“Child-Raising Vacation”

That’s what they call extended maternity leave in Romania. You get six weeks of obligatory medical leave, then after that you have the option to take two years of paid “child-raising vacation.” Sound too good to be true? I thought so, too.

We were in the car on the way gone from the airport, and on a whim I decided to check my bank balance again. I’d been checking it every few days for the last few months, anxiously awaiting the day my maternity leave pay would finally show up.



Honestly, I was a little bit skeptical — does the government really pay you to stay home with your kid? Or is this some kind of myth and nobody’s had the heart to tell me it isn’t real? Is it a sick joke the country plays on foreigners to trick us into having babies here? Was all that paperwork I filed at city hall just a guise to collect personal information about my family?

So there I was, logging into my mobile banking app again, somewhat mechanically because I knew my account was empty.

Current Balance: 5028.00 RON

WHAT.

Five thousand twenty-eight! That’s roughly twelve hundred dollars, equivalent to four months’ pay. To quote my husband, “Ai de shmaykle.” It was all true.

“It’ll take awhile to get to you ‘cause they’re always behind with all that paperwork, but don’t worry - when it comes, you’ll get it all.” Well, at least the folks at city hall were up-front about the situation.

I grew up in a financially stable, conservative American family, so getting money from the government is kind of a strange idea for me. Getting paid to stay home? What? But I love it. I love that I get to spend the first two years of Ben’s life taking care of him, without having to pump in the school bathroom or pay for daycare. I love that I’m here to see him grow and change all day, not just for a few hours at night. Are there people who abuse the system? Probably, but I think the majority don’t. I think it’s amazing that this culture values motherhood enough to continue paying you, and hold your job for you, while you take some time off to hold your baby.

See, that’s how I saw it at first: getting paid to hold my baby. When I saw my bank balance that day, my first thought was “Yay! Free money!” But the truth is that I worked for that money.

Don’t let anybody tell you that staying home isn’t work. Staying home is HARD.

You think it’s easy working nonstop from 5:30 am to midnight without so much as a potty break by yourself? Eating with one hand while you hold 15 pounds of dead weight in the other? Sometimes with that dead weight screaming at you? Going DAYS without seeing another person other than your spouse (God bless the man) because leaving the house just ain’t happening this week — thanks, teething. It is physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually exhausting.

I’ve come to the conclusion that maternity pay is NOT free money. It is hard-earned cash. When I was teaching, I worked around 7 hours a day for minimum wage. Now I work 24/7.

So you know what? I went to the grocery store last night and bought myself some ice cream, bacon, AND an expensive bottle of 100% juice. I came home and downloaded a kindle book that wasn’t free. Hey, I might even go wild and buy myself a new shirt or something.

Why not? I worked for that money.