Sky Views: The US is a wonderful place to live – unless you're a new mum – Sky News, Sky.com

             

Sometimes, you can still feel in awe of America. It’s an indisputable goliath of geography and achievement. There’s the insatiable thirst for progress, the colossal optimism and the unashamed appetite for super sizing everything in sight.

But the country that runs towards change, also grinds its heels in clinging to the past. Nowhere can you feel its stubborn dedication to an outdated way of life more than when you dare to have a child. In the eyes of the US government, this act deserves very little support. America astonishingly remains the only country in the developed world that does not mandate employers to offer paid leave for new mothers. In the UK, mothers get 39 weeks. In Canada, a year. In America, zilch, nada, nothing.

Here’s what it looks like. After nine months of struggling through balancing one, often two jobs, if you’re lucky and have saved the thousands of dollars needed to deliver that child, just days later, you could be packing your bags again to return to your day job or jobs .

I have a young son. In the first few weeks of his life, he started to struggle to breathe. He was rushed to hospital in an ambulance where we kept vigil by his bedside as the doctors put him through x-rays and countless tests. It was a horrendous time for our family, but we were all there together. It turned out to be a severe flu and eventually he started to recover.

But as we were at Children’s National Hospital in Washington DC, some of the lovely American mum friends we’d made at various classes had already started going back to work. Some were still recovering from C-sections, some were still grappling with the challenges of breastfeeding and their babies were still up throughout the night. When we returned from hospital and adjusted to sleepless nights and the emotional whirlwind of keeping our tiny new addition alive, they were having to drop theirs off at day-care and find a place in their office to pump their breast milk. For my American colleagues working in TV news, the place put aside for that also served as the resident prayer room. Well, why not throw everyone in together? Prayer mats and exposed nipples come hand-in-hand, right?

Our friends told us they were in fact the lucky ones – in senior roles working at progressive companies that offered what US government agencies refuse to. But the onus shouldn’t be on businesses to rise to the occasion because too few will. I’d heard of plenty of other people who were expected to write company-wide emails begging colleagues to donate or sell their leave so they could secure a few days at home with their new child. It seems like ritualistic shaming to me, tacitly endorsed by employers.

I hate to state the bleeding obvious America, but children are necessary to our biological and economic survival. If the Great US of A wants to thrive, it needs to keep generating the future employees and taxpayers it depends on. Aside from that cynical calculus, of course, is the issue of good old fashioned humanity. Working mums need time to recover from the physical and mental trauma of childbirth and kids need extra attention and care in those crucial months after birth.

In 2016 when I was on the campaign trail, often working 16 hour days, sometimes six days a week, I’d see women doing my job, many working even longer hours, just weeks after having babies. Some were flying to a rally, pumping between TV lives, then flying back home to deliver their milk, before dashing to make their 10 pm nightly news slots at the White House. I was stunned, impressed and a bit horrified, if I’m honest. There was this awful resignation about it all – they were being totally mistreated by a system that didn’t seem to care about them or their children. Where was the outrage? Why wasn’t there a heated debate about this every day? Perhaps I was missing it, but this week, that seemingly hidden conversation got a very public airing. Katy Tur, one of the intrepid reporters whose star burned bright in that exhausting election, returned to work after having a baby, with a blistering call to Congress. And it wasn’t just about mums – she called on America’s politicians to expand the right to equal paid time off for both parents. She told viewers that after her C-section scar became infected, she needed extra support from her partner and was struggling to breast feed. She and her husband, unlike most in America, got that paid time off.

“Parents need time with their babies, babies need time with their parents,” she said during her afternoon MSNBC news program. “And moms need support, and if that support is coming from a partner, that partner should get equal time off, paid time off, emphasis on paid. Family leave supports babies, which supports us all.”

In my opinion, at the core of it all is not just a nation that still struggles with the shadow of sexism (I was told by many female and male voters in 2016 that you can’t have a woman president as they’re fundamentally too emotional). It is also because this is a country where workers’ rights have always been weak. In Britain we have enjoyed, thanks in part to a trade union movement, more support and benefits.

For those feverishly excited about a UK / US trade deal, there should be pause for thought. Nothing is set in stone in this febrile political climate as Britain tries to negotiates its way into a world outside of Europe. Maternity leave, paid holiday and fair treatment at work are things we’ve come to expect in the UK. But surely we can’t assume anything any more.

America is a wonderful kaleidoscope of contradictions and achievements and I’m lucky to call it home. The work ethic of its people is something to behold. It gets lots right. But not giving people the time and money needed to build families is just wrong.

Sky Views is a series of comment pieces by Sky News editors and correspondents, published every morning.

Previously on Sky Views:Adam Boulton – Second Brexit vote would pull Boris Johnson out of the quagmire

(Foreign affairs editor Deborah Haynes is away)