Washington DC Mommy blogger

An Inconvenient Pregnancy

April 30, 2008

About 10 days ago, the AP ran a piece with the very titillating headline of “An Inconvenient Pregnancy” – so naturally I read it. What wasn’t clear to me once I finished reading it, however, was who considered the pregnancy inconvenient? The pregnant women never said that? So her employer? Women’s groups who want women to behave in certain ways in the workforce after they have children? Who, exactly, is this pregnancy, inconvenient for?

Allow me to elaborate.

The jist of the piece is this – many women become pregnant as they are reaching a high point in their careers – and so the question is – should they take a long maternity leave or will that jeoporadize their career too much?

Two high profile examples are given – Spain’s Defense Minister Carme Chacon, who is nearing the end of her pregnancy and Elizabeth Vargas of ABC News, who left her high profile job as the co-anchor of the evening news after having her second child. The AP piece includes snippets of people wondering if Spain’s Defense Minister should really take all of the 16 weeks given to her for maternity leave (how generous of that country to be able to “afford” to fund the lazy needs of a new mother and her maternity leave). Some question if she should be absent for that long and can the Defense Ministry carry-on without her? (Give me a freaking break, is what I say. Let this woman go have her maternity leave and love her baby and let her body heal in peace and quiet.)

Then others are quoted regarding Vargas’ decision to leave her high-profile career at ABC to stay home with children, wondering if ABC pushed her out, despite her own statements that this was her decision because she wanted and needed to spend more time with her children. Why is that so hard for people to believe? Why must everyone be so cynical that a woman can reach the peak of her career – and still – on her own volition – decide that at home with her children is where she wants to be?

Though some of the undercurrents of this piece frustrated me – feeding into this notion of mommy guilt and worse – this idea that we can do it all (and part of that includes cutting maternity leave short to prove that you can do it all) – this piece underscores many important issues.

First, this quote on the reality of how managing motherhood with a career is treated in this country:

“There’s a clear penalty to motherhood and caregiving in this country,” says Eileen Appelbaum, director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University. “Basically we’ve said to women, if you can conduct yourself in the workplace as if you were a man, without any other responsibilities, being available day and night, then (and only then) will your pay and opportunities will be similar.”

I am quite confident that many KT fans can attest to this reality. But the truth is – this isn’t how life works when you are a parent – because life happens. Children get sick, they need their parents, something happens at school, whatever the case may be – a line has to be drawn and something’s got to give. The question I am constantly left wondering is when will the workplace mentality catch up to the technological revolution? No one works just from 9-5pm when they are in the office, we have laptops, blackberries and cell phones – and so when can we all laugh and say “Face time is so 2004, virtual me is the new 2008.”

Because it’s happening anyway. But even though it’s happening, it doesn’t change the brand identity of the woman who leaves every day at 5pm. Face it, we’re a brand. It’s called Mommy Tracked. No matter the reason you leave precisely on time every day at work, no matter how much more efficiently you work now that you have the honed time-management skills of a new mom, it doesn’t matter – what matters is that you leave on time every day. I’m still thinking over what we can do to overcome the Mommy Tracked brand identity problem – because every brand can be remade and rebuilt – it just takes time, so I’ll get back to you on that.

Until then, we’re back to one of our favorite hot button issues here on KT – the nerve of us to demand and ask for PAID MATERNITY LEAVE.

I’ve said it before, I will say it again and guess what, I will KEEP SAYING IT – it is a disgrace that the United States does not mandate paid maternity leave. According to the AP, “The United States is one of a handful of countries with no guaranteed paid maternity leave policy, along with Swaziland, Papua New Guinea, Lesotho and Liberia, researchers found last year.”

Lesotho is news to me – but again – odds are most of you don’t even know where Lesotho is – and yet, we’re in good company with them on this one, aren’t we? We have so much in common, us and Lesotho. Don’t we?

Again, we are the only economic power, out of 173 countries studied by Harvard and McGill Unversities last year – that fail to provide women with paid maternity leave. And as it turns out, 40 percent of the workforce is ineligible for the paltry 12 weeks time off UNPAID mandated under FMLA, because they work for companies with fewer than 50 employees. Also, the employee has to work there for at least a year to qualify for FMLA.

I think that is a really important distinction to also make because what does it do – it paralyzes pregnant women from moving to a new job. I’d call that discrimination too, wouldn’t you? Yes, I know plenty of pregnant women get hired for new jobs and are able to negotiate maternity leave and job security, but those options are most likely there for the most educated of women out there. What about the rest of women who might be working in hostile enviroments for abusive bosses but they are forced to stay in the job they have because to switch jobs as a pregnant woman gives them no protection or job security?

