Paid Maternity Leave

A friend just posted this petition from Change.org onto Facebook. It's a petition to have paid maternity leave standard for new moms. A good case for signing this petition is made on the Moms in Maine blog.

Listen, I think we all know how I feel about women's rights - or lack thereof. This country's attitude towards women has really been in the spotlight lately, and I hope we use it as a wake-up call to erase the paradigms about working moms, parenting styles, and motherly competition.

We're told the fetus belongs to the government. Once the baby is born, the woman belongs to the employer and the baby belongs to the daycare. Unless something goes wrong, then the mother is to blame. We can't win.

I think a good step forward is to sign the petition and let Congress know we are serious. New Mother rooms are a step forward for many employers, but it's not enough. FMLA is not enough. Using disability insurance coverage as maternity leave is not enough. And listening to the HR employee scold me about getting pregnant before I've been at the company a year is just unacceptable.

I mean, what do the decision-makers in this country want? They don't want to pay for birth control, they don't want us to get abortions, they don't want to pay for maternity leave when we have the baby, and they don't want us subsidizing our income through government programs (WIC, food stamps, etc.) if we can't afford to raise our kids on partial income. Even more, they don't want us being in high positions and earning as much as men.

Just sign the petition already.