Bush Says New Moms and Their Babies Cost Too Much

When it was time to travel to China to bring home our little PunditBaby, I was working at a large government agency in a pretty senior position.

I assumed that I would be able to take paid maternity leave, though I figured I'd have to jump through a few hoops since my adoption "pregnancy" was not in utero. Too bad someone wasn't trying to sell me the Brooklyn Bridge or some miracle cure-all at the time, 'cause they probably could have fooled me on that, too.

See, federal employees don't get paid maternity leave. If you're having a baby, or adopting, and you want paid time off, you've got to use accumulated vacation/sick/comp time. Otherwise, you're on your own.

When I realized all that, my jaw just about hit the top of my big government-issue desk. What happened to all that family-friendly speak? It seemed safe to assume that if you were working for Uncle Sam that paid pregnancy leave was in the package -- after all, most professionals who work for the government take a huge hit in income, but do it for the trade-off of more reasonable working hours and, usually, a nicer benefits package.

Next time, I'll pay more attention to the fine print.

Congress is mulling over a little something called the Parental Paid Leave Act, that would give federal employees a whopping four whole weeks off with pay for maternity leave. It passed the House of Representatives and is idling as it waits to head on over to the Senate.

There seems to be some support for the bill, but President Bush (haven't we kicked him off this throne yet??) says he won't sign the bill into law because it's a "costly, unnecessary, new paid leave entitlement."

Sure there's a cost to the bill, but without it there's a different kind of cost -- employees who leave or don't come back because of the current draconian family policies. Sure, there's the Family and Medical Leave Act, but that doesn't apply to federal workers and it's unpaid leave anyway.

What's even worse about Bush's position is that he, as the father of daughters, is telling all the rest of the fathers in the country that their daughters who work for him don't deserve a few weeks off with their new babies where they don't have to worry about how they're going to pay for the Pampers.

Didn't her mom deserve a few weeks of paid maternity leave?? After all, the president takes five weeks off just in the summer to clear brush.

Which is more important and which really costs the taxpayers more money??

Joanne writes about politics and motherhood at her place, PunditMom. She also writes about politics at BlogHer, where she is a Contributing Editor for Politics & News, and at MOMocrats.

Photos by PunditMom

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Comments

[anon004]

After my son was born, I was part-time. When we adopted our daughter, I didn't work sufficient hours to qualify for family medical leave (it doesn't apply if you're part time, which is bizarre when you think that it tells a company to make accomodation for a full-time employee leaving and returning, but not for a part-time employee leaving and returning, which is LESS disruptive). Anyway, I had managed to save a good chunk of vacation, which I planned to take. My employer (a large corporation) told me that I couldn't take more than a week, or possibly two, because a longer vacation "would not support business needs". So, even though it was a financial hardship, I was pretty much forced to quit. Oh, and FMLA (even with all its flaws) should, of course, cover federal government employees.

[Terriac]

Just another reaon why Bush and his ilk need to go.

[seatea1967]

I hate to rub salt in the wound, but you should see what French federal employees get in the way of paternity and maternity leave. I have a friend who lives in Paris working for the government who just had her second child. She was detailing their parental benefits and it totally blew my mind (translated from the original French):

"Here we have 6 weeks before the due date for the pregnancy and 10 weeks after. In cases of complications with the pregnancy there are an additional 14 days of optional "pathological holiday" before the maternity leave (it's a type of sick leave that our doctor gives us quasi-systematically and which our employer must consider as part of the maternity leave), and 28 days of optional "pathological holiday" after the end of the maternity leave. That makes 22 weeks total.

Also, it's not possible to fire a pregnant woman from the moment she announces her pregnancy to her employer, and also it's not possible to change her position or her place of employment without her consent upon her return from maternity leave.

For the father, it's 14 days plus 3 floating days.

When a couple adopts, the mother and father both have the right to 10 weeks of leave."

Those damned, dirty socialists!