Paternity Leave, Maternity Schmleave

After reading this article (linked below) I began recollecting what I knew about maternity leave in modern society, in particular my own experience with what seemed a very unfair process.

Most doctors/midwives will recommend a leave from work for at least 6 weeks maybe more if cesarean was involved/twins/complications... a "babymoon" if you will, for both mother baby and hopefully even dad to learn new things about each other.

In my personal experience as a school teacher, I was quickly introduced to FMLA. awesome in theory so if something does happen not allowing you return to work quickly you wont loose your job over it. "GREAT," I thought.
Then when I started speaking with fellow mothers they mentioned that they hoped I had been saving vacation days for my maternity leave.

What in the world? Was I just really naive and inexperienced or had things changed since they had their children 20 years ago???

After further investigation it was true. I had luckily not taken but two sick days in my 2 years of teaching and had almost enough days to take a full 6 week leave... almost.
Then I remembered a male co-worker whose child was born last year. He mentioned to me that he was given 3 "freebie" days which do not count as sick/vacation leave but are typically used for bereavement, jury duty etc. He was given 3 days of what I like to call "Paternity leave" where I was given no days except what I had earned.

I'm not saying he shouldn't have been given those days but I guess my naive self assumed the American society had grown a little more female-friendly especially in a career industry dominated by WOMEN!
I know I may seem a little frivolous but three days of pay makes a difference especially when your spouse is unemployed and you are trying to pay hospital bills on a not so great health care plan.

So when people asked how much "Maternity Leave" did i get/take, I tell them none.
I took a 6 week babymoon out of my vacation days. Now with no more vacation days the entire rest of the year healthy living is no longer a wish but a necessity.

--> (dad and baby on our familial babymoon!)

And now... looking down at my healthy 4 month old napping in my arms while I type, I realize she is so alert, happy and cute DESPITE all negative factors around her. She has loving, positive parents who care about raising a mindful member of society who thinks.

We are still so new at parenting but I believe that we are doing a pretty good job at it so far!

1. Babymoon