Neither of us wanted to leave our babies in child care when we did, at mere weeks old. But neither of us had the luxury of choice. Our employers would not grant us any more time for parental leave. Our children were on our health care plans through work, and like the majority of American families, we couldn’t make ends meet on one income.
So, reluctantly, on an April morning in Oklahoma, Shepard was left at day care. A child care worker swaddled him for a nap, placed him in a car seat and didn’t check on him. He slipped down and suffocated, still too little to lift up his own head.
Just as reluctantly, in July, Karl was dropped off for his first day at day care near his mother’s office in Manhattan. When she came back to feed him at noon, Karl’s lips were blue and a child care worker was performing CPR. It could not be determined why this healthy baby died.
We believe that infants need to be with their parents at the beginning of their lives. And we are jointly calling on our parties, Republican and Democrat, to put aside their differences and pass job-protected, paid parental leave, for the sake of all American babies.
We are not alone in enduring such anguish. Just last week it was reported that a 3-month-old girl in Pennsylvania died on her first day of day care – the first time the mother was away from her daughter for more than 90 minutes.
Yet, here we are: One in four American mothers have no choice but to return to work within two weeks of giving birth; 87% of parents have no access to paid leave through their employers, according to a report from The Center for Law and Social Policy, an anti-poverty organization.