, PA
Barbara, Pittsburgh, PA
I did not have a paid leave, as
my company only offered the mandatory FMLA. Therefore, I used
all my vacation, sick, and personal
days in order to stay home for 12
weeks. As I took some time before
my daughter was born, I would
have had to return when she was 9
weeks old. I did not want to leave
my 9 week old baby in day care,
and therefore made the decision to
quit my job to stay at home with
my daughter.
I adopted my daughter Eva
from China in March 2000 and had
saved up enough paid time off
that I was able to take advantage
of the 12 week family leave. I received a paycheck for most of my
leave time. It was wonderful to
be at home with my daughter for
3 months, especially since it was
during the summer months and
we could be outside a lot. At the
time I was working for the county
health department. I strongly sup-
I am fortunate that I have a
spouse that can support our family while I am home, however I still
feel that even 12 weeks is much too
early for an infant to be placed in
daycare (which is the only option
for many families). I also know
several women who had to return
even earlier as they could not afford to stay out the full 12 weeks
because they could not take the
loss in pay and they did not have
enough days to cover the time.
MomsRising.org
I firmly believe that I am still
breastfeeding at 6 months because I am home and do not have
to find a place to breastfeed at
work in order to maintain my supply. My office did NOT have have a
private place to pump. Although
I am grateful to be home with my
daughter, I am well aware that this
decision may impact my career and
finding work again when I do return. If I had been given more time
at home, I may have gone back
to work when she was older and
therefore stayed in the workforce
longer. I believe that the US needs
to adapt its policies to account for
the health of families and babies
as well as establish open and flexible work options so mothers do
not have to choose between family and work (this includes creating
options for women who don’t have
a choice).
Catharine, Philadelphia, PA
I feel extremely lucky that my
employer is very family-friendly,
and allowed me to take FMLA
and be partially compensated for 5
weeks. With FMLA and saved vacation and personal days, I was able
to take about 2 months paid/partially paid, and then took another 4
months to spend with my daughter
that was unpaid. I feel that this six
months was crucial time for me to
bond with my new baby and help
me establish breastfeeding before
having to go back to work.
I hear a lot of talk of increasing
that figure of 13% of women who
breastfeed exclusively, and not
enough talk about WHY it is that
women are not more supported
by our society to breastfeed. I also
hear many politicians talk about
the importance of families and
‘family values’ in this country. What
better way to create strong families than to allow new fathers and
mothers to spend time with their
new baby?
It is beyond comprehension that
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our family leave policy in the United States is so lacking. I am amazed
when I hear of other countries who
have guaranteed maternity and paternity leaves (some up to a year!)
and am saddened that our country
does not value families in the same
way. Please support our families
and in turn support efforts to increase the rate of breastfeeding!
Irene, Pittsburgh, PA
I got 12 weeks of leave under
the FMLA. I had enough sick and
vacation time to cobble together
partial-pay for the entire 12 weeks.
I had decided to start my leave on
my due date (a Tuesday after a
Monday holiday), and fortunately
my baby came the Saturday before
so I was able to get every last bit
of my 12 weeks. As it was, those
weeks flew by in a blur.
Breastfeeding didn’t come as
easily to us as I had expected, and
we spent a large portion of those
weeks working at that. I imagine
that if I had a shorter leave, I would
have given up. I can’t imagine how
women with only 6 weeks (or less!)
manage – even 12 weeks seems
like far too short a time. If I have
another child in the next couple
of years, I won’t have as much sick
time accumulated and I worry that
I won’t be in a position to take as
long a leave. Paid leave is essential
for mothers, babies, and families.
Valerie, Brookhaven, PA
I had no paid maternity leave
and was not able to return to work
after 3 months due to the baby
having reflux. He needed more attention than a daycare would provide and most were not willing to
care for a baby who threw up all
the time. My husband had a job
with health benefits, so we added
myelf and the baby to the plan. The
following month, they fired him
stating that he was too expensive
an employee. The month before
he had receive a raving review. It is
a shame that this country doesn’t
protect families when they need
it most. We were 2 unemployed
parents with a newborn to provide
for. We didn’t qualify for ant public
assistance, we were told.
Amy, Port Matilda, PA
I had to cobble together vacation and sick days in order to stay
home for 2-3 months with both my
children. That meant I could take
very little vacation or sick time during my pregnancy, and left my vacation and sick day stores depleted
when I returned to work. This has
made it difficult when I need to
take time off for doctor’s appointments, etc., let alone a much-deserved vacation. It’s disgusting that
the United States does not have
standard paid family leave.
Meredith, Landenberg, PA
I have amazing benefits through
my company. I was able to take 12
weeks of leave fully paid. It gave
me time to bond with my baby
and start to set a routine. Bonding
with your child after birth is so important for both parent and child. I
was upset enough that I was going
back to work when the baby was
3 months old. I could not imagine
having to go back right after having the baby. Both emotionally
and physically. Thank goodness for
great benefits!
Whitney, Bellefonte, PA
I have been blessed in that the
first two pregnancies, I was not
working. However, I am almost due
with my third child and I will be
facing having to drain my sick leave
and vacation in order to get some
compensation while I am home
with my newborn. I can then decide to go back to work, or take the
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187
rest of my FMLA as unpaid. This is
going to greatly impact our family
finances, as the anticipated income
tax return will be used to help pay
for the rest of my time off; whereas in the past, it has been used to
help pay for expenses around the
home and/or a vacation. My oldest will need to forgo going to a
prestigious swim camp this summer
and we will not be able to afford
to put my daughter in pre-school in
the fall.
Andrea, Blue Ridge Summit, PA
I have two children, and after
each was born I felt pressured to
rush back to work after being off
only six weeks. Due to lack of money and pressure from my employer,
I missed out on spending time with
them when they were babies.
Kim, Altoona, PA
I haven’t had the opportunity to
enjoy long term maternity leave.
After my baby was 6 weeks old, I
lost all pay. I reserved my right to
nurse my daughter until she was
1 year old, I was only able to do
this because her father paid the
house payment and I received food
stamps. Women should have the
benefit of pay while doing their
most important job first, being a
great mom.
Jan, Johnstown, PA
I homebirthed with my first
daughter and took 3 weeks off
when she was born, unpaid. My
husband took one unpaid week
off. I worked 3 different part-time
jobs so that I could work short shifts
and still nurse. I have never had
paid vacation or sick days, I learned
quickly that moms don’t get sick
days. When my daughter was six
months old I started working nights
so my husband and I could do the
baby hand off, I pumped in my car
because there was no space to do it
at my job.
188
I took six weeks off with the
birth of my second daughter, my
husband by then was teaching
so he had 3 weeks off before the
start of the school year. I pumped
as much as I could this time and
froze it so I had a stockpile when
I returned to work and convinced
my boss to let me work a shorter
shift so I didn’t have to pump in
my car anymore. I started babysitting when my younger daughter
was one month old, full time by
day and then worked at night. My
older daughter started school this
year so I left my night job so I could
be home more. My babysitting job
ended abruptly after I asked for a
$20 a week raise after watching
the child for two years.My husband
has gone back to school at night to
earn his masters and at this point
we are just getting into more and
more debt.
We have made the choice to
be poor and spend time with our
children, figuring I can work more
when they are both in school full
time.I don’t understand why the
United States continues to fall
short of the other developed nations. I managed to nurse both
children and pay the bills by not
sleeping much for years, but I was
supported by an amazing husband
who always coped when I was at
work. He never once called and
asked me to leave work. If I was a
single mother there was no way I
could have done it.
Ill make even less money when I return to work.
In fact I will be making even less
money than when I was hired. I feel
as if I am being punished for having a child and taking the time off
I wanted to care for her. I was even
more disappointed to discover that
this sort of thing happens to countless women in this country.
Kathryn, Phoenixville, PA
I received 60% of my full time
salary for 6 weeks after the birth of
my son. I guess I should be happy
I received at least something, but
the next 6 weeks were unpaid and
it caused extreme financial stress
on our family. After I came back to
work I was laid off after 1 month
back in the office. So, lots of surprises for our family for sure. We’re
still trying to recoup my lost wages
from last year. I’m consulting while
my husband is trying to increase
his workload. Not an easy task but
we’re working on it.
I’m still breastfeeding my 9
month old son, but I’m guessing
that if I worked full time I would
probably have stopped a few
months ago. I fully support paid
family leave to protect the health
of American children, moms, dads
and families. It’s an important
benefit that should be provided to
American families.
Margaret, Bethlehem, PA
Stephanie, New Castle, PA
I just had my first baby on November 3rd 2011. Ive been with
the same company for 3 years and
I chose to apply for FMLA which
would allow me an unpaid leave
for up to 12 weeks. Just as I am supposed to return to work my supervisor calls to inform me that I never
qualified for FMLA and that I will
have to be fired and rehired. This
means that I will lose my vacation
pay and since I get paid in commission my percents will be lowered so
I stayed home with our two children. My husband worked sometimes 20 hours a day. The result
was that my children grew up like
the children of a single parent. It
would have been so much nicer if
they had gotten to know BOTH of
their parents up close and personal
during their formative years!
Beth, Philadelphia, PA
I was able to take 8 weeks off
after my son was born 2 years ago.
MomsRising.org
I did this through a combination
of sick leave, paid time off and disability. Once the 8 weeks was over
I had no vacation time left and no
sick time left. When I went back to
work I was sick with worry about
leaving my 8 week old in the care
of someone else but because I had
no other options, I did what was
necessary. It would have been nice
to use my full 12 weeks of FMLA
but it would have been even nicer
to have a realistic paid leave that
would take into consideration my
child’s age and my ability to return
to work life while caring for a newborn.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t go back
to my job after 6 weeks due to my
son’s colick and asked for an extended leave without pay, hoping to return in a couple more months. They
granted me 6 more weeks without
pay and I was so grateful. Unfortunately, my sons issues worsened and
I ended up submitting my resignation knowing I didn’t feel comfortable having a nanny or daycare care
for my extremely colicky son. I wish
there was more flexibility for mothers especially dealing with a new
baby with health/feeding issues and
somehow safeguarding their careers.
Working mothers need more
time to adjust and adapt to their
babies because for at least a year,
babies are constantly changing.
I was sleep deprived and an emotional wreck and while I was able
to pump and breastfeed my child
for 18 months it was extremely difficult and at times nerve wracking
to keep up my supply while working full time. Eight weeks is not
enough. 12 weeks is not enough.
Caring for newborns is an important job and parents should be allowed to do it however they see fit.
It’s not unreasonable to expect a
little help especially when the rest
of the world seems to have figured
out how to do it.
Perhaps that is too much to ask,
but I have friends from Germany
who had been granted 3 years leave
with a guarantee of a job once they
returned...maybe not their exact
same position, but at least employment. That would have eased the
stress my husband and I dealt with.
Instead, he worked harder and longer hours to compensate for my job
loss while I carried on at home in desperate need of some help,support,
and sleep. It was a challenging time
not at all what I thought the first
year with a baby would be like. We
got some relief once my son turned
1yr old when he finally started sleeping through the night.
Angela, West Chester, PA
I was lucky enough to have 6
weeks paid leave.
I don’t know
what I would have done without it.
We had feeding issues with my son
which meant we had to feed him
with a feeding tube then nurse him
and sometimes supplement with
a bottle. He was extremely colicky
and hardly ever slept longer than 20
min at a time. And when I say he
hardly ever slept I really mean it –
there’s a small percentage of babies
who sleep less than 5 hrs every 24
hrs and my son was one of them. I
had no family close by and my husband had to work long hours late
into the night.
MomsRising.org
Sarah, Bellefonte, PA
I was more fortunate than others
that I had 12 weeks paid leave, but
only because I was able to save my
vacation and sick time to cover my
leave. I did not take 1 sick day while
pregnant and was fortunate that I
felt healthy enough during my pregnancy not to take days. I felt rushed
into coming back to work.
I would have prefered to take a
longer period of leave – paid or unpaid – than I had and in hindsight,
I wish I had. Twelve weeks is not
long enough. While I am vaguely
aware of a policy that we should be
able to take an entire year (unpaid),
I did not know of anyone who actu-
ally did it and did not feel like it was
truly an option. I worried about the
impact it would have on my job if I
did request to take that much time.
It was a rough transition to go back
to work for me, especially because I
returned to what I felt was an unsupportive environment. I breastfeed
until 10 months (I was able to take
advantage of my work’s breastfeed
programming and am grateful for
that support).
I would love to see a day when
3-4 months was the minimum and a
year (or even 2) was the maximum.
I think we should have the option,
even if we don’t take it. Having my
son changed my life – and for the
better. But it certainly tipped my
work/life balance, where my life was
certainly more of a priority. I did and
am doing both, but it would have
been a much better experience if I
had been given more time and more
support.
