The 'Meternity' Backlash Isn’t Really About Children At All

I feel for Meghann Foye, author of the new book Meternity, about a woman who fakes a pregnancy so she can have take a break from work. When she talked to the New York Post about her book last week, I don’t think she was expecting to wade quite so dramatically into the highly opinionated no-chill zone that is the…
Tech Companies Are Offering Generous Family Leave to Their Mostly Male Employees
In the tech industry, paid leave is becoming a sought-after benefit for employees, and for employers like Spotify, Twitter, Etsy, Netflix, it’s become an explicit priority. But, as Rebecca Greenfield writes at Bloomberg, these policies are made feasible partly because the tech workforce is still mostly male.
A Reminder: America Is 1 of 2 Nations in the World Without Paid Maternity Leave
America’s terrible track record for maternity leave is no secret. This country and Papua New Guinea are the only ones in the world where women don’t have government-mandated paid maternity leave. PNG just won its independence in 1975, so what’s our excuse?
The Only True Valuable Parenting Commodity Is Time
Parenting media is mostly bullshit. It’s like mainstream beauty media, only with the added gravitas of being about, you know, the nurturing of the next generation. A list of the best strollers isn’t any different than a list of the best mascaras; like, all the versions basically work. Some are better, but they are…
John Kasich Says Paid Maternity Leave Is Bad For Closing the Pay Gap
During a Friday campaign stop in New Hampshire, John Kasich, a man still running for the Republican presidential nomination, was asked about where he stood on the issue of paid maternity leave. He remained steadfast in his position that women should not be given any additional paid leave, a platform that’s standard…
Men Take Paternity Leave Far More Often When Their Child Is Male
It is heartening to see the number of paternity leave programs increase across the U.S. and, as as recent study out of the University of California Santa Barbara reports, it is having a meaningful impact. In California, where paid-family leave was sanctioned by law in 2004, fathers are 46 percent more likely to take…
Spotify Offers All Full-Time Employees 6 Months Paid Parental Leave
Music streaming giant Spotify has just announced a new global parental leave policy that is reasonable, necessary, and makes Amazon’s recent foray into more family-friendly leave policies look like the half-baked publicity fart it almost definitely was.
New Startup Asks Women to Review Companies' Maternity Leave Policies
Many companies’ maternity leave policies are profoundly insufficient —but women often struggle to access this information before accepting a job offer. Fairygodboss, a new startup where women review their places of employment, offers a database that should provide future parents with the transparency denied to so many…
Here's Amazon's New Parental Leave Policy, Designed to Combat All Their Bad Press
Just in time for Black Friday, and after literally years of terrible press about their soul-crushing work conditions, Amazon appears to be quietly expanding their parental leave policies. A tipster who works at the company just forwarded Jezebel details of the new policy, which includes paternity leave for the first…
Netflix’s Cool Maternity Leave Policy Isn’t For All Their Employees
It looks like Netflix’s new and improved maternity leave policy was too good to be true. The entertainment network made headlines earlier this month when they announced they’d be providing employees with unlimited maternity and paternity leave during the first year of a new child’s life. Unfortunately, this only…
1 in 4 New Mothers Are Back at Work Two Weeks After Giving Birth
For most working women who want children, the ‘What’s the maternity leave like?’ conversation pops up often. Even with the Family and Maternity Leave Act in place, there’s still a short window for those without cushy jobs to bond with their babies after they’re a few weeks old. This. Is. Terrible.
Carly Fiorina Takes Brave Stance Against Paid Maternity Leave Mandate
In a Sunday interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Carly Fiorina said that she opposes federally mandated paid maternity leave. “I’m not saying I oppose paid maternity leave. What I’m saying is I oppose the federal government mandating paid maternity leave to every company out there,” the Republican primary candidate said.
Following Netflix, Microsoft Improves Their Maternity Leave Program
Since Netflix announced a generous plan to offer unlimited maternity and paternity leave to their employees, at least one other company seems to have been inspired by the move to upgrade their own program. Microsoft released a statement saying they will now offer 12 weeks of fully paid parental leave to their…
Air Force to Give Women More Time to Get in Shape After Childbirth
In an effort to retain female service members, the Air Force has announced that women will be able to defer their annual fitness test for up to one year after either giving birth or miscarrying a pregnancy that lasted at least 20 weeks. The change, which doubles the current post-pregnancy deployment deferment period,…
