Happy Maternity Leave Quotes

I was so intent as a young lawyer on beating the men at their own game that I didn't take any real maternity leave with my three younger children. It is only looking back that I realise I wasn't beating the system but reinforcing it. ~ Cherie Blair

She'd once read a description of new motherhood that had struck her, at the time that she was returning to work after maxing out her maternity leave allowance, as a beautiful metaphor for her own days back at the office. It was that mother and baby are like a ball of yarn, and when the mother leaves the baby's side, it's as if the baby grabs hold of the loose end, a tug that both mother and baby feel in their every fiber. As they both move through the hours spent apart, the string unravels more and more, and then just when each is starting to feel diminished, barely even a ball of yarn at all anymore, it's time for the mother to make her way back. Together again, they need only a bit of time to wind the string back up, and then it's as if they had never been apart, right up until they wake up and do it all over again. ~ Jessica Strawser

One reason the United States is one of three countries in the world that do not have any form of paid maternity leave is that many American business leaders, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, oppose any family-friendly policies. They scare people into thinking maternity leave will be a job killer. ~ Madeleine M. Kunin

women were considered instinctual nurses in this generation - the field had received exciting publicity during the Spanish-American War when an Army Nursing Corps had served overseas in the Philippines. Clara Weeks-Shaw, the author of a popular textbook on nursing, promoted the field as "a new activity for women - congenial, honorable and remunerative and with permanent value to them in the common experience of domestic life."3 In readable language, Weeks-Shaw presented nursing as an artful balance between self-reliance and submission. Overall its practices were an extension of maternity, requiring the classic female behaviors of cheerfulness (to the patients) and obedience (to the doctors). "Never leave a doctor alone with a gynecology patient except at his request," went one injunction. ~ Jean H. Baker

I'm not taking maternity leave from 'Big Brother.' I e-mailed my boss over there this weekend and I said, 'Don't worry. I can still do the show! ~ Julie Chen

In fact, in the last job I had before coming to the White House - I remember this clearly - I was on maternity leave with Sasha, still trying to figure out what to do with my life, and I got a call for an interview for this position, a senior position at the hospitals. And I thought, okay, here we go. So I had to scramble to look for babysitting, and couldn't find one. ~ Michelle Obama

Too much information is key to a more diverse, non-deterministic future. Once we have information overload we have choice, we never know which instructions a computer or a person is going to load into their thinking. We look at our newborn babies in a hospital maternity ward, and newborn computers stacked on a pallet, and we never know what rhetoric they may encounter, which instructions or question/answer sets they will leave more permanently loaded in their mental processing. Even the variance of permanence is a dimension no one knows, and will shape them or the world they shape. ~ Lance Miller

The problem is that the media rarely discusses the real reasons behind why women leave their jobs. We hear a lot about the desire to be closer to the children, the love of crafting and gardening, and making food from scratch. But reasons like lack of maternity leave, lack of affordable day care, lack of job training, and unhappiness with the 24/7 work culture-well, those aren't getting very much airtime. ~ Emily Matchar

My maternity leave will be a few weeks long, and I'll work throughout it. ~ Marissa Mayer

[D]emanding wages for housework (…) forced recognition of the fact that the domestic work which women do has economic value. But many feminists feel that this demand leaves untouched the sexual division of labour - indeed, measures like paid maternity leave (…) can be seen as a form of'wages for motherhood' but(…) it fixes women more rigidly into work defined as 'women's work'. ~ Nivedita Menon

Voluntary paid maternity leave: yes; compulsory paid maternity leave: over this Government's dead body, frankly. It just won't happen. ~ Tony Abbott

If salary is your most important consideration, make sure you don't take too much time off beyond the allotted 12-14 weeks of maternity leave - and certainly don't leave altogether. ~ Jean Chatzky

The message is clear: a good mother breast feeds. Significantly, this good mother shares a sociocultural profile with women in other developed countries: she is over thirty, is a high earning professional, does not smoke, takes prenatal classes, and benefits from a long maternity leave. ~ Elisabeth Badinter

Americans need to demand change. Ours is the only nation in the developed world with no paid maternity leave. We have no paid family sick leave. We don't ensure affordable daycare, or provide universal pre-K, or mandate equal pay for equal work. And what do we do when our representatives fail to fight for these things? Nothing. ~ Kirsten Gillibrand

With so many part-time people on - and not on - the job, corporate America has started to feel like it's on a permanent maternity leave. Colleagues are an amorphous, free-floating army of rotating waifs whose voicemails are clogged with plaintive requests from their own offices for missing information. ~ Tina Brown

Look at Gwyneth Paltrow and my favourite, Kate Winslet. No one ever says, 'Oh, she's making a comeback.' To my mind, I just went on maternity leave and reported back to work. ~ Karisma Kapoor

Working from home or going on maternity leave is no excuse to let go of your look. The more you schlep around in drawstring pants and tees, the less you're going to be able to pull yourself together when necessary. ~ Nina Garcia

The right to choose to abort a fetus is critical, as is the ability to effect that choice in real life, so it's great that Hillary Clinton wants to repeal the Hyde Amendment. But without welfare, single-payer health care, a minimum wage of at least $15--all policies she staunchly opposes--many people have to forgo babies they'd really love to have. That's not really a choice.

