iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — An author’s suggestion that all women would benefit from “meternity” leave that would give them time to step away from their jobs has sparked controversy.
Meghann Foye is the author of Meternity, a new novel in which an overworked editor fakes her own pregnancy in order to get paid time off — a “meternity” leave.
In her own life, Foye, 38, also worked as a magazine editor and has said she felt jealous of parents who left the office to pick up their kids. Foye revealed she once declared to a pregnant friend that she needed her own maternity leave.
“Of course, that didn’t happen,” Foye wrote in an article in the New York Post. “But the more I thought about it, the more I came to believe in the value of a ‘meternity’ leave — which is, to me, a sabbatical-like break that allows women and, to a lesser degree, men to shift their focus to the part of their lives that doesn’t revolve around their jobs.”
Foye continued, “And as I watched my friends take their real maternity leaves, I saw that spending three months detached from their desks made them much more sure of themselves. One friend made the decision to leave her corporate career to create her own business; another decided to switch industries. From the outside, it seemed like those few weeks of them shifting their focus to something other than their jobs gave them a whole new lens through which to see their lives.”
Foye’s proposal of a “meternity” leave has sparked backlash from moms who say maternity leave was no break for them, but a recovery from delivering a child, and then weeks and months spent devoting themselves to that child’s every need. Readers called her New York Post article “baffling” and “ridiculous.”
Foye was scheduled to appear Friday on ABC’s Good Morning America but cancelled her appearance after the backlash. Foye issued a statement through her publisher, Mira Books.
“I have tremendous respect for women who take time away from building their careers to raise their children. It’s inarguably the hardest job in the world. I’ve seen my closest friends do just that. I would never begrudge anyone who decides to start a family and takes maternity leave. And I totally get it when moms who return to work need to leave at 6: they have a second job waiting for them when they get home after working all day,” the statement read. “My concept of ‘meternity’ is designed to introduce and support the notion that all women deserve the opportunity to take stock and re-examine their goals in order to birth a life that works for them. Moms need it, and so do the rest of us who are trying to figure out the work/life balance. More than anything, all women—moms and those who aren’t—need to support each other.”
Dr. Janet Taylor, a psychiatrist and mother-of-four, said Friday on GMA that the idea of “meternity” leave is dividing.
“It minimizes the notion of stress and guilt for working moms and it also really undermines the fact that being a mother is a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week full-time commitment,” Taylor said. “We can’t belittle that because we know that our kids just don’t need us when they’re younger and they’re infants, they need us throughout their lives.”
“There is a reality about what it takes to be a mom and that means taking time off and there a number of, millions of women, who can’t even take a day off because if they take a day off they’ll lose their jobs and don’t even have maternity leave,” she added.
ABC News’ Chief Business and Economics Correspondent Rebecca Jarvis said the debate might be a reaction to trends in society and the workplace.
“People are delaying parenthood longer. The average age of a first-time mother is 26,” Jarvis said on GMA. “On top of that, companies in the great recession cut back so dramatically there are fewer people to fill that void when someone is out, whether that’s for maternity leave or, heaven forbid, sick leave, there are fewer people to cover the void in the workplace.”
“I appreciate how people who are still sitting in the workplace feel when they have to fill in for whomever that person is,” she added. “But as somebody, again, who plans to hopefully have that bond someday with my own child and plans to have children someday, I can appreciate the importance of that and that, I think, supersedes everything else.”
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