Michelle, Lansdowne, PA
I was put on total bedrest at 20
weeks due to a cervical issue. It was
my employer’s policy not to allow
employees to work from home,
despite that fact that the nature
of my job could easily have been
done from home, so I had to begin my (unpaid) FMLA leave early.
My son was born, prematurely, 11
weeks later, and spent a month in
the NICU. Because he was born during the height of flu season, and
preemies are especially vulnerable
to the flu virus, our doctor recommended he not be put in daycare
until the age of 5 months.
My employer did not have to
hold my job for that long, but they
did. Even so, that meant I had no
income for nearly 8 months, and
had to pick up 100% of the tab
for my health insurance during
that time on top of it all. Whatever savings we had at that point
were completely obliterated, plus,
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189
I racked up a load of credit card
debt during that time which I still
haven’t been able to get out from
under, more than 6 years later. Paid
leave would not have 100% eliminated all of those issues, obviously,
but it probably would have at least
eased the severity of the financial
situation we wound up in.
passed away. No one cheered louder than I did when it was passed
nationally.I used FMLA one more
time more happily when my first
son was born, but I couldn’t be
more grateful for the law being
passed where and when I needed
it, 21 years ago this month.
I will always feel that the extreme stress I was experiencing
about our financial situation was
a contributing factor in my premature labor, and it certainly exacerbated the already high-stress
situation of having a premature
newborn.
Helen, Derry, PA
Rachel, Pittsburgh, PA
If I didn’t have paid leave I dont
know hat I would have done. I had
to stay home to care for my child,
I breat fed, and all that was more
important to me than anything,
but all in the same breath, I still had
bills to pay & food to put on the
table. I only want to do for a few
months to tend to a newborn child,
and build the bond the mothers
miss because they have to return to
work so quickly after child birth.
Gwynne, Swarthmore, PA
In January of 1992, my father
received an imminently terminal
diagnosis. I was living in Washington, DC at the time, while he was in
Pennsylvania. I wanted to take off
to be with him in his final weeks,
but the president had just vetoed
the original version of FMLA. The
District of Columbia, however, had
passed the bill, and so despite the
objections of my supervisor, my
employer at the time was able to
protect my job with the District’s
version of FMLA.
It is 21 years later and I am still
immensely grateful for the opportunity to spend my father’s last
weeks with him. As an only child,
I was able to preserve my job and
help my mother as my father slowly
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My daughter gave birth to a
perfect baby boy this past summer. However, she had a lot of
tearing and it took a month for
her to heal. She was not allowed
by the doctor to even sit for two
weeks.
Then the baby was tongue tied
and despite five professionals caring for the baby and mom they
did not catch it for two weeks so
the baby nursed her nipples raw.
It was a good six weeks before
she could even say she felt well
herself. Those first few weeks and
months are critical for the health
and development of both baby
and mom.
Emily, Pittsburgh, PA
My employer allowed six weeks
of paid maternal leave, and then
permitted me to use vacation
and sick days for an additional
six weeks. This wound up proving
critical as I have a serious chronic
health problem that had been in
remission but flared up immediately after delivery.
In such cases I have to follow a
severely limited diet, which, in addition to the stress of being a new
parent and the round-the-clock
breastfeeding demands of my
son, would have made returning
to work more immediately impossible. I needed those three months
to help get my health back.
And even then I had to return
to work on a part-time basis,
which ultimately proved untenable for my employer.This was a
major non-profit organization.
While they tried to work with me
to keep me employed, while they
offer better-than-average benefits and even a lactation room,
I eventually quit because I could
not achieve a real work-life balance.
Our children are only young
once and they need more than
full-time day care – particularly
the either lackluster or incredibly
expensive kind that is typically
available – they need their parents for some part of the day. Our
nation needs to reorganize its priorities and help employers retain
talented, ambitious staff, who
still want to have a healthy life
and family. In the long-run they
will be better employees, and our
society will be better for it too.
Tamzin, Philadelphia, PA
My employer does not offer
paid family leave. As a nurse I
was committed to providing my
daughter with breastmilk and realized that returning to my twelve
hour shifts would make it nearly
impossible to continue to breastfeeding. Financially, I needed to
work as my savings and sick time
were just enough to cover the 12
weeks of unpaid leave.
I returned to work as a parttime, per diem employee which
meant that I had less benefits. I
still found it difficult to work
three eight hour shifts a week
while taking care of an infant. I
believe that sleep deprivation and
a heavy, acutely ill patient assignment contributed to a serious error I committed at work. I accidentally exposed myself to a patient’s
blood. The patient was both HIV+
and Hepatitis C+. In order to take
the prophalaxis course required
to prevent acquiring HIV, I had to
stop breastfeeding my daughter in
24 hours. It was a terrible time for
me.
MomsRising.org
Juliann, Newmanstown, PA
Jennifer, Philadelphia, PA
My husband and I needed both
of our salaries to stay afloat. When
our son was born, adding another
child to our family (my husband
had custody of his daughter from
his first marriage) having paid family leave for a few weeks after his
birth was the only thing that kept
us from falling behind on bills.
My husband had to work so I was
all alone – I’d never changed a
diaper before. I had no idea how
many diapers a newborn would go
through! I had no idea how much
baby food cost and how I’d feel like
I had to make more use of convenience food items for the rest of the
family because I was too exhausted
to do much of anything else.
My spouse and I adopted Michael, a special needs child from
the foster to adopt program SWAN
in Philadelphia. Michael had experienced true abandonment, physical and emotional neglect. At 3 and
a half years old, he was emaciated
and afraid. Michael could barely
speak and was not toilet trained.
If anyone needed a parent to stay
home and love and care for him,
Michael did. I took a semester off
my teaching job. My partner followed suit. Neither of us received
paid leave. Michael is doing well. he
is in school, he receives emotional,
behavioral, and speech therapy. He
is happy and attached. He tell us he
loves us at least twenty times a day.
The experience of being a new
parent, the lack of sleep, the insecurity of not really knowing what
you’re doing, the medical bills
from the pregnancy and delivery,
it felt like an avalanche of insanity
and debt continually falling on my
head. Paid family leave kept our
added expenses (despite a stockpile of diapers, bottles, etc) from
tipping us into the red. I don’t
know what we would have done
without it.
Eileen, Phoenixville, PA
My sister adopted a baby girl.
She was only notified 5 weeks before the baby was born. Needless
to say, she did not have 8 to 12
weeks of vacation time, etc. She is
not being paid. She lives in MD.
Adopting a baby should be
treated the exact same as one having the baby. Women need to be
treated fairly in order to spend
time to mold, raise, and ensure
proper beginnings for our future
generations. Rushing women back
to work because families cannot afford the luxuries of staying home
unpaid for 8 to 12 weeks is not
good for our country.
MomsRising.org
Michael is no longer a foster
child. He has a forever family who
loves him and is helping him heal.
We have given him with all of our
hearts everything we can. However,
in order for us to provide him with
the parenting stability he needed
we had to use a lot of our retirement savings – just to pay the bills.
I wasn’t allowed to use my accrued
paid sick days about (a month and a
half) because I was not the sick one.
It was very stressful to work through
this and use our retirement money.
There are so many children in
foster care who need permanent
homes. How can we help them find
forever families if we don’t provide
the time off parents need to care
for these children? Please pass a law
that allows all adoptive and biological children the stability of a parent
who can be home with them during
the important phases of feeding, attachment, without worries of losing
their savings.
Joseph, Philadelphia, PA
My wife and I are older parents,
she was employed full time as a
project manager when we had our
two children. She had a good and
fair minded employer with a mostly female staff. We had her paid
maternity leave policy to use both
times and she wanted to nursed
both children for as long as a year.
It was a bit tough for us, but we
both worked and knew we would
have to share the care for our children as much as possible.
Without the paid maternity
time off it would have been much
more difficult and costly for us. The
maternity leave was critical to allowing us to take good care of our
just born children.
Jesse, Philadelphia, PA
People often comment about
how in tune my daughter and I are.
I cannot prove it, but I think a lot of
it was that I took paternity leave,
and then later became a stay at
home parent. Now that she is 4, I
am contemplating my first full time
job, except for the month I went
back to teaching after my unpaid
leave ended, it is time to really appreciate the privilege that allowed
me to do that.
Without the generosity of my
family, it would have been impossible and my daughter and I would
in all likelihood not have the bond
we have now. I know other families want to be just as generous to
their children, but it is up to the
government to set fair rules. When
my daughter was in utero, i saw a
map of the world based on paternity leave. The entire world was
different shades of blue based on
how generous the paid leave was.
Only the U.S., Australia, and Swaziland were blank, lagging behind
the entire world.
Megan, Kane, PA
Right after I found out I was pregnant, I was hired at one company but
did not have any benefits. After a
few months I was offered a job at
another company for more money
but still no benefits. I took job #2
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191
because it was also 5 minutes from
where I lived at the time. I had my
daughter after working at that job
for only two months. I was on unpaid maternity leave, and since my
daughter’s father was working for
less money than I was making, I had
to return to work after only a month.
My daughter’s father ended up
quitting his job because daycares
don’t take newborns until they’re at
least 6 weeks old. I was working 5
days a week and allowed to break
my day into two 4-hour sections so I
could go home to be with my daughter at lunch and nurse her. After a
month of the modified schedule
I had to go back to my 8-5 normal
schedule. The separation and the
stress of having to recoup the lost
wages from when I had my daughter
(I still had rent and other bills to pay)
forced me to quit my job and move
in with my sister and her family. Had
I paid maternity leave I would have
had less stress and not had to rely on
family members, who also were supporting families of their own, to help
me through that time.
Nichole, Warminster, PA
Three weeks into my unpaid
maternity leave I was laid off. My
maternity leave was planned to be
6 weeks long as I felt that was all
I’d be able to afford after using up
my little bit of saved vacation and
sick days. While I was sad and upset
to lose my job of 10 years, in many
ways being laid off was a true blessing in disguise. Suddenly, instead
of having no income I had unemployment benefits. I was originally
earning a lot more than unemployment paid but I made it work and
have appreciated the time spent
with my first and only baby.
I was able to nurse my baby
until he self-weaned at 19 months
old. Like a lot of new mothers I had
a many problems nursing in the beginning, too many to go into detail.
However, I can say with certainty
that I would have given up nursing
192
shortly after going back to work 6
weeks post-partum. I had a fancy
pump but my body did not respond
very well to it even though I tried
all the tricks. Also, when nursing
my baby took a good 40 minutes
in the early months. He also nursed
every 2 – 3 hrs around the clock
for the first 6 months. It would
have been impossible to keep that
routine had I been working. I also
feel strongly that had there been a
long-term (e.g. 12 months) government maternity leave program, like
many other countries have, I may
have survived the layoff rounds.
Susie, Philadelphia, PA
We were lucky – I was able to
use my sick time, then got 2 weeks
of disability (at 60% pay). This was
no where near enough, but we refinanced our mortgage during my
leave so we made it through. My
husband had to return to work when
our baby was 6 days old. I wish he
had been able to stay home longer,
as I had a c-section and it was very
difficult to care for a baby while recovering from major surgery.
It always makes me angry when
I hear about our countries ‘family
values’, and how the right wing is
trying to protect them. If we really valued families we would allow
them time to bond and adjust to a
new life before being thrown back
into the workplace. I have a friend
living in Sweden and her life with
her newborn was so very different, and so much better. I wish we
could be more like that!
Amy, Hermitage, PA
When I found out I was pregnant
in 1999, my husband and I were
thrilled! Unfortunately, my employer (owner of a small business) of five
years was less than happy for us. In
fact after I excitedly told his wife (a
coworker) he decided to not speak
to me for over a week because apparently my pregnancy was not in
the company’s best interest. I found
out later, it was because he and his
wife were also trying to conceive
and he apparently planned THEY
would take leave and I’d run the
show.
I worked up until my labor. But
just days before I gave birth, my
employer told me that he would
not pay me for any of my maternity
leave. The Family Leave Act did not
apply because of the company size.
He made it clear that he did not
have to save my job by law, but he’d
do so as a favor. And he advised I
should come back to work quickly
because he didn’t know how long
he would wait.
My salary was exactly half of the
household income. And while we
did have some overage that we put
in savings, we could not survive on
my husband’s income alone. Not
to mention, our health insurance
at the time did not cover baby well
visits or vaccines! I did have 2 weeks
vacation saved up. So I asked my
employer to allow me to use my
vacation as maternity leave. He refused and stated my vacation was
‘not approved.’In the end, I received
no pay the entire leave. Thankfully,
we did have some savings to tap
into. It was a horribly stressful time
which should have been wonderful.
Candice, Philadelphia, PA
When I was pregnant with my
son, I expected to work right up
until the day I went in labor. However, at a prenatal appointment it
was discovered that I had very little
amniotic fluid, my son was measuring small for gestational age and
he needed to be delivered immediately via emergency C-Section. I
had not applied for FMLA. At my
job, FMLA is really the employee
exhausting all Holiday, Sick and
Vacation time. After that you were
SOL.
My boss messed up my FMLA
by not submitting my hours and I
received no money. I ended up be-
MomsRising.org
ing stressed related to the birth of
a premature baby and not having
any money to pay the bills. I ended
up having to take out a loan.Having a baby should be a joyous occasion and employers should realize
that. No one should be stressed or
worrying how the bills will be paid.
Kristie, Pittsburgh, PA
When my son was born a year
and a half ago, I was lucky to have
12 weeks of paid leave. My employer didn’t provide paid leave for
maternity and wasn’t subject to the
FMLA, but I had worked at the organization for a long time and had
carefully saved sick days and vacation days. What a blessing to stay
home with my son in those first
months. Like many others, we had
some breastfeeding challenges and
that time allowed us to really get a
good feeding routine established.
By the time I went back to work,
pumping and bottle feeding were
not as hard as they would have
been in those early days. My husband was able to utilize FMLA and
took three weeks off of unpaid
leave. He still says it was the best
3 weeks of his life and the bonding
that took place then is irreplaceable. He would have liked to have
more time and we’re saving now so
that when our next child is born he
can take a full 12 weeks off as well.
All parents deserve the opportunity to spend quality time with their
newborns.
period before STD kicks in and so
I am forced to use 2 weeks of my
paid-time off. This is frustrating
for me since I only receive 3 weeks
of PTO and I have to use the other
week for doctors visits prior to the
baby being born. I end up having
to send my husband on doctor’s
visits with the baby because I don’t
have any time left to take or I just
take an unpaid day when the baby
is sick.
In total we get 8 weeks of paid
time between vacation days and
STD. The last 4 FMLA weeks I take
unpaid. We spend the months
prior to that scrimping and saving
so that I can. I think 12 weeks is
definitely not long enough for a
mother to properly nourish and
bond with her new baby. However, I don’t have much choice since
we are a two-income household. I
hope that one day, when our student loans are paid off, that I will
be able to work part-time and
spend more time focused on raising
my children.
Sheila, Mount Carmel, PA
You work for a fast food place
and they don’t give you leave for
pregnancy. They say they don’t
have to, there is no law that says I
have to. Then they ask when you
coming back and expect a answer. I
don’t know why they don’t make it
a law for all working placing to pay
pregnancy leave, because guys get
leave real easy for anything they
want. Us women get the short end
of the stick.
Danielle, Glenside, PA
With my job, I have the opportunity to use FMLA. We must use
short-term disability for maternity leave at 60% of our pay for 6
weeks. Fortunately, I had planned
ahead and purchased into AFLAC
so that it would cover the additional 40% of my pay those 6 weeks,
otherwise I would not be able to
take 12 full weeks. Unfortunately,
my firm requires a 2 week waiting
MomsRising.org
RHODE ISLAND
Karen, Charlestown, RI
Hearing about taking a shower
every 3 days brings back 20 year old
memories. Not only did I not have
paid parental leave, I had to beg
for and borrow the 5 and 6 weeks
leaves I took after delivering each
child. I was adamant about breast-
feeding, and thankfully my supervisors allowed me flexible time when
I returned to work (coming in early
– immediately after my 6 AM feeding was done, and leaving in time
to get home for the 3 PM feeding).
I was able to pump for the 11 AM
feeding, which my husband, who
worked 2nd shift at the time, was
able to do.
What a mad rush it was for the
first year of each child’s life trying
to juggle a badly needed second income, different shifts, housework,
childcare and the like. I am on a
committee that has gotten paid parental leave as a benefit for SOME
employees where I work. There are
several different unions and jurisdictions here, and the people who
need it the most – the clerical, custodial and maintenance staff – do
not enjoy parental leave as a benefit. It’s always the group at the
lowest socio-economic level, positions that are filled predominantly
by women – and men of color – that
do not enjoy the same benefits that
the professional staff members do.
That, in my opinion, is an outrage!
This discrimination continues to
this day, and should be called what
it is – sexism, racism and classism.
We’re working on it at our workplace, but this should be addressed
on a national level.
Katherine, Providence, RI
I am very fortunate in having
had three months of paid maternity leave with both of my babies. My husband is a graduate
student on a small stipend, so my
family depends on my income for
our most basic expenses. Without paid family lead, I would not
have been able to take time off
to bond with my babies.
With paid leave, I was able
to recover physically from childbirth, bond with my babies, and
perhaps most importantly, es-
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193
tablish a successful breastfeeding relationship with both of
my children. Public health officials recommend that all women
breastfeed for at least a year, and
yet, without paid family leave,
it is nearly impossible for most
women to pull off. Pumping milk
at work is extremely taxing, physically and emotionally, and is certainly no match for the physical
relationship of holding your child
as you nurse.
had leave, the way the way my department would have handled it
was to have me prepare lectures
that someone else would ‘read’ to
my class for 6 weeks. This means
I would have had to do twice the
work leading up to my ‘leave’. I’m
not clear on how that is leave at all
if you do two times the amount of
work before you go.
Despite working for that agency for almost 4 years at the time of
my son’s birth I had only 8 weeks
saved up. In order to take 12 weeks
off and still receive pay (and I was
the bread-winner for the family so
I couldn’t go without pay), I had
to bargain with my employer. It
seemed like an easy bargain at
the time but later it felt like I had
made a deal with the devil.
Sharon, Providence, RI
Babies need to touch their
mothers, and be held by them,
as much as possible in the first
few months of life. My ardent
hope is that all women who wish
to take time to bond with and
nurse their children will be able
to, without financial worries demanding that they sacrifice this
invaluable time.
Mothers sometimes begin to
grieve even before the child is born
when they know they have too
short a time to be with their new
baby. Depression in a mother does
not get a baby off to a good start.
My employer agreed to let me
work part-time for a portion of
my maternity leave so that I could
stretch my 8 weeks into 12 weeks –
but I had to start back part-time a
mere 2 and a half weeks from the
time my son was born.
Shanna, Providence, RI
I work for a state university.
When I started my job I was 5
months pregnant. The University
has a policy that the first year is
temporary, which means you don’t
get many of the benefits that other
employees do, including maternity leave. You do get health and
dental, but no leave. And because
academic appointments are technically 9 months, you can’t take unpaid leave either unless you had a
doctors note saying you were medically unfit for work.
I lucked out and had my daughter between semesters. She was
breach and so I had to have a c-section. 2 weeks later, I had to return
to work. Lucky for me, I could work
mainly from home, but trying to do
full time work and bond with a 2
week old was extraordinarily difficult, especially when recovering
from a c-section. She was also underweight, had colic, and had hip
displasia. However, because she,
not I, had the health problems, I
could not qualify for medical leave.
The catch is that even if I had
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Christa, Cumberland, RI
Paid Family Leave is and was important to me when i gave birth to
my twin boys. Without this paid
leave I do NOT know how I could
have cared for my twin boys.
Having paid leave enabled me
to establish a long-term breastfeeding routine and give my boys a
great start to life. Paid family leave
for moms AND dads is essential to
ALL American families.
SOUTH CAROLINA
Martha, Columbia, SC
I am lucky enough to work at
a state agency that allows parents
to take paid leave after the birth
of their child. However, the catch
is that you have to have been
working for this state agency long
enough to build up enough time
for your family leave to be paid
for. So in order to have 12 weeks
of paid leave built up, I would
have had to worked for at least
two years and never taken any
leave (sick or annual) at all during
that time. Needless to say, I did
not have 12 weeks of paid leave
saved up by the time my son was
born.
Although it was hellish and I
shed a lot of tears over the way my
maternity leave worked out, I felt
that I had been very accommodating to my employer’s wishes about
coming back to work so soon after
the birth of my child and expected
him to continue to be flexible with
me after my maternity leave was
officially over.
My husband and I had worked
out our schedules so that one of
us would always be with our son
because we couldn’t afford daycare at the time. The only problem
was that I was supposed to be at
work at 8:30 am but my husband
didn’t get off work until 9 am. So,
again, I made a bargain to give up
my lunch hour every day if I could
come in at 9:30 am. I would drive
in to work and then my husband
would meet me there and pick up
our son.
It seemed to work out okay but
my relationship with my employer
quickly deteriorated after that.
He would give me impossible tasks
and then reprimand me for not
meeting them to the letter. It became quite common for me to cry
in front of him after a reprimand
and he would tell me that I needed to ‘work on things at home’ so
that I wasn’t crying at work. One
of my coworkers confided in me
that our boss was upset with me
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because of the flexible schedule I
had worked out and rather than
talking to me about it, was taking
it out on me in a very passive-aggressive way.
pitalized, I was unable to save sick
days for maternity leave.
SOUTH DAKOTA
I spent 6 weeks on bed rest and
only got paid for 5 days. By the time
my son came, I got to take 6 week
of UNPAID maternity leave. Then
school was out, so I had no choice
but to wait until August to go back
to work. We are still paying for the
effects of that year and my son is almost 3 years old now. We had to
max out credit cards and loans just
to survive. I had short term disability, but it was only good for while
I was under doctor supervision to
stay home for 6 weeks after he was
born. Something must be done to
help situations like these! Companies pay their employees, but teachers get treated poorly.
Cheryl, Sioux Falls, SD
Shantel, Antioch, TN
I was lucky and was a rancher’s wife when I had my children but I have watched friends
and family struggle with maternity leave and have to return to
the workforce sooner than they
wanted to due to economics.
I am expecting a child within the
next three months. Paid leave is not
available to me. I will be one of those
that will seek public assistance until
I’m able to return to work. My job has
a total of 11 employees and doesn’t
have to provide any type of FMLA.
My vacation time is considered paid
time off. I will have to go at least 8
weeks without a paycheck. I’m not
looking forward to this. I support a
paid family leave insurance program.
I eventually had to find another
job before things got even worse.
If I had lived in a country that had
decent family leave, I don’t think
that I would have had the problems that I did.
I’d love to have another child
but my husband and I really can’t
afford another 5 yrs of daycare
and I dread the thought of working out another hellish maternity
leave schedule.
TENNESSEE
Sara, Cordova, TN
As a teacher in the state of TN,
we have to use our accumulated sick
days in order to get paid for maternity leave. If we don’t have enough
sick days, we don’t get paid. We also
can only take 6 weeks paid. So, for
example even if you have more than
6 weeks worth of days, you cannot
get paid for more than 6 weeks.
With the birth of my first child, I
was able to have saved enough days
to cover the maternity leave. I had
to return to school after 6 weeks to
guarantee pay for my family. Also,
when I returned I had ‘ZERO’ paid
sick days left to take for my family.
When my son came 2 and 1/2 years
later, I ended up having to take a
leave of absence for pre-term labor.
Because of my husband being hos-
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Anne, Franklin, TN
I got paid family leave and my
job was protected. I couldn’t have
done it without it.
Matthew, Nashville, TN
I have been a father now for
three years, and have 2 young boys
aged 3 and 1. I know how much
time and energy it takes of a parent (especially a mother) to care for
an infant, and that care continues
throughout childhood. A mother’s (and father’s) care is vital to
the child’s physical and emotional
health; if a mother, especially, is
not able to take time off of work
(simply because she can’t afford it),
the child suffers for it. When thousands of mothers are unable to do
this, society as a whole suffers.
Melissa, Atoka, TN
I have two children. I managed
to take some maternity leave by
Savin gup my sick & vacation time.
I didn’t really take enough time after my second child was born. This
led to some rough times & post
partum depression. It wasn’t easy.
If you really want to support families, give them time to be together
in their formative years!
Karla, Brentwood, TN
I was lucky enough to have some
paid leave with my company. I just
started back after taking 8 weeks
off for the birth of my daughter.
That didn’t feel like enough time.
I can only imagine what it would
feel like to have NO paid time off.
Please consider this. Being a parent
is hard enough without entering
into the equation working fulltime to support your children.
Annie, Chattanooga, TN
Last August, I gave birth to
my first baby. My husband and
I were so excited to be adding a
3rd member to our family, but we
were both terrified. My husband
and I are young; 25 and 23 respectfully, and financially speaking, we
couldn’t afford to function with
one income. We also couldn’t afford decent daycare, and even if
we could, we weren’t comfortable
putting our infant directly into the
care of strangers. We decided that
we would do all that we could so
that I could stay home, and my husband would go to work.
