Returning to Work After Maternity Leave: From Rights to Resilience

Introduction and Welcome

Opening & Introduction

Britta: Hello folks, and welcome to transformed by birth, a podcast about the rite of passage of pregnancy, birth and new parenthood. I'm your host. Britta Bushnell, author, mythologist, childbirth educator and all around deep diver with a side of goofball. I'm so glad you're here. Today's episode is about the often uncomfortable bedfellows of work and parenthood. So grab your comfy beverage. Let me just Today's episode is about the often uncomfortable bedfellows of work and parenthood. So grab your comfy beverage of choice. Mine is a decaf black tea today, or take us along for a walk as we dive deep with maternal rights at work. Lawyer Daphne delvo, before we begin, we start the way we always do, by lighting a candle. If you want to join me, please do or just take a breath as I light mine, I light today's candle, acknowledging the often messy process of merging our identities of parent and professional.

The Profound Transformation of Parenthood

Britta: There's this moment that often happens after you have a baby, you're looking at this little person you've created, and suddenly everything you thought mattered before feels different. Your priorities don't just shift. They get completely reordered in a way that feels both somehow natural and absolutely earth shattering at the same time. And here's what's both heartbreaking and maddening our work our work culture often expects you to act like this profound transformation never happened, like your baby's needs should somehow always take a back seat to business needs, like you should be grateful for the bare minimum, rather than advocating for what you and your baby actually need to thrive. What if we've got this completely backwards? What if becoming a parent isn't something to hide or minimize, but actually gives us superpowers that make us better at what we do. And what if navigating this work, this work, life parent life threshold was embraced as part of the larger rite of passage of becoming a parent?

Guest Introduction

Well, today's guest first became known to me through her Instagram handle the mom attorney back in 2021 right away, I knew our work aligned, and when I decided to launch this podcast, she was one of the first people I wanted to talk to. Daphne is an employment lawyer who founded the nation's first law firm devoted exclusively to mothers rights at work. She's also the creator of the mom attorney, a platform on a mission to educate mothers on their rights at work and teach them how to advocate for their needs, including extended maternity leaves, financial benefits, telework, flexibility, more breaks, pumping, protections and more, all without sacrificing their career goals. Key part. Daphne calls herself a love warrior who's on a mission protecting what she calls the Mother Baby Bundle and something I just learned today. Daphne just finished writing a book to be published by HarperCollins in February 2026 Daphne, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to finally get to talk with you live, rather than through Instagram messages.

Daphne: I know I'm so excited, too. Thank you so much for having me here.

The Threshold of Returning to Work

Britta: So you it's it's super great to have you. So you and I were just talking about right before we hit record, about this transformation and about the rite of passage of becoming a parent, and how one of the big initiations for many parents, is that moment heading back to work that it's a hard one. Can you talk to me about what you have seen around this threshold that is your specialty? What are parents facing? What's happening for them beyond simply navigating it with their work, although that is a part of it. What is happening for them?

The Complex Tensions Parents Face

Daphne: Ooh, such a good, juicy question. So there's a few things that are happening for them, mainly that there is this tension between their work life and their family life, where they feel like there are so many needs all around and they don't really know where to go and how to orient themselves. In addition, their bodies are also wanting to be home with the baby or expressing breast milk, but they're using a pump, so there's suddenly this kind of separation between their work life and their family life, which can be extremely uncomfortable and often premature, and at the same time, workplaces can be quite sterile and can be, you know, the void of language related to our body's functions, including lactation and breastfeeding and healing and anxiety and depression and everything related to our baby. So we meet, we may feel the need to kind of suppress our motherhood in the workplace or parenting experience in the workplace, and just kind of pretend like nothing happened, as if that baby isn't just as demanding as during the newborn days, and it's in that place where I meet parents and this tension of I feel like I can't be honest. I don't know how to express my needs. I feel like I'm scared to rock the boat. Maybe I've asked for too much. I need my job because also now we're providing right, both mothers and fathers. Suddenly we it's not just our own ambitions or paying our own cell phone bill, but we have to actually provide and often what it means is actually paying to work in a sense that we're paying for child care. So here we are actually investing in this job financially so that we can be paid. So there's this whole recalculation that needs to happen as to is this even worth it? Does this even make sense for me?

The Violence of Abrupt Transitions

And then there's also the harsh reality of being thrown back into the world of time and attendance policies and time sheets and projects that are due yesterday, and coming back to a whole pile of work and maybe resentful co workers, just this rushed, urgent energy that when we were with our baby, we were kind of, we left the world of time. Everything is such a blur. Everything kind of bleeds together when we're with our baby, and suddenly we're in this really abrupt world of time, and it can feel violent to the system to kind of move back into that at the beginning and then through that, because this is really challenging. And this is where most mothers call me and just say, I can't do this, like this is impossible, and it's almost a little bit like during birth, during transition, when women say, I can't do this when they're giving birth, and then they're doing it right, like there's some they're doing it even though, while they're saying I can't do it. So that's what I see in my work too, is parenting, I can't do it, but they're actually doing it. They just need a couple of tools and some resources and also the confidence to make sure that they can get their needs met at work.

