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
That meant returning to school for at least a couple of weeks at the end of the year. With that in mind, I contacted my daycare provider. We use the local daycare center that is attached to the school building where I work. The earliest they could take another infant, the director said, was July.
Now what am I supposed to do? Where do I find daycare for an infant for the last two weeks of school? Right now, the plan is to try to get FMLA leave, but we’re not sure that’s going to fly. So do I take the unpaid days and avoid having to pay for daycare somewhere else, somewhere, perhaps, I don’t fully trust?
Yet we’re lucky
My husband and I are both teachers, so we do receive sick days every year that accumulate — assuming you don’t have to use them. I’m very lucky I’ve been healthier in the past five years than at my previous jobs, because I’ve actually been able to save up 45 days in my five years of employment with this district. If I had any chronic conditions or serious mental health issues, I would definitely not have as many days saved up to spend on maternity leave.
So what would happen if I just decided not to come back for the last two weeks of school when my sick days ran out? I would not be paid. All of those days would be considered “unpaid” and my paycheck would be heavily influenced. That is not something we can do, considering we are only two years into owning our home. There are car payments and student loans, not to mention the day-to-day cost of living, even in small-town Iowa.
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.