After our daughter arrived, we
couldn’t afford for my husband to
miss work to spend much time with
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his new little girl. Thankfully, he
had stored up a few vacation days,
and was able to enjoy a couple of
days at home before he had to
go right back to work, but after
almost 48 hours without sleep in
the hospital, those couple of days
were really spent with both of us
trying to rest. It was horrible for all
of us. Sleep deprived and battled
Postpartum Depression, I needed
his help. He was so torn; he knew
he had to go to work – after all, we
had bills to pay and diapers to buy,
but he wanted so badly to help at
home too. I know he had trouble
focusing at work, because he knew
that his priority was at home.
Families are designed to function as units, and we were not able
to. He wasn’t home enough to see
how much I was being effected by
PPD, and our marriage suffered
because of it. It is critical that the
addition of a child to a family be
regarded as a significant enough
event to warrant paid time away
from the work place. To ignore
the fact that mothers – especially
those struggling with PPD – need
the help of their partner is irresponsible and dangerous. It is common knowledge that new mothers
are sleep deprived, and it is equally
well known that sleep is critical for
optimum decision making and rational judgment. So, to expect a
sleep deprived mother to care for
a new infant without help is unbelievably unrealistic.
To suggest that one parent
should face one of the toughest
transitions of their lives without
the constant help of their spouse or
partner is not just reckless, it’s ignorant. I hope that the dialogue that
this topic has created will not just
happen at our kitchen tables, but
among people who have the power
to change it. If you are reading this
and you have the ability to push
for paid family leave, I encourage
you – for the sake of mothers and
fathers and especially for infants –
that you will do your part to make
this idea a reality.
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Melissa, Atoka, TN
My employer allows us to use our
sick and vacation time for maternity
/paternity leave. With my first child
I was able to take 12 weeks of leave
using the vacation time that I saved
for 5 years of working. After using
all of that time I had hoped that
after another 5 years I’d be able to
save up enough time to have another child. We unexpectedly (& happily) conceived after only 3 years. I
ended up taking some unpaid leave
& returned to work after 8 weeks.
As a breastfeeding & working mom,
that first month was horrible. I had
no sleep, was driving & working
while completely exhausted. Most
days I cried during my entire commute.
Once my baby could sleep
through the night without *needing* to nurse things improved,
but we had 8 very difficult weeks.
Having children should be a joyous
time. Everyone knows that it will be
tiring, but the complete lack of paid
leave for parents is absurd. Almost
every other developed country offers 6 months – 1 year of paid leave
for parents. If you really want to
talk about family values, you have
to put a little more value on creating & nurturing families! Please
work to create a minimum of 12
weeks paid maternity leave.
Heather, Chattanooga, TN
My husband and I have always
worked full-time plus, your classic
upper middle class Americans who
believe that the more hours we
work, the better citizens and people
we are overall. When we became
high-risk around week 28 of our
pregnancy and I had to take FMLA
early, it rocked our world. It was
a huge blow to our budget that I
could only bring home a pittance of
my salary, and could only stay home
for 12 weeks, even though she was
born 5 weeks early, and we had
no way of knowing how long she
would be in the NICU.
We’re not the people who leach
from the system...quite the contrary.
But as educated individuals, it is insane that our country doesn’t provide for our mothers and babies to
stay home and secure their careers
upon a reasonable amount of return time. America, Europe is giving their moms 1-3 years. Really? If
you want the educated females to
stay here and make a difference, it
would make sense to change those
FMLA laws to at the very LEAST secure standard salaries for moms and
dads who stay home with their newborns.
Jennifer, Nashville, TN
My son was born in Canada, and
I received a full year of parental
benefits. Canadians EXPECT paid
parental leave. Unlike Americans,
they consider it to be a human right.
I felt so lucky to have the ability to
establish a strong and successful
breastfeeding routine with my son.
It takes work, support and time – in
my case it took a solid three months
and many visits to nursing clinics
to get things running smoothly. He
is now a robust 16-month old and
continues to nurse.
Almost every other country in
the world has already figured out
that government-paid parental
leave supports not only parents and
their newborns, but also society as
a whole. I hope the USA gets on
board soon!
Gay Marie, Oak Ridge, TN
Thank God for paid leave and
health insurance, which allowed me
and my twins to survive a difficult
pregnancy and birth complications!
I was working full-time to support
my family while my husband went
back to college. Ordered to bed
three months before the due date
and convalescing for weeks afterwards, I was saved from financial
ruin only through paid leave and
health insurance.
MomsRising.org
Sherry, Greeneville, TN
When I had my children 40 yrs
ago, I did not get paid leave. I was
lucky that the place I worked held
my job for me. They didn’t have
to. It breaks my heart to learn that
conditions have not improved in all
that time. Working mothers need
to be protected by having paid maternity leave and job security.
Susannah , Nashville, TN
With my first son I was troubled
to learn that being pregnant in the
U.S. was treated like a disability. For
all our government’s talk of ‘family values,’ that terminology alone
suggests a de-prioritization of the
American family and what it takes
to raise active, engaged little citizens. My ‘disability’ lasted for a little over 6weeks at 60% salary. With
a son who was 6.5 weeks early, in
the NICU for 15 days and unable
to latch due to lack of muscle tone
(we spent weeks with the lactation
consultant!), it’s easy to see how
6weeks was not nearly enough
to give my son and our family the
right start.
TEXAS
Kate, Houston, TX
After earning my PH.D. I knew
it wouldn’t be wise, given my age,
to wait any longer to have a second child. My daughter was due
in August, but the visiting professor position I had did not renew
my contract. I was offered another visiting professor position
at a different school, but I had to
turn it down because the fall semester teaching schedule was so
demanding I wouldn’t have been
able to breast feed my daughter,
or even see her much during her
first few months in the world.
So when my baby was born,
I was unemployed, and my husband was making peanuts as a
graduate student. We barely got
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by, and then only because of the
generosity of friends who let us
live in their house! Not everyone has a friend with a house to
spare! And it’s too much to ask
businesses to bear the burden of
maternity leave out their generous nature.
It is not right that having a
baby should be so crippling for
people looking for work or people desperate to keep their jobs.
This must be solved from the federal level! Show the world that
Americans care about the welfare
of new families by enacting standards of paid family leave commensurate with other first world
nations!
Jennifer, Houston, TX
By sheer luck, my son was
born a week after the last day
of school. I’m a teacher who is
paid over the summer vacation
from an escrow account, so I
got a ‘paid’ maternity leave only
through a lucky coincidence.But
if my son had been born at any
other time of the year, I may not
have been able to stay home with
him for a full three months. I just
don’t know if my husband and I
could have afforded it since I am
the primary breadwinner for our
family. There are many teachers
I work with who return to work
6 weeks after the births of their
babies. I know one teacher who
actually returned to work only
2 weeks after her daughter was
born because her family desperately relied on that paycheck.
Fortunately, she was able to get a
family member to watch her child
for a few weeks since no day care
would take a baby so young.
Being at home for three
months and not having to worry
about money allowed me to get
breastfeeding well-established.
It was tricky for me at first, and
had I had to have gone back to
work at 4 or 6 weeks postpartum,
I probably would have given up.
But because I had the luxury of
time to get the kinks worked out,
I am still nursing my son 8 months
later and he is reaping the benefits.
The U.S. government is constantly encouraging moms to exclusively breastfeed for the first
six months and then allows no
way for that to realistically happen for many moms. This is so
unfair and puts a huge burden
on moms, not to mention a huge
guilt trip.Paid maternity leave allowed my son and I to bond and
allowed me to heal physically
and emotionally from the birth
experience.
I was not even sleeping soundly for the first six weeks. I am not
sure how I would have been able
to be an effective teacher trying to teach on 3 to 4 hours of
sleep a night. We need paid maternity leave in this country! It
makes a difference for the health
and well-being of our babies and
moms.
Linda, Irving, TX
I am a 64 year old, single grandmother who has custody of two
young granddaughters, one biological and one noe-biological,
ages 5 and 7 years old. All three
parents are on drugs and Child Protective Services have put the girls in
my care. I had been laid off and
collecting unemployment just prior
to securing a job with a term guaranteed of 1 year of employment.
Almost immediately securing this
job, the girls were given to me to
take care of.
Needless to say, I did not plan
well for my retirement and had
planned to use this job to sock
away more money for when my
day to retire came. Needless to
say, this is not happening. Instead,
I spend every penny I have on buy-
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197
ing uniforms for the girls and daycare. I understand that CPS is going
to take this before a judge and get
them put in my custody legally but
still until it becomes a permanent
thing or I am allowed to adopt
them, I get no financial help from
the government, CPS or any of the
other family members.
Why, you ask have I done this...
because I refuse to let these little
girls go into foster care. I am providing the only stable homelife
they have ever had. They love having rules and feeling safe and secure in knowing what is expected
of them and what they can expect
of me. We need to secure more
help for all us Grandparents who
are caring from grandchildren, biological or not.
Rebecca, Austin, TX
I did not get any paid ‘maternity leave’ for either of my two
pregnancies. I had to save as much
vacation and sick time that I could
ahead of time and then take leave
without pay. I had saved about
3 weeks worth of vacation and
sick time (for which I was paid),
and fortunately had qualified for
short-term disability benefits (with
a pre-existing condition) so for a
few weeks I received 60% of my
salary, and then the rest of the
12 weeks I took as unpaid. I also
had to pay my insurance premium
of $400 for at least one month.All
in all, I had to work hard to piece
together time off so that I didn’t
have to spend the whole 12 weeks
without a paycheck.
And my supervisor framed my
leave in a way that made it sound
as if he was doing me a favor.But
honestly, what’s the most frustrating is returning to work and having to start accumulating sick and
vacation time again from scratch.
During my leave, I HAD to use my
accrued time. I couldn’t save any
of it.
So when my child started at-
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tending daycare and inevitably
got sick or had to go to a wellchild appointment, I had to use
the few hours that I had started
to earn again and then start from
0 once again. It was and is a constant cycle, and tricky balancing
act, of saving and using time.Paid
time off for maternity leave would
be fantastic. So would some flexibility in how employees choose to
take their time off .
Chris, Houston, TX
I didn’t think much about this
issue when I started building my
family. I do remember having extremely low expectations for support after watching co-workers
struggle with parenting. When
I had my first child I ‘opted out’
of the workforce because of these
low expectations. I would rather
deal with a family budget crisis than deal with balancing two
jobs.
Then, a few years (and kids –
TWINS!) later I moved to Ireland,
where I promptly started earning
money just for raising kids. They
call it ‘Child Benefit’ and it made
me feel like my time and effort
was valued by society – Ireland’s
society that is.
When I learned about the
mandatory time off after having
a child, for both parents, required
in all of Europe, I realized that
while there are many great things
about the US, we are WAY behind
culturally in our perception and
support of the work of parenting.
Lack of parental leave is just the
beginning. How can we call ourselves advanced or evolved when
we cannot get supporting our
next generation right from the
get go?
Nina, DeSoto, TX
I do have short term disability
insurance at my work but it is very,
very expensive to have. I did use it
only for the birth of my last 2 children and it made things so much
easier. I didnt have to stress on how
the rent or utilities would get paid
or how we were going to get food
on the table. I feel that all employers should have this added benifit
for their hard working employees.
Susan, Arlington, TX
I got maternity leave but the
pay part was my vacation pay only,
so after 2 weeks pay it was unpaid
leave. I was able to take a longer
leave with my first child but only financially able to take 2 weeks with
my second.
Lindsey, San Sntonio, TX
I had my first child this year. I
took of the entire 3 months I was
allowed but ended up taking a big
hit fir it. I was better prepared
than most, and still had to struggle to make it. Would not change
it though because those first few
months with my baby were priceless.
Anne, North Richland Hills, TX
I had three months of paid
family leave after both my children were born. I can’t imagine
not having paid leave or having just six weeks of leave after
a baby is born. The physical and
mental exhaustion that mothers
and fathers experience after the
birth of a baby is tremendous.
I personally experienced severe
sleep deprivation that caused me
to hallucinate.
American parents need paid
leave in order to give their children a healthy start in life and
a secure childhood and future.
Three months of paid leave should
be standard. Paid leave allowed
me to establish a breastfeeding
routine for both my children. Because of that established routine
in those first three months, I was
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able to breastfeed both babies
until 15 months of age.
During the first nine months
that I returned to work after both
children, I missed a total of five
days of work, and that was due to
flu. My children never got sick, did
not suffer from allergies, and are
still extremely healthy. Both my
employers gave me a room with a
lock in order to pump breast milk
during the day and gave me access to a nursing support line. It
is shameful to think that half of
American mothers do not receive
such benefits. Our nation’s children deserve better. Those children are our future.