Parenting as Advocacy

Parenting from the moment we're pregnant is advocacy. And it is a muscle. It is a skill that we can learn, and it is so different to do it on behalf of your children, because suddenly, kind of that primal protective energy comes out. And you know, in the before we have kids, often we can kind of ignore our own limitations, or kind of you know, work late or show up early, and suddenly we can't do that anymore. We have to leave at five or a certain time. We can't stay for the late meeting. We can't go to happy hour. And it can suddenly feel like there's guilt on both ends, both mom guilt, but also work guilt, feeling like we can't keep up at work either. So there's just a lot to delve into during this really tender time, which I do believe to be an initiation, because when I see women and parents come out of this time, they are these advocacy ninjas, like they know exactly how to communicate their needs without being antagonistic, in a way where they can actually position themselves as experts on some of these compliance issues, and by that, and then, by extension, actually help their employers, or they can be a bridge to a whole new demographic of clients. And motherhood and parenting is a superpower, and it is something that primes us to be the best, most expansive version of ourselves, and that is the version that we are giving to our employers. So these are just some of the things that I'm seeing when it comes to returning to work.

Time, Apollo, and Artemis

Britta: Wow. I mean, I just wrote down a whole bunch of notes, because there were so many pieces as you were speaking that were triggering thoughts for me, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna pull a couple of threads, if I can, which is one, the first one I wrote down, that felt so alive, and the way you spoke about it so powerful. Is time, time, time. As a there, there's such different qualities of time. And the time is the clock is such a symbol and tool of the Apollonian over culture. You know, I talk archetypally. I know you know this about the archetypes that that are at play during this time, being the twins Apollo and Artemis Apollo really representing that cultured he's his tools are things like the liar, and he's a poet, and he's about like elevated culture and order and structure and brightly lit. He's a sun god, whereas Artemis, his twin, is at home in the wilderness and is untamed and is a moon goddess. So has more of a connection to time that is cyclical, rather than direct like the sun time. And when you spoke about time, I it made me think of these twins, because that that pregnancy, birth, postpartum period, time is so artemision. It's so uncontrolled and wild and untamed and more connected to cyclical types of time than the time that it's on a clock. And yet, when we go back into the workforce, it's very much clock time. And you use the term that being violent, and that was really striking to me, that it can feel violent to the body, right? That that that artemision time is so embodied. And then we're like, Okay, here's the time you have to be here, the time you know. And then you also spoke about how we've really, in many ways, been programmed through our lives to override the messages that our body, our animal body, is telling us, so that we can work late, so we can go to this thing or that thing. And when we are parenting, there's it's harder to override our our body, because it's not just our body that's paying the price. And suddenly that's a our baby is a mirror for what it is that's happening. And so to me that that feels like that connects that violent piece in a really like dagger. I could feel it as you spoke about it,

Extending Artemisian Time

Daphne: yeah, and we can all feel it because there's a there's a separation that occurs, there's a rupture, and we have to be honest about that. And even though it is quote, unquote normal in a sense that I guess we all do it, that's kind of how culturally, how it's treated. It doesn't mean that it's not violent. Doesn't mean that it isn't a great cultural wound and to some extent, a trauma that all of us are moving through together. And truly, my role is to do everything in my power to make that transition not traumatic, and to make that transition smooth and seamless and easeful and restful, even joyful, even celebratory and even playful, if that's possible. That's what I've seen, and the way that I do that is by extending artemision time, essentially by extending the artemisian way of relating to our own bodies and babies, kind of in stretching that out as far as we can, because where the violence and the rupture occurs is when there is this kind of abrupt shift, instead of a shift, a transition, a transformation that can be more health and contained. So so much of my work is kind of in like speaking in apollonial language, but for Artemis, for the feminine, for the mother, for the wild, for the baby. But of course, we can't speak that language in a workplace setting, so I'm, in a sense, this translator where I teach you the language that is appropriate in that setting and professional and also accepted. Often that means that we're using specific regulations, or we're using even medical language to describe what are just really purely physiological processes. But this is some of the language that is accepted in the work setting, so that when the mother feels like I'm overwhelmed, my baby's not taking the bottle, my breasts are leaking the moment I even go to the store, I can't get away. I can't imagine going back to work, but I need my job. I can't quit in this tension of. There is no good solution. I give her the language to come up with some options that are right in front of her. And so what is so important about my work is that I am not looking at this illusory, visionary time in the future where we all magically get along. I mean, I'm absolutely moving towards that. And

Holding Vision While Working in the Present

Britta: can we all hope for that? Advocate? Let's not skip over that too fast, because I think we all need to hold on to redo that, that vision, and continue to advocate for today,

Daphne: right? Because it's in this gap that we can feel grief of like it should be so much easier. We should have the village. We should be understood, we should be respected, and that's where we can start to feel hopeless, because we see what's possible, and we're not there, and we don't know how or when we'll get there. So it's like we hold a vision, but we also look at today. What are some of the tools available today, resources that you can actually use right now, an email that you can send that will help you in this moment, to stay with your baby, to get more time off, to get more to be excused from this very draconian clock. Because truly what the workplace relationship is like it is in time, in exchange for money. That is the basic agreement and tenant of capitalism, and then motherhood, and parenthood comes in and drops a bomb, and motherhood is in total contradiction with the basic tenants of capitalism, because it says, actually we want to be home. Or actually, we can do the work in less time. Actually, we don't want to sit in traffic for an hour and then see our baby for one hour in the evening. That makes no sense. Or, actually, we don't want to return to work because we've just done our job from home. Time is so much more stretched within the artemisian dimension to and that doesn't mean we're not as good at our jobs, and that's also where a lot of the frustration lies, because it feels good to be trusted with your work, as opposed to like you need to be here nine to five, because that's just a norm, and all mothers rebel against that norm, Right? Which, which, which. It's natural, because it's not conducive to the motherhood experience. So what I help them with is stretching artemision time. I've never expressed it in this way, but this is really like what it is giving them the email templates, like, how do you ask for flex work, remote work, more time off in a way that you don't lose your job or your benefits or all the protections that you truly need also to support your family.

