Maternity Leave — Why You Need To Plan Ahead

By KJ Mariño

Sep 07, 2015 06:00 AM EDT

The issue about maternity leave in the United States has long been a prevailing cause of debate and scrutiny especially when it comes to female chief executives taking a parental leave. Just recently, Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, who is pregnant with twins, faced a wave of unwarranted derision and unequal scrutiny when she chose to take just a limited two-week maternity leave while working throughout.

Maternity leave is often described as the period where new moms take time off from work after giving birth. According to American Pregnancy Association, maternity leave is customarily devised with an array of benefits including sick leave, vacation, holiday time, personal days, short-term disability and unpaid family leave time.

Aside from the advantages, maternity leave is also hurting a lot of working moms especially those who are working ambitiously, vigorously and proficiently in the U.S. The reason? America is the only industrialized country without paid maternity leave, ABC News revealed. That's why, women who are having a baby in the middle of their peak earning phases are definitely critical to the economic stability of their families.

Motherhood is indeed making an economic and practical cut in the shape and stability in women's careers. And since America doesn't offer paid maternity leave, mothers are encouraged to plan ahead for a more stable and secured financial future.

Once maternity leave kicks in, there won't be much cash flowing in and additional expenditures will soon pile up. So, expectant moms are advised to plan and outline the monthly spending cost and the money that should be saved before taking a maternity leave.

Despite many profitable companies are increasingly offering generous paid parental leave benefits, only 13 percent of people have access to paid parental leave in the U.S., Today reported. Due to this fact, several women in high-income positions are having trouble figuring out how these patchwork of policies are applied to them.

Meanwhile, Marissa Mayer's two-week maternity leave has made headlines and even sparked criticisms. According to The Guardian, Mayer's short maternity leave appeared to be her effort in reassuring shareholders that having children won't change her commitment to the company.

While Mayer's decision was viewed as wrong by others, she just simply proved that having a baby can be a strikingly precarious economic and professional choice.