Marc, Spring, TX
I lost my job because I had to
care for my wife. Why are we so far
behind the times as a country on
this topic?
Julie, Katy, TX
I received short term disability
which gave me 66% of my income
but I had to wait 2 weeks before
I would start receiving benefits.
Still, this proved to be very helpful
after giving birth to my 3 kids but
not enough. If paid family leave
would permit mother’s to receive a
full compensation of benefits and
take care of their family it would be
such a relief. I was an hourly wage
worker and really didn’t make a lot
of money so only receiving 66% was
really not adequate to cover bills.
I had to pull my kids out of daycare temporarily since I was home
to not have that cost but I was still
trying to recover from a c-section. It
was difficult to have kids at home to
take care of and recover from major
surgery and take care of a newborn.
I really hope that they create paid
family leave because this would allow parents to keep their other kids
in daycare so they can recover and
take care of the new baby.
MomsRising.org
Diana, Harlingen , TX
I took FMLA interrmitently and
it allowed me to spend more precious time with my daughter. I
nursed her for up to 21 months and
worked part time while still getting
full time pay. However, I think I
was then reprimanded for that
because I have since been let go.
My daughter is now 2 years and 6
months. I can’t prove it but I firmly
believe that is what happened. I
live in Texas so this should come of
no surprise. Employers have the
upper hand down here.
ibly traumatic process and my body
needed to heal. Time at home was
very necessary for that! Most other
countries already know what we
need to learn in that new parents
– mothers and fathers – need time
to bond with their children and
learn how to be a good parent. Babies thrive more and parents themselves are better when they are
not so stressed. Surely American
ingenuity can figure out how to do
what is needed for healthy families. Let’s not just talk about family
values but truly put them into action by giving families the financial
means to do it right!
Misty, McKinney, TX
I was a professor at a public
university when I was fortunate
enough to have paid maternity
leave. However, the paid part of
the leave was only because of my
vacation time, a sick leave pool
I was able to access (after some
pleading and an application process) and the natural winter break
between semesters. If I hadn’t
been able to cobble together 10
weeks of paid leave, I would have
been forced to take FMLA or return after only 4 weeks at home
which is all the vacation time I had
at that point. Having a brand new
baby and being a first-time mother
is an eye-opening experience quite
literally. My son didn’t sleep much
in his first 7 months of life, so I was
incredibly sleep deprived. The literature on sleep deprivation consistently shows that it causes lack
of concentration, extreme fatigue,
memory loss and other negative
side effects, all of which I experienced. I truly needed that time at
home not only to bond with my son
(research is pretty clear on how important this time is to babies!) but
also to catch naps when I could,
breastfeed regularly and learn the
skills of parenting.
The time off work also allowed
for my own physical recovery.
While I was lucky enough to avoid
a C-section, birth is still an incred-
Tricia, Houston, TX
I was a single mother and because I didn’t have paid leave after
the birth of my first child, I had to
go back to work within 2 weeks...
after using all the vacation I had
left. It was a horrible experience.
He was too young for a daycare
to take, so I had to try and find
an individual to watch him. That
was not easy and was very expensive. My health declined because
I wasn’t getting enough sleep, or
enough to eat because I was too
tired between working all day and
staying up all night with my son.
I eventually ended up in the
hospital for about a week because I
got so sick. My son had to be without me for that week and I ended
up having to have him put on formula.... which I hated to do. I was
too weak and sick to breast feed.
The experience was horrible for
him and I.... That’s unfortunate.
It’s also a reality for many, many
mothers... and it shouldn’t be.
Melanie, Houston, TX
I was about to be hired by a
company that I was working for as
a temp until they found out that I
was four months pregnant. When I
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did have my son I had no paid leave
at all, and had to spend the first
few months of his life living off of
savings so that I could be with him,
in fact I was forced to move back
into a very crowded family home.
Kellie, Euless, TX
I was told my postion was being
eliminated when I was 7 months
pregnant with my son and although they were giving people
time to find something else within
the company I was going to lose 4
weeks of that time during the birth
of my son and not given a chance
to make it up.
They did pay me for maternity
leave as part of my severance but it
was very stressful to try and think
about job searching with a newborn and worrying about missing
out on positions because I would
have a small baby when I started
the new job. I have since spent
all but a short time when I found
some contract work of my sons life
unemployed why we struggle on a
very tight budget.
Gina, Bryan, TX
In June 2010 I came down with
a sudden and severe case of preclampsia which necessitated an
emergency induction. My husband worked full time and had to
scurry to get time off (unpaid) to
be with me for the delivery. Our
son was in the NICU for a week.
My recovery was long and I could
not drive for weeks or lift our 2
year old daughter. His work offered no paid time off to help with
family matters, and I relied on the
kindness of friends and family to
help me during this period.
My husband missed out on important bonding time with his son
and worried about us both while
at work. We needed his income to
pay for the accumulating hospital
bills, so he had no choice but to
return to work. I teach at a major
university and have no maternity
leave; I was fortunate to have my
baby during the summer. Once
the semester started, I begged
to have a teaching schedule that
would allow time for pumping. I
was told my ‘begging’ was inconvenient.
I work at a small manufacturing
company with only 6 employees. We
get 16 vacation days a year, and that
includes sick days. With both of my
pregnancies, I had to use whatever
vacations days I had for that year.
This meant no extra time off during
those years, before or after delivery,
and I only had three weeks off to be
with my precious new babies before
going back to work full time because I could not afford to take any
extra days without pay.
I could not teach over the summer because my school offers no
maternity leave; it was easier to
just not teach summer school.
This, however, meant my husband’s income was crucial to our
financial survival. My son (James)
has severe reflux. His first three
months were filled with long
hours walking the halls trying to
comfort him and stop his screaming. We were exhausted. My husband doubly so as he had to return to work each morning after
a sleepless night. I did my best to
mother our older daughter.
It was so hard to leave them so
soon, I cried most mornings for almost a month. Also, I breastfeed
both of my babies so that meant
alot of time pumping to store extra
milk. It’s a shame that in this country we don’t have paid family leave
no matter what size your business is.
It would have been ideal if we
both could have focused our efforts on parenting in these earlier months. I think it’s shameful
that we do not support families in
the days following the birth of a
child. These are critical times for a
newborn – especially those need-
Tina, Round Rock, TX
200
ing care in the NICU – and for recovering mothers.
Without the support of my
friends and family – who all generously donated their time – I have
no idea how I (or my son) would
have made it through those first
3 months.
Martha, Dripping Springs, TX
In the 60s and 70s, when I had
my children, there was no such
thing as maternity leave – you just
did the best you could. Even today,
I did not get leave to care for my
Alzheimer mother and had to fit
it in to my work schedule. Today
should be different for women, like
other developed countries – (but
then we don’t even have universal
health care) – and have extended
leave to care for the most important product our country has!
It kills me how motherhood is
touted as being the best a woman
can be, but when it comes to actually rewarding us, ... oh, we are going over the border of what’s reasonable!
Rodolfo, Houston, TX
It is very important for parents to
have paid leave. I took unpaid leave
for 4 weeks when my first daughter was born, and my wife took 12
weeks of leave. Her leave was a
combination of her own vacation
time, sick days, partial pay from disability insurance, and unpaid leave.
We don’t regret the time off we
took with our daughter, but because
of all that time unpaid, I had to use
credit cards to pay for groceries,
diapers, etc., and even other bills.
Since we had just purchased our 1st
house a month before we became
pregnant, those expenses plus the
expense of a newborn, we ended
up in deep credit card debt, a hole
that, 8 1/2 years later, I’m still trying
to climb out of, but I’m proud to say
I haven’t defaulted on a single payment, haven’t even been late.
MomsRising.org
I believe if we would have both
had our regular pay, we wouldn’t be
in this seemingly neverending spiral
of debt. Please feel free to use my
experience, maybe if we can change
the laws, my daughter won’t have
to go through this when she becomes a mother. Thanks for all that
YOU do!
option as they have customers
in every day. I was very happy to
have the luxury of breastfeeding
her for so long, which many do
not have, and of spending that
additional time with her. I can’t
imagine being forced to have
someone else care for her at
such a young age.
Renee, Arlington, TX,
Kristen, Richardson, TX
My baby is what I do everything I do for. I am fortunate
enough to have worked hard and
gotten to a good place at my job
to afford for my husband to be a
stay at home dad.
My employer – a major medical center – doesn’t offer an official maternity leave policy, so I
used all my vacation and sick time,
plus some unpaid leave in order to
cobble together 12 weeks after the
birth of my second child. The only
reason I could take any unpaid was
because my mother was able to
provide a bit of income so I could
stay home with the baby a few
more weeks.
We don’t have a lot of extra
but our son gets to spend important learning stages at home with
family. I did get paid family leave
but that was only for 6 weeks paid
and due to having paid for short
term dissability with my insurance.
I took the 12 week allowed
and could only afford it because
we have savings. It was great
that I got that time to bond with
my son before I had to return to
work. I did get to breast feed and
continued to do so when back at
work through pumping.
Work in retail and would not
have been able to create the bond
we have if I did not have the time
off I did. My hours are crazy and
I spend what time I can now with
him, but we would not be as close
we are without that time.
Lindsey, Austin, TX
My company does not provide
paid family leave, however I was
lucky enough to be able to bring
my daughter to work for the first
year since I work in a small office
with little to no public interaction, and my bosses were nice
enough to allow me to bring her.
However the employees at
our branches do not have this
MomsRising.org
Though I was lucky to be able to
take a full 12 weeks, this involved
not taking a single day off in the 9
months leading up to the birth so
that I’d have enough vacation and
sick time to enjoy a few weeks with
our baby.
Employers need to be required
to offer a maternity policy that provides mothers and fathers at least
a month off – before they have to
start using their sick and vacation
time. Most new moms aren’t allowed to drive for 2 or pick up anything heavier than their baby for 2
weeks. The fact that many have to
return to work should be considered criminal.
Kristina, San Antonio, TX
My first child had acid reflux
and cried almost all the time she
was awake. I did not want to leave
her at a day care. I used the full
12 weeks of FMLA leave, with only
some of it paid, and then used a
month of vacation and sick leave.
I wish I’d had more time to stay
home with her. I could hardly concentrate at work that first year be-
cause I was so sleep-deprived and
worried about her.
When my second child was
born, I used the full 12 weeks of
FMLA again, and then returned to
work part-time. I needed to save
my vacation and sick time because
I knew I’d need it with two kids in
day care. My son wasn’t taking a
bottle, so I had to leave mid-day
to nurse him until he got the hang
of it. I plan to work full-time again
when my youngest is a a year old.I
would like to see FMLA provide
job protection for a minimum of 6
months to 1 year.
My Canadian and European
counterparts reported to the same
boss that I did, and took off 1 year
(paid). (They feel very sorry for
us in the U.S.) Our FMLA policy is
pitiful in comparison. These little
babes belong with their mothers,
but mothers shouldn’t have to give
up their jobs to care for their new
babies.
Kathryn, Austin, TX
My job currently does not allow
me any sort of paid time off for
maternity leave. I will be able to
take time off, and (if I understand
correctly) I should have my job still
so long as I bring proper medical
documentation...but I will be completely without any form of income
for any amount of time I take off
for the birth of my baby. And being a mother who is very likely to
have a c-section that is a scary prospect for me.
Not only will I most likely have
to return to work before I’m completely recovered (despite my efforts to build up a savings before
the arrival of my daughter) but I
will be deprived of the time I would
otherwise be able to spend caring
for and bonding with my new child.
It’s heinous, but I have no choice.
g
201
Amand , Spring, TX
My son was born a preemie due
to an unknown medical condition.
His medical bills and my lack of pay
almost made us lose our house.
distracted by knowing that I should
be with my baby at least for a few
months. Sleep deprivation has consequences. Making it possible for
parents to stay home with their
new babies to give them the right
start is a no-brainer.
Samantha, Trinity, TX
No paid leave after my first child
meant she weaned earlier than either of us wanted, because I had to
go back to work. After my second?
It has meant a much lower standard
of living due to a loss of income
from staying with him without any
paid leave.
Natalya, Mabank, TX
No personal experience to share
as yet, but I did grow up in a country where it was a norm and I observed that it was beneficial to the
development of a strong family
unit. The advantages to the new
mother can not be overrated.
It provides the security that is so
necessary at this crucial time. I feel
that it should be considered a basic human right. The opportunity
to raise a child properly should not
depend on the wealth of the parents.
Thais, Austin, TX
Not having paid family leave
meant that I had to return to work
when my baby was six weeks old.