Learning Advocacy as a Skill for Life

Britta: Yeah, I love that, that as a translator from the artemisian realm into the Apollonian realm, to help folks get what it is that will support them and their their dyad, or, if any multiples, triads, or beyond, and not lose their job. Because I do think that piece is part of, there's, there's the frustration of the place of, I can get this all done, like I'm getting it done. I mean, what's this the saying you want something to get done? Give it to a busy mom. Busy mom. It's like, oh my gosh. I mean, and, and it can also feel, especially early on, daunting for a new parent, to feel like they're still healing their body, learning how to be a parent, going through their own psychological identity transformation, and now doing that at work. So I love that you're trying to stretch that time, because that abruptness is part of what is so challenging. But it's, it's not just the frustration about not being seen well. It's also the fear of of what is it called? Like, the the motherhood tax, or the what is

Daphne: it? Yeah, the motherhood tax of being army tracked, yes, right? Yeah,

Britta: where, where? Then it can feel and and be that they actually lose some of their upward trajectory in their field and, and that can be a place where there's also a lot of fear,

Navigating Fear and Advocacy Rights

Daphne: right? And this is why I'm very busy, because this absolutely happens. You know, we don't want to minimize that, that women can lose their professional advancement, and also when we are prepared and informed on our rights and what the law actually says, that shouldn't happen. And it is really important, when we are advocating for ourselves, that the fee. Is going to be right there, you know, there is a real fear there of repercussions of rocking the boat, and that fear is connected to your livelihood and survival. So it is very deep. It is very root chakra, you know, like, I don't want to override that. I just want to welcome that fully into this space. And every mother is going to have to make their own assessment and kind of balance as to how far she can push it. And this is going to also depend on privilege and how much access to resources that she has, and just a few things I want to share in relation to this, this advocacy, it can sometimes backfire when we're not transparent. So let's say we're struggling at work. We're struggling when we come back, but we kind of, like bite our tongue and just kind of suffer through it. But people notice, you know, they notice that a few things aren't, you know, up to the same level or standard as it used to be. It is actually worse to try to push through that and say nothing than to be honest and say, I need support. I am a postpartum mother. I understand. I have accommodation rights. I need some support with that, because at least then we're in a legally protected bubble, and if something does happen, that is retaliation, it's illegal, and that's actionable. So there's something that we can do about that. But so often what happens is that mothers end up out of a job because they didn't say something. Their work suffers, and then they get put on a performance improvement plan, and then they're out of the door and they really regret that they didn't at least try to advocate for themselves.

The Power Dynamics of Workplace Advocacy

But it's absolutely true that there can be this, like, who am I? Right? Like, who all of this work I put in, I don't want to lose that. I don't want to lose all of the reputation and the legitimacy and the professional connections that I've built up. And the more that we can be transparent and honest, the more that we also create trust with our employers. Often, what I also see is that they want to help the mothers, but they don't know how they see that there's something and they want to help because they also want to be compliant. You know, you'd be surprised that employers are more scared of mothers than mothers are scared of their employers, because I see this from both sides. We tend to be so nervous and have this trepidation as mothers in the workplace of like, oh no. Like, we're so worried because we're going to get kicked out. But it's also the employers are really scared because they don't want to deal with a lawyer like me. There's these really strong protections and rights that we have as mothers, if we really choose to flex that muscle so they can be, sometimes even over accommodating, because they want to make sure that you feel fully protected and secured, and there's kind of no risk for them for there to be any tension. And so every workplace is different, of course, but just to not assume that your advocacy is going to result in job loss, often it is actually the inverse. That's true, that they might really respect that you say what you need. And with men, we call this assertiveness. When a man returns from having a baby, he asks for more money because he has a family to support, that's what he does. But we as women, we are so worried because, of course, we have the physical experience, or the birthing parents, they have the physical experience. So we feel like we're asking for too much, right? And we also have a family to support. We also have a body to support. So and what I also like to remind those who are birthing and mothers is that the manager you're asking also comes from a mother. You'd be surprised. Like, how many managers have soft spots because they they really love their own mother, you know, like, there is a love for mothers, not in every workplace, not with every manager, but what we don't want to do is make assumptions about and telling stories to ourselves about what might happen, because truly, we don't know. And a boat is meant to be rocked, otherwise, you're on a bad boat. If your boat can't withstand a little storm, then I get on another boat. And it's probably good to know that. It's probably good to know whether the place where you're devoting almost all of your time and attention to is in reciprocity with you.

