hey everyone how's the sound okay good
so I'm Wendy in case any of you weren't
sure I'm going to be talking about being
the first person that your startup to
have a baby so that's not the talk that
you were expecting feel free to escape
now you won't hurt my feelings
but assuming that this is the talk that
you are here to listen to let me
introduce myself first I'm Wendy I'm a
senior software engineer at aspiration
which is a fin tech startup in Los
Angeles and so I wanted to start this
talk by giving a disclaimer that this
talk is based on my experience as
someone who lives in the u.s. in
California with all the cultural
attitudes towards parents and policies
that go along with that so I realized
there are really big differences
potentially and cultures as well as
differences in maternity and paternity
leaves so if there's anything a part of
my experience that doesn't ring true for
you I would love to hear about your
experiences after my talk and I'll be
around so just grab me so with that
caveat out of the way let's get to why I
decided to give this talk about parental
leave so a little over three years ago
while I was working at a start-up I
found out it was pregnant and at first I
was like this super excited but then
that quickly turned to anxiety so you
might be wondering why isn't having a
baby a happy experience
well the start up like a lot of startups
had no formal family leave policy so
that's not to say that there weren't any
parents at the startup there were but as
you all probably know tech especially
startups tends to skew young and male so
a lot of the parents that were working
at my startup left for two weeks for a
vacation time and then went right back
to work and obviously that wasn't going
to work for me and in the u.s. there's
no law at the federal level that
requires any paid family leave so it's
up to individual states or companies to
make it more generous leaves if they
want to do so for us we had an HR person
which also not a lot of startups have
but from everything that I heard even
people with HR representatives didn't
really
know what the correct maternity or
paternity leave should be and so I knew
I was gonna have to figure it out for
myself
little did I know that was the first the
many things I'd have to figure out and
so it took a lot of work from being
completely lost to feeling like I could
have a degree in family leave policy so
this is the talk that I wish someone had
given me when I was newly pregnant and
hopefully I'll be able to share some
tips that will help you figure out what
your leave is and what you can expect
and what steps you can take to make your
life easier if you're the first person
to have a baby at your startup so before
I jump into things I made a legend just
to show what I'm a bit about what I
wanted to do differently what I would do
again tips and hints and observations as
well as things that I just found to be
important so first up is spewing out
your leave
before you talk to anybody at your
company I'd highly suggest that you do
your homework to figure out what leave
you're entitled to no one cares about
your leaves more than you do so even if
you have someone at your company like HR
who should know it's best to just assume
that they have no idea that what you're
entitled to and if you're wrong that's
great they can just confirm what you
already figured out but if you're right
then you can educate your company and
hopefully make it easier for the next
person at your company who goes through
this incidentally for me after I had my
son I found out that there was a
California maternity leave Facebook
group and I joined it even though by
that point I already knew what Levi was
entitled to because I was curious I
wanted to see how much of it I got right
and how much of it I got wrong and if
you can see there are three over three
thousand members of their group and the
moderators actually had to close down
the group because they just don't have
enough time to answer everybody's
questions but the thing that you see
being in this group over and over again
is that HR completely gets people's
leaves wrong over and over again so
again it's up to you to figure out what
leave you're entitled to because
knowledge is power
so how do you figure out what leave
you're actually entitled to so the first
thing that I did was of course Google
everything the second one the second way
that I went about researching was that I
talked to my friends and I cross-checked
what I found on Google with what my
friends at bigger companies with bigger
HR departments had figured out by
checking what you've already researched
with what bigger companies have said is
the policy you can be pretty sure if
they match that that's actually the
correct policy and then the third place
that I found information which won't
apply to anybody here but if you're in
California is the California state
disability website since that's where I
actually had to go and file all of my
paperwork
and so I know most of the audience here
is from South Korea so I'm not gonna
talk too much about what California
leave was but just wanted to give you
this image that helped me figure out
what California leave was so at the top
we have a whole set of policies that
protect your job with no pay it's a mix
of federal and state policies and at the
bottom we also have a mix of federal and
state policies but these are the
policies that will actually pay you some
amount of money and so it's totally
confusing if you didn't know that there
were state level policies you would
think that the federal level policies
which don't pay you anything and only
give you job protection are the only
things that exists there are also a
bunch of requirements that if they
aren't met you aren't entitled to
anything and so just it's a big mess and
you really again should figure out what
your leave is and so with that I did a
little bit of googling about South
Korean policy I'm by no means an expert
but this is what I was able to find out
so pregnant women are eligible for 90
days of leave the first 60 are fully
paid and the last 30 days are partially
paid and at least 45 of those have to be
taken after the birth of the baby
fathers are entitled to five days of
print paternity leave and pregnant
workers have rights to work two hours
less per day without a wage cut no
overtime nighttime or holiday work and
you also get medical exams during work
without and
any additional pay cuts the government
also provides monetary assistance to
expectant couples
such as vouchers for pregnancy checkups
which is pretty awesome because the u.s.
