On Thursday, January 8, 2009, one Rachida Dati, a French Cabinet Minister, returned to work after having taken a short break after giving birth to her child via Cesarean Section. This event made International headlines because of the length of her maternity leave: 4 days. She caused a public spectacle arriving to work, with her tightly bundled, newly minted daughter in her arms. Her reasoning behind the brevity of her leave: “to avoid the devastating image of a president of the Republic announcing a fundamental reform of the legal system without her being present.”.
4 days. What took her so long? Why not 3? 2? How far can this madness be pushed? Dati’s case is an isolated incident – mostly because of its public nature; but for me, it’s a highly telling one. And it begs the question: how long should maternity leave be? Under French law, Dati was entitled to the following: “Maternity leave commences six weeks before the expected date of the employee’s confinement (eight weeks if she already has two or more children), and ends ten weeks after the confinement (sixteen weeks from the third child onwards). It is extended in the event of a pathological condition or of multiple births, and is adjusted if the birth is premature. This leave is deemed, in principle, to be a period of effective employment. It constitutes a period during which protection against dismissal is specially increased, with the guaranteed right to return to the same job”. At best, Ms. Dati’s actions constituted a simple decline to the advantages offered her, and she bravely made her way back to work. At worst, she acted in a highly irresponsible manner.
Dati is a very successful, professional woman and public figure. She is the kind of person that sets the example for working moms. She makes me look terrible.
Terrible because my own infant son is 12 weeks old today. And 12 weeks seems to be the gold standard for what passes as maternity leave among my friends and colleagues. And even so, I don’t think this is enough time. Am I just lazy, then? Dragging my heels? Do I lack Dati’s courageousness? No, no and no.
For those readers that have not actually given birth themselves, here’s what happens: The Entire Gravitational Pull of Your Life is Shifted. The planets are forced out of alignment. I don’t know how else to say it. Your body has been put under tremendous physical stress, if not cut open, and you must heal. This takes rest and time and lots of help. There is a new little person on Earth who depends on you for every little thing, and who does not know day from night; who has no understanding of what used to be important to you, and cannot communicate in any other way than to cry. Sometimes loudly and for hours. At 3am. He does not understand explanations for things, or requests. You must change, and your priorities much change as well. And you will need a village just to be able to take care of both him and yourself in the most basic way.
In short, you have a new job. What this means for your old job depends on a highly personal set of circumstances. But in listening to the particular situations of a large group of women locally, it seems that they always try to make as large an accommodation as possible. Many of my friends are in the education field, and try to time their babies births for the onset of summer vacay, ensuring at least a 12 week leave that doesn’t have to depend on drawing from sick leave, “short-term disability” (shudder), or missing out on the natural progression of work related stuff. But they are the fortunate exception; many of the rest scale back their duties – in one example, a 6 week leave (as dictated by Family and Medical Leave Act), followed by a 3 month period of part time work. Some quit their jobs to return full time several years later.
But this new job that you have, this mommyhood? It doesn’t pay. During maternity leave itself, almost no one has paid leave – and there are no legal guidelines at all for this. If anyone among the group that I asked was paid, it was via accumulated sick or vacation time. So it’s a sticky situation for most. Almost no one can afford the full 12 weeks of unpaid leave, so in most cases, something’s gotta give. And I wish that somehow the maternity leave fairy might be able to descend on new moms and supply enough pay to alleviate the financial strain of being able to devote oneself to mommyhood, because it is something that ought to be valued very highly.
But Ms. Dati’s case seems to be backsliding on this notion; very publically placing value on the old job over the new one.
So, I’m sorry Ms. Dati, that I am not the superwoman you are. I cannot simply bundle up my newborn and sling him around so that I can avoid the embarrassment of being left out of something important at work. You see, my little one is taking his nap, after which he will need to be nursed and have his diaper changed. I only have this small window of time in which to write in my blog, and in order to carve out this chunk of time, I have to neglect other things, like the dishes and the laundry and maybe even a nap for myself since I was up with the baby a couple of times last night. And seeing how he has not given me his schedule, I do not know how long my chunk of time will last, so I’ll make this short: Take that baby home and tend to her, and then tend to yourself. Do not make a public show of how tough you are by returning to work so idiotically soon, because it leads the public to think that any longer is unnecessary. And it is. It so. very much. is.