Teaching Advocacy to Our Children

Britta: I love that, and it you're you're reminding me of another point that I wrote down here from what you were saying a few minutes ago about the role of advocacy in the life of a parent, that there is this aspect, this the fear walking side by side, the desire to get needs met, is a common piece throughout our lives as advocates, and we could say that. But one of the hats that we wear as a parent is as advocate for our child, and we wear that hat Intel. We pass it on to our child, tell our child learns how to advocate for themselves, and guess how they learn how to do that by watching you right? And so there is this piece of acknowledging like, just as I would with my now adult children, if or when they were, you know, more like teens if they would be like, Well, I don't want to ask for that with my teacher because it feels uncomfortable, or I'm worried that they'll say XYZ, or they'll retaliate, that we get to walk through that gate first in these moments with employers on our own behalf, that we can then be able to better speak to it when our children are facing those moments with people in power, because that's what we're talking about, where, when we're in a situation of advocacy, we're talking about doing something to help ourselves or loved ones who are in a position of authority over us in some way, whether that's in the labor room with with medical providers or a medical team and advocating for our rights. It's not saying that our rights don't matter. Our rights clearly matter, and that still often means we have to be the one reminding the people in power that we have

Strategic Advocacy Examples

Daphne: rights Right exactly. And what I try to teach is to do this in a way that is constructive, not destructive, because that's another fear of you know, like they I'm going to be seen as a difficult one, or, you know, the one that's using this legal language, and there's a way to do it that's very professional and very collaborative, where you position yourself as helping Your

Britta: employer. Basically, can you give us an example, all of us.

Daphne: So for example, instead of saying, I'm entitled to my rights under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, I know you have to accommodate me. Instead, we can say, can we have a meeting? I just learned about this new law. I want to make sure the company's in compliance. I'm really concerned about any risks as someone who's currently experiencing this, it would be really interesting for me to lead any policy related to how we can support parents, to avoid them leaving, or avoid any issues with retention, and you can bring in some data about how it's a lot cheaper to support your parent employees than to lose them, and then having to hire someone else. Like, all the data is there. So employers love a good spreadsheet, and they love it when you take the lead, because then you are suddenly creating policy, and you are really intricating yourself into this organization as a leader. And that is actually really good for their goodwill, like it is really good for them for their appeal as a company to say, we have these leaders. They're leading mothers, they're leading women. We have a task force or a committee, like you'd be surprised, like, how well received it could be if you position yourself as someone that's there to help everyone, as opposed to being in a conflict, like positioning yourself in conflict to your employer.

The Lifelong Nature of Advocacy Skills

But I mean, it's true that advocacy is a lifelong skill, from the moment we're pregnant, or even before, when we if we need IVF or we're thinking about pregnancy, with our providers, with insurance companies, and it is a skill that we also have to teach our children, because it is also conditioned in us that it's better to just keep your head down and be quiet, and it's it takes, yeah, yeah. Advocacy something that, after a while, will become really natural, and especially when you learn how to be really strategic, and that feels really good, because it means that everywhere you go, you're true to yourself and you're true to your own needs. And that is something that is also a beautiful form of a generational gift to pass on to your children. And this is why, in my work, my favorite way to work with moms is actually empower them to be their own best advocate, because the best lawyer for your baby is going to be you. It's not going to be me, because that is your baby. So what I love. To do is teach you everything I know, but you are actually the one advocating for yourself, and that's something I do inside of my membership program. But so many women, when they leave my services, they say, this is something that I'll be able to use for the rest of my life, and that always gives me such satisfaction to hear that, because it's so true too, and and I also want to share that I am not like, you know, those kids that are naturally argumentative. I have one of them. I was actually not one of them. I was very shy and timid. I wasn't one of those, like naturally assertive lawyers. It is very much a skill I learned as a woman who's very soft and very sensitive and very tender like it was quite an unnatural job for me to be a trial lawyer amidst all of these gorillas that have such thick skin, I never quite develop thick skin. Or often, I would work and go and argue for my clients, but on my way home, I would cry, and I just want to validate that it's very natural for this to be hard, that it's okay to move through the emotionality of like I'm doing this really scary thing and just sent an email, and now I'm just like, pacing back and forth and I don't know what's going to happen. Like that is very natural because we're pushing through a lot of fear, and also sometimes it can be helpful to just have the information and not take action right now, but at least know that the law has your back. That can be really comforting to know to have this just in your back pocket.

Initiation Through Difficulty

Britta: Yeah, I love that that information in your back pocket. And also the idea that it might be hard and likely will be hard, and that is, in some ways, one of the indicators that this itself is an initiation, because initiations aren't initiations, if you just get to go Hi. Thanks so much. This is great that you don't get changed by that you don't get changed by the easy, yeah, you get changed moving through what is tough now, do I wish it weren't so tough, hell yes, I wish it weren't so tough, and going through that is part of part of what can can help us get to know ourselves in new ways and know new aspects of ourselves that likely will benefit us by being awakened to those parts of ourselves in our journey as parents, as professionals, throughout our whole lives, as people, right? We've got three Ps as as parents, professionals and people. It's like we need those skills. They're part of and and if this is one of the initiations that the current culture provides for us, okay, let's, let's get in there and get let's embrace it. Let's do what we need to do to to be transformed by it. Yeah,

