Women
Just so we’re clear.
Women grow HUMANS.
We spend almost 10 months growing a human WHILE working.
We do a full-time job and a 24/7 job for 10 months.
Do you know how hard that is?
Let me explain a bit about pregnancy:
🤢Nauseaus 24/7 not just in the morning
🥱Exhaustion (because you’re growing a human and your body is making another body)
😦Little sleep (because you have to often go to the bathroom and you can’t even move from one side to the other without needing a hand or moving very slowly, and you aren’t allowed to sleep on your back or your belly)
🚷Can’t exercise or do a lot of jumping the way you used to because the pressure is real (mamas know what I mean)
⚠️Pregnancies can be high risk for a lot of reasons which can put mommy and baby in danger.
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Then there is labor and childbirth.
You can google the reality of that process and what that does to a woman’s body and psychology.
We are never the same.
And women choose to go through it again when they have more than one. 3 kiddos right here 👋🏽
Then we take the little human home from the hospital.
We have to feed the baby, change the baby every few hours in the first weeks of life. And we have to make sure the baby is growing and thriving over the months.
No one is sleeping.
I nursed which meant my babies depended on me to eat.
I wasn’t sleeping for more than a few hours at a time.
My firstborn didn’t give me more than 4 hours of sleep at a time, until he was 4 months old after sleep training.
My mental and emotional health took such a hit, I experienced my first panic attacks, anxiety and depression.
I was so thankful to have my first, but I was so exhausted, so lost, and wanted to go back to work. I didn’t like being home.
To be at work is EASIER than being a mom on maternity leave.
I don’t care if you work 80+ hours a week. I’ve done that throughout my career and I’ve done that at a major law firm. It pales in comparison to that first maternity leave. #facts
And I was blessed and privileged to work for employers who provided amazing maternity leave.
But let’s just be clear on what maternity leave is.
It’s not a vacation.
Stop telling women to enjoy their break when they go on leave.
It’s not a break.
It’s the hardest work anyone could ever do.
As is being a parent.
It’s what we chose.
But women didn’t choose to be the target of offensive comments like that we sit on our behinds on maternity leave(see Kelley Barnett’s post - the language used by a male law firm partner towards a former female associate was much stronger than what I’m using).
We’re doing the best we can for those we love. We’re giving it all we have everyday.
So “I just ask they take their feet off our necks” (rest in power Notorious RBG).
🙌🏽
#womenempowerment #womensupportingwomen #motherhood #lawfirm
