By: Revanche

Women’s Money Week: Maternity/parental leave in California

March 2, 2015

This post is part of Women’s Money Week.

SDI, FMLA, PFL, oh my!

PiC and I are eligible for protected leave in various forms after Little Bean’s birth, not all the same, and not all equal, so it was a bit of a maze figuring it all out.

PiC is entitled to six weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave under FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act), and qualifies under the birth of a child. This has to be taken within one year of birth.

His employer also pays for an amazing six weeks of parental leave to be taken during the year following the child’s birth.

I was not eligible for this but, as the child-bearer, I can take 6 weeks of partially paid, job-protected leave under CA’s SDI (state disability insurance) after birth. Pregnancy is considered a disability for this purpose and considering how you feel in the last few weeks, yeah, that’s justifiable. I could (should) also have taken off 4 weeks prior to our expected due date, and would have liked to, but I wasn’t willing to go to essentially half pay a month in advance. Chalk that up to my neuroses … if there was going to be a next time, I’d probably try to plan better so I could take that time.

Half pay was a hard pill to swallow as we stare down the barrel of childcare and various costs associated with a brand new human.

Quick Facts about FMLA

• FMLA is unpaid, job-protected leave for specified family and medical reasons
• You get 12 workweeks of leave in a 12-month period
• Your employer is only required to comply if they employ 50 or more employees.

Quick Facts about SDI

• You cannot apply for SDI until you have stopped earning wages. Therefore if you don’t go on leave until the last minute, you’ll have to wrangle paperwork when it’s least convenient: squalling baby, sleep fogged brain, fiddling with a state administered website. That’s one reason to go on leave earlier if you can afford it!

California now issues payments via an EDD Debit card instead of checks. I hated this until I realized this is really good for the unbanked – if you don’t have a bank account, getting a check from EDD would be another barrier to receiving much needed income.

Following his FMLA and my SDI leaves, taken concurrently, we are both eligible to take an additional six weeks of PFL (Paid Family Leave)

Quick Facts about PFL

• You can roll directly over from an SDI claim to a PFL claim.
• Covers individuals who take time off of work to care for a seriously ill child, spouse, parent, or registered domestic partner, or to bond with a new child.
• This is also partially paid at 55% for six weeks.

Because we don’t have a great plan for childcare (that is a whole other post/conversation) once our leaves are up and we don’t have much in the way of a support network, we have to be careful to take enough leave to recover from the whole ordeal of childbirth and bringing a new baby home but not so much that we’re out of luck later on if we have to deal with health problems.

We had a good first well baby visit, for which we are eternally thankful, but you never know what tomorrow may bring.

At the same time, these first weeks and months are precious. We don’t know if we’ll do this again so we are trying to be present for this experience, the good, bad, and poopy. Paid leave makes it possible to actually do that: support each other, get to know how best to care for our new family, establish new routines, and actually recover. There’s a darn good reason sleep deprivation is a torture tactic, most of us do not truly function well on the couple hours of sleep that a newborn allows!

Ultimately, I think it just makes so much more sense to have some kind of parental leave policy that gives new parents the space they need to regroup. For us, I would feel like we can return to work with a renewed sense of purpose.

For other states, have a look at Babygate.

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