As a result:-we have not been able
to coordinate my body’s production of breastmilk with his needs
(I don’t make enough because he’s
not here to nurse), meaning he’s
on formula primarily, which has a
host of less-desirable health effects
for both him and me – we have not
been able to spend enough time
together, which means it’s been
harder to know when he needs
extra medical attention, and he’s
harder to soothe.
I am not as well or rested as I
should have been at work, and am
202
Monica, Houston, TX
Paid Maternity/Paternity Leave
recognizes the importance of this
time of bonding and assistsfinancially at a time when family income is
reduced, particularly if the mother/
father is taking unpaid leave. Paid
Maternity/Paternity Leave will allow
mothers and other partners to support the primary carer in their new
caring role, and to recover from the
birth.
Paid Paternity Leave will encourage fathers to take some time off
after the birth of a child, and help
embed paternity leave as a normal
aspect of work and family life. It will
also extend the amount of time that
both parents can spend providing
exclusive care inthe early important
months of a child’s life.
Joan, Carrollton, TX
The first few months with a
child are the most important for
the emotional and physical health
of the child. Even though I am
now a grandmother, I realize the
importance even more as I see my
daughter trying to spend time with
her new baby while also manging
all the new responsbilities. As a
senior citizen, I see family leave an
investment in my future. It is our
children and grandchildren who
will take care of us so we need to
take care of them now.
Amanda, Katy, TX
The latter part of my pregnancy
with my first and only child was extremely stressful, but not because I
didn’t have a healthy pregnancy (as
well as labor and delivery). During
my last trimester, my father (my last
surviving parent) passed away. The
company I worked for at the time
denied me any bereavement leave
and then two months later told me
that I should look for a different
place to return to the workforce following the birth of my child.
Plain and simple I did not have
paid family leave when my daughter was born. I had to accept public
assistance and went back to work
when my daughter was only 4
weeks old. I hated to have to do
that, but I had no choice. I am telling my story because I do not want
any parent to have to leave a child
that young because there is no
money for diapers, utilities, rent,
car payments, food and gas.
Although I felt this was blatant
sexual discrimination, I learned
from the EEOC that they were such
a small company they were not under the jurisdiction of state or federal laws meant to shield protected
classes of workers (like pregnant
women). Needless to say, the stressful and joyful 12 weeks after the
birth of my child were also filled
with the worries of trying to find,
apply and interview for potential
employment while stretching the
60% short term disability pay I received for only 6 weeks.
This is America and not one of
us should have to leave our babies
so young. Asking employers to provide paid family leave is not asking
too much. It would afford parents
the opportunity to stay home with
newborns without the added stress
that comes because of dire financial straits.
Much of my sick and vacation
leave was exhausted from standard
pre-natal appointments and caring
for my dying father. Of course, paid
family leave policies would have alleviated a great deal of this stress
and left me better equipped to be
a new mother and juggle all of my
responsibilities.
Chelette, Plano, TX
MomsRising.org
Carrie, Corpus Christi, TX
My husband and I are both self
employed, so when our baby came,
our income went down by 50%,
since I stopped working and thus
received no income. Having a baby
is already costly.
Make it possible for self-employed people to get assistance
when baby arrives – and ensure
that those first crucial months in
the baby’s life are spent with a parent instead of in a daycare full of
other babies.
Kimberly, Euless, TX
The opportunity to bond with
your child without worrying about
your job, a necessary evil, is ideal.
We in this great country don’t seem
to put enough emphasis on the importance of our children. From the
moment of conception until the day
they are 18 our priority is not them.
It clearly isn’t bettering the relationship between mother and child –
which, by the way, has far reaching
impacts that if allowed, we would
most likely be better off. Our goal
isn’t education as that budget continues to get cut – which is disgusting. What do you anticipate our future will be should you continue to
disregard our most precious asset?
Anna, Brownwood, TX
When I had my children, there
was no FLMA. My first child was
born in 1963 while my husband was
stationed in Moracco with the Air
Force. Our second child was born in
Minot, North Dakota in an Air Force
Hospital. My husband was in the Air
Force, and could have taken leave
when our second child was born;
however, I was not employed and
he did not take time off.
While I was employed in 1996 to
2009 in Brownwood, Texas, there
were a number of parents, both fathers and mothers, who took FMLA
when their children were born and
that was a great time for them to
MomsRising.org
have for bonding and helping or being helped with a new infant. Also,
if one has an elderly parent or handicapped child to care for, FMLA is a
godsend. FMLA is one of the great
advantages of our culture today and
should stay intact for future families
who are under enough stress as it is.
Erin, Dallas, TX
When I had my first son, I was
the breadwinner. As such, I was only
able to take the 8 weeks short term
disabilitity I had at only 60% of my
pay. Since we needed my income to
survive, I reluctantly had to go back
to work earlier than I had wanted.
When I had my second son, my husband and I made about the same
amount of money. This time, I was
going to get to take the full 12 weeks
(all unpaid, unfortunately becuase I
had a new job and didn’t get short
term disability payments because it
was a ‘pre existing condition.’) This
time is also being cut short, however,
because I had complications during
my pregnancy that required me to
be on bed rest at home and to subsequently be hospitalized for the last
month of my pregnancy.
My baby was born a few weeks
early and had to stay in the hospital
for almost two weeks after he was
born. Since I took so much leave
before my baby was born, my leave
after he was home is being limited. I
am devistated that I have to go back
to work, but I need my job and my
income. We should be allowed to
have adequate time at home with
our babies. I feel like I missed out on
so much with my first and will miss
out on so much with my second. I do
not plan on having any more babies,
but I want to fight for this for other
women out there.
Rosemary, McAllen, TX
When my children were born
in Mexico City, I was an employee
of the Department of Education. I
had 3 months paid leave from my
teaching position. It made all the
difference in the world. I did not
have to worry about money. I just
went to pick up my check every 2
weeks no questions asked. When
my son was older, I had access to a
state paid daycare center for teachers as a really minimal cost. I wish
mothers here had access the the
same as they should have in a civilized country.
Kristin, Austin, TX
When my son was born, I was
lucky to have 8 weeks of paid vacation, which was bumped to 10
weeks because of my c-section. I
took an additional 2 weeks of vacation time I had saved to make up
the entire 12 week allotment. At
about 6 weeks, severe postpartum
anxiety set in. I could take care of
my son, but not myself. I was losing
weight rapidly, not sleeping much
at all, and felt as if I had a whole
pot of espresso every day – shaky
and unable to focus.
Those weeks from 6-10 I spent
recovering and getting myself back
on track with the help of my very
supportive husband. There is no
way I could have gone back to work
in that condition.I am so thankful
to have had paid leave.
UTAH
Amy, Sandy, UT
As a mother of three, I have always worked part-time since the
birth of my first child. I was lucky
that first time because I was able to
have short term disability which paid
me 70% of my wages for six weeks.
But because I only received pay for
six weeks, I returned to work when
my son was 10 weeks old. I was also
exclusively breastfeeding and my
baby would not take a bottle (and
actually none of my children ever
did), even with breastmilk.With my
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203
next 2 babies, I was not working
full time, and thus, not eligible
for short term disability through
my employer. While the length
of time I took off for both births
varied greatly, both represented
a financial strain for my family.
After my second baby was born,
I believed I had 12 weeks (FMLA)
of unpaid leave, only to find out
after being gone from work 11
weeks that I should have returned
to work after only 6 weeks (a fact
about which my company failed
to inform me). I was unready to
return to work even at the 11-12
week point due to dealing with
extreme sleep deprivation from
caring for a baby who never slept
well, and seemed to need me more
than my first had.
and to my daughters as well!Let’s
prove that America is better than
this. We can and should provide
paid family leave to all mothers,
regardless of the number of hours
they work.
I eventually returned to work
after 6 months. We were able to
survive financially, but not without incurring some debts. When
my third child was born, we had
recently purchase a home and
our financial responsibilities were
higher than ever. Again, there was
no paid leave, and at that, I only
was guaranteed a 6 week medical leave because as a part time
employee, I did not usually work
enough hours in a 12 month period to qualify for FMLA. I took
about 8 weeks off with this child,
and worked less hours upon returning than I previously had, as I
was exclusively breastfeeding.
The breastfeeding bit is particularly important, once I did go back to
work, I found it impossible to keep
up with breastfeeding and pumping,
even though I have a flexible schedule, access to a private space, and a
supportive work environment. I cannot imagine how hard it would have
been if I had had to go back to work
after a few weeks and had to stop
breastfeeding/pumping that early.
Taking unpaid leave woudl not have
been financially possible for me so I
am incredibly grateful for the long
amount of paid leave I was given.
This time, we incurred much
debt during the time I was off
and smaller paychecks. Maybe
we could have planned better and
done more to avoid this debt, but
when there’s not enough money,
there’s not enough money! Parenting is hard, under-appreciated
work and no one should have to
suffer because they are choosing
to raise children, especially the
children themselves!
In 2005 I gave birth to twin
girls. They were born several weeks
premature and had low birth
weight. This necessitated feeding
both on a 2.5 hourly schedule until
they reached normal birth weight,
which took 6 weeks. They also had
problems feeding and with reflux,
so feeding was a very slow process.
For 6 weeks I never got more than
30 minutes sleep at one time.
And while it is probable that I
will never benefit from any change
in legislation, I want to provide
this wonderful right to others
204
Danielle, Salt Lake City, UT
I am a college professor and consider myself very lucky to have had
a full semester (about 5 months) of
paid leave. I know that this amount
of time is out of the ordinary, but I
think it should be standard practice.
Here’s why: With 5 months of paid
leave, I was able to establish a strong
bond with my daughter, breastfeed
her, and have ample time to get used
to being a mom before having to go
back to work.
Kirsten, Salt Lake City, UT
Thankfully I had 12 weeks of
paid maternity leave through my
companies benefits plan. This allowed me to stay home with my
girls and give them the care they
needed. It greatly facilitated my
being able to breast feed them for
the first few months of their lives.
I simply can’t imagine how we
would of got through those first
few weeks had I needed to return
to work, or make a choice between
looking after them or working.
Having lived through this experience it is obvious to me why paid
maternity leave has such a direct
impact on child mortality rates.
Michele, Salt Lake City, UT
Several years ago, recently after my youngest son, 16, was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, he
broke into a gas station and stole
some cigarettes. He also has ADHD,
Generalized Anxiety Disorder and
Depression, plus math and writing
learning disabilities. My world absolutely shattered. Plus at my job
as a school social worker, our new
principal, who didn’t like children
and didn’t want me to see children
who were having anxiety or other
crises, made my life hell.
My previously rewarding job became a hostile environment. I had
nowhere that wasn’t extremely
stressful. My anxiety was off the
scale as I tried to function at my
job and take care of all the things
I had to do to get more help for
my son, deal with the legal issues,
court dates, etc. The administrators
at the district knew of my ADD and
GAD previously as well as how abusive the principal was to the children and to myself. I could’ve used
the time off to take care of my son
and myself, but instead of letting
me use my sick leave I would’ve
had to use FMLA, which as a single
mom I couldn’t afford to do.
VERMONT
Sara, Brattleboro, VT,
Not having paid family leave
meant that our family had to turn
to forms of public assistance for
MomsRising.org
help...WIC, food stamps, Fuel Assistance, etc. It was very stressful to
worry about money while also nursing and taking care of my little one.
Thankfully it was temporary. What
was not as temporary was the credit
card debt we accumulated while
I was on leave – it took four years
to erase that debt. When I think
about how much knowledge and
skill I have gained while on the job, I
am flummoxed at the lack of investment workplaces have in ensuring
that their skilled workers return.
David, Brattleboro, VT
The child down the street was
thrown into childcare facilities at 6
months old – at three he clings to
his mother constantly and cries for
her whenever she steps from view.
Attachment to the parent is very
important and family leave makes
that possible without being ruined
financially.
VIRGINA
Michelle, Alexandria, VA
As a sales manager in the hotel
industry, I was one of the ‘lucky’
ones; I was able to use disability
insurance to cover a portion of my
pay for about half of my leave.
With my first child, I worked for
Marriott, a company that consistently makes Parents Magazine’s
Best Places for Moms list. If this is
considered ‘best,’ I’d hate to see
what didn’t make the list. I was
afforded the absolute minimum
in terms of leave and pay; I took
the 12 weeks that the FMLA gave
me, and used disability insurance
to cover 60% of my salary for 6
weeks. (While some companies offer 8 weeks after a C-section, Marriott only gives 6 – how horrifying
that they’re sending housekeepers
back to flip mattresses 6 weeks after major surgery.)
