I blew the minds of my UK friends by working right up to my due date. They were like, "Wow, you sure are dedicated to your job." And I was like, "Wow, we don't have maternity benefits that extend to late pregnancy." Apparently over there the norm is to start your leave well before the birth, so you can chillax and get…

So my mom watches my son for me three days a week while I go to work and she takes him to the park every day that it's nice out. At the park apparently she is meeting all kinds of other grandmas doing the exact same thing. Meanwhile, her sister and sister's husband are moving to the same town as their son so they can…

It's just that the original comment was framed as "new moms at Yahoo should be able to work from home during the first 8 weeks because otherwise they'll be behind!" And yeah, no on that. It's a leave of absence. You are absent.

Child care. Many child care centers here start accepting infants at 3 months old. Some will even accept younger. You pay a zillion dollars for it, so the other option is to quit your job and go on public assistance. Nice system, huh?

Most large-ish companies and institutions offer something to professional staff. The average American woman working an unskilled hourly job, or working a professional job for a small company, gets a big fat goose-egg. Definitely something well over 50% of women get zilch in the way of paid maternity or even unpaid…

Because companies want something for nothing. And because we have no labor movement to speak of in this country, they're shaving everything down to as close to nothing as they can possibly manage. Until workers rise up and refuse to take a pittance because it's better than nothing, that's the way it's going to be.

If we're going to go just on the interests of the child, the difference between 8 weeks and 16 weeks is fairly negligable. They're both way too little. One is just slightly less too little.

Ah. Our child development center is one of the most expensive in the entire region and even with the "sliding scale" (which tops out at $5000 knocked off the tuition), full time care for an infant is still equal to my take-home salary.

Many places "split" the leave but that doesn't mean both parents arne't home at once, it just means that, say, either one parent gets 12 months or both parents split that 12 months between them. It can be taken at the same time (ie, both parents take the first 6 months off together, or mom takes 9 months and dad takes…

Does yours also have a ridiculously overpriced day care center that only senior level administrators and tenured endowed-chair faculty can afford?

I work at an Ivy League Reject School (well, the MIT reject school really). I got 8 weeks disability (would have been 6 but I had a c-section) at 60% pay. I'm research staff so that's my pittance. If I had been a professor I would have gotten a semester off at full pay.

Before you move here, definitely educate yourself on the benefits that most other countries in the world take for granted that we do not have (all in the name of "the free market"). We have no labor movement, corporations can buy politicians and do whatever they want, so factor that in to your decision.

For purely physical reasons, I'm guessing. Birth can do a number on your body depending on a bunch of different factors and breastfeeding is something that no one but a birth mother can do*, and it takes time to establish and get going on.

It helps in that it eliminates the chance of me ever working there since computers/tech. I went to college before the internet existed, I will never be employed in this sector. But I have a feeling who it is and bully for you! Congrats!

Meanwhile, in every other goddamn nation on Earth....

Being on maternity leave means you are on leave. It does not mean you are working from home.

I know we've chatted about this before, but my husband got 8 weeks paid parental leave (more, it should be noted, than me!) and this was HUGE in establishing us as co-parents. I mean, we were determined for that to be the standard operating procedure anyway because we're feminists and we both work full time, but…

You can't just drop all that knowledge and not tell us where you work! Use anagrams if you must!

Wow, it's almost as if treating employees like human beings gives them pride in their work. Imagine that.

I'm fairly certain this is fully intended and on purpose. There's a lot of sex but 95% of it isn't really supposed to be sexy. If anyone is actually finding this stuff sexy, I propose that they should probably speak to their therapist.