Everyone should get personal balance time. Use it for parental leave, coursework, retreats, whatever.
People who never have kids get screwed.

Anonymous wrote:Compared to my male co-workers, the women in my office carry most of the mental load and do all of the emotional labor. This increased stress recently caused me to snap at the office and I started crying in front of some of my direct reports. I don't have children but could really use a 90 day break to fully refresh. I think all women should get something similar to maternity leave, even if they don't have kids. How can I go about making this a policy in my office ?

If you want maternity leave have a baby you b.

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Anonymous wrote:Peri needs are just as legitimate but should be within a broader mental health category. I actually took a permanent step back at work bc of peri since my work has no good options for my situation and no possibility of a real long vacation.

They are not, and you know it.

Are you talking about peri menopause? Aka 2nd puberty? We expect our kids to go to school, learn huge amounts of information, play travel sports, take high stakes tests, do chores, etc. during puberty. You can do your desk job.
- a 48yr old mom of kids under 10 and caretaker of her elderly parents

DP. Yes, we expect that of our adolescents, but everything isn’t fine. Record numbers of kids and teens are suffering from anxiety, depression, and related illnesses.

It is no coincidence that many, if not most are living in a way that is in complete opposition to healthy circadian rhythms, healthy diet, relationships, expectations, and activity.

FFS are you expecting them to check out of life for the duration of puberty? I think you're a troll at this point.

False dichotomy. There are a lot of options in between checking out of life and the life that many adolescents are living these days, waking up at 5am, jam packed days with school, sports practice, all the ECs that DCUM types have their kids do because T20 or bust, rinse and repeat.

NP. Teenagers have been waking up at 5am since the dawn of time. You think kids one or two hundred years ago weren't waking up at 5AM and working all day? They were. Teenagers today do substantially less than they have at any other point in history.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Peri needs are just as legitimate but should be within a broader mental health category. I actually took a permanent step back at work bc of peri since my work has no good options for my situation and no possibility of a real long vacation.

They are not, and you know it.

Are you talking about peri menopause? Aka 2nd puberty? We expect our kids to go to school, learn huge amounts of information, play travel sports, take high stakes tests, do chores, etc. during puberty. You can do your desk job.
- a 48yr old mom of kids under 10 and caretaker of her elderly parents

DP. Yes, we expect that of our adolescents, but everything isn’t fine. Record numbers of kids and teens are suffering from anxiety, depression, and related illnesses.

It is no coincidence that many, if not most are living in a way that is in complete opposition to healthy circadian rhythms, healthy diet, relationships, expectations, and activity.

FFS are you expecting them to check out of life for the duration of puberty? I think you're a troll at this point.

False dichotomy. There are a lot of options in between checking out of life and the life that many adolescents are living these days, waking up at 5am, jam packed days with school, sports practice, all the ECs that DCUM types have their kids do because T20 or bust, rinse and repeat.

I agree OP.

Anonymous wrote:Everyone needs a better work-life balance, leave maternity leave for mothers. Fathers need paternity leaves. Everyone else needs more PTO and short term disability leave if needed.

DH took 2 weeks of paternity leave when we brought our preemie twins home.

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Anonymous wrote:Maternity leave isn’t about “refreshing” OP … it’s about recovering from childbirth and caring for a newborn.

If you are having a mental health crisis you can ask for leave. I have a single friend who did this recently.

I think we should do a survey of working mothers of 3 month olds. Find out if they feel refreshed or not.

Why? It was an idiot comment.

Everyone needs a better work-life balance, leave maternity leave for mothers. Fathers need paternity leaves. Everyone else needs more PTO and short term disability leave if needed.

Anonymous wrote:Either this is a troll or someone is off their rocker.

It's a troll

Either this is a troll or someone is off their rocker.

Better start looking for a new job, OP. You'll never recover from that as a woman.

I mean, has OP considerably that maybe their workplace has some bad patterns and they should look for another job?

Anonymous wrote:Compared to my male co-workers, the women in my office carry most of the mental load and do all of the emotional labor. This increased stress recently caused me to snap at the office and I started crying in front of some of my direct reports. I don't have children but could really use a 90 day break to fully refresh. I think all women should get something similar to maternity leave, even if they don't have kids. How can I go about making this a policy in my office ?

LOL

I took a long break early in my career to travel which I considered a sabbatical (unpaid). The economy was really good at the time. When I actually had kid, I worked for the federal government and got no paid maternity leave. I didn't do this right financially! But I did take a break as a single person.

My job offers so many different kinds of leave. Some paid, some unpaid. This isn't a policy question, OP, it's an HR question. Just off the top of my head, common options are:

Paid (fully or partially):
Vacation
Health leave
Sabbatical
STD

Unpaid:
FMLA
Leave of absence

All these protect your job and let you go away for a while. Obviously longer breaks are unpaid. Just like maternity leave in many companies. (Paid maternity leave still isn't universal.)