·

Maternity Leave in Canada vs. U.S – No Contest, Canada Wins

ByMaria Wen Adcock
Share
Pin
Share
Email
Megan Pachal with her son  (Photo courtesy of M. Pachal)

By Guest Writer: Megan Pachal

Megan Pachal is an American married to a Canadian. Based in Brooklyn, the mother of one discusses her thoughts on maternity leave in both countries. View Megan’s other guest post, “My Baby – Public Property?”

“So are you enjoying maternity leave?”  How this question made me cringe.  My husband Pete and I were on a trip to his native Canada to introduce his family and friends to our six-month-old son Jack.  They assumed that I was still on maternity leave, since Canadian law allows new mothers to spend an entire year at home.  Granted they don’t get paid in full; the government regulation is 55% of their base salary, but some companies provide supplements that bring the total to 80%.

I, on the other hand, was back at work after the twelve-week leave standard in the U.S.  When we took Jack’s first trip on a plane and out of the country, he had already been in daycare for three months.  Although we had carefully selected his daycare and he received wonderful treatment and attention there, it was still really hard for me to leave him.  I wasn’t feeling great about my decision.  It was a constant source of conflict for me that sometimes spilled over into my marriage.

I knew about the differences in maternity leave before I took this trip so I had a well-planned out script for when Pete’s friends, also new moms, asked me “Oh, isn’t that so hard for you?”  I explained that Jack was in daycare near my office so I saw him at lunch and spent time with him on the commute, but I’m not sure I was even convincing myself that these things made it ok.  Then I smiled and nodded while I listened to them describe going to playgroups and music classes.  Oh was I jealous.  And poor Pete, who didn’t have anything to do with making maternity law in Canada or the U.S., had to bear the brunt of my frustration.

Two months after this trip I decided to stay home with Jack for a little bit while I tried to find a more family-friendly job.  That was almost a year ago and I’m still home with him (which is so wonderful) and still looking for the perfect working mom solution (which is so frustrating).   Although my mom friends have a vast array of working situations and feelings about the impact this has on their children, one thing we all agree on is that U.S. maternity leave policies are shockingly bad.

The U.S. has by far the least generous maternity leave policy of any developed nation.   EU nations provide twenty weeks of maternity leave at full pay while the U.S. merely provides 12 weeks of job protection and doesn’t require payment (although most companies provide 6 weeks of full pay).  On the far end, I once met a couple from Norway who got a year of maternity leave followed by a year of paternity leave.   To be fair, I think a year is a bit long for a company to do without an employee; a lot of changes occur during this time that the returning worker will have to catch up on.  But twelve weeks is just way too short for both moms and their little ones.  There has to be a happy medium and I hope that by the time Jack has children U.S. policies will enable new parents to find it.

6 Comments

  1. Not surprised that the US has relatively short maternity leave, considering our health care system. Let’s all move to France! 😉

  4. As a Canadian married to an American I can relate! When my wife found about the difference she was ready to move! Fortunately she is a school teacher and both of our boys were born in January. Her employer allowed additional leave without compensation. She took 16 weeks and then returned for a short period of time before the summer break.

Comments are closed.