More to come on this topic kittens. I’m thinking of learning a bit more about the other four countries that we are in bed with, in this whole no paid maternity leave debacle, and seeing what else we have in common with Swaziland, Lesotho, Papua New Guinea and Liberia – that would be quite interesting, don’t you think?

Here’s a link to the AP Piece:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jbuLaht8-hgTvfLLqJ3w63J_bEkQD904HHK80

And for the record, my pregnancy was never inconvenient…the only thing inconvenient about pregnancy and balancing motherhood with a career is inflexible work environments and unpaid maternity leave.

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Motherhood, Work

BPA is Everywhere

April 28, 2008

OK, it seems I’ve really been asleep at the wheel for the past few months or so. The drama around this compound, BPA, found in plastics all around us – and the possible dangers it poses to infants in the womb, infants, toddlers, and well, all of us, really managed to escape me entirely until I settled into the front page story of yesterday’s Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/26/AR2008042602126.html

How did I miss all of this? Was I really so busy day dreaming about spring fashion and why Pamela Anderson was a guest at Saturday’s White House Correspondent’s Dinner? What might she have to talk about with any member of the Administration? Or Heidi Montag? Why was she there? Why is she even famous?

Anyhoo, I digress. In case you’ve been hibernating in a cave all winter, right along with me, most of you likely already know that BPA is a synthetic sex hormone that mimics estrogen and it is used in plastics to help keep the plastic hard. BPA is widespread, is found in 95% of Americans tested and it is linked with diabetes, breast cancer, prostate cancer, and early onset of puberty in little girls, among other not-great things. It seems that BPA is found in 95% of baby bottles that were tested and it leaches from the bottle when it’s warm. It is also found in toddler sippy cups, in the lining of canned foods, in canned baby formula, I mean the list is long and scary.

As someone who works in public affairs in Washington, I can be skeptical of sudden scary findings like this, but I will admitt that the Post’s analysis yesterday pointed out that the ONLY studies that did not find harm in BPA were the two studies funded by the Plastics Industry. Again, I try to avoid the sky is falling kind of thinking – I am sure I still have plenty of Chinese-made lead-laden toys lurking around my DD’s playroom that she chewed on for months – but this particular scare has really struck a chord with me and motivated me to make some changes in the house hold.

We don’t have a baby or bottles to deal with, too late on that one, but we do have sippy cups and our own Nalgene bottles to get rid of. So, here is a link to a site that gives you credible information on which bottles and sippy cups are safe:

http://safemama.com/2007/11/22/bpa-free-bottle-and-sippy-cup-cheat-sheet/

Being an action-oriented kind of gal, I also found this site where you can sign a petition that is being sent to manufacturers of baby bottles to demand they remove BPA from baby bottles:

http://www.chej.org/BPA_Website.htm

And finally, just in case your child LOVES Popsicles as much as mine does, here’s a link to learn more about making Popsicles at home that are BPA Free (it’s easy, it’s called shopping at Crate & Barrel):

http://greenmomfinds.com/2008/04/28/popscicles-sans-bpa/

Go forth kittens….and live a BPA free live.

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Motherhood

Republicans Sabotage Parents, Part Two

April 18, 2008

Kittens –

We’ve all participated in a really interesting dialogue over the past day regarding federally mandated paid maternity leave for employees of the federal government. I think many of us were surprised by the views of one commenter. Frankly, I’m still reeling from this idea that what constitutes true family values is one parent quitting their job all together and staying home full-time with their child once the child is born. It seems that this is a convenient way to side-step paid maternity leave, in the view of some, by instead just accusing parents of outsourcing the care and raising of their child by daring to return to work.

Of the many flaws in this argument, KT readers commented on some of the most important. The reasons we parents, and frankly most readers of KT are women, so let’s just keep it simple and say women – return to work after having a child vary. For some, we have no choice financially. For others, we need the health care, for others we have worked for a dozen years, earned many degrees and going to work is an outlet that helps us be better parents because we, too, deserve to challenge our brains in a way that a child cannot. For others, it’s because they need the financial security if they aren’t sure of their marriage.

The point is – in this day and age – most women return to work after they have a child. Deciding to bring a child into the world is the most amazing, life altering decision that one can make. And frankly, only those who have not yet known the joys and true love that comes with being a parent, could simplify an argument against federally mandated paid maternity leave to this: it costs an employer too much money.

What has our society come too if the added expense to an employer of paid maternity leave outweighs the importance of a skilled and diverse workforce? What has our society come too if the added expense to an employer outweighs the importance of the critical weeks post-birth for a mother to learn to breastfeed and care for her child, on top of the time the body needs to physically recover from the trauma of birth (and trust me, it’s trauma), and for the child to learn to bond and feel loved by his/her mother – if the added expense to a business is more important than that?

And what does it say about how much value our country places on the importance of family if we do not make paid maternity leave mandated?

