Having a child is a joyous time in every new parent’s life, but nowadays it is darkened by outside financial stress. Some mothers are called back to work sooner than later, despite their bodies not being ready to be back, while most moms struggle to receive the leave the bill grants them because of financial shortages. All the while, the baby is left with a babysitter during crucial early development where bonding between the mother and baby should be happening, but it isn’t.
The Family and Medical Leave Act was signed into law by former President Bill Clinton in 1993 affecting women going through an extremely stressful and meaningful time in their lives. This act provided women who worked the right to take up to twelve weeks of leave after having a baby, unpaid. When this act was passed many women did not have to take full time jobs to help their family’s financial security. In today’s world, 58.6% of women are participants in the workforce. Women today take up 47% of the whole workforce. Needless to say, it’s time women were given a bigger break once having a baby.
Twelve weeks may sound like a lot of time, but let’s look at this from a baby’s standpoint. A baby, once born at the normal 39-40 weeks, is responsible for three major things: grow, learn and bond. A baby can grow and learn without their mother, although it is not prefered, however, professionals, like Professor Radford, chair of the nursing department at the University of Tennessee at Martin, link children with poor bonds to their mothers with ADHD, ADD, and other mental disabilities. There is a rise in children with ADHD and ADD. In 1980 roughly 1 in 20 children were diagnosed with either disability, while today it has become every 1 in 9 children. The numbers don’t lie and as stated by Professor Radford, “This epidemic is caused by our decreased value of family. It is no longer looked at as a crucial period of time when a child is just born. That needs to change. When that changes we can expect to see a change in kids with mental disabilities.”
Raising a child costs a lot of money these days, over $300,000 per child. Moms and dads need to have some stable income so that their child is not raised in a stressed environment. The atmosphere that a child grows up in affects their mental and emotional health and causes health physicians to wonder how to fix it.
The fix is simple.
A survey conducted among college students here at the UT Martin states that 95% of students and faculty here believe that mothers should get a minimum of 3 months maternity leave. And that those 3 months should be paid. Many of these people commented afterward they gave their opinion that the reason for maternity leave is for the mother and child to bond so the child can grow mentally and emotionally healthy. Andrew Lannom, a father of 1 and one of the students asked, stated, “it is important to the development of the child that the mother be there.”
UT Martin’s own chair of the nursing department, Mary Radford, who has worked in maternity wards of hospitals, had this to say about child development, “Child development is one of the most lacking critical parts of life. Especially at that infant age. A mother, and father, need to be there for their baby so that that child can grow up as normal and mentally healthy as possible.” Coming from a professional, this concludes the fact, a child is in need of their mother and their father for the critical time period of at least the first 3 months of their life.
So it is determined that the first 3 months the mother needs to be there. Now the matter is getting the mother to be financially able to be with her child. 31% of college students get pregnant or get someone pregnant during their time in school. Now, taking a 3 month break from school is pretty much near impossible. No matter how wonderful professors are missing an entire semester is hard to make up in a couple weeks. If a college girl gets pregnant in February and her due date is in November that is in the middle of a semester. The way some degree programs work taking a whole semester off really means one has to take a year off. How can a student, a person who has little to no real world job experience, afford to take a 3 month break from school, possibly even be forced to take a whole year off, and then be able to pay for their child, school tuition, and daily living expenses.
The U.S. is one of the last countries to make maternity leave a priority. The future of this topic is yet unknown.
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