The Dissolution of the "Good Girl" Archetype

Daphne: I love it. And what I'm sensing in this transformation is that there is an as in every initiation, there is a dissolution that needs to happen. There is the dissolution of the good girl archetype, the one that was just cool with everything and tidy and timely and nice and just happy to take on any project, even though she was so exhausted and she canceled family gatherings to pick on extra work and doing organizing the the office parties and taking on all this admin work or just laughing off, uh, jokes that are racist or sexist, like there is this good girl archetype that needs to be dissolved before we can be reborn into capital M, mother or P parent, where we have edges, we have a boundary. We are not so porous, and we're not so malleable. We're more sturdy and grounded and rooted, and we are really in our bodies, and we we speak not just from our minds, but from our wombs. And our wombs have a very strong, deep voice. It's a lot less like, oh, and I know it's like deep and it's true and it's real, and that is such a powerful place to speak from. And so what I feel in this initiation and transformation for turning to work is that there is this Instant Pot pressure cooker where you're feel you feel soupy because you have your baby, you have your work. There's so many needs all around you. You feel like your own needs have become. Irrelevant, and you're just running and running and and then the breath will come of like, okay, and then there's more spaciousness and a little bit more spaciousness. And a lot of mothers want to quit at this time, which I understand. I often counsel them to wait a little and just let the waves come, let the waves come because often it's, it's a little bit like you feel everything you

Breathing Through the Contractions

Britta: said, they're the contractions. Be there, yeah, they're the contractions eventually, yeah, it and you might

Daphne: be happy to be there, see your colleagues, have some time to yourself, feel some individuation and differentiation from your family. You can feel really purposeful in your work, because you're contributing to the collective and the greater good for the next generation, which includes your and all children. So there all of that can coexist in this soup. So as you It's so true, it's contraction and expansion, contraction and expansion. And there's going to be a moment where you feel like, I can't do this, and just like in birth, we gotta breathe through that. We gotta breathe through that, and we may need to moan and howl. Yes, we may need to moan and howl. I mean, it doesn't mean that if you're in this growth phase and you're in a contraction expansion, contraction expansion process, that there aren't those moments like you spoke about in the car on the way home from being a trial lawyer, where you cry like right, not speaking about this change and and adaptation and expansion in our psyches and identities, meaning that we aren't going to still lose it, right? And it's so welcome,

The Voice of the Wild

Britta: right? It's losing it matters. Losing it actually can be good, because that the womb. Voice that you spoke has moans. The womb voice has howls and cries and whinnies. And it is that voice of the wild, Mm, hmm, and it's still, it still wants to be

Daphne: heard. And everything we lose, we gain double after the loss. But the loss needs to happen. There needs to be a shedding, just like in birth, like and it is messy and it is uncomfortable, and it's going to require maybe some tough decisions. Sometimes this happens in birth too, right? Like I need to change something, I need to make a pivot, or something happens where we're surrendered and things feel overwhelming. And this is the same with returning to work after becoming a parent, you may find that the math doesn't add up in a sense of like, being there at a job you don't like and you're not respected and not appreciated doesn't feel aligned anymore, like you could kind of deal with it and suck it up in the past, but now it's like I'm sacrificing time away from my most precious baby, it has to be worth it. It has to feel the work has to be so purposeful and exciting for it to be worth leaving your baby for and it can sometimes that feeling can subside, and you can find meaning in that workplace. Maybe you ask for some sort of lateral transition or promotion or demotion. Sometimes it means another workplace. Sometimes it's this means part time or adding more hours, or your own employee place of your own business, right place where it can shift.

A Catalyst for Truth

But what motherhood does is that you can't escape your truth. It is a catalyst. It is a magnifying glass on everything you're trying to hide from yourself, because you can no longer afford wasting time and wasting life, because that means that you are sacrificing on the family front. And it's just the formula has to make sense, and what I see with a lot of parents during this, that first year, first couple of years, is there's there might be some shifts, or there might be some some requests in the workplace, of things that you've wanted for a while, but now you really need, like, you need more money, you know? And a lot of parents do this, and should I encourage this? Because it's expensive we have to provide for our families. So, yeah, yeah, it's very natural also for this to be very unique to you. I don't I never encourage anyone to quit or to stay or to do a certain thing. I do encourage them to take a breath with it and to let the waves come for a little while and kind of wait it out, because what I do also see is the first couple of weeks after returning to work are not like indicative of the whole experience. Like this is a threshold threshold, right? And we can judge our entire life by the thresholds, because we. We

The Parallel Between Birth and Return to Work

Britta: don't know where we'd be, I don't know where we'd be either, because thresholds are often clunky, with the clunky AF, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's, I mean, in the way you're speaking about this, it's really the first time that I'm thinking about the similarity between returning to work and labor, that there is so much similarity in each of these threshold experiences of really bringing us to our knees, shedding past parts of ourselves, awakening new parts of ourselves, finding a different voice, like these things. There's so many parallels that I'm seeing that I haven't really imagined or seen before, and I appreciate that. Yeah, and you've got to just keep breathing, keep breathing, and that sometimes we can't do it alone, and we have to reach out and ask for help, right and get support from others, whether it's our partner or A family member or a professional like you, skilled in this specific field.

