Lacking Outrageous-ness

Where's the Outrage?

Over the past couple of weeks I have been interviewed by a couple of British publications about my book. The story both times was about how professional career women in London were having upwards of seven babies. Yes, seven! Apparently there is a "trend" of successful women having huge families. The British reporters called me to ask what we in America would consider a large family, especially if the mom is working. When I told them three or four kids would be a large family for us Yanks, they nearly fell out of their chairs laughing. That's nothing compared to what these high flying women in the U.K. are doing they told me.

When the conversation turned to our maternity leave policies and the fact that we're one of the only industrialized nations without federally mandatory paid leave, the reporters were horrified. "You're telling me that the average maternity leave is between six and twelve weeks and its often not even paid?" they asked incredulously. "Where's the outrage? Why aren't American women up in arms over this?" Good question.

We have one of the skimpiest maternity leave policies in the world. I'm not even talking about Sweden where the dreamy combined maternity and paternity leave totals about eighteen months and most of that is paid. Even in Russia and the former Czech Republic women receive between twenty and twenty eight weeks of paid leave. And in the U.K. the average maternity leave is six months but many women take up to a year off.

I was always rather amazed in my interviewing for my book that more women weren't enraged about their short and often unpaid maternity leaves. I did, however, recently meet one woman who is angered by the lack of adequate leave. She works in DC for a small agency that oversees judicial nominations. She told me that when she was pregnant a couple of years ago there was no maternity leave policy in place at all. "Here I was working for one of the most progressive organizations in Washington and they had no paid maternity leave of any kind. I couldn't believe it. I basically drafted the policy and it was a real battle to even get six weeks paid."

Longer paid maternity leaves shouldn't just be a woman's issue. This really is a family issue. And for all of our talk in this nation about "family values," and so few families able to afford one-income households, moms and babies are still being ignored. So where IS our outrage?