Maternity leave or maternity work? — the power of language (Part III) in designing parental leave

Two years ago, a friend in New York about to go on maternity leave, messaged me about a guy in her office who “wished he was pregnant so that he can go home and work less too.”

I thought, mothers don’t go on maternity leave to drink mai-tais at the beach! If anything, they’re going from a 40 hours a week job to a 24/7 always-on job.

Calling maternity leave, leave, parallels it to going on vacation. Getting “leave” makes it feel like a favour. What if we positioned maternity leave more accurately and called it maternity work instead? It is work, isn’t it?

Fast forward to coming back from maternity leave, women are not only having to juggle childcare & work, many feel that they are not valued at work anymore. Credibility & trust that they had already built seems to have withered away over the course of a few weeks.

My friend in New York has now been back at work well over a year and still feels the need to make sure her productivity can be seen by the rest of the team — something she didn’t have to do before motherhood. As a result, many women end up looking for a new job.

“[Coming back from maternity leave] gets a bit daunting. You almost feel like you have been downgraded, your colleagues don’t know how to support you and you don’t know how to deal with it. So, in my second maternity leave, I decided to look for a new job,”

said an investment banker & a thousand paper cuts participant. Even though several working mothers experience this, many find it isolating — as if they’re the only ones going through it.

Language can help change this. What if workplaces all over the world named this period and talked about it openly? Imagine how much easier it would be to refer to it, to talk with your manager or friends about it — without feeling alone or crazy?

Maternity leave (in general) has so much room for improvement, and yes — naming things can only do so much. But it can acknowledge what’s wrong, increase the issue’s visibility & begin to shift our view and mindset towards it.

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This issue is part III of a short series exploring the power of language in designing for women. Read parts I & II here.

This post is an excerpt from Unconforming: a newsletter about Design for Women. Unconforming goes out every two weeks and also shares learnings from experts, job and other opportunities, examples and articles — all to make an impact in the women’s space. Sign up here to get it in your inbox!