What would paid parental leave/ affordable childcare mean to you and your family?

Question

I'm working on a project and could use some real life input. Let me know how you would answer this.

Answer

I think maternity and parental leave are basic human rights- it is wrong for a mother to have to go back to work when she just gave birth and to leave her tiny baby... it’s awful that some mothers have to do that. Affordable childcare is relative to income, for us it isn’t so important, nothing would be unaffordable, I’d rather pay more and have better care for my child.

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As a Canadian I can’t fathom that Americans do not get paid maternity leaves. It’s crazy! I am lucky to live in a province where childcare is pretty affordable but that’s also a very important election issue for me and hope that our government looks at ways to make it even more affordable for all.

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It would mean I could have stayed home with my daughter for more than 3 months. I had to take 6 weeks of my leave unpaid, my employer gave me 4 weeks and then I was able to use my saved vacation time. I absolutely had to go back at that point because we couldn’t afford for me to not get a check anymore. Right now I really wish I could stay home cause my daughter is having separation anxiety and cries everyday when I drop her off. It’s breaking my heart. We are not very nice to mothers in the US.

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I'm from the USA and I'm in the military. I get 3 months paid maternity leave. But I know paid maternity leave isn't offered to everyone. Some people, like my sister for instance, only get 6 or 8 weeks and if they want extra time it isn't paid. Or a lot of women can take maternity leave but they don't get paid for it. I think it's a real issue in America.

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It would mean wouldn't be added stress of paying Bill's while recovering from a traumatic experience for your body and being force to go back after 6 weeks. Which is less than a dog is allowed to be separated from their babies. Yep 6 weeks and I'll be force to go back or risk loosing my job working for a private orthodontic practice with a female boss.. love the non existent protection for Americans rights. And frankly no politician gives a shit about it either.

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Paid parental leave for me would mean I get paid the entire 12 weeks of FMLA and not from my PTO bank. Or I could at least save 40 hours of PTO and still get paid. I’m totally lucky in the US that I got 12 weeks and any of it was paid. But it did suck when I ran out of PTO and wasn’t getting paid (especially as the breadwinner), and it sucked going back to work without any PTO. Not like I wanna hop on vacation as soon as I get back, but after my first I suffered through the first migraine of my life while at work in front of a computer because I couldn’t afford to take off. Not to mention babies get sick when they start daycare so it’d be nice to be able to take off and care for them.
Affordable childcare is harder for me to explain. I can afford the childcare I currently pay for, it’s not ideal to be paying that much, but I can do it. And I believe the people caring for my children should be paid well, that’s a huge responsibility and caring for children is hard work. Whenever this topic comes up I feel stuck between wanting to pay less for childcare so I’m less stressed about my finances but also wanting the providers to be paid fairly. I don’t know what the compromise might be.

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I’m in the USA and where I work there’s no paid maternity leave and the price for a good daycare is $150 a week. I never would have been able to go back to work if my mom wouldn’t help watch my daughter it’s just too expensive for daycare so paid leave and affordable childcare would be fantastic

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I planned to be a sahm so the childcare for me would not matter, I wish it was cheaper as a lot of my friends would greatly benefit, but parental leave being paid would have helped us soooooo much. It was very important to my husband to take time off after baby came to bond, help out, and gel as a new family. We had to use all his vacation days and he then just was unpaid for a week then was at least able to work from home so he was there but having to work. He was tired and stressed with a new baby and then stressed and sad that he wasn't getting to bond as quick and most of the care was falling to me and he felt bad for not being there. If I would have had to contuine working after birth I would have been just not getting any money so if it was a necessity to have 2 paychecks I would have had to go right back. A lot of people where I live, due to crazy high cost of living and zero maternity/parental paid leave, end up going back to work a week or 2 after giving birth because they cannot afford to take more than that. A coworker had a c-section and went back to work 14 days later because they needed the income...especially after her 20K hospital bill. These things would mean the world to us.

Answer

Paid parental leave would mean that my husband would have been able to stay home with me for more than just a weekend after our daughter was born and I was SERIOUSLY struggling with breastfeeding and postpartum hormones and needed him there to support me (I couldn't even shower and get dressed alone I was in so much pain mentally and physically) and our daughter had a billibed set up in her crib and all I could do is stare at her and cry. It would mean that him staying with me in the hospital during my induction (which took 2 days) wouldn't mean 2 less days he'd get to be with his daughter. It would mean his employers wouldn't have been able to force him to use all of his vacation time for the next year in order to stay with me even that long. It would mean he would have gotten to bond with his daughter I'm more than just a few hours every day from the very first week of her life. I'm a stay-at-home mom, but paid parental leave would still mean a lot to my family.

Answer

I got 4 months off leave thanks to my job. It was great! I needed all that time. 
My husband got 1 week bc his job is “nice like that”. I needed him home for at least 5 weeks. After a rough pregnancy and delivery, I needed more help. We don’t have family that we can trust to come in and help us, so it was 100% on me. Plus hubby cant be up at night bc of medical challenges. So he can only help during the day - we formula feed bc my milk never came in, so he could have done days just fine on his own. 
So it stinks that he wasn’t able to be there for us both. We survived but we’re not interested in having another baby for a year or longer. 
Affordable childcare - we spend $300 a week in child care! Would love it if our building had childcare at an affordable price. Put more away in baby girls college fund.

What would paid parental leave/ affordable childcare mean to you and your family?

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