Dish-Houston

How does Texas not have a law making paid maternity leave mandatory? Thankfully there are some enlightened companies that offer six week paid time off but smaller and cheaper companies force women to save as much money as they can during pregnancy to use for that time. They also have to save vacation and sick leave just so they can spend time with their new child up on arrival.

More over, most companies don't allow the same time off for adoptive parents as they do biological, unpaid or not. Some companies actually won't hold the jobs of the adoptive parents if they take time off when the baby comes home.

What times are we living in? Are companies that cheap? Are they that unfamily friendly? Especially in a business that is so female dominate like apartment leasing. This whole story came about talking to the people in a leasing office of one of The Finger Companies in Houston. There are two pregnant ladies in this office and as little as they make they are still forced to save as much as they can, not to spend on the baby, it's health, preparing for it or it's education but just to pay their bills so they can take time with the baby when it's born!

Maternity leave, now often called parental or family leave, is the time a mother (or father) takes off from work for the birth or adoption of a child. Actual paid "maternity leave" — while the norm in every other developed country — is unusual in the United States, although some enlightened companies do offer new parents paid time off, up to six weeks in some cases.

In this case they'll have to use a combination of short-term disability (STD), sick leave, vacation, personal days, and unpaid family leave during their time away from work.

The picture did improve in 1993 with the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which entitles most workers to up to 12 weeks of job-protected medical leave for birth or adoption. However, the FMLA doesn't cover those who work for smaller companies and guarantees only unpaid leaves.
 

What happens if the mother or baby gets sick or or needs to go to the doctor for it's check ups? There is no room for that in the first year of these babies lives because these women were forced to use all of their vacation and sick time for maternity leave. Heaven forbid there is an emergency in these families lives because they used their savings to stay at home with the new child.

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