Acclaim for Babygate
“Any mother-to-be who buys What to Expect When You’re Expecting should pick up a copy of Babygate to go with it. It offers indispensable advice to allow working parents to stay on the job and is a blueprint for change in the coming work–family revolution.”
—Anne-Marie Slaughter, Princeton University professor and author of Why Women Still Can’t Have It All
“A Better Balance, one of the outstanding defenders of parents’ legal rights in the United States, has given us an indispensable guide with Babygate. No new parent should leave the hospital without it!”
—Ann Crittenden, Pulitzer Prize nominee and author of The Price of Motherhood
“If you’re a working parent, you need Babygate—an invaluable and humane guide for expecting and new parents about their legal and economic rights in the American workplace. The information in its pages will provide answers to your most important questions and empower you to stand up for yourself and working families.”
—Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation
BABYGATE
How to Survive Pregnancy and Parenting in the Workplace
Dina Bakst
Phoebe Taubman
Elizabeth Gedmark
Published in 2014 by the Feminist Press
at the City University of New York
The Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue, Suite 5406
New York, NY 10016
feministpress.org
Text copyright © 2014 by Dina Bakst, Phoebe Taubman, and Elizabeth Gedmark
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, used, or stored in any information retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the Feminist Press at the City University of New York, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First printing September 2014
Cover design by Jenifer Walter
Text design by Drew Stevens
Icon design by Suki Boynton
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bakst, Dina, author.
Babygate : how to survive pregnancy and parenting in the workplace / by Dina Bakst, Phoebe Taubman, and Elizabeth Gedmark.
pages cm
Includes state-by-state guide.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-55861-861-9 (pbk.) — ISBN 978-1-55861-862-6 (ebook)
1. Mothers—Employment—Law and legislation—United States. 2. Pregnant women—Employment—Law and legislation—United States. 3. Working mothers—Legal status, laws, etc.—United States. 4. Parental leave—Law and legislation—United States. 5. Discrimination in employment—Law and legislation—United States. I. Taubman, Phoebe, author. II. Gedmark, Elizabeth, author. III. Title.
KF3467.B35 2014
650.1085’20973—dc23
2014020052
CONTENTS
1 CONGRATULATIONS: You’re Expecting! Now What?
2 TIME TO BOND: Planning for Parental Leave
3 BACK INTO THE GROOVE: Returning to Work as a Parent
4 THE PARENT TRAP: Confronting Stigma and Bias at Work
Key to the State-by-State guide