A little over a month ago, a friend of mine posted a link on Facebook to the story about Marissa Mayer, the new Yahoo CEO who is 6 months pregnant (she’s probably closer to 7 or 8 months pregnant now). I briefly skimmed through the article, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to get past the part where Mayer said she only intended to take a “few weeks” of working maternity leave. I immediately thought – “No! Don’t do that!” And yet, as the comments on the article my friend linked started rolling in, it appeared that many thought working through maternity leave was normal. One commenter said that she worked through a 6 week maternity leave with no problems at all. Others asked why Mayer should be judged for a decision that was clearly hers to make. And they are absolutely right, it is her decision to make. But a working maternity leave? With your first child? That, my friends, is something I would never recommend.
What would my working maternity have looked like for me? Emails and phone calls would have been ignored until I had time to be a sane human being eat, sleep, and shower (or at least 2 out of the 3)…so they may never have been returned. In the off-chance I did get a chance to sit down at a computer, I’m sure it would have been to check up on the outside world via Facebook. If I did muster the strength to return client emails, god forbid they were updating me on their aches and pains (as they often do), because the client no doubt would have been forced to endure stories of vaginal child-birth and my episiotomy. I may very well have just responded with the words “Suck it up.”, if I was short on time. And there’s absolutely no way I ever could have ever made it to the office on time for anything, because leaving the house with your first child is intimidating to say the least, and requires the supplies necessary for a small army. Client meetings would probably have been abandoned altogether if I had forgotten something “essential” at home. Like an extra blanket. Because a baby can’t travel with too many blankets… Based on the above, I think we can all agree that I never would have made it through my 9 week maternity leave and still been gainfully employed. My bosses probably would have begged me to leave the office or just fired me. And who could blame them?
Admittedly, there are lots of women that handle first-time motherhood better than I did. I was a hot mess. But as obvious as it sounds, having a child is a big deal. It changes your life and your priorities overnight, in ways that you never even imagined. And as hard as you try, there’s no way to really prepare for the huge change that you are about to go through. There’s no way to grasp what it will be like until you are in the trenches – sleep deprived, unbathed, and not being able to remember when the last time you ate was…although you can say to the very minute the last time your baby ate. All of those horror stories that people like to tell you when you’re pregnant, don’t really tell you what it’s going to be for you. How your delivery will go. How you will adjust. How your body will recover. How your baby will be. It’s all abstract until the day that you give birth, and then it becomes very, very real.
Those first few weeks are a learning process. You get to know your baby and you begin to develop your parenting style. It’s hard, but it can be so incredibly rewarding. I won’t lie – there were times when I wanted to go back to work, so my life would somewhat resemble the life I had before I had a baby. But I’m glad I didn’t. Because if I did, I might have missed that first intentional smile that she gave me at about 6 weeks old. Or her first giggle. Or all that snuggle time.
As hard as those 9 weeks of maternity leave were with Greenleigh, they were so important. They helped me develop as a mom. And Greenleigh will never be that little again. Sometimes I miss those days. I’m glad that I had them. I might have been able to work through my leave with Hazeline. I was more prepared for the life changing effects of adding a baby to the household and I was more confident in my parenting. With that said, I’m glad I didn’t work through my leave with her. As hard as it was, I treasure the 13 (unpaid) weeks I took off of work with Hazeline.
Lots and lots of women have no choice but to return to work soon after giving birth. They have financial concerns that compel them to work, or they aren’t covered by the FMLA and they’re afraid that they will lose the job that they so desperately need. I feel for those moms. But that’s different from the situation here. Where money or job security aren’t an issue, I wouldn’t recommend cutting maternity leave short or working through it. That time is just too precious.
Yes, the choice is hers to make. I realize Ms. Mayer has a very demanding job. And I know that she’s accomplished a ton for her young age. But I can’t help but hope that she’ll change her mind and take time off to spend exclusively with her newborn. I’m sure that she will have a fantastic support team of nurses, nannies, and family to ease her through whatever maternity leave she takes, but immediately returning to work is in a way discounting this huge, amazing change that has happened in your life. I can’t help but feel that she’s going to be missing out or that she might look back and regret it. I know that I would have. But again, that’s just me.