doesn't do anything like that the
government also provides monthly
allowances to parents for the first year
after the child is born for other
related expenses as well and then
parents of children less than three
years old can request up to one year of
full-time or part-time childcare leave
with a 30 day notice period which is
super awesome because that also is not
available in the US and the best part of
this I thought was the free public
daycare that's available so there is the
wait time typically of one to two years
but if both parents work kids get to the
jump to the front of the wait list
there's a ton more stuff but these were
just the highlights of what I was able
to find doing my research for this talk
so make sure that again you figure out
what you're entitled to and this leads
me to my next point which is take as
much leave as you can afford to whether
you're the pregnant woman or their
partner but especially if you're the
partner and I'm not saying this because
of the cliches around you'll never get
this time back even though it's true I'm
saying it because taking care of kids is
really hard and having two people there
makes it way easier there are a lot of
articles that talk about this but my
favorite one was titled after a men in
Spain got paternity leave they wanted
fewer kids and the best quote out of
here was Farah and Gonzalez think that
spending more time with their children
or the prospect of having to do so may
have made men more acutely aware of the
effort and cost associated with
child-rearing
and as the researchers put it shifted
their preferences from child quantity to
quality so I realize not everyone can
afford to take time off but if you can
afford to you won't regret taking that
time off your child your relationship
will be so much less stressful because
of it
so moving on to talking to your work
again when I got to this part I was
really nervous and I didn't really
understand why you know again shouldn't
this be a happy thing but again the
problem is that people start making
assumptions as soon as they hear that
you're pregnant so for example this
article shows that children hurt woman's
earnings but not men's even in
Scandinavia which is one of the most
progressive countries out there there
can be a lot of reasons for this people
might assume that you're going to just
end up staying at home or that you're
not as motivated or that you don't want
to take on as challenging assignments
which you know usually is not the case
and so all of this is just to say that
it's totally normal to be nervous about
telling your company that you're
expecting a baby and so it wasn't until
after I talked to my friends that I
realized why this was something that I
was feeling so nervous about and like I
also want to take this chance to talk to
any managers out in the audience which
is that if you're on the receiving end
of this news you should be just super
excited this should be you and then once
the dust is settled just go back to
treating the person who told you
normally the greatest gift that my
manager and co-workers gave me at the
time
after I told them was treating the fact
that I was pregnant as no bigger deal
than the fact that I had brown eyes it
just didn't matter to them the only
thing that they did do was they stopped
offering me beer when we got to lunch
and dinner so with that said there's no
hard or fast rules for when and how you
should tell your company so I just
wanted to give a few tips that worked
for me
so for me I would definitely repeat
telling them as soon as I was
comfortable there may or may not be a
minimal notice period for you there
definitely is in the u.s. of course if
you're the person who's pregnant you're
probably an entire company way more than
the 30-day minimum requirement in the US
but even if you're the partner it's a
lot easier to explain why you're
suddenly needing to take all of these
morning's off to go to appointments and
everything people will wonder if
something is something wrong with you if
you're like I need to be going to
doctors appointments regularly if they
don't know that you're going because
you're seeing the doctor for your future
baby I would also repeat talking to your
HR I'm not sure how widespread HR people
are in South Korea but if you have
someone who manages these kind of things
definitely talk to them along with your
manager I had a really supportive
manager so I actually told him before we
talked to HR and this was also a really
good time to figure out if my company
would be willing to pay anything while I
was gone and as luck would have it they
ended up supplementing my income for
twelve weeks so I had full salary for 12
weeks which is not the case for a lot of
people in the US or even California
also keep copies of all correspondence
