By Kera Bolonik
A friend recently asked me how long I took parental leave when my wife and I adopted our now four-year-old son. She’d been on a fact-finding mission on behalf of a friend who’s adopting a baby and haggling with her employer who was only giving her a week off after the baby is born.
“That’s exceptionally horrible, right?” my friend asked me. Yes, it is absolutely egregious, but then again, so are our parental leave laws in this country. I took nearly three months off to bond with my son in 2011, and I didn’t lose my job or my health benefits. By American standards, I was lucky.
But I don’t feel lucky; I feel outraged that the US treats pregnancy and parental leave as a “problem” that needs to be solved by the parent, and not as a natural part of life that deserves consistent and predictable attention under the law.
Mothers of newborns, be they biological or adopted, are supposedly entitled to 12 weeks of leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). But there are so many caveats that the adoptive mom may well find herself out of luck: FMLA does not extend to both the mother and father, and it is unclear how the policy addresses the needs of same-sex families. It does not protect parents who work in companies smaller than 50 employees. Or work less than 25 hours a week. Or who’ve been employed at the company for less than 12 months. In all these cases, employees have to hope for bosses with a humane sensibility.
And worst of all, the guaranteed leave is unpaid. The US one of four nations in the world that does not offer paid parental leave (the other three are Swaziland, Lesotho and Papua New Guinea), and we barely offer family leave at all.
The only way a parent can finagle paid leave in the US is if she is the birth mother and uses temporary disability – yes, childbirth and nursing apparently renders a person temporarily disabled. But first she must run through her vacation days and sick days.
People who are adopting are left with saving up sick and vacation days, but the adoption process can burn through them before they even bring home the baby. Many who pursue adoption must travel – even for domestic adoptions. The Interstate Compact of the Placement of Children requires prospective adoptive parents to remain in the state of their baby’s birth for an indefinite amount of time, ranging from a couple of days to a couple of weeks, until they are deemed a suitable “placement” (as temporary guardian) by the judge reviewing the case. Then finalizing the adoption can take months and require additional time away from work for court appearances.
The process leaves little time for new parents to bond with and care for their adopted kids. And it doesn’t look to be changing anytime soon. The Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act bill, co-sponsored by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, which would provide new parents, including those of adopted and foster children, up to 12 weeks of leave with partial income (which Republican presidential contender Carly Fiorina vows to shut down if elected), is stalled in Congress.
My employer graciously overlooked the time I took off and compensated me in full for the nearly three months I took to bond with my son. I had saved up three weeks of vacation days, plus my sick days. It so happened that there were a few bank holidays in there, too. But I stayed home even longer because my wife, who is the partner in a very small law firm, needed to return after two weeks (with same-sex families, apparently one of us has to assume the role of a less active parent, which is laughable considering how devoted we both are to our child).
I spent those final weeks anxiously checking my bank balance, anticipating the absence of a pay check. But the money miraculously showed up.
How sad that I should feel lucky for, and not entitled to, a parental leave of just under three months to devote to the baby I spent years yearning to have, a baby that needed my care and attention just as much as my biological child would have. –The Guardian
A friend recently asked me how long I took parental leave when my wife and I adopted our now four-year-old son. She’d been on a fact-finding mission on behalf of a friend who’s adopting a baby and haggling with her employer who was only giving her a week off after the baby is born.
“That’s exceptionally horrible, right?” my friend asked me. Yes, it is absolutely egregious, but then again, so are our parental leave laws in this country. I took nearly three months off to bond with my son in 2011, and I didn’t lose my job or my health benefits. By American standards, I was lucky.
But I don’t feel lucky; I feel outraged that the US treats pregnancy and parental leave as a “problem” that needs to be solved by the parent, and not as a natural part of life that deserves consistent and predictable attention under the law.
Mothers of newborns, be they biological or adopted, are supposedly entitled to 12 weeks of leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). But there are so many caveats that the adoptive mom may well find herself out of luck: FMLA does not extend to both the mother and father, and it is unclear how the policy addresses the needs of same-sex families. It does not protect parents who work in companies smaller than 50 employees. Or work less than 25 hours a week. Or who’ve been employed at the company for less than 12 months. In all these cases, employees have to hope for bosses with a humane sensibility.
And worst of all, the guaranteed leave is unpaid. The US one of four nations in the world that does not offer paid parental leave (the other three are Swaziland, Lesotho and Papua New Guinea), and we barely offer family leave at all.
The only way a parent can finagle paid leave in the US is if she is the birth mother and uses temporary disability – yes, childbirth and nursing apparently renders a person temporarily disabled. But first she must run through her vacation days and sick days.
People who are adopting are left with saving up sick and vacation days, but the adoption process can burn through them before they even bring home the baby. Many who pursue adoption must travel – even for domestic adoptions. The Interstate Compact of the Placement of Children requires prospective adoptive parents to remain in the state of their baby’s birth for an indefinite amount of time, ranging from a couple of days to a couple of weeks, until they are deemed a suitable “placement” (as temporary guardian) by the judge reviewing the case. Then finalizing the adoption can take months and require additional time away from work for court appearances.
The process leaves little time for new parents to bond with and care for their adopted kids. And it doesn’t look to be changing anytime soon. The Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act bill, co-sponsored by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, which would provide new parents, including those of adopted and foster children, up to 12 weeks of leave with partial income (which Republican presidential contender Carly Fiorina vows to shut down if elected), is stalled in Congress.
My employer graciously overlooked the time I took off and compensated me in full for the nearly three months I took to bond with my son. I had saved up three weeks of vacation days, plus my sick days. It so happened that there were a few bank holidays in there, too. But I stayed home even longer because my wife, who is the partner in a very small law firm, needed to return after two weeks (with same-sex families, apparently one of us has to assume the role of a less active parent, which is laughable considering how devoted we both are to our child).
I spent those final weeks anxiously checking my bank balance, anticipating the absence of a pay check. But the money miraculously showed up.
How sad that I should feel lucky for, and not entitled to, a parental leave of just under three months to devote to the baby I spent years yearning to have, a baby that needed my care and attention just as much as my biological child would have. –The Guardian
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