Like it or not, women are the only ones that can give birth and breastfeed a new baby. Women are the ones that need to physically recover from a pregnancy and a birth. And women make-up half of our nation’s workforce. More girls than boys are going on to college, and women are keeping pace with men in medical school, law school and business schools. And yet, to not offer women federally mandated pay for maternity leave – just tells us that we still are not as important as men.

That is what this is about. Let’s not make this about family values = stay-at-home moms. Or lack of family values = not picking Nordstrom shoes over tending to your child all day. Or the worst one I read so far is this – forced paid maternity leave means more women will lose their jobs and more children will not be fed by their parents because a business can’t take on the added expense.

Scare tactics and intimidation doesn’t work any more. Is any one really going to buy that? Or better yet, we don’t care.

Yes, small businesses will be faced with challenges greater than larger businesses if this country mandates paid maternity leave. But guess what – that’s what happens in an open and free society where life happens outside of work.

And so, to anyone who is still following this trail – I will say this – we need to keep up the fight. There is a reason why every other developed nation in the world values and funds paid maternity leave – it’s because women are valued and important in those countries.

Meanwhile, over here in the good old US, where we HAVE SPENT BILLIONS on a war in Iraq against an enemy that we essentially created by going in there to begin with – over here – we can argue that the added expense of funding paid maternity leave outweighs the benefits – and those people can wake up and still face themselves in the morning.

I can wake up and face myself each morning because I understand family values, I am instilling them in my child even though I go to work every day and because I intend to teach her that women are just as important as men, which is why I will keep blogging my face off about the national disgrace of no federally mandated paid maternity leave.

So stay tuned kittens, we’re not done with this subject until we get what we deserve – at least 8 weeks paid.

And then we move on to state funded child care and universal health care.

Or we can just move to really any other developed country and receive what we deserve- but then America wouldn’t be so great without us. Now would it?

I think that come Election Day, this must be a critically important issue to all of us, which is another reason why I am an Obama Mamma.

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Motherhood, Politics, Work

Republicans Sabotage Parents…..Again

April 16, 2008

Kittens –

I am seeing red and I can barely contain myself. Once again, the party that claims to stand for family values has voted AGAINST families in favor of business. In case there are any Republicans out there reading my blog, shame on you – and especially if you are parents – I hope you think long and hard before casting that vote in November. This is a party and an Administration that sickens me.

On the off chance that you missed the front section of today’s Washington Post Business page, the House took up a bill that would have federally mandated 8 weeks of PAID LEAVE for the birth of a child or an adoption. Note – the inclusion of the adoption is equally as important.

I know that I should be happy that it wasn’t killed all together but that it was cut from 8 weeks to 4 weeks.

All KT readers should first give a shout out to Rep. Carolyn Maloney from NY who has fought for paid leave for the past 8 years. She took the high road in the Post’s piece and managed to sound positive and upbeat that SOMETHING is moving forward on this front – as embarrassing at it is that we are the only industrialized nation in the world that doesn’t offer parents paid leave.

But really, it’s the Republicans that we parents – every single one of us – should have a bone to pick with. If we cannot rely upon our Federal Government to occasionally set the protocol and force businesses to make positive decisions on behalf of families – then how can we expect businesses to do it on their own? Sure, some are – but most are not. And until the Federal Government steps forward and is the leader – then we will remain woefully behind and in the Dark Ages when it comes to advocating the rights of working parents in this country. Before I even remind everyone that for women birthing a child, our uterus has not even yet returned back to its normal size by four god damn weeks post partum.

And yet, yet, the party of family values, claims that in this economic downturn, now is not the time to afford people more paid time off. It would, in fact, be setting the WRONG example for anyone paying attention, and according to the good old hideous and Cave Manish Bush Administration, federal employees are already given enough vacation, so why would they need more?

Yes Mr. President, tell us, why would a new mother who has just endured 10 months of pregnancy and the ordeal of giving birth, need to be home AT ALL with her child? How dare she want ANY paid time off!

Women today – we are so f’ing lazy and greedy, aren’t we?

And so, this man who is authorizing spending what – like one billion dollars A DAY – on the war in Iraq that we entered under false pretenses, and thousands of families have lost their soldiers over – yet he doesn’t want the federal government to eat the $95 million in the first year – that it would cost – to authorize 6 weeks of paid paternity leave, as estimated back in 2000 when they last talked about this.

And so 8 years have passed since they last talked about this, 8 horrible years of Republican regime, we have MOVED FORWARD 8 years in time – and yet – we have MOVED BACKWARDS even further than we were 8 years ago – from considering 6 weeks of paid time off – which was rejected – to now 4 weeks of paid time off.

You better believe I’ll be paying careful attention to when this legislation comes up to the House floor for a vote.

And again – why would you vote Republican? Shame shame shame.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/15/AR2008041502979_2.html

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Motherhood, Politics