Did you take a maternity leave? Was it a working leave or were you completely off of work? If you worked through it, how did you manage?
Found you on Tuesday Tea link up. GOing to follow you on this blog, twitter and facebook babe.
I was teaching at the time and had my son a month early, so I got a three month leave, which was AWESOME. By that time I was ready to go back and needed adult interaction. But would I have given up my time with my newborn son to work? NO WAY. Not only did I have a rough time with it all, including numerous breast infections that I had to stop BF and do formula, but I wanted to spend every minute doting on my little miracle. They couldn’t pay me double time to do any type of work.
I think that it is unfair to the baby if the mother can’t even devote his first six weeks to him. Going from in the womb to out of it is eased by mama’s warmth and presence. I just started a part time tracing job two weeks ago and my daughter is eight months. We are having a hard time adjusting as is, I can’t even imagine doing it shortly after birth!
I had maternity leave with all three of my children, each one was a different lenght. I think it got harder the more children I had and there is no way I could have gone back to work before I did at 7 months.
Each to their own but I couldn’t have done it any earlier.
I understand that a driven and ambitious woman, such as a CEO, may want to work through her maternity leave in order to keep rolling, but I don’t understand how any mother would want to miss out on the learning time that first 6 weeks gives you. I think too many parents in general forget that having a baby isn’t like giving birth to a textbook human being. That baby is a person with just as many likes, dislikes, and personality as an adult… except that little person can’t tell you what he/she needs. The post-partum time is so essential for moms to heal and learn about the little person they’ve made.
I’m thinking the only way she’ll manage a working maternity leave is to have hands-on help or a drop-in nanny, and although it is certainly her personal choice, I personally don’t understand it. You can have your fast-paced career and take time to be a mother, too.
On the cause and effect side of things, is this really a good example for other corporate mothers? If high-powered women are claiming this is “normal” and that it is completely fine to work through maternity leave, are we going to start seeing an expectation in the workforce that women not be given the necessary time to heal and learn to be a mom? I see bad things happening for corporate women if this becomes a trend.
Tiffany has a point – this is the CEO of Yahoo we’re talking about, after all, not exactly the average working woman. But I fear that her behavior IS becoming more average and I’m with you – I think it’s a mistake working through a maternity leave. Honestly, “working maternity leave” sounds like an oxymoron to me.
I took the full 3 months that I was allowed and it was not even close to enough. I wanted to stay home but our situation simply didn’t allow it. I had a c-section and my recovery was awful, I felt like I barely got to do anything with my baby the first 1-2 months. Thankfully my husband has a great job and they actually let him take two months paternity leave as well. I’m not sure how I would have made it without that.
I totally agree with you and Tiffany. It’s more about the message that she’s sending. Because I know that if my boss saw that article and I was just about to go on maternity leave, they would probably say something along the lines of, “if she can do it, why can’t you?”. I worry that more employers will come to expect working maternity leaves rather than have them be the exception.
I think it’s scary if moms are going back so early. I’m sure this young woman just doesn’t understand what her body will require. You need several weeks to physically heal from the trama of childbirth. It isn’t good for her health to return to working so quickl.
It also makes me crazy that people, men and women, have children that they intend to have raised by someone else. If you don’t have the time, your life is already too demanding, then don’t have a baby. They deserve parents that not only want them but want to be with them and want to take care of them. I think it’s sad.
Stella & Dot has many women in our corporate offices that take their full maternity leave happily, including women in director and vice president roles. I would never suggest they work through their maternity leave. Some check email occasionally, most of them do not. To date, Stella & Dot has paid out more than $100 million in commission to the independent stylists who are building this company. Many of them are mothers, working their businesses around their lives; flexing it up or down when they need to. Most have other full- or part-time jobs in or out of the home. We are all for women calling their own shots and living the life that works for them.