America Is Failing Parents & Children Alike

Happy International Women’s Day!

As someone who’s about to give birth to her second kid, I am acutely aware of how messed up our nation’s family leave policies are. You know what sort of support I will get from this country, as a taxpayer, for adding another eventual taxpayer to its rolls, someone who will contribute to Social Security so that older folks will be able to make withdrawals? Nothing. Not a cent. Not even a “Get Well Soon!” card or a “Hang In There!” kitten poster.

Sure, some of that is my own doing. I’m a freelancer — what do I expect? I’ve put myself in this situation where I can’t actually afford to take four weeks off; and yet I will anyway, because I’ll have to. Then I’ll ease back into work again at a point when my infant still doesn’t know day from night, his fingers from his toes, or, as my father would have said, his ass from a hole in the ground. Because, again, I’ll have to.

It wasn’t much different or better the first time, anyway, when I was a full-time salaried employee, because even then, like 40% of Americans, I was in a situation to which the parsimonious, exception-riddled Family Medical Leave Act didn’t apply. I cobbled together an ad hoc arrangement for myself made up of vacation time, disability, and a few weeks of unpaid leave, got my boss to sign off on it, and then I was back in the office, sharing a room with a new guy with whom I got to have awkward conversations about my breasts when I needed to pump.

“Don’t worry,” he said once, as he went out the door, “they’re functional now, but they’ll be ornamental again soon.”

That is a true story about being a woman in America, a woman who, like most of my peers, had the temerity to try to earn money — who had to earn money — while also being of reproductive age. And what’s amazing is, I’m still one of the lucky ones. Ben put in terrible hours at a corporate law firm for years, and we squirreled away his earnings, as well as my more modest ones, at a time when interest rates were favorable to savers. Then we bought an apartment when interest rates were favorable to buyers, and we put as much cash down as we could, so that we could keep our monthly costs low. We didn’t have much student loan debt and what we had we were able to pay off.

All of that has made it possible for us to have a family in New York City while doing the kind of work that doesn’t give us ulcers, at least for a year or two now. Whether we’ll be able to continue, or for how long, is anyone’s guess. Obamacare definitely helps — in fact, the only acknowledgement of any kind I’ll get from any authority is a breast pump via Obamacare, and I am grateful.

But it is flat out disgraceful that the richest country in the world, a nation whose 2015 budget was $3.8 TRILLION, acts like it’s Papua New Guinea when it comes to taking care of its most vulnerable citizens. America is like the wealthy friend who takes you out to dinner, pretends to be supportive and empathetic, and then, when the bill comes, pats its pocket and says, “Gosh, I seem to have forgotten my wallet.”

Every other developed nation on earth prioritizes the having and raising of the next generation. Every other developed nation can get it together to make the expensive and exhausting work of dealing with infants slightly less painful for parents. Moms in every other developed nation get some help from their governments or employers, some support and recognition during this challenging time.

Only in America do we get Paul Ryan.

In honor of International Women’s Day, Broadly has made a video deep dive into the issue of family leave and, specifically, “How America Is Fucking Over Its Mothers.” I encourage you to watch it and grind your teeth and then, in November, remember to vote for people who will change the status quo. Because there’s only so much more of this any of us can take.

Maternity Leave: How America Is Fucking Over Its Mothers | Broadly

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