regarding your leave and job performance
while you're out on maternity leave or
paternity leave you don't want to
suddenly be let go of your job without
any sort of evidence that this was
actually something that your company
said was ok and approved of you're not
necessarily going to have access to your
email anymore so whether it's printing
out emails or forwarding it to yourself
just you know have something to show
that this was approved before and for me
about it for talking to your company so
we're gonna move on to gearing up for
your baby this is gonna be a little
different than most of the lists that
you see out there related to getting
ready for baby which are usually things
that you should and shouldn't buy you
can totally Google all of that so that's
not what this is going to be it's mostly
a list of things that I have observed
about being pregnant and which someone
had told me about so first up if you're
the person who's pregnant you're gonna
be more tired than you've ever been in
your first trimester you might not
realize just how tired that is for me I
worked two blocks from the beach when I
was pregnant and I seriously considered
for about a month straight walking to
the beach during lunch time taking a nap
and then heading back to work that's how
tired I was so again another thing I
didn't realize was normal but it totally
is so just be ready
also you're gonna outgrow every piece of
clothing you have towards the end even
your maternity clothes
this really depressed me no one warned
me about this it's normal just go to
your local thrift shop and buy some
really big pieces of clothing to tide
you over for the last month and you'll
be good this was me a week before my son
came I don't know if you can tell but
that fabric is not holding together very
well also now's the time to start
talking to your employer about setting
them up a mother's room if you plan to
breastfeed so where I worked like a lot
of startups they had an open floor plan
the only rooms that were available were
conference rooms that had glass walls so
clearly that wouldn't work as a mother's
room and so it's good to give your
company some lead time to make changes
so that you can have an appropriate
mother's room if that's what you need so
I want to also take this time to talk
about South Korea's breastfeeding right
so there's only 18.3% as of 2016
breastfed Fred excuse me
breastfed exclusively until six months
while the global average is 41%
even though 95 percent of mothers
breastfeed immediately after birth in an
earlier months and the biggest reasons
that that rate was so low were that
there is either no more milk or that
they didn't think it was any necessary
any longer or work conditions so the
fact that we're conditions is along the
top three reasons for why women stop
breastfeeding is why it's really
important to talk to your company about
getting a mother's room if that is
important to you
so with that said this is my realistic
mother's room obviously in a start-up
you're always strapped for cash so I
can't just give you my pie in the sky
dream mother's room but for me oh the
minimum that you would want to have a
good mother's room is a lock that only
the pumping moms have access to because
I had to kick out people so many times
that I got super tired of it
curtains and blinds over the windows and
I need glass walls that's sort of
obvious but something that needs to be
said comfy chairs because you're gonna
be sitting in there for a long time
everyday and office chairs just aren't
comfortable a fridge to store punk milk
and pump parts because people get a
little weird when you store your Pumped
milk with their lunch for whatever
reason even though it's both food also
if there are multiple women pumping it
would be really nice to have lockers so
people can store all of their pump stuff
in there without having to lug it all
around and if privacy partitions or
cubicles if you only have one room
available and if you only have one room
available and can't do anything about it
then at least have a calendar for
scheduling their room and then finally
bonus points first Inc because you might
have to wash some of your pump stuff and
people get really weird about you
washing again your pump stuff in the
same sink where they're washing other
really gross things but they don't think
it's as gross as your your breast milk
so I think is really nice too
so moving on something that I would do
totally differently is not keeping on
top of my employer once I filed for
disability so this is a little
California specific I'm not sure if
there's paperwork that your employer
needs to sign when you're going to go
out on maternity or paternity leave
but for California there is and I didn't
pay attention to the mail I was getting