A few short weeks after that,
she found out that ‘the funding
had dried up’ for her position and
she would not have any position
to go back to. We had chosen to
breastfeed our son (a decision we
stand by) and in some ways, perhaps that made it easier.
Of course, disability only kicks in
once you’ve depleted your sick and
vacation time, so when I went back
to work with a 13-week old baby, I
had absolutely no time to take off
if he – or, God forbid, I – needed a
day off. But again, as a manager
making a decent wage, I was one
of the lucky ones. By the time my
second child was born, I had moved
on to a new company. They offered
the option to ‘buy up’ on the disability policy for $5/month to get
80% coverage. Thankfully my family wasn’t impacted by an additional $5/month, but I know many that
are. With my second C-section, I
was given 8 weeks of disability but
because I hadn’t been at the job
long enough, I wasn’t covered by
FMLA so I had to return to work after just 8 weeks.
But that would not be true.
Instead, my wife spent several
months stressed – adjusting to new
motherhood, breastfeeding, and
all the while trying to polish her resume and line-up interviews. Not
at all how she imagined the first
year with our son would be.
My employer allowed me to
work part time for the first month
back, but I actually made less working 3 days/week than I did on disability, which made it even harder
to justify paying full-time daycare
(we had to pay 5 days/week to
hold the spot, even though we just
Rob, Essex Junction, VT
When my son was born, my
wife’s post-doctoral fellowship
did not come with any guarantee
of continued employment. After
working so hard to get her PhD
and then choosing to have a family – there was nothing in place for
her in that field. Our son was born
and she stepped away from the lab
and her research there.
MomsRising.org
used the service 3 days/week). Our
policies in this country exhibit how
little we value the family. It’s a pathetic testament to how low our
children’s welfare ranks on the priority scale.
Alice, Annandale, VA
Because I was already pregnant
with my second child when I started my current job, I was unable to
save much leave time and I was not
eligible to benefit from short term
disability coverage. As a result I
was home with my daughter for
just 8 weeks – that was as long as
my husband and I felt comfortable
living without my paycheck, especially since we were still recovering
from my 5 months of unemployment the year before. At 8 weeks
a baby is just starting to respond
to the environment around him or
her and at 8 weeks, a family is just
starting to get to used to having
the little one around, regardless of
whether it’s the first child or the
5th.
Going back to work at 8 weeks
was bearable only because I have
a job with a flexible schedule and
an understanding boss. Otherwise
it would have been much more
torturous, both for me and for
my family. But torturous or not,
it was really my only option. It is
so unfortunate that in this country having a child is perceived as a
‘vacation’ at best or a disruption at
worst. It is neither of those things.
Women should be able to have
the time to take care of their newborns, their families and themselves. And they should be paid
for that time. It’s not fair or reasonable to make them choose
between getting a paycheck that
cares for their families’ financial
needs and having the time to care
for their families’ emotional needs.
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205
Karen, Arlington, VA
Being able to take paid time
off after the birth of both of my
daughters was crucial to all of us.
I needed the time to recover and
bond with my baby girls, and they
needed me around to get a good
start in life. They are growing up
into beautiful, smart, healthy girls,
and I attribute at least some of
that to my ability to properly nurse
them for their first few months of
life.
If I’d been more stressed or
had to return to work sooner, this
would have almost certainly taken
a toll on my ability to nurse them.
Nursing babies is hard work, and
pumping is even tougher. Let’s
make sure ALL our babies have the
chance to start out right – with
nurturing and nursing in those first
few critical months. P.S. like many
mothers these days, I’m the primary breadwinner, so without paid
leave, I would have certainly had to
return to work sooner. Let’s help
all our families and ensure moms
have paid leave... it will pay off in
the long run!
Robbin, Alexandria, VA
I adopted a baby and could only
take 6 weeks of paid leave, which
was my sick and vacation leave
combined working for the federal
government. Later on, I read of
a Senator, I think Senator Ted Stevens who gave his female workers
paid time off for maternity leave.
Which was great, but shouldn’t the
rest of us be treated the same?
Susan, Richmond, VA
I am a Family Doctor. I had 3 kids
while owning a private medical
practice. Each time I took 6 weeks
off to recover and ensure the baby
was doing well, then I headed back
to the offce. Why? Because for 6
weeks I was not getting paid and
further more, I was not earning
money to pay my staff.
206
As a doctor, fortunately I make
enough money to forefit pay for 6
weeks, but how I envy my family
doctor friends in Sweden or England who all got paid maternity
leaves of 6 to 12 MONTHS to enjoy
their children. As a doctor, I have
heard hundreds of horror stories
from my patients of how they lost
a job or had severe financial problems because they had a surgical
delivery or the baby was not doing
well. As a country, we can do better than this. The European’s do it.
Akeisha, Norfolk, VA
I am a single parent with two
children. My oldest son has asthma
and has been hospitalized several
times since the age of 5. My last
employer offered FMLA which was
a great benefit for me because alot
of times he was unable to go to
school, had to be picked up early,
and had to stay in the hospital for
3days or more. FMLA gave me relief that I wouldn’t lose my job over
these situations. Im very greatful
that my employer offered it, my
current employer does as well if
you have been with the company
for over a year.
other families deal with this load
when the mother has to go back to
work almost immediately after the
birth of their baby.It does not surprise me that breastfeeding does
not last very long for most babies
as it took me a good 2 weeks to get
started with a good latch and then
a few more weeks to be able to do
it comfortably without any help.
Morgen, Lorton, VA
I developed HELLP syndrome
and my son was born 7 wks early
and spent 3 wks in the NICU and
another 11 days in the PICU at 2
mos old. He came home on meds
and an apnea monitor. I spent 18
wks on maternity leave and he was
still required to be on meds when
he went to daycare.
I was a federal employee so,
while I was granted leave, I was not
paid for it – not an option given
our finances and the cost of living
in the DC area. Thankfully both my
parents worked for the same agency and were about to retire so they
donated unused leave to me so
that I could stay home. Without it,
I’m not sure what we would have
done to pay the bills.
Margarita, Charlottesville, VA
Megan, Richmond, VA
I count myself on the lucky few
that have had a paid family leave
after both our children were born.
My workplace has a short term disability insurance that paid me for 6
weeks and my workplace was fine
with me taking 12 weeks off work
as per the family-leave act.On top
of that, for my first born I had my
mother staying with us for about a
month and that help a lot specially
because it help establish a longterm breastfeeding with the newborn as I was able to rest and dedicate myself to care for the baby.
I did not have paid family leave
when I had my daughter. Instead, I
saved up as much of my paid time
off as I could by not missing a day
of work, even when I was exhausted and sick during pregnancy, so
that I could get at least one paycheck during maternity leave. I
was on short term disability for 8
weeks, but since I’m the primary
breadwinner, we were still really
struggling financially. I wanted to
be successful at breastfeeding so
I insisted on taking the measly 12
weeks that the law allows, even
though we couldn’t afford for me
to be out of work that long.
Even with all that help I was
very tired as the care of a new born
requires all attention all the time
day and night. I do not know how
My daughter had reflux and
was colicky, needing to be held
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and nursed constantly. Maternity leave was exhausting and
when I went back to work, I was
a walking zombie for months.
Family, especially our children,
should always come first. It’s infuriating that other countries have
paid leave AND longer maternity
leaves, yet the US, who is so concerned about family values, can’t
step up and offer the same thing?
It absolutely boggles the mind.
Barbara, Virginia Beach, VA
I didn’t have it for my 1st child
and it made life a lot more stressful. Things were a lot smoother
w/ the 2nd when I had maternity
leave and was able to heal w/o
the additional stress of worrying
about finances.
Joyce, Roanoke, VA
I got NO paid leave. Not even
vacation days of any kind. As a
mother, who made minimum
wage, I never even accrued vacation time. I was fired when I had
to be out 6 weeks. Later, after I
went back to school and got my
nursing degree, I was told by other
nurses I worked with, they had to
actually quit their jobs to get maternity leave.
Now, decades later, they lost
years counted toward retirement
years because of having *quit*
their jobs. Only the last rehire
years are counted even now. They
lost years of service time every
time they had a baby. They are still
punished today. In 2011. Hospitals
made the decision it was never going to count those lost years. Don’t
keep women 2nd class citizens. Our
time with our babies is important.
What if women decided it wasn’t
worth the cost of having a child?
What if they they decided not to
have the next generation because
they cannot afford time off without pay? What would the impact
be on our country?
MomsRising.org
Cynthia, Aylett, VA
I had surgery in May 2010. Because insurance requires that your
doctor try all resolutions possible
before ‘major surgery’, I’d exhausted my leave time trying all
other options that didn’t work.
Therefore, I had no leave time
when I had to have surgery as the
last result. I was really stressed
out and worried about if I was going to have a job, how was I going
to provide for my kids over the
next couple of months, how my
bills were going to get paid.
I called social services for help
and because I had a job I was
denied any help even though I
wasn’t getting paid to be out for
surgery. For what little savings I
had was toatlly exhausted. I’ve
worked on my job for 6 years and
never missed time from work unless it was for my kids or a short
vacation. This left me with no
choice but to return back to work
against my doctors release of me
because I needed funds to provide
for my family. Because of this the
surgery turned out to be unsuccessful and I’m still having problems.
I work really hard for this company to not help me or seem as
if they don’t care. Even if I they
would’ve paid me half my check,
I’d been thankful for it. I’m still
struggling trying to get my finances back on track, as well as
my health.
Jeanne, Alexandria, VA
I had to use 3 months of leave
without pay. It is a very stressful
time becoming a new parent!
Anna, Barboursville, VA
I have ‘Paid Leave’ which
means that I am supposedly one
of the lucky ones. However, earning that leave was not easy. I took
no real vacation for a year before
my child’s birth so that I could save
up enough time to take 3 months
off with my newborn. That meant
going to work even when I was
sick and very pregnant.
Then after I returned from
leave I once again could not take
any days off for a very long time,
especially since I wanted to have
another child two years later. It
shouldn’t be that hard to just
spend a few precious weeks bonding with your child.
Kindell, Hillsville, VA
I was hired as a waitress when
I was about 3 months pregnant. I
let them know so when I needed
the time off it wouldn’t be a surprise. I worked my butt off for
this place and quickly rose to bar
manager. As I was about to begin
training for management my boss
decided I should go ahead and
take my (unpaid) leave. I was a
week away from my due date and
he was terrified that I would go
into labor while at the restaurant.
Two days before my due date I
recieved a phone call saying they
needed help and were very shorthanded, so I went in. The next
morning I went into labor and at
7:58 delivered a beautiful, healthy
baby boy.
When he was just 3 weeks old,
I received a phone call saying if I
did not come into work tomorrow
I could kiss my promotion good
bye. I went in the next day, after
only 3 weeks leave, still unpaid,
still recovering, only to find they
had already given my promotion
to another waitress who had been
there less than 1 month. I was devastated. I worked so hard for these
people. I took 3 weeks maternity
leave to go back to job where I
was on my feet for 6 to 7 hours at
a time to have my door of opportunity slammed in my face. Needless to say, as soon as I found another job, I was out of there.
g
207
A woman should not be punished for having a child. Especially when that woman was hired
while pregnant and gave full disclosure to the managment. Had it
not been for what they did to me,
I could’ve already been working
up from bar manager to general
manager, finally getting a decent
paycheck and benefits.
Abigail, Williamsburg, VA
I was lucky that my husband
is Scandinavian and as a result,
we received 8 months paid leave
even though he was living in the
US. We would have received 12
months 100% pay if we had both
lived in Norway.
As a mother, I would have been
able to retain my job for nearly 2
years had I lived overseas. However, because I have my own firm,
I was able to keep working after
giving birth without the fear of
being fired or laid off.
Bea, Alexandria, VA
I was one of the lucky mothers that had paid leave during
my time after giving birth to 4
baby girls, not all at one time.
But, each time they came, if I had
not have had paid leave I would
not have been able to spend that
time with them. So many families today are going through hard
times, and without that period of
pay, who knows if the families will
even make it.
To take care of crying, demanding babies, then having to wonder how to feed the rest of the
family is not the way life should
be. Please keep paid leave for
parents of new born, or adopted
children. Let them have the time
to establish family ties. I think I
took 2-3 months for each child,
that is not that long to cover an
outting from employment.
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Jenna, Chantilly, VA
My husband had 2 weeks of
paid family leave and this was instrumental in helping me care for
our newborn and 3 year old after
my Cesarean.
Stacy, Mechanicsville, VA
When I had my son, the company I worked for had no paid
leave options available at all. I
was lucky in that they allowed
me to use my personal and vacation time, but the missing income
forced me to return to work after
only 8weeks; well before either
myself or my child was ready. I
was exhausted, and depressed
that I had to leave my tiny child at
home well before I was ready for
that step. (Frankly, I don’t believe
12 weeks is sufficient either.)
