It’s a Baby!
With trepidation, I laid the photo on the desk in front of my boss. It was blurry, black and white, and looked a little like a teddy bear, but she immediately recognized it for what it was: a sonogram image.
I had only been married a few months earlier and I was dealing with some transitions - learning to live with my spouse (forks up or forks down in the dishwasher?), training a new puppy, switching jobs, etc. etc. But being in our mid-thirties, we didn’t want to waste any time trying to start a family. I knew my medical history and I knew the statistics. It might take us a very long time to get pregnant. There might be complications.
Long story short, it didn’t and there weren’t.
It all happened fast, and just days into my new job as a managing attorney at the Employment Justice Center, I heard myself informing my boss I was pregnant with my first child.
I am pretty sure I gave my boss the news before I told my own family. I was so self conscious and worried that I don’t remember my boss’s initial reaction. Given the circumstances, and having now been at the helm of a small nonprofit for 10 years myself, I can imagine what she was thinking: congratulations, followed by maybe an expletive or two?
We were a small nonprofit, well under the 20-employee threshold for coverage under the D.C. Family Medical Leave Act. I wouldn’t have qualified anyway. No law gave me any right to time off for prenatal appointments, to recover from childbirth, or to bond with my newborn.
But this was a workers’ rights organization founded by women, and it turned out I had nothing to worry about. The Employment Justice Center voluntarily adhered to the D.C. Family Medical Leave Act, providing up to 16 weeks of job-protected leave to employees who were new parents. My boss told me that 8 weeks of it would be paid through their parental leave policy and I could save up paid vacation for the rest of my time off, even get an advance on my vacation allowance if necessary.
Thank goodness. I gave birth to both of my children while working at the Employment Justice Center, and I am so grateful for the legacy of its founders who prioritized the health and welfare of its staff.
And now it’s my delight to pay it forward. In January, one of our staff members gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. She’s taking 16 weeks of legally protected leave and 12 of them will be paid through First Shift’s parental leave policy, with the balance of them paid as vacation time. But here’s the significant difference: D.C. Paid Family Leave Insurance. Through this program, in exchange for a very tiny quarterly tax paid by the employer, our new mom will receive the majority of her salary as a government benefit. First Shift will only be responsible for “topping off” to bring her up to full salary for the twelve weeks covered. In 2023, First Shift paid $1264 to D.C.’s paid leave benefits program for its employees altogether; this new mom will receive $11,400 worth of benefits from the program.
When I went on leave with my first child, I didn’t have to worry about work, but others at my workplace did. In the middle of the recession in 2008, my boss had to figure out how my work was going to get done while I was out and how the organization would meet its clients’ needs and its grant commitments with one less staff member.
Now, in 2024, because of the availability of paid leave benefits, First Shift can afford to hire someone on a part-time basis to fill our new mom’s critical job duties, without impacting the budget. This has made an enormous difference to me and to other First Shift employees - much less tension about who has to take on more work and fewer duties that fall through the cracks, resulting in fewer instances in which we blame one another about who didn’t do what.
D.C. Paid Leave Benefits are a huge game changer for small employers like First Shift, and clearly express a community value that families are a priority.
The black and white photo above is one that First Shift's new mom shared with me. It was received by her boss with nothing but joy. ❤️
by: Laura Brown
