In this country, maternity leave is 3 months.  That’s it.  You’re supposed to get your kid ready and equipped for life in 3 months.  90 days.  That’s not enough time.  You can’t do anything big in 90 days.

 

That’s barely long enough to decide if you want to keep the Sham-Wow or return it for the money back guarantee.

 

Hell, it takes at least 90 days just to figure out that the person you’re having sex with isn’t marriage material.

 

You know how short 90 days is?  Even celebrities get more than 90 days in jail.

 

90 days is a diet plan.  90 days is P90X, and at least they give you motivational videos.  You have a kid, there’s no video.  There’s no fantastically good-looking personal trainer cheering you on, to: “Just change one more diaper.  C’mon  you can do it, champ.  Just one more.”

 

You can’t teach anything in 3 months.  Public education in this country lasts for 13 years, and American kids don’t learn anything.  What do you expect them to pick up in 3 months?

 

Maybe if they gave you more than 3 months leave you could actually accomplish something.  But, no, you get 3 months off and you’re supposed to lay the foundations for your child’s whole life.  Meantime, it’s 10 years since 9/11, and they’ve barely started the foundation.  That’s right, they get 10 years for their project of a lifetime, and you get 3 months for yours.  That’s not fair.  That doesn’t make sense, especially because if you screw up during those 3 months this little baby could grow up to be a terrorist, and that could really screw up work on that Freedom Tower.

 

But, no, 3 months is all you get.  Because in this country we believe in family values.  Not our own families, of course, other people’s.  The people we don’t like.  The other.  The ones who don’t look like us, talk like us, or believe like us.  Those people.  They need some values.  Our own families are just fine, thank you very much.  That’s why after 3 months, we stick the kids with a nanny or in day care.  Because, really, who would want to spend all that quality time with their kid?  Why would you want to help nurture this person you’ve just created?  Who would want to give and receive unconditional love to a little person who is at their most vulnerable and looking to you for knowledge, affection and protection?  What are you, some kind of Socialist?

 

For more on why the U.S. has it ass-backwards when it comes to maternity leave and childcare in the early years, take a look at this article from USA Today: http://alturl.com/g558a

 

(And, for the record, when it comes to maternity leave and childcare, count me as a Socialist.  I want to see my kid and help him or her learn something.  I don’t want to outsource that, even though I probably will have to).