and it turns out that my claim was
denied
I only had 21 days to repeal it and I
didn't realize it until I was about 14
days in so I was holding my two-week old
on hold for hours at a time multiple
times a day trying to talk to a real
person so definitely don't recommend it
if there's paperwork that your employer
or really anyone needs signed just make
sure that you keep track of that before
the baby's born another thing that I
would not do again is that I didn't get
on the daycare waitlist early enough so
when I went to my first daycare visit I
was four months pregnant I thought that
was plenty of time and then the woman
who was doing the tour asked me so are
you pregnant yet and I thought that she
was kidding until I found out that the
waitlist was fifteen months long and as
I pointed out earlier the wait lists for
daycares in South Korea can run up to
one or two years so if you can do
anything ahead of time make sure that
you get on that list as soon as possible
and this isn't to say that there's not
going to be a spot in a daycare
somewhere but all of the top rated ones
are always filled up way in advance and
so those are the ones that I'm really
talking about
something that I would do again is
joining my local Facebook baby gear
resale group I don't know if Facebook is
used as widely here but if you have any
sort of social media or groups where
people share have shared interests I
would definitely look for shared groups
because people would solve these big
garbage bags of baby clothes for $25
because they wanted to get rid of it and
get something for it it saved me and my
husband a ton of money so definitely
look into that you're having a baby soon
also this was something that was totally
out of left field for me but if you want
newborn photos schedule it now for the
sleepy two-week period in the first two
weeks baby sleep through everything uh I
think a car could like explode and they
would still stay asleep this is the best
time for them to take pictures but it's
also the time when photographers are
super full because that's when the best
pictures come out so if this is
something you want to do make sure that
you find a photographer that you like
and book them now so the last thing that
I wouldn't do is starting a big
remodeling project when my due date was
less than two months away so you might
laugh and wonder who would decide to do
a big renovation when they're pregnant
and the answer is a lot of people
including me him a husband this is what
our master bathroom looked like 50 days
from when I was due and there's
something about knowing that a baby's
coming and that wanting to make sure
that your space is a good space for them
to grow up in as well as knowing how
much harder is gonna be to remodel once
the baby's here that makes a lot of
people decide to suddenly do big
construction projects right before the
baby's due I know at least two other
people who did it around the same time
as me and none of them including ours
finished on time because babies are
generally on time whereas construction
projects generally aren't and as much as
you might think you need to upgrade your
kitchen or your bathroom now it just
adds a bunch of struts that you really
don't need so don't do it
so the last section is babies here
hooray the first few days in the
hospital were such a blur for me that I
was really grateful that I got to stay
in the hospital for four days because
there the nurses do everything for you
and then I remember when we were leaving
the hospital thinking are they seriously
letting me a person who doesn't know
anything just take this helpless tiny
little thing home yep
they are congratulations you're a parent
don't panic
just kidding your new parent you're
gonna panic about everything so all I
can say is just breathe it'll be okay I
also found out a few surprising things
about life with a newborn that I
couldn't find on Google anywhere and if
someone had told me this I would have
felt a lot better knowing that
everything was normal so I'm gonna tell
let you in on a few of those things I
found out so you have to know waking
newborns up every three hours to feed
them if they don't wake themselves up
they this totally blew my mind like
knowing that I would have to be up every
three hours because the baby woke me up
was already pretty bad but then
realizing that I'd have to set my own
alarm and wake ourselves off was just
torturous but it's just something that
you're gonna have to do so just be
prepared and sleep a lot now
also babies don't like to sleep by
themselves they love sleeping in your
arms so in the US we use cribs pretty
much everybody's crib was unused for the
first three months including ours so the
good news is that if you haven't put
together whatever it is that you
