Parental leave feels like a dirty word. Let’s change that.

Parental leave feels like a dirty word. Let’s change that.

Having a teammate out on leave can place strain on a team, and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t experienced times where I panicked over a teammate’s leave because we were left stretched too thin trying to fill in the gaps. For the expecting parent planning for leave, it can feel shameful to be taking so much time off work to focus on family, feeling like it shouldn’t be discussed or should be minimized at all costs.?

But there must be a sustainable way to provide parental leave to new parents, and it is a mere necessity if we want to keep working parents on our teams. Let’s start by talking about and celebrating leaves more openly.

I’ve been privileged to have a substantial maternity leave for the birth of both of my daughters, and while I know this is an incredible privilege in American society (let’s put a pin in this tragedy for now), I would have been in a lot of trouble without this space and time to transition into parenthood and then to parenting two.?

Working now at Figma for the birth of our 2nd daughter in February, I had an ideal setup for my maternity leave:

• An extremely supportive manager who is both incredibly empathetic and a father himself
• A rock star teammate who stepped in as a point person for my coverage plan (big thanks, Mallory Dean )
• A detailed coverage plan that allowed me to step away confident that nothing would fall through the cracks so I could fully engage with my family (link to my template at the end of the post)
• A company culture that is family-friendly and committed to supporting working parents, and which provides a generous parental leave

Providing parental leave is essential for so many reasons, and for me, it mostly comes back to being able to show up for both my team and my family. As a new parent, I was faced with:

• Recovering from the physical act of childbirth (why don’t we talk about this more?!? It’s a serious healing process)
• Learning how to be a parent (there’s no “onboarding” guide, process, or team to help with this- talk about learning on the job!)
• Learning how to breastfeed and spending countless hours doing so (feels like a 3rd unpaid job)
• Managing sleep deprivation (this alone made it hard for me to function, much less to do mentally-engaging work)
• Bonding with the new “teammate” in my life (I’m biased, but she’s a strong performer so far :) )
• Helping my 2-year old transition to being a big sister (another strong performer)
• Negotiating with my amazing partner, Bill C. , on how to operate our changing family and household (communication is key)
• Feeling guilty about requiring so much from my teammates and family to make this all possible (oh, the working mom guilt)

While the requirements changed a lot the 2nd time around, the leave was just as important to transition to being a 2-child household, and all of this would have been much more difficult without a leave.?

As I’ve said already, our society needs to do more to provide better parental leave and support working parents, and at the same time, every one of us has the power to support the new and soon-to-be parents on our teams and in our lives. And it requires the support of everyone (not just the working parents) to make parental leave less of a “dirty word”.?

Here are a few ways you can support the new parents you know and work with:

• Don’t refer to a parental leave as a “break” or “vacation”. Sure, the work is of a different nature, but it’s still work, and as anyone who has been through it knows, these leaves are rarely restful and relaxing?
• Make space to learn about your teammate’s baby and experience if they’re open to sharing in a way that feels authentic to your teammate and team culture
• Celebrate your teammate’s efforts and make them feel like a valued member of the team. I had a few very kind, wonderful teammates recognize my work before my leave, and it made me feel so seen, valued, and eager to come back after my leave.?
• Offer concrete ways to help fill gaps in your teammate’s coverage plan. If you simply ask “What can I do to help?” the answer will likely be something like “Oh, nothing”. Instead, try saying something like, “I know you’re responsible for XYZ, would it be helpful if I took that over while you’re on leave?”
• Be patient where possible. The weeks leading up to and coming out of leave tend to be overwhelming. Try to limit requests around those times to those that are essential or urgent as much as possible.?
• Encourage your team to take their leaves and set strong examples of leaders taking leave, especially non-birthing parents. Will didn’t take a full leave with our first daughter, and it made a huge difference to have him on leave this time around.?
• Advocate for parental leave with your managers and leadership if your company doesn’t have a strong policy in place.?
• Anything else? Let me know what else we can do to support our new working parents?

I’m so grateful for the time I’ve had to get to know my new baby daughter, transition our family into this new phase of life, and start getting a bit more sleep to be more mentally prepared. And now I’m excited to head back to my team next week to continue jamming!

Planning for your own parental leave? Use my FigJam template to prepare your coverage plan: