Unfortunately, it is not a decision that every mother can make freely and without consequences. In line with the wonderful reflection Lola made yesterday about women working mothers, the effort they have to make to be all this and the difficulties that are on the road, I would like to tell you what my personal situation is, about the decision that I had to make these days.
I am a high school teacher, and I have been able to enjoy maternity leave for 16 weeks, plus an accumulation of breastfeeding hours for an additional 4 weeks. Today, as the situation is, it has to be considered a "gift" and a privilege, I know.
That period ended a week ago, when I had to have returned to the classroom. But nevertheless, I have decided to request a leave for my baby's care, and this despite having a work schedule that allows me free evenings.
What were the alternatives? Leave my baby who is not yet 5 months in the morning with the grandparents? I think they had to take care of us and that they are not nannies, among other issues.
¿In a kindergarden? I know it's the only solution for many parents, but I imagine what the feeling of babies should be ... if they could talk! And also now I understand the pain that parents must produce leaving them in the nursery, so small. A few weeks ago a friend left her 2-year-old son in daycare for the first time and told me how she cried, she.
And whatever option was chosen, I would have to buy a breast pump to continue breastfeeding, although at the end of the day this would not be another inconvenience than learning to use the little pot or, worse, depriving Mar and me of that intimate contact during the mornings, of course it would be important that she could continue enjoying the benefits of this lactation
In short, after weighing it, I have decided to request that leave, for now for 4 more months and thanks to that I can afford to be without pay that time. And in the same way that I have made this decision, I understand and praise the mothers who decide to continue working despite being in a similar situation, and manage to draw strength and time to make the most of their children, becoming heroine moms.
I have considered it myself and of course, as we have seen, there are more or less valid alternatives that will not involve any irreversible trauma to the children or to us.
But very many people do not have the option to choose, and here comes my claim, so many times repeated in these pages and more and more in our society.
I wonder why, if breastfeeding is recommended up to 6 months, we only have 16 weeks of maternity leave. Spain has the shortest maternity leave period with respect to the surrounding countries, and we can act asking for an extension.
Because there are many mothers who do not choose it, but rather they are forced to return to work, for economic reasons or because they know that a future with more or less discrimination or maternal mobbing in their jobs awaits them.
And, what is sadder, there are many people who decide not to have children before these obstacles that come to us from governments, businessmen and society in general. Hopefully the devastating data of dismissals during pregnancy and other barbarities disappear so that we can be in the future women, workers and mothers without any problem.