Creating a Return-to-Work Plan

Daphne: right? One thing I want to share in this parallel with with birth, is that I feel like we as mothers are doing a good job preparing ourselves for birth generally. You know, I remember reading a lot of books and doing a lot of courses and having a birth plan, but we don't really do that for our work life like we don't really have a return to work plan so much. We just assume that our employers are handling that and figuring that out. And I really want to challenge that, because you cannot outsource your own education to your employer, first of all, because you cannot assume that they know what your rights will be. And if you show up on your first day with your with your pumping bag, and you didn't give them notice of your time and space to pump, it can be very frustrating for everyone. So we need a good plan as to how we're going to approach maternity leave, and also any eventualities of what might happen. This is what I'll do if I have postpartum depression. This is what I'll do if I have a continued birth injury. This is what I'll do if I have a C section, and you can actually enlist your partner to help you with that, because this is not what they do. Like making fantasy drafts with like, all potential outcomes. And like, you can create a good spreadsheet, like, put him in or her in charge of creating this plan of really being

Britta: spreadsheet is a verb in our house, so I have my husband's a financial planner, so it's like, we use it as a verb. Are you going to spreadsheet that

Daphne: job? They give him the job of holding the fields of like all of the eventualities. So because we're already doing so much and doing all of the emotional and mental labor related to our rights and the law and the request and advocacy, it can be a lot. So you can ask to share that. You can even enlist a partner and say, If I experience postpartum depression, I want you to send this email to my boss, or I want you to help me and support me in sending this email, because I might feel too hopeless and all the symptoms to be able to do it myself, and so we have to actually prepare for returning to work and just the whole experience of workplace and parenting, just like we prepare for birth, and

Preparing for the Unexpected

Britta: just like with birth, preparing for not the idealized version that we most hope for, But I'm hearing you speak about, prepare for the unexpected. Prepare in the best way you can. And now there's it's impossible to prepare for every, every, everything that could ever possible, possibly, because that's just not it would also be terrifying. That's not what we're saying. But what I'm hearing you say is, do explore preparing for that which is different than your idealized version. Because one of the things we can guarantee in a rite of passage, which is what we're talking about here, is the unpredictable. That is inherent, not something to be to be excluded. It's something to expect that the unexpected will happen. We can't necessarily know what it is. Yeah,

Daphne: we have to ride the wave and surrender to it. And there's two types of women. Come to my work, there is the one who is thinking about having children or another child, or just got pregnant, and just wants to really understand what the next year is going to look like for her so that she can plan ahead, financially, logistically, professionally, she may decide to decline certain projects or take on more projects so she can make more money, but she's just really ahead of it, and she knows what to do if there's a loss, she knows what to do if there's a NICU stay. She knows what to do if she needs more time, and how to ask for lactation rights or how her job is protected and and in what ways retaliation can occur, and how to how to respond to that. And then there is the archetype of the mom who will message me and say, I have to go back to work tomorrow, but I'm not ready. I can't do it, and that's a really tough place to be. And there's also the archetype of the Father, or the non birthing partner, texting his boss, my wife is in labor. I'll be out of the office for a few days, you know? And that is also really tough, because we have to do this together, and we actually have to ask for any sort of bonding or family leave in a very specific way. Otherwise it is not legally protected. So what I really recommend for those of you who are in this journey of parenthood is to take do this when you have the mental space for it and the emotional space, do the educating and the informing and the planning as soon as you can, you know, like, we start adding things to our baby list, right? Like, really early, and it's like that. And we're like, reading all the reviews we get so deep on like 2000 Amazon on the snow. And I'm like, put that energy towards your rights and towards your bread to leave and your return to work, because it's really gonna pay off.

Family Leave Rights Beyond Just Mothers

Britta: It's so gonna pay off. And I love that you have a whole bunch of resources that can do that for folks. And before we start our wrapping up, I want to we've been talking a lot about moms and primary caregivers returning to work and birthing parents. But in in a lot of households, not all, but in a lot of households, there's more than one parent here, yeah, and yet, there's so much focus on this one person in the household, yes, and their responsibilities and their needs and all of that. And I want to say, Well, hang on a second. What about this other parent? Are there? Are there some things like, I, I think I read somewhere, and I'm going to botch the statistic, but about like parents in the Netherlands, it's, it's seen as not good if a father doesn't take his paternity leave, like, like it he's societally looked down on and I was like, oh, oh, wait a minute, but I don't know that that's where we're at over here. Yeah. So can you talk to me about family leave kind of more broadly and expanding it to to more people in in the family household.

Surprising U.S. Paternity Leave Benefits

Daphne: Yes, I'm going to say something that is really going to surprise you. Some states in the US lead the world on paternity leave. States like California, Massachusetts, Washington, New Jersey, have paid bonding leaves that fathers can access, or non birthing parents to take time off that far surpasses most European countries. In Europe, even though they're taking it, it's usually two to three weeks, but in some of our states, it's up to 12 weeks. So our paternity leaves are actually longer, other than Sweden, which is a total outlier. But we tend to think of European countries as having these like incredible systems, but we actually have some amazing systems in our own country, but it's very state specific. So that's a one thing I really encourage parents to look into, which I also have in my resources, but that you have to look at your state, and we tend to assume that we have no rights or no paid leave. But that is true for not everyone. It is true. It's going to be true for some of you, but depending on where you live, you are actually going to have access to a Benefits Program. So the number

Britta: that's hoping, that's hope producing. I like hearing that. Thank you for blowing my mind. Yeah, right, yeah, because we're really

