Originally Posted by mammabyrdie

Is it true that after the mom takes year off the dad can take a year off too? Does he receive pay too?

The mom and dad can take a total of 52 weeks between the two of them

Wow...I'm shocked by all this. Is the US really that backward about maternity leave? Enjoy that leave ladies! Count yourselves lucky that you have the option. I'm feeling a little bitter about hardly getting to see my baby soon because I have no choice but to work. :(

Originally Posted by absolutpink

The mom and dad can take a total of 52 weeks between the two of them

This is true...it's up to the parents to decide how or if they want to spilt up the time (ex. 6 months/6 months or 3 months/9 months etc).

The US is so far behind the rest of the world in this respect. It's really depressing.
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/id...10223?irpc=932

I'm lucky enough to work for a company that gives 14 weeks paid leave (16 for c-section) and then 8 more weeks of transition time where the mom works 3 days a week. All of it is at 100% pay. Not as good as Canada or Europe but good for this country.

Originally Posted by kmroboto

The US is so far behind the rest of the world in this respect. It's really depressing. http://mobile.reuters.com/article/id...10223?irpc=932 I'm lucky enough to work for a company that gives 14 weeks paid leave (16 for c-section) and then 8 more weeks of transition time where the mom works 3 days a week. All of it is at 100% pay. Not as good as Canada or Europe but good for this country.

That's really generous leave allowance from your company!

The U.S doesn't give as much maternity leave, but I live in a country that requires employers to give a year of paid maternity leave. Employers are also required to pay a year of severance if they fire someone, even if it is completely justified. Because of all the expensive benefits and the down economy, employers can't afford to hire anyone and the unemployment rate is around 30%. I definitely think maternity leave is a must, but an entire year of paid maternity leave is very expensive for a company, especially a small company.

Girlfriday, that's an amazing and crazy policy! Definitely hard for small businesses. What country are you in?

Originally Posted by kmroboto

Girlfriday, that's an amazing and crazy policy! Definitely hard for small businesses. What country are you in?

I'm in Spain. I just asked and I was mistaken about the maternity leave. Women get 4 months of paid maternity leave paid for by the State, and they get 2 more weeks with each additional child, all paid by Spanish social security. The women that I know took a year, but I think that four months (or more depending on what number of children they had) was paid by the State and the other part of the year was paid for by the employer. The firing laws are ridiculous. It is VERY expensive to fire someone here.

The money to pay all these benefits comes from somewhere, from either governments who can't afford it anymore or from employers who can't afford it. And the situation is getting worse and worse. The government is running out of money like crazy yet people aren't willing to settle for ANY less benefits. I don't know what they'll do when the money eventually runs out.

Just another interesting bit of information. Parents paying child support have to pay until the child is 25 years old.

Sorry to go OT a bit.

I'm in US -- through the FMLA act I can take up to 12 weeks total (unpaid), however I get 6 weeks temp disability at a reduced pay and can use up vacation time as well.

It's interesting to see the wide variation in paid maternity leave around the world. Here's an interesting graphic http://womeninpublicservice.org/2012...und-the-world/ and a listing on paid leave by country: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/la...paid-maternity

The US is SO FAR BEHIND the rest of the world.

6 weeks paid 100% then I can use my vacation time (2 weeks) to stretch it to 8 weeks paid.
I can choose to take an additional 4 weeks unpaid to have a total of 12 weeks per FMLA.

Originally Posted by brianne1114

6 weeks paid 100% then I can use my vacation time (2 weeks) to stretch it to 8 weeks paid. I can choose to take an additional 4 weeks unpaid to have a total of 12 weeks per FMLA.

have you applied for tdi?temporary disability insurance?you can drag it out even longer...

Originally Posted by GirlFriday

I'm in Spain. I just asked and I was mistaken about the maternity leave. Women get 4 months of paid maternity leave paid for by the State, and they get 2 more weeks with each additional child, all paid by Spanish social security. The women that I know took a year, but I think that four months (or more depending on what number of children they had) was paid by the State and the other part of the year was paid for by the employer. The firing laws are ridiculous. It is VERY expensive to fire someone here. The money to pay all these benefits comes from somewhere, from either governments who can't afford it anymore or from employers who can't afford it. And the situation is getting worse and worse. The government is running out of money like crazy yet people aren't willing to settle for ANY less benefits. I don't know what they'll do when the money eventually runs out. Just another interesting bit of information. Parents paying child support have to pay until the child is 25 years old. Sorry to go OT a bit.

That is the kind of thing I remind myself of when I think about the US not doing much in this regard. The reality is the money has to come from somewhere, and for those countries that are able to support the leave policies and are doing so, that is great. But I can't fathom where the US would come up with the money to provide leave benefits to everyone that had a child....we already have to cut so many important programs, etc, as is...it just doesn't seem possible.

I'm in Australia and over here, by law, we get 1 year of unpaid maternity leave. Some companies have their own maternity leave pay entitlements built into their employment benefits, but not all do it.

The government in Australia now provides 18 weeks of paid maternity leave. I think it's only equivalent to minimum wage or something, around $500 a week or so before tax. I got peanuts though once I got taxed. Lucky for me, my company provided me with about 3 months of paid maternity leave at my full salary and I had about 5 weeks of annual leave accumulated.

It's interesting to see the policies in other countries. I am jealous! Anyone see the part on maternity leave in Michael Moore's movie, Sicko? Eye-opening!

My company just changed their policies this week... and not for the better. Our short-term disability doesn't kick in until 15 days after you give birth. Then, it only covers 30% of pay. We have to buy up to a plan to cover 60% and then our PTO covers the rest. They do give us a free week of PTO though and my husband works there as well, so he gets a free week also. It looks like I will be out 8-10 weeks, and using up ALL of my saved PTO to remain paid through the entire leave.