Note: This essay is part of Mississippi Today Ideas, a new platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share fact-based ideas about our state’s past, present and future. You can read more about the section here. 

Like many women in the workforce, my wife faced a gut-wrenching choice: whether to tell her boss she was pregnant. 

A postdoctoral researcher in science at a major university in the northern United States, she summoned the courage and was told that if she requested parental leave, her employment would end. She had our child and continued. She never filed a complaint.

Like many postdocs, my wife depended on her supervisor to advance in her career and feared the risks in speaking up.

This was about 10 years ago. Yet her situation is hardly unique, particularly for women in academia.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The United States is the only industrialized country in the world where federal law does not give workers paid time off for parental leave.

Across the U.S., at least 13 states and the District of Columbia have instated mandatory paid family leave policies. Nine more have a voluntary version. A growing number of colleges and university systems offer it, as well.

Even in our region, schools like the universities of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Auburn, Clemson and South Carolina have begun offering paid parental leave to some faculty and employees, as have the University of Louisiana and the Tennessee System, among others.

Although our state, Mississippi, does not yet offer paid parental leave to state employees, a broad coalition has sprung up among those seeking its implementation. 

On Jan. 31, the Mississippi House unanimously approved a bill authored by Rep. Kevin Felsher, R-Biloxi, that would give state employees eight weeks of paid maternity leave. Speaker of the House Jason White and Attorney General Lynn Fitch have publicly backed the policy as part of a pro-life agenda. The Senate recently passed a similar bill, authored by Sen. Jeremy England, R-Ocean Springs. Now the House and Senate must agree on the same bill.

Whether Republicans nationally will embrace these efforts, especially under President Trump, remains to be seen. Neither he nor Kamala Harris campaigned extensively around paid family leave. Yet during his first administration, Trump became the first Republican to call for family leave in his State of the Union Address. He also approved a defense bill guaranteeing 12 weeks of paid parental leave to the nation’s two million federal employees.

Parental leave policies are popular across the political spectrum. Although polling data in Mississippi is limited, one national poll last year found that 76% of Americans support a national paid family and medical leave program, including 90% of Democrats, 71% of independents and 62% of Republicans.

Another poll, commissioned ahead of the 2024 U.S. Elections by an advocacy group called Paid Leave for All, found that 85% of voters in battleground states favor paid parental, family and medical leave, including 76% of Republican voters.

Attorney General Fitch said  in January that “it is certainly time to have paid maternity leave in the state of Mississippi for our state employees,” adding: “I think it’s so important to say to our women again, we’d like for you to be here. That helps us with our retention and our recruitment for women in state government.”

Recognizing these needs, especially at universities in Mississippi, the United Faculty Senates Association of Mississippi, a group representing the faculty senates of the state’s public universities, has launched a petition requesting 12 weeks of paid parental leave for the universities’ employees. 

The petition follows a parental leave proposal that was drafted and approved by the faculty senate of each university and the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Drawing on the World Health Organization, which recommends at least 18 weeks of paid leave for new mothers, the proposal has garnered the support of the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable and the American Heart Association, among others.

Some ask why existing policies, such as the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), aren’t sufficient, or why men should be eligible.

While helpful for some, FMLA leave is unpaid and thus unaffordable for a lot of working parents, especially in Mississippi, which confronts the lowest median household income of any state in the U.S. Many parents, especially early-career academics, also fail to qualify for FMLA upon giving birth, since they have not accrued enough time with their employers. 

Although universities like mine, Southern Miss, often go out of their way to try to accommodate new parents, there are limits to that flexibility, and one can’t depend on supervisors to make allowances. Moreover, while most caregivers for newborns are women, a growing number aren’t, and parents need the flexibility of choosing which parent will go on leave. 

Others ask where the money for paid parental leave will come from in Mississippi. Although state coffers are likely to shrink as pandemic relief funds dry up and the economy cools, Mississippi enjoys a reported $700 million in state surplus funds, which some lawmakers have invoked in proposing to eliminate the state income tax. Perhaps the deeper pro-life investment, however, would be in a policy of paid parental leave.

After all, parental leave prioritizes the health of newborns. A study published in JAMA Pediatrics found that after New York state implemented mandatory paid family leave, hospitals witnessed an18% drop in respiratory infection cases among infants. Another study found that paid family leave helps reduce child abuse. The findings join a growing chorus of research linking paid family leave policies to improved infant health.

Children in Mississippi, which is the state with the highest infant mortality and pre-term birth rates in the U.S., would likely benefit the most from these changes.

My wife was fortunate. Another supervisor took her under her wing and fostered her career. I was also lucky in that my university allowed me the flexibility to have time with our child.

But too many parents, especially women, have had to choose between nurturing their careers and their newborns.

If politicians are serious about protecting life and families, they can affirm that commitment by implementing paid parental leave policies.

After all, everyone deserves the chance to spend a little time with their kids.

Joshua Bernstein is an associate professor of English at the University of Southern Mississippi and president of the United Faculty Senates Association of Mississippi. The views expressed here are his own. In his free time, he enjoys playing with and coaching his three children in soccer, baseball and tennis, though he hasn’t warmed to pickleball yet.

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