typically put your baby to sleep in
you've got lots of time the bad news is
you're not gonna get to sleep at all
because you're going to just be holding
this baby while they're sleeping and
hoping that they don't wake up
but again just be prepared and know that
it's normal
also babies have a superhuman ability to
detect when you're trying to sit down so
remember you have to wake yourself up
every three hours to feed them and then
put them back to sleep they won't let
you sit down when you're doing that you
have to keep walking back and forth back
and forth even though you think that
they're asleep the second you start
squatting into a sitting position they
will wake right up so just again be
prepared and know you're gonna be doing
a lot of walking back and forth in the
dark so those were the three biggest
surprising things about life with
newborns I have a ton more but I don't
have enough time to talk about them so
come find me if you want to find out
more of the things that I figure it out
I have I also had some advice that I
wish I could have given to my former
self which is that the first six weeks
are a huge roller coaster they're way
harder than anyone ever warns you about
I think I cried maybe every other day
it's totally normal
the thing is no one tells you until
you're talking to them about it and so
I'm here to tell you it's normal but
also be on the lookout for signs of
postpartum depression there's it affects
a lot more women and even some men then
you would realize and so make sure that
you're checking yourself and your
partner for that also breastfeeding is
harder than anyone tells you big part of
why I cried every other day for the
first six weeks it's normal and it's
okay to feel like you have no idea what
you're doing but it's also okay to
decide if you want to stop
also say no to everybody who wants to
come over in the first six weeks it's
really hard feeling like you have to
clean everything up and play hostess
tour host when you're super tired you're
not feeling good about yourself but if
you're not able to actually say no to
people it's feel free to take a nap when
people come over you don't have to
entertain them that's what the babies
for just throw the baby at them go to
sleep and the last thing is it
excuse me it's okay to put the baby down
in a safe space and walk away for a few
minutes if you need to compose yourself
so I had a friend tell me that and I
didn't really understand what she was
talking about until I was feeling super
overwhelmed one day and having that
permission was really helpful so I'm
giving all of you permission to do that
as well I lied this is the last part so
everyone's gonna have advice feel free
to ignore everything that people say
including what I'm saying and all of us
talk and just do what you want so hold
your baby as much as you want or not
sleep train or not restrict screen time
or not do what works for your family so
I do have one last section but going
back to work could be its own whole talk
so I just have a few survival tips
number one be gentle with yourself the
first few days weeks months years are
tough for everyone and even if you're
super excited to be back at work it's
okay to feel weird now that you don't
have a baby attached to your hip 24/7
also don't expect to be a hundred
percent right away you're gonna think
that everyone thinks that you're behind
are going too slow it's not true and if
that is what you're thinking that is not
the best place to work anyway I don't
know if working remotely is super
widespread here but if you can work
remotely
when possible it just makes things a lot
easier for me I remember when I had a
one hour commute each way and I would
just spend time sitting in traffic
thinking like I could be at home hanging
out with my kid right now so if you can
reduce your traffic time or anything
like that working remotely is really
great also if you have to travel there
are milk shipping services that exists I
did not know about this at all at
luckily I didn't need it but you can
pump milk if you're on a business trip
and then ship it back to your house so
whoever is taking care of your baby can
actually continue to feed them your milk
if that's what you want to do and then
finally put your life on easy mode so
whether that's getting takeout delivery
of toilet paper and everything using
paper plates forks so you don't have to
do dishes you know just do everything
that you can you're in survival mode for
at least the first six months do
everything that you can can to make your
life easy I have about a million more
tips like I said but I am out of time so
if you have any questions or comments my
twitter is up here my linkedin is up
here feel free to reach out and talk to
me
and that's it thanks a bunch
[Applause]