I sat at my desk in front of the calendar, flipping through the pages. “OK,” I said to my office mate, “if I actually go into labor on my due date, I have exactly 45 sick and personal days saved up for my maternity leave.”
“A March baby? You should just take the rest of the school year off,” she suggested, watching as I counted the days carefully, excluding our school’s spring break and any other federal holidays.
To my dismay, the days ran out on May 16
Besides that, when I return to work, I’m out of sick and personal days
That means if I get sick or have to stay home with the baby one of those days — which is likely considering that I’ll have a newborn — I will not be paid for that day.
Does anyone else think this is insane? Teaching is supposed to be a “white collar” job. I have a master’s degree and a master educator’s license. If I’m going to have a baby and send it through this school system, shouldn’t that mean something, especially when other small schools in the state are closing due to declining enrollment? I can’t imagine what it must be like for hourly workers going through this.
I have been pushing for a paid parental leave package in our district through my work with our teachers’ union. I feel that, since we are a small district surrounded by larger, higher-paying districts, the best way to set ourselves apart and attract teaching talent would be to provide a paid or partially paid parental leave that would not require the use of sick days.
Everyone deserves the adequate time it takes to adjust to life with a new baby
It doesn’t matter which baby it is, your first or your fourth. Any new member of the family requires an adjustment period for the parents.
I remember coming back to work after my first daughter was born. I’d had three months off — which is considered a luxury in the US — and yet I still felt like I was far from the top of my teaching game. In fact, I ended up losing my milk supply and drying up because I didn’t have enough times available in the day to pump, and felt wildly uncomfortable getting half-naked in my classroom with paper taped over the windows. How is that good for the nursing parent or the baby?
Other countries have figured this out — employers are not going to get the highest-quality work from parents trying to adjust to a new baby in the house. People should not have to choose between work and having a family. Schools, especially, need to get their act together. They have a mostly-female workforce and rely on people making babies in their district.
Let’s get it together, folks.
