Peppa Pig and Maternity Leave

From the Ashland Times-Gazette.

Having set the alarm for 4:30 a.m., I watched the sun rise as I traveled towards Canton, looking forward to my Nana day with the lovely Madelyn Simone and the delightful Elizabeth Holiday. I wish our days together were simply because I enjoy spending time with the girls, but the reality is that our extended family is attempting to cobble together child care coverage for Greg and Lauren’s children. A typical weekly schedule includes my one day a week visit, Madelyn’s time with her Pee-Paw, two days at a babysitter for little Liza, and a staggered schedule for Lauren so she can have two weekdays off. Greg then cares for Madelyn and the screamin’ demon (oh, I mean sweet little Liza) on Saturday and Sunday. Although the girls are loved deeply by all their care-givers, Madelyn articulates the challenges of this arrangement when she asks, “Where am I going tomorrow?”

I am terribly torn as I watch my kids stagger through these early days with a new baby in the house. They are both dreadfully sleep deprived, for Elizabeth hasn’t yet discovered how to lay in her cradle and coo – no, this little one demands attention as soon as her eyes open, and they open quite a bit.

I’m torn because I feel strongly that women should be able to work outside the home, to discover their gifts, and to have a life outside of diaper pails and Peppa Pig (a British cartoon that’s a favorite of Madelyn’s). 

Yet here’s this nine week old baby who still hasn’t settled into a rhythm of nursing and sleeping, perhaps in part due to her stay in the NICU, where day and night look exactly the same. As great as Nana is, little Liza still needs her mother.

In 2015, working outside the home has become a necessity rather than an option for many young women. Some are carrying the medical insurance for their family. Some are single mothers with no safety net underneath their babies when the cradle rocks, unable to survive on the cash assistance of $465 a month they’d get as welfare moms with two kids (2014 figure). So within weeks of giving birth, they’re back in the restaurants, factories, offices and classrooms, running on two to three hours of sleep.

I remember those days, as the baby screamed uncontrollably, laundry reproduced around me, and my work gathered dust in my office. And I was one of the fortunate ones, with lots of flexibility in my schedule. I didn’t have to clock in every morning at 7 a.m. Try maintaining breast-feeding with that kind of schedule.

A recent Huffington Post video made two striking statements. First, one in four new mothers is back to work within two weeks of giving birth. Women are afraid of losing their jobs, or can’t exist on unpaid leave or reduced disability payments. Anyone who’s ever given birth knows what the post-partum body looks and feels like on day fourteen, definitely not ready for prime time – or the assembly line.

Here’s the second statement. “There is only one developed country in the world that doesn’t offer paid maternity leave.” According to a report by McGill University’s Institute for Health and Social Policy, the United States, along with Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, Liberia and Lesotha, are some of the only countries in the world that provide no type of financial support for new mothers. In at least 178 countries, paid leave is guaranteed for working moms, and more than fifty countries provide wage benefits for new fathers.

But wait – isn’t there a Family and Medical Leave Act? Yes, FMLA is available for up to twelve weeks, but 40% of new mothers don’t qualify, and it’s unpaid. New mothers who live paycheck to paycheck can’t risk being evicted or having the electricity turned off in order to have a few weeks on the couch watching Peppa Pig oink.

I wonder if Mummy Pig took advantage of the United Kingdom’s thirty-nine week paid maternity leave when Peppa’s brother George was born. Wouldn’t it be great if one day, Mummy Shade and other young mothers could get the same kind of help without moving to London?