This is it, the big day. After months and months of eager anticipation your bouncing bundle of joy is on the way home or maybe stuck inside of your cut in half globe.
You've watched all of the parenting hack videos online. You've decorated the nursery.
Maybe you've even bought a color coded cake to do a gender reveal party for the 'gram. You should be all set… and then you remember that you have to head back to work in a few short weeks.
So the question arises for many working parents: what happens to an infant once the shimmery sheen of joy wears off and the practical concerns of reliable childcare set in? And what does WWII have to do with this historical and social puzzle?
Part of the dilemma here is the debate over whether or not new working parents should have the right to paid parental leave. Since the majority of us out here have to work hard for the money, so hard for it honey, the length and time frame of parental leave is of utmost importance to most new parents.
And they aren't the only ones concerned about baby's big day out. This also raises concerns for healthcare professionals, insurance companies, government agencies and employers.
They're probably second only to parents with fears about folks being kept out of the workforce for too long after receiving a visit from Mr. Stork. There's also an interesting historical intersection between WWII and concerns over childcare.
Because the baby boom that gave the generation born after WWII its name wasn't just a metaphor… it was really like a boom of babies. The whole idea seems pretty adorable to me (I mean picture thousands of infants shooting out of booming canons in lil onesies) .
But the entrance of millions of women worldwide into the workforce followed by the actual baby boom created a logistical dilemma for employers and working families alike. And since we're coming up on the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII, let's get to the root of where the urge for paid maternity and paternity leave originated.
It seems that WWII was a critical juncture for the introduction of seismic healthcare changes worldwide. And there's no greater evidence of that than some of our older Origin episodes.
