Dear Corporate America, your parental leave policy sucks.

It's been one month since our daughter was born, and what a whirlwind it's been! She's healthy and gaining weight, smells amazing, and (almost) everything she does is super cute. I'm recovering well from the delivery. On the surface, all is as good as it can be.

Babies cry. A lot. I guess that's what you knowingly sign up for, along with the intermittent (or sometimes non-existent) sleep. They say it doesn't last forever, but that doesn't mean you don't still have hormones and fluids that take weeks to flush out of your system.

What do you think of when you hear that most women get baby blues, more than half of American women don't follow the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommendation to exclusively breastfeed for the first six months (not to mention continue through at least the first year), 25% of women and 40% of moms leave their jobs? Prior to having my daughter, those warnings washed over me like the fine print in a pharmaceutical drug commercial. "Yeah, yeah, those are things that can happen, but they happen to other people. I won't even come close to having these thoughts."

But when my husband had to go back to work after two weeks, I was resentful, angry, disappointed, and utterly exhausted. When I was pregnant, I thought, "How hard can breastfeeding be? I'm definitely going to follow the AAP guidelines." Enter pumping or breastfeeding every three hours around the clock, something only the mom can do. At least while we were both on parental leave, there was someone who could change her diaper and calm her when she's fussy so I could take a nap between feedings. But after he went back to work (even though he was working remotely due to COVID-19), I became the default caregiver. Because of high risk grandparents, we couldn't have family over to babysit. And because she's too young to get a flu shot or vaccines, we couldn't risk hiring a stranger to help either. It's overwhelming, to be sure, but also totally isolating.

To be completely honest, thoughts I never thought I would have came flooding in. "I can't do this. Not sleeping for more than an hour at a time for weeks on end is not sustainable. I am so sore from feeding. What am I supposed to do when I have to go back to work if I already can't handle it and I'm not even working? Maybe we can just switch to formula — it can't be that bad." I cried daily for the first two weeks. That's when I recalled the words of my healthcare providers saying that that would be normal. That's when I recalled some of the other stats I had heard about postpartum depression, breastfeeding, and moms leaving the workforce. Stats may represent what others ultimately chose to do, but they don't represent all the options considered and the thoughts and anxieties experienced along the way.

My husband and I are still working through how to make the most of our situation. But I can't help but be totally fired up about how unacceptable it is for our parental leave policies to be what they are: two weeks for him and six weeks for me. Sure, we technically can take twelve weeks unpaid with FMLA, but his company has made it clear that his career will be negatively impacted if he actually uses it.

Here's what I have to say to employers who skimp...

Dear Corporate America — your parental leave policies suck.

If you cared about your employees (regardless of if they or their partners give birth), then you would do the right thing for them and their families by giving them at least six months of leave, no questions asked. Even better, pay them while they're out juggling their new full-time job of being a parent.

Maybe you've never thought about or realize what it means when you stick with the status quo and don't support your new parents. By short-cutting paternity leave, you are essentially saying "I don't care about your birthing partner. She's now the primary caregiver, and work needs to be more important to you. If you don't like it, then quit." And by short-cutting maternity leave, you're basically saying "Our company profits are more important than your health and well-being. We don't care about any of the downstream effects your returning to work so soon has on your baby or your family. That's your problem and you need to figure it out if you want to be employed here."

Doing the right thing should be enough of a reason in and of itself, which most other developed nations seem to understand but somehow the US doesn't. But in case you need financial justification, here's an ROI analysis that shows the amount of money you stand to save by bringing your parental leave policies up to par.

Bottom line: get your act together. Don’t wait for the government to make it a mandatory social right before you decide to make a change. Do the right thing. Do what’s humane. Make it a priority to update your antiquated parental leave policy to at least six months. Anything short of that is criminal.