Eight Weeks Is Not Enough (And Deloitte Knows It)

When I had my twins, my company gave me four and a half months of paid maternity leave, and I was so grateful I could have cried — which, given that I was postpartum and running on fumes, I probably did. Twin A came vaginally, Twin B was an emergency C-section, I hemorrhaged, and my mental health took a hit I wasn't prepared for. At eight weeks, when I was barely cleared for sex and exercise, the idea of returning to work full-time would have broken me. That leave wasn't a perk; it was the thing that kept me upright.

So when I saw that Deloitte is cutting paid parental leave in half — from 16 weeks to 8 for a segment of its workforce, alongside a $50,000 IVF reimbursement and days of PTO — my stomach dropped, not because I was surprised, but because I know what eight weeks postpartum actually looks like from the inside. 

The part that should concern everyone: a former Google head of HR said this move "legitimizes the action for everybody else," meaning Deloitte isn't the ending of this story; it's the opening.

We talk constantly about what women need to show up fully — at home, at work, in their own bodies — and then watch companies quietly pull the rug out and call it a business decision. Eight weeks is not enough to recover from a birth, barely enough to figure out breastfeeding, and certainly not enough to return to a job that requires your full brain. I know because I lived it, and I was one of the lucky ones.