Teacher Is Told Her Leftover Maternity FMLA Leave Was Denied Because It's 'Usually Only For Dads'
Why are father's allowed to do it, but mother's aren't?
Monkey Business Images via Shutterstock A frustrated husband has taken to Reddit, angry at a situation that has recently happened to his wife. Both of them are teachers, however, he recently stopped working in the school system while she continued.
They recently had a baby over the summer, and she only took a short amount of her maternity leave after the baby was born, hoping to use the rest later.
Many people she knew had split their time and she was hoping to use it when things got a bit too much at school and she wanted to spend some extra time with her baby.
The teacher was told her leftover maternity leave request was denied because it was reserved for dads.
Her husband says she did all the necessary paperwork and requests and set her end date for the year. The day before her last day, employee services contacted her about her request.
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It was denied. They told her the only approved splits were for paternity leave, as it’s typically only fathers who choose to do it.
He said she decided to just finish the year doing the bare minimum until she could get out. He has since made an edit saying the denial was made over the phone, and when she attempted to email them for more information, they did not reply, presumably to avoid a paper trail.
The frustrated dad added, "This just seems like such a slap in the face of all women who work for this organization. We will definitely be reaching out to the union and possibly a lawyer."
A big concern here is why fathers can have extra time off, but mothers can’t.
The U.S. Department of Labor says that under the Family and Medical Leave Act, parents are allotted 12 full unpaid work weeks for childbirth. Fathers and mothers can cash in on this parental leave.
Some employers will allow parents to split that 12 weeks as needed which was exactly what this mom was trying to do.
Being a mom is hard; being a working mom, trying to still bond with your infant and get through the workday is even harder.
This new mom's first three weeks were used at the beginning of the year, meaning she still had 9 weeks available. After a hard year of kids misbehaving, parents not cooperating, and missing her baby, all she wanted was to spend the last few months of the school year at home.
Teachers are grossly underappreciated for their work and dedication to their students.
There's often an assumption that because teachers have months off during the summer, they should be grateful for only working from September to June. But that doesn't take into account how difficult their jobs are and how mediocre the pay is.
Most teachers work second jobs to make up for the lack of income, either just during the summer or throughout the whole year.
A working mom should be given her full FMLA leave regardless of how she chooses to split it. It shouldn’t be denied to her because “only dad’s split time."
Teaching is a stressful, frustrating job at times, especially for a new mother. The least the school could do, in the hopes she actually comes back to teach there next year, is honor her request.
Madison Piering is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team, specializing in human interest and pop culture topics.