Daphne: focused on like we have no paid leave. And, of course, it's an issue, but it's an incomplete statement. The complete statement is something like 60% of Americans doesn't have paid leave, very different, right? It's like 120 although 60s are pretty high. Number. It is too high. It is too high. Yeah, yeah. But with with with non birthing parents and bonding leave, it's so essential that we don't just ask our employers for time off or PTO, but that we actually ask for the statute under which we can take paternity leave. And that's tend to be really scary and of course, but it's a little bit like, well, moms don't have the option. They just have to do it. And dads also have rights, and the more that they can actually take time off, the less pressure there will be on the mother, because she will be able to kind of have a more useful way to return to work. And what I recommend for parents is that they stack their leave. They take a little bit of leave in the beginning together to bond, but then one of the parents goes back to work, and then you alternate. And when you do that, you can actually say how stay with a baby for many months, and also delaying daycare costs or nanny costs. So you can kind of stack your leaves when you work with the intermittent leave option, so that you for or you can also use it where both parents work part time, so that you're kind of alternating and then you're still connected to the workplace. So there's so many ways to work with these leave laws, and it blows people's minds, because they're inundated with assumptions that they don't have rights or options, but it's just a matter about understanding your local laws and also asking for them in a very kind of specific way. Otherwise it doesn't work. But yeah, fathers have bonding and family leave rights usually about 12 weeks. And yeah, it's globally long compared to Yeah, okay, that's that's yeah. And then we want to also encourage dads to take it. It's like, providing doesn't just mean providing financially, it also means providing the emotional container. And really, I'm an advocate for all parental leave being equal, because otherwise it's always going to be the moms that are hired less and fired more because they're going to be at work more, and I feel like that's the only way to actually address the gender gap in the workplace. But we're not really there. But what it can much, but you want to advocate for that, yeah, and it can sometimes happen where the dad has more time off rights than the mom, like it is really across the board,

Creating Support for All Parents

Britta: yeah, okay. And I like, I like how you are speaking about how it's important for both parents to take that leave, yes, because then it helps create sort of the snowball energy of support for this happening,

Daphne: and this private podcast episode in my membership where I talked about how to advocate with your partner to take paternity leave, because there's a ton of data that paternity leave results in kids having higher scores in school, like that is how the foundation is built. And this is some really good data to throw the dude, because they love the data, or that it results in less infant mortality or in lower risk of postpartum depression, anxiety. Like, there's a ton of data on how this supports everyone in the family ecosystem for the entirety of their lives, right? It creates support for the whole unit in ways that really matter. I mean, I don't have the data like you do, but I have the lived experience of watching clients and it. I can see it, I can see the difference in what happens. And I want to also just make sure that we speak to those parents, though, at the same time, like I have known some parents and been related to some of them who find staying home with the baby really, really tough, and that Yeah, and that going back to work is actually the relief that they need. Yeah, yeah. And we're, I don't want us to be speaking like it's a one size fits all experience, because, as you said, there there's so many different ways that that this goes and yeah, I've, I've known parents who have have set aside a certain amount of time and decided actually they needed to go back for their mental health.

Different Experiences and Needs

Britta: I've seen that too, yeah. And that can surprise folks. It can surprise folks for sure, because they assume they'll want to take as much time as possible, and then they find that they really like to have some separation. They like to have some differentiation, individuation from their from their home life. It can be feel very kind of pandemic. II, you know, when you are a baby and it is a constant. Monotonous routine of changing diapers, feeding and naps and crying, and when you're used to a lot of stimulation, mental stimulation, or things happening or very active life, that monotony can feel so suffocating. Yeah, and

Daphne: if we're super well versed in the Apollonian and suddenly we're in Artemis forest, really tough, absolutely yes, because it's abrupt. It's very abrupt, unless we've, like, spent time with a lot of babies with with which most of us haven't, we kind of fall into it and realize, Wow, I thought this would be a lot easier. I thought we'd be watching TV and movies, and it's not that yeah,

Britta: or having cute Babel baby snuggles and counting baby toes. And sometimes it's so, so much more than that.

Daphne: Yeah, and there's this also, like, labor of motherhood and caretaking that is so invisible and so not, you know, like structured in the same way, you don't get a bonus, you don't get a raise. And so the workplace can feel gratifying in that way, of like there's a system here, and it can systems can feel like safety to the brain like it does to me too. So when you're suddenly like fully in the wild, it can be really disorienting. Yeah, really disorienting. And it's also there's even a system for reinforcement and validation in many work forces workplace, I know that for me, even I work for myself, and I can have a blue, hard, icky day in my life. And as soon as I'm sitting across zoom or talking with you, or, you know, working with a client, I'm like, Oh, this is a relief, right? Because you're getting to use a different part of your psyche and identity and connection and that that really can deeply feed us, as well as getting the reinforcement back of, Wow, you've been so helpful. Our babies rarely go, wow, you're awesome. No, they just let us know when we're not doing it in a way that works for them, and

Personal Experience and Flexibility

Daphne: it's unpredictable. And truly for me, it was the the sleep deprivation like it wasn't. I enjoyed being at work and doing my job and having adult conversations and a warm cup of coffee, but it was a double shift of being up at night and then having to use my brain during the day. Like, that's what really that's was the initiation for me. Of like, how do I do this? And driving and so when you're in this place of like, I love my job. I love my job so much I don't want to risk it, but still, I feel physically so stretched like that it's okay to also ask for support in the workplace, and usually that's going to be in the form of a different start time. For example, that's what I did when I returned to work and I went straight into a trial. It was really overwhelming, and then we won the trial, but I was so at the end of that, so dissociated and numb. And usually when you win a trial in our industry, you can ask for a raise or a bonus. And I that year, that time, I asked for flexibility. I said I just want to be able to set my own schedule, and that did so much, like it was worth so much more than a raise because I was able to wait out traffic or work from home some days, or work during naps and work in the evening. And it's that freedom that allows us to really thrive and to come through that transformation at the other side.

