Giving Birth and Going Back to Work
Two months after giving birth, Adi Ohayon had to face the well known dilemma: Should she go back to work, extend her maternity leave or quit her job? While trying to figure out her next step, Ohayon decided to open a Facebook page that is getting quite a lot of attention. The objective: extend the paid maternity leave in Israel
“My baby is two months old so technically next month I am supposed to go back to work. A week ago I thought to myself, how am I supposed to give him to a caretaker? I don’t understand how I can go back to work when my baby just started to recognize me and grow attached to me. He barely weighs 4.5 kilograms and already he won’t be with me?”
Sounds like a familiar thought running through every new mother’s mind, except these sentiments belong to Adi Ohayon, 27, from Netivot. “I thought to myself there is no way that I am the only mother who feels this way. So I opened a Facebook page by the name of “Giving Birth and Going Back to Work,” and it reached my friends and started to pick up.” Ohayon, mother to 2 month old Luria, works at a telephone customer service center. She decided to create the page in order to make a difference: She wishes to prolong the maternity leave and reach several other successes in the neglected matter.
“Studies prove that a baby’s first year is the most crucial for their development and impact their whole life. What I am suggesting is to extend the maternity leave to a minimum of half a year with pay and to a year on unpaid leave so that whoever chooses to return to work can do so and whoever wants to stay at home can do so as well. I find that this is a cornerstone in our being a better society.”
“In Canada and Russia This Wouldn’t Happen”
A week after Ohayon opened the page it already had gotten 16,000 likes and many shares. “This is a private initiative lacking any political interest,” She emphasizes. “In the current state, many women extend their maternity leaves in order to stay with their baby for another 3 months but they are not paid at that time. In a research I’ve conducted I found that in Canada for example, you receive 75% of your salary and can extend your maternity leave to up to a year, whereas in Russia you receive payment for a year and are given the opportunity to extend it to 3 years without receiving a salary(!). In Israel, the law dictates that a woman can extend her maternity leave for another 3 unpaid months while her job is guaranteed, but even then I’ve heard of countless termination stories”.
According to Adi, not only women partake in her Facebook page. “I’ve gotten quite a few comments from men who were happy about the initiative, and there were some who wrote me about the moment their wives go back to work. They too suffered seeing her being torn from inside. Others told me that they too would like to have a maternity leave and I find that just as important.”
There were, however, less kind comments. “Some told me that it is vital for a woman to work and develop a career rather than sit at home with her baby. My opinion is that it should not have to come at the expense of the other. We are a democratic state and women can develop a career and have a B.A. and doctorate and still be fantastic mothers.”
Another subject matter bothering Ohayon is the salary itself. “Women do not make as much money as men and around 50% of them are spending their money on sending their kids to a nanny or kindergarten. This is the reason so many women give up going to work because they feel like it is not worth having someone else take care of their kids. There are women who return to their job for their own well being and others who stay at home because it is the right decision financially. I find this to be a very disturbing issue.”
Since opening the page, Ohayon received between 70 to 80 private messages to her inbox from men and women who want to help fight for the cause. “Women wrote that they are ready to go out on the streets, but I am waiting for a surge of support and a noise that will wake someone up in the Knesset. Tthere are 26 female members of Knesset and most of them mothers, yet none of them have discussed the subject and that’ a real shame.”
This article was originally published in mako, Oct. 27th, 2014
