Thursday, July 26, 2012

Thoughts, two

Moms everywhere were excited when Marissa Mayer (the new CEO for Yahoo) got hired with full disclosure of her being pregnant.  That elation turned to vitriol when Marissa announced that she was going to only take 2 (or so) weeks of maternity leave and planned on working from home throughout that time.  My thoughts: 
1.  She can do whatever the hell she wants, if she wants to work, she can work, if she doesn't, she shouldn't have to or feel obligated to. 
2.  If Yahoo is like most companies in America, she probably isn't given maternity leave and instead has to use vacation or sick time or take FMLA leave.  She may not have the vacation time given to her at the beginning of her tenure, but instead is doled out throughout they year (like my job).
3.  FMLA requires that a person has worked for the company for a specified amount of time prior to taking the leave, and it's quite possible that she won't have worked for Yahoo long enough to qualify. 
4.  Basically what I'm saying is that if someone started at my job (which is the government) 2.5 months pre-due date, she wouldn't have the vacation time, she wouldn't have the FMLA qualification; and while I'm sure that if someone was hired at 6.5 months along with full disclosure, she wouldn't be told she couldn't take the time off, but she also wouldn't be getting paid nor would she have the relief knowing that their job would be held open for her.  So yeah, it's quite possible that she feels like she needs to get back to work as soon as possible even if it's only in her head. 
5.  As with most women at that level in the tech field, I'm sure she's got ideas running around in her head all the time and actually goes cabin-fever crazed within a few weeks of being home anyway and if working from home helps her feel less crazy, then so be it.

Point is - the mommy wars are just things made up in women brains and we really need to get away from who's right and who's wrong.  Can't we all just agree that what works for one doesn't necessarily work for everyone?

1 comment:

Bond said...

Preach it, sister! I haven't ever had a kid, but based on my personality I know that I would start going nuts if I didn't have meaningful interaction with adults after a week or so. Family doesn't always count for that! Plus if she is like a lot of technically minded people I know, kids are more interesting once they are able to communicate meaningful ideas of their own.