Prioritizing What Matters Most

Britta: I love that being creative. It sounds like you are someone who got creative and thought about not what are the cookie cutters that are available to me, but what is it that I need? And how do I ask for what it is that I need, reversing the order of who it is, you're trying to please the employer or yourself, and I'm hearing you say, I looked at myself and said, What do I need? And then asked for that, right? I love that.

Daphne: And one final thing I'll share about that place of employment where I was law firm is that I don't work there and haven't worked there in a long time. So I also regret making sacrifices on the family front, like I there was like a situation where I had to return to work sooner than I thought, or I skipped some pump breaks, or I didn't see my kid for you know, on a sick day, and because I felt like I had to. Work, and I look back now and I'm just my kids are older, and I'll never get that time back when they're little. But on the work front, it's like, all a blur. I don't even really remember what I was working on that felt so important, and it may feel really important in the moment, but rarely is that important, like, usually it's things that can wait or be pushed aside. And so this is a really special and sacred time of your life. And I remember when my baby started into toddlers, and I didn't really want to be around them so much, and I'm like, Oh, the baby phase is already over. And I was like, really, I just got into it, like I really was enjoying it, so it can shift. And so if you're in that place where your baby's the baby, this is really the time to advocate for yourself and to really stand firm in your sacred right of i just created life. You know, I am a goddamn life creator, and everything in the workplace is just not as important as that, and it can wait. You know, the employer's operational needs are never going to be more important than your baby's needs.

Where to Find Daphne's Work

Britta: I feel like you and I could keep talking, because you just circled back to my third note from your very first thing you started talking about at the very beginning of the podcast, which was guilt, both, both parental guilt and professional guilt. I'm like, Oh, I totally want to unpack that as well, but we're out of time, and so I'm like, Okay, we'll have to do this again. So Daphne, where can folks find out about you, learn more about your work and connect with these amazing services that you have.

Daphne: So I have my Instagram, the mom attorney, where you can find me. Just fair warning, I do workplace education, but I also do a lot of ranting about fascism. So just be prepared for that. They're

Britta: connected. These issues are connected? Yes, absolutely.

Daphne: And my I have services on the website called the liberated mother society. That's what hosts all of my I have a membership program. I also have a program for entrepreneurs who want to build their own businesses and want to learn all of the legalities, corporate setup, tax, hacks, systems, everything related to hiring of contractors, all these things that feel scary, but we'll just make it fun. And yeah, that's where you can find me. I have a law firm as well, but all of the links you'll find also on my Instagram bio, because there's a few different services and branches to my business,

Closing Question and Vision

Britta: and we'll put them in the show notes as well, so folks can easily find them wherever they're listening. So as we begin to bring our conversation to a close, I like to end with one question. So are you ready? Yes. Okay, so what's one thing that you feel passionately about that you want new or expectant parents to see, hear, feel or know during this profound period of their lives, during this rite of passage.

Daphne: Hmm, you know, I'm going to bring it back to the vision. It's funny because I earlier, I said that I'm not. I don't dwell too much in the visionary space, because I'm looking at what's here and and though I do, and I have deep trust that matriarchy is what's coming next, and that we're going to be the leaders of this new world and this new paradigm and this new model of of living that is a lot more connected to our nature, that is a lot more artemision in a way. And I just have such deep trust in that, as a student of history, as a student of matriarchy and like old pagan communities, and that these things are going to come back like we all. We used to center the mother in all aspects of life, because the womb is also at the center of our bodies, and we're gonna we're going back to that, but it's awkward. It takes time, and it's gonna take all of us, but just a deep trust also that we're working on it, that we've got you, you know that you're not in this alone. There's a lot of us advocates who are taking this issue very seriously, that are moving this forward, that are creating the momentum. And it feels slow and painful because it is like birth sometimes, but we're also collectively in a transformation and an initiation. And I just have deep trust that at the other side of this there is going to be matriarchy, and it's going to center the mother, and we're going to feel a lot more celebrated and supported. So the more that we can live that now, the easier it will be to implement collectively.

Closing

Britta: Thank you so much. It's wonderful getting to talk with you today and just to to be in space, share space with you and feel your wisdom and. And connect all these dots that hadn't been previously connected. It's really been a joy. Thank you. I

Daphne: enjoyed it so much. I could do this all day. Me too,

Britta: and thank you listeners for sharing this time with us. If something shared today impacted supported or moved you, please share this episode with a friend. I produce this podcast myself, and your support makes it possible to show a little love for the podcast and these conversations, please follow rate and review. If you'd like to continue the conversation, please join us on Instagram at transformed by birth. I look forward to being with you again on the next episode of transformed by birth. Now let's gather what we want to take away from this conversation. If there's nuggets or juicy bits that feel important to you, take them in with an inhale, and then we'll blow out our candle with the exhale, until next time bye, friends.