I made only slightly more money than my husband, and daycare
costs for an infant totaled more
than three quarters of my income,
and were equal to my husbands
pay. Because of that fact, we were
forced to make the difficult decision to work opposite shifts, resulting in two exhausted parents
(he worked all night and stayed
home with the baby during the
day, I worked all day and nursed
all night). At my current place
of employment I have disability insurance. Even this will only
cover 5 weeks of maternity leave.
It shocked me when I found out
how much more family friendly
other nations were when it came
to pay, and amount of time given
for maternity/paternity leave. Actually, it sickens me.
Tracy, Chesapeake, VA
When I was pregnant with my
first son, I was on active duty with
the US Coast Guard and was lucky
enought to get 6 weeks of paid
maternity. CG active duty mothers are also entitled to 30 days
off throughout the pregnancy for
any issues, complications, and/or
appointments. Luckily I did not
have to use any of these throughout the pregnancy because in
my last month I had serious back
problems and was able to take a
couple weeks off with pay!
My son was born 2 weeks early,
so my time off before his birth was
cut short, but I was still able to
take the 6 weeks off after he was
born plus 2 weeks of all the leave
I had saved up.Unfortunately I
was not so lucky with the birth of
my second son. I was fortunate
enough to come off of active duty
orders and roll right into a GS-12
position, which for those of you
who don’t know the federal system is a fairly decent position.
What I didn’t know and didn’t
even think would be a possibility
was that the federal governement
does NOT offer any maternity
leave! Yes, they will allow you to
take all the unpaid leave that you
want and are even nice enough to
let you get an advance on leave,
but offer absolutely no paid maternity or paternity leave! I could
not believe that the people who
are supporting our active and reserve duty military are not offered
the same maternity benefits as
the people they are supporting?!
If there is one thing I can do
in this lifetime is to help convince
the Federal Government that they
should be offering the same maternity benefits to the people
out of uniform that are supporting the ones in uniform, along
with any other working mother,
regardless of their place of employment. For my next child I am
saving as much leave and sick time
as possible and will be taking at
least 6 weeks off to care for my
baby, older children, and myself!
Sharon, Reston, VA
When my son was born, I was
fortunate that my partner was
making enough money that I
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could stay home. This turned out
to be crucial to my son’s health,
as I was unable to pump enough
breastmilk to be away for him for
longer than a few hours. When
my son weaned at 11 months, he
proved to be allergic to both regular and hypoallergenic formulas.
I fear for what might have happened to his health if I had been
unable to nurse him. Since I was
able to stay home and nurse and
bond with him, he has grown into
a happy, healthy child.
Every mother should have the
opportunity to stay home and
nurse her child. Every parent
should have the opportunity to
stay home and bond with a new
baby or adopted child without
the stress of worrying about making ends meet or losing a job. Our
children deserve no less than their
parents’ full attention when they
are most needy and vulnerable.
Paid family leave is an investment
in the present and future health
and happiness of our society – an
investment that every American
should be willing to make.
Heather, Arlington, VA
Women serve many purposes in
the world and in life, one of which
is to bring new life into the world.
Companies need women to give
birth so they can continue to have a
workforce. The military needs women to give birth so they can continue
to send soldiers to war. Not only
should women have paid leave, they
should be thanked and adored for
bringing new life into the world so
the world can keep going.
Jennifer, Burlington, VT
I am an American living in Montreal (Canada). I am a mother of
two young children. I am blessed
to live in a country where not only
do mothers get paid time off, but
so do fathers, when a baby is
born. The parents can take up to
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a total of 70 weeks, 32 paid by the
government. When my children
were born, their father stayed
home with us for a minimum of 8
weeks. I truly believe it changed
the course of our lives with children.
With two adults to care for the
infant, we were able to avoid becoming over-tired and desperate.
I was able to breastfeed both babies for the recommended time.
When we had our second child,
one of us was able to provide
much needed attention to our
oldest as well. Our babies developed a true, profound attachment
to both of their parents allowing
for both of us to spend quality
time with them as they grew. As
a mother, I have always been able
to get the much-needed breaks,
because our babies have a strong
relationship with their father.
I believe our family is literally
more healthy, both physically and
emotionally, because of this brief
time together.
I caanot even
imagine the chaotic situations
families that do not have this time
together endure. What a difficult
way to start out in the world.
WASHINGTON
Amanda, Olympia, WA
For many women, the decision
to have more (or any) children often times rests on their financial
ability to care for them. For me,
and for many mothers I know, giving birth doesn’t just mean a new
baby to care for. It means potential
job loss and/or less financial ability to care for other children. We
shouldn’t have to choose between
feeding the family we have and
carrying a new pregnancy to term.
Please take action, do what is right,
and support families! Our children
depend on us to be successful later
in life!
Martha, Shelton, WA
Three years ago my very good
friend was terminal and so her son
and daughter, daughter-in-law all
took FMLA to help care for her the
last few weeks of her life. Problem
was that none of them had very
much if any at all, of paid leave.
So afterwards these families stayed
not only with the pain of loosing
a loved one, but with the stress of
trying to catch up with bills and not
having the funds.
Today, they are still having a financial hardship, they still are having a very rough time financially. I
know because my friend’s son and
daughter-in-law is my daughter.
I see the pain and stress in their
lives as they struggle to make ends
meet. And now my son-in-law has
also lost his job. If they would have
had paid FMLA, atleast it would
have lessened the burden that they
are still feeling.
Kathy, Seattle, WA
After the birth of my very much
loved and planned for son, I became very ill. That was not how
it was supposed to go – but that’s
how it went. I couldn’t go back
to work as soon as I had planned.
However, I had to go back sooner
than I was ready and, body and
soul, I’m still paying for that. And
so are you! I could have cost the
healthcare system (and the government) a lot less if I’d been given the
time to recover that I needed. Plus,
we’re now totally broke. It should
NOT be this way.
Carrie, Seattle, WA
I am a third grade teacher. I was
shocked to find that a profession
that is all about children doesn’t
provide any paid maternity leave.
I was allowed to take six weeks
for short-term disability (that I
had to pay into). After that, I had
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209
to take the next two weeks for
free. I am ‘allowed’ to take three
months without losing my job. It
was a hardship on my family, but
I wasn’t ready to leave my daughter at only six weeks old. My husband took two weeks unpaid
completely.
I am lucky to have great health
insurance from my job. I can’t
complain about that. New babies
need love and care from both
parents for at least two months,
three would have been better.
How can we be expected to go to
work prepared, competent, and
motivated when all new parents
can think about is the health and
safety of their new baby. They are
also completely sleep-deprived.
Employers would have more success if they treated their employees as people, worthy of respect
and compassion. I believe that
the workplace should not only
provide paid adequate maternity
and paternity leave, but also provide on-site child care. This would
boost productivity and morale.
Shannon, Spokane, WA
I am currently pregnant with
my second child. My husband is
a full-time student/stay at home
parent and I work. I will have
leave with pay but only because I
have saved my time over the past
two years. When I get sick I come
to work, when my child is sick I
come to work, so that I will have
paid time off with our second. I
believe as the primary teachers
and nurtures of our children it is
critical that moms and dads both
have time to recover and bond
with their new family member.
Our culture suffers greatly because families are constantly in
survival mode. Instead of being
able to focus on the importance
of bonding and teaching we are
burdened by having to worry
about how to maintain our basis
needs.
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Our culture has dismantled the
idea of family, support and connection and it’s the children that
suffer the most from this mentality that parents have to do it all
and do it alone. Please give to
our future by nurture the need to
have parents available to our children. Let parents play the part of
parent and the child the part of
child during the most critical time
of ones life.
Betsy, Seattle, WA
I am fortunate in that I work
for myself. I’m a lactation consultant and volunteer lactation
support counselor with La Leche
League, so I work professionally
with hundreds of new families
per year. It is imperative that new
mothers have abundant time to
get breastfeeding off to a good
start, and have plenty of time to
focus on connecting with their
new babies.
Mothering is the most important career in the world. It is
disgusting that the United States
devalues mothering. It is very
challenging for women to give
their babies the best start in life
when they must go back to work
immediately.
I know from working with
many families that it can take
up to eight to twelve weeks for
mothers and babies to settle in
and get breastfeeding working
great – just when mom has to go
back to work. It’s a shame.
Breastfeeding babies is vital
to the health of our nation, and
moms need the time to make it
work.
Christa, Seattle, WA
I am self employed. I took 3
months off with the birth of each
child. (We have 2 children.) I
would have loved to take more.
We paid the majority of our costs
back within 1 year of each child,
but we still have credit card debt
that accumulated due to lost wages. Having paid maternity leave
would have helped A LOT.
Lynne, Chehalis, WA
I became pregnant in 1975.
I was the household breadwinner, since my spouse was attending college. When our daughter
was born in 1976, I was allowed 8
weeks off, but they were unpaid.
For the first two months of our
daughter’s life, we had to go on
the USDA Food Stamps Program,
because we had no income.
I was torn between developing
the important maternal bonding
process with breastfeeding and
the need to return to work. It was
extremely stressful. I would wish
that no other woman ever go
through this again.
Erika , Bainbridge Island, WA
I did not have paid family
leave but thankfully had saved up
3-4 weeks of ‘vacation’ time and
had saved enough to afford to be
off work for 3 months. After 3
months I was able to start working a few hours a week, only because I had a dedicated and flexible employer. I also had a spouse
working part time.
If I were a single mother I do
not know what I would have
done. In addition to paid family
leave, mothers should be guaranteed their jobs back and employers should provide opportunities
for mothers to pump breast milk.
thank you for caring about mothers – we all had one – and children
– we all were one.
T, Seattle, WA
I did not have paid leave, I was
fortunate to work for a company
that gave me leave and maintained my health insurance for
3-months. Unpaid leave was only
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possible because of the financial
security of knowing I had a job to
go back to.
Without that security, my leave
would have been much shorter
and my stress much higher. Infant care is amazingly expensive.
Knowing I was taking care of our
girl, allowed my husband to focus
on his work during that challenging sleep deprived transition.Being able to be home with my girl
gave us all a strong foundation
and bond from which she could
fearlessly go to the arms of a care
provider, knowing Mama and the
mama’s milk would come home
again.
Angela, Seattle, WA
I didn’t have fully paid maternity leave but my company paid
me at 40% of my salary for 16
weeks. We staggered through
the 16 weeks, both happy and exhausted. Having the time to bond
with my son and experience my
first parental successes and failures totally changed my expectations of how I planned to guide
and nurture him going forward.
I could not imagine having to
worry about no income when I
was struggling to with sleep deprivation and the physical demands of recovery, breast feeding, and the needs of an infant.
Maternity leave isn’t a luxury and
being able to take it shouldn’t be
either. It’s a basic human right
and societal need to have parents
get off on a good foot with their
children and a Childs right to be
cared for by their mother for at
least as long as it takes them to
developmentally understand the
new world outside the womb.
Jennifer, Olympia, WA
I had to get assistance from
welfare when I went on maternity leave in November of 2010 –
they gave me food assistance and
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required that I cash out my 401k
to help my family make it until I
went back to work... I am a professional and work for the state
– I can’t believe I had to take unpaid leave. I couldn’t even afford
to be gone longer than 8 weeks
after the twins were born – I am
the primary breadwinner in my
family. What would a person do
who doesn’t have the same assets
as me? It’s a sad reflection on this
country’s ‘family values’ that we
don’t offer paid maternity leave.
Kerry, Wenatchee, WA
I had to leave the best job I
ever had because of my new baby.
I was working as a contractor for
the federal government. There
was no paid leave for maternity.
They said they would hold my job
for me for a month but with no
child care available for newborns
until 3 months old that wasn’t
more than my income, I had no
choice but to resign.
This forced us to move back
into my parent’s house which
was over 150 miles away. Meaning both of us had to quit our
jobs and essentially start over.
Financially, I have yet to recover.
It’s been 4.5 years now. I’ve got 3
part time jobs and still not working more than 20 hours a week
and none of them are in the field
in which I have training in.
Amanda, Auburn, WA
I am very lucky to be working
in a supportive workplace. When
I had my son 6 weeks early they
were very flexible and gave me
all the time I needed. I was able
to take 2 1/2 months off to spend
time in the NICU with my son then
be at home while he grew stronger. The only problem was that I
did not get paid for any of that
time.
We went into debt due to hospital bills and my lost paychecks.
We will be paying this off for
awhile. The birth of my amazing
baby boy has been a roadblock
toward us potentially buying a
house because of this debt. We
will get there someday but the
road keeps gettin