It seems ill-conceived to have tethered feminism to such a narrow issue as abortion. Yet it makes sense from an insular Beltway fundraising perspective to focus on an issue that makes no demands--the opposite, really--of the oligarch class; this is probably a big reason why EMILY'S List has never dabbled in backing universal pre-K or paid maternity leave; a major reason 'reproductive choice' has such a narrow and negative definition in the American political discourse.

The thing is, an abortion is by definition a story you want to forget, not repeat and relive. And for the same reason abortion pills will never be the blockbuster moneymakers heartburn medications are, abortion is a consummately foolish thing to attempt to build a political movement around. It happens once or twice in a woman's lifetime.

Kids, on the other hand, are with you forever. A more promising movement--one that goes against everything Hillary Clinton stands for--might take that to heart. ~ Liza Featherstone

I'm excited about going back to 'Today,' but, at odd moments, I'll grit my teeth in anxiety. I feel like a student before the start of school. I've got my new shoes and my book bag, but I'm not sure I'll remember how to do trigonometry. During my maternity leave, I haven't used many words of more than one syllable. ~ Jane Pauley

Every time a woman leaves the workforce because she can't find or afford childcare, or she can't work out a flexible arrangement with her boss, or she has no paid maternity leave, her family's income falls down a notch. Simultaneously, national productivity numbers decline. ~ Madeleine M. Kunin

To emphasize how truly backward our society is...let's finish with a little quiz. Let's do it like Jeopardy.

In 1990, this government required companies to give a new mother a year's leave at 90% pay.
Answer: What was Sweden?

This country provided nurseries for most children over eighteen months.
Answer: What was Sweden?

Nearly half of the children under three in this country were in publicly financed nurseries, and nearly 95% of children three to six were (and are).
Answer: What is Denmark?

In this country, 95% of children aged three to five are in preschool.
Answer: What is France?

This country provides care for one quarter of children under three in wholly or partially subsidized nurseries.
Answer: What is France?

In 1984, this country gave workers twelve weeks of maternity leave with pay.
Answer: What is Brazil? (Yes, Brazil!)

This country mandated eight weeks of maternity leave WITH PAY.
Answer: What is Kenya? (You heard us, Kenya!)

This country provided none of these things; instead, to help mothers and small children, its magazines featured profiles of rich celebrity moms who could show women how to do it all.
Answer: What was the United States? ~ Susan J. Douglas

And in the future, you know, maybe there's kids in the future for me, I don't really know. The interesting thing with me is that there has never been a woman doing what I'm doing at this level for this long. So, it's like, would Vince give me maternity leave? ~ Trish Stratus

It's interesting that there's so many different sides of this: Women get frustrated that we don't get paid enough; and then the Republicans or the CEOs that are men say, "Well, it's because women take off time for maternity leave." ~ Jennifer Lawrence

True blessedness consisteth in a good life and a happy death. ~ Solon

But now changing the subject, I want to talk about my parents and how much I miss them in my life, all because I am away from them in this moment. But I still feel happy for the reason that they are well and alive and no away will separate me really from them and not even them from me.

Accidentally Angels 2 - Pet TorreS ~ Pet Torres

People ask how I can be a conservative and still want higher taxes. It makes my head spin, and I guess it shows how old I am. But I thought that conservatives were supposed to like balanced budgets. I thought it was the conservative position to not leave heavy indebtedness to our grandchildren. ~ Ben Stein

Cause these words are knives and often leave scars, the fear of falling apart. And truth be told, I never was yours. ~ Panic! At The Disco

Love it or leave it ~ Charles Bukowski

The man of affluence is not in fact more happy than the possessor of a bare competency, unless, in addition to his wealth, the end of his life be fortunate. We often see misery dwelling in the midst of splendour, whilst real happiness is found in humbler stations. ~ Herodotus

But here's the truth: no matter how much you might wish for it, princes don't come around every day, and happy endings don't grow on trees. Take it from me: the sooner you grow up, the less you'll be disappointed. ~ Jodi Picoult

ROTHKO: (Explodes) 'Pretty.' 'Beautiful.' 'Nice.' 'Fine.' That's our life now! Everything's 'fine'. We put on the funny nose and glasses and slip on the banana peel and the TV makes everything happy and everyone's laughing all the time, it's all so goddamn funny, it's our constitutional right to be amused all the time, isn't it? We're a smirking nation, living under the tyranny of 'fine.' How are you? Fine.. How was your day? Fine. How are you feeling? Fine. How did you like the painting? Fine. What some dinner? Fine ... Well, let me tell you, everything is not fine!!
HOW ARE YOU?! ... HOW WAS YOUR DAY?! ... HOW ARE YOU FEELING? Conflicted. Nuanced. Troubled. Diseased. Doomed. I am not fine. We are not fine. We are anything but fine. ~ John Logan

The more my heart is parked in a place of thanksgiving and rejoicing, the less room I have for grumpiness.
My kids are driving me crazy? At least they are healthy enough to have that kind of energy. Don't miss this chance to rejoice.
My laundry is piled to the ceiling? Every stitch of clothing is evidence of life in my home. Don't miss this chance to rejoice.
My husband isn't all skippy romantic about the two of us shopping together? In the grand scheme of life, so what? He's a good man. Don't miss this chance to rejoice.
I feel unorganized and behind and late on everything? Scale back, let unrealistic expectations go, and savor some happy moments today. Don't miss this chance to rejoice.
The more I rejoice, the more I keep things in perspective. The more I keep things in perspective, the gentler I become. ~ Lysa TerKeurst