带薪育儿假的社会呼声
Twenty-five years ago today, on February 5, 1993, President Bill Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act. The first and only federal leave legislation in the United States, it guarantees nearly 60% of employees 12 weeks of job-protected unpaid leave to take care of a new baby, a sick relative or their own serious medical condition.
25年前的今天，1993年2月5日，比尔·克林顿总统签署了《家庭和医疗休假法》。这是美国第一个也是唯一一个联邦休假法，它保证近60%的员工有12周的受工作保护的无薪假期来照顾新生儿、生病的亲戚或他们自己的严重医疗状况。
While happy with the new legislation, family leave advocates -- some of whom had spent the better part of a decade fighting for the policy -- didn't consider it an outright victory at the time. The law was better from nothing, yes, but also far from ideal.
尽管对这项新立法感到满意，但提倡家庭休假的人士当时并不认为这是一场彻底的胜利。其中一些人在过去10年的大部分时间里一直在为这项政策而战。法律从无到有固然好，但也远非理想。
It leaves out lots of men and women (it doesn't cover freelancers and those who work at companies with fewer than 50 employees, for example), it offers nothing in the way of income replacement, and the time period is too short, at least compared with more family-friendly countries such as France, the Netherlands and Spain, all of which offer 16 weeks at full wage replacement.
它遗漏了很多男性和女性(例如，不包括自由职业者和那些工作有少于50名员工的公司),它提供了没有收入的替代,时间太短,至少相比,更有利于家庭的国家,如法国、荷兰和西班牙,所有这些提供16周工资替代。
"We always knew that we needed to expand it," said Ellen Bravo, executive director of Family Values @ Work, a network of 27 state coalitions pushing for paid sick days and paid family leave.
“我们一直知道，我们需要扩大它，”家庭价值观@ Work的执行董事埃伦布拉沃(Ellen Bravo)说。这个由27个州联盟推动带薪病假和带薪家庭假组成的网络。
Bravo and others advocates have continued the fight, making gains on the state level and encouraging businesses to expand their paid leave policies and offer them to more employees, including men and part-time workers.
Bravo和其他倡导者继续抗争，在州一级取得了进展，并鼓励企业扩大带薪休假政策，向包括男性和兼职员工在内的更多员工提供带薪休假。
They've also turned paid leave into a talking point used by politicians on both sides of the aisle, most recently heard as a pledge from President Donald Trump during last week's State of the Union address.
他们还把带薪休假变成了两党政客们的谈资，最近的一次是唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)总统在上周的国情咨文演讲中做出的承诺。
Even with all these successes, the federal policy has remained unchanged since Clinton signed it a quarter-century ago. The United States still holds the unenviable title of being the only industrialized country that does not offer all of its citizens paid family leave. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 14% of civilian workers had access to paid leave in 2016, and that's only thanks to state laws or employer largess.
尽管取得了这些成就，联邦政策自25年前克林顿签署以来一直没有改变。美国仍然是唯一一个不向所有公民提供带薪家庭假的工业化国家，这一头衔并不令人羡慕。根据美国劳工统计局(Bureau of Labor Statistics)的数据，2016年，只有14%的文职员工可以享受带薪休假，这要归功于州法律或雇主的慷慨。
The current United States family leave policy harms women and men in all stages of life, in myriad ways. In particular, it holds long-lasting consequences for new mothers. Not receiving paid time off holds women back professionally and financially. Limited and unpaid leave also has a less quantifiable, but nevertheless damaging, effect on their mental health.
目前美国的家庭休假政策以各种各样的方式伤害着各个阶段都女性和男性。尤其是，它对新妈妈们有着持久的影响。没有带薪休假会阻碍女性在职业和经济上的发展。有限的无薪假期对他们的心理健康也有较少的可量化影响，但却具有破坏性。
Work leave and mental health
工作休假和心理健康
Research has connected the dots between inadequate paid leave policies and higher incidences of clinically diagnosable anxiety and depression among women, both during the postpartum period as well as later in life. However, paid leave advocates and experts in maternal mental health believe that many more women experience psychological anguish as a result of these insufficient policies, even if it doesn't land them in a therapist's office or with a Prozac prescription.
研究发现，带薪休假政策不足与女性在产后及以后的生活中出现临床诊断性焦虑和抑郁的几率较高之间存在关联。然而，带薪休假的倡导者和孕产妇心理健康专家认为，由于这些政策的不足，更多的女性经历了心理痛苦，即使这些政策没有让她们去看心理医生或服用百忧解(Prozac)处方。
'How am I going to move forward?'
“我该如何前进?”
Melissa Marion Henriquez, a 38-year-old mother of two in Kalamazoo, Michigan, received no paid leave from her employer with either of her children. She cobbled together short leaves by combining short-term disability payments and vacation time but ultimately took only 12 weeks off with each child, eight weeks of which were partially paid.
38岁的梅丽莎·马里恩·亨利克斯(Melissa Marion Henriquez)是密歇根州卡拉马祖(Kalamazoo)两个孩子的母亲。她把短期伤残补助和假期结合起来，拼凑出了短假，但最终每个孩子只休了12周的假，其中8周是部分支付的。
"Leaving them at day care that early was traumatic. The day care center had a webcam, and that's how I made it through the workday," Marion Henriquez said. "It was extremely painful. I never had postpartum depression, but I definitely had moments when I said, 'I can't do this.' ... I felt like I was being a bad mom and a bad employee, especially in the first months after their birth, when I had a total lack of confidence. It took two years with each kid before I thought, 'I can handle it.' "
“这么早把他们留在日托中心是一种创伤。日托中心有摄像头，我就是这样度过工作日的。”“非常痛苦。我从未患过产后抑郁症，但我确实有过这样的时刻:‘我做不到。“…我觉得我是一个坏妈妈，一个坏员工，尤其是在他们出生后的头几个月，我完全没有信心。每个孩子花了两年的时间，我才想，‘我能行。’”
