Saw this in an article and went straight to the official release to verify and got conflicted on its overall stance.

https://www.hqmc.marines.mil/Portals/142/Docs/%2038th%20Commandant's%20Planning%20Guidance_2019.pdf?ver=2019-07-16-200152-700

This jumped out at me.

Quote:

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Parental Leave / Maternity Leave
We should never ask our Marines to choose between
being the best parent possible and the best Marine
possible. These outcomes should never be in competition
to the extent that success with one will come at the
expense of the other. Our parental / maternity leave
policies are inadequate and have failed to keep pace
with societal norms and modern talent management
practices. We fully support the growth of our Marine
families, and will do everything possible to provide
parents with opportunities to remain with their newborns
for extended periods of time. In the future, we will
consider up to one year leaves-of-absence for mothers
to remain with their children before returning to full
duty to complete their service obligations.

---

So Gen. Berger wants to implement a full year of parental leave for mothers with newborns. And this has me horribly conflicted.

On one hand, I get it. The American family unit has largely been shattered and the military is even on the bottom rungs of that generality. Strong families make strong people which makes a strong nation. I firmly believe that. And having a full year would go long ways to helping forge a strong family bond. I don't disagree there.

Other side of that coin. You would be removing a Marine from their unit and their duties for AN ENTIRE YEAR. The consequences of that within the realm of duty to the nation and unit integrity are extremely high IMO.

This was in the statement before the parental thing.

Quote:

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PEOPLE
Everything starts and ends with the individual Marine.

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Then goes on to say the usual. Priority on recruiting, training, retaining, drum out hazers and crap servicepeople, etc. And I also get this saying. Makes sense of course. But then it wars with the priorities in my mind. First, mission accomplishment. Second, the USMC as a whole. Then the individual Marine.

Family and individual concerns in general have ALWAYS taken a backseat to the Marine Corps. It sucks at times but it is what it is. Has that mindset changed recently? I just don't see how removing a Marine for a year will do anything to help the Corps. Quite the detriment actually. Since we all know that this system would be abused considerably. Hell, it already is TBH.

I don't know. Maybe co-ed units would be better able to handle the turnover. I am coming at this from a grunt's perspective so maybe my low brow experience is out of place here.

Just thought this was interesting and had me all jumbled and wouldn't mind some other perspectives on it.

I will also say that the rest of the overall statement looks standard and even good in some parts. Like the continued observance of weeding out the non-deployables and non- promotables. The parental thing was cherry picked out of the document.

I like the idea, especially the way it is worded in your quote. It just says that the corps will "consider" up to a 1 year leave of absence for new mothers. That tells me that they want to take individual concerns into account. I'm thinking that they are thinking that single mothers that get pregnant and have a child are pretty much non-deployable anyway, especially if they want to breast feed (heck even mothers with a spouse may be non-deployable for the same reason) so let's hit the pause button on their enlistment and let them raise their child through that first year and then get back to work.

But for most mothers, I would think the corps would authorize something like 3-4 months. The 1 year would be the exception.

I don't have the DoD data, but I bet they do, and I'm guessing that across all services new mothers end up missing 10 days or more (post maternity leave) for various things like appointments for their child, child getting sick etc and the corps is probably thinking it's better to have a fully focused Marine rather than one with one part of their mind completely absent from work.

The Army allows 90 days maternity leave. To my knowledge, anything longer isnt being considered.

Pop out a pup and then disappear for a year? THATS how you build a team!!!

So if a woman Marine has 7 children she will get 7 years off? She'll get almost half to the retirement 20 with 13 years of service.

Are they going to create a maternity slot on an HQ MTOE somewhere? Surely they aren't planning to simply leave a billet at a line unit empty for a year?

I would imagine your hard charging career minded women will see the determent to their careers by doing this and won't be interested. The women that do take advantage will likely not be missed.

Just get pregnant ...sounds like another way to avoid deployment but still leach on the govt dime . The military is turning into another arm of the govt that is more worried about feelings than the actual mission.

I think this gets at the issue of service-members having to choose between staying in the military, or getting out to start a family.

Seems to me it is better to provide a leave of absence for a year -- with the prospect of getting an officer or NCO back into the force after a break -- than have that person just ETS, and the talent/experience is gone, and you are starting over.

Yes, there are adjustments that need to be made -- they can't hold down a billet in a unit, leaving that unit short. I also assume their time in grade/service accrual is paused while on leave of absence.

The Army is looking at this option for other reasons besides pregnancy to try and retain mid-career officers and NCOs, regardless of gender. Want to take a 2 year break in service to go to grad school?

Why not? If the alternative is that person simply gets out?

Out personnel policies are WAY too rigid, IMO.

Trinity Ag said:

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I think this gets at the issue of service-members having to choose between staying in the military, or getting out to start a family.

Seems to me it is better to provide a leave of absence for a year -- with the prospect of getting an officer or NCO back into the force after a break -- than have that person just ETS, and the talent/experience is gone, and you are starting over.

Yes, there are adjustments that need to be made -- they can't hold down a billet in a unit, leaving that unit short. I also assume their time in grade/service accrual is paused while on leave of absence.

The Army is looking at this option for other reasons besides pregnancy to try and retain mid-career officers and NCOs, regardless of gender. Want to take a 2 year break in service to go to grad school?

Why not? If the alternative is that person simply gets out?

Out personnel policies are WAY too rigid, IMO.

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Several longitudinal research studies have shown that the propensity to remain in service INCREASES (through year 8 at least) with the number of dependents. This is especially true among black Soldiers and those with the highest intelligence and career performance. The most recent that comes to mind is Spain (2014) "Finding and Keeping Stars".


Edit: this is not an endorsement of this policy, I disagree with any policy that reduces team training time and puts more admin burden on the company commanders and platoon sergeants

I chose to hold off on kids until I had 1 foot out the door. It wasn't about the paternal leave. It was about weighing competing obligations (a Marine with responsibilities, and a husband who didn't want his strand his wife alone with children for months, or a lifetime).

There were others who chose differently.

But the Marine Corps is a young man's organization for many reasons. Among those is a need for warriors to be healthy, dependable, and present. I don't see an expansion of welfare incentives enhancing the cohesion or lethality of the Corps.

Quote:

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Our parental / maternity leave
policies are inadequate and have failed to keep pace
with societal norms and modern talent management
practices.

---

Since when did societal norms ever enter into the equation of USMC policy. I get it, it works in the civilian world. But when was the last time civilians were in the business of kicking in doors, pulling triggers and keeping the wolf off the front porch (AKA warfighting)? Don't like it, but I guess some believes societal norms are more important than warfighting. Looks and sounds good for the talking heads. I hope and pray this is nothing more than politics.

We had two kids while in the military and just had our first outside. Kid number one, I don't remember getting any actual leave time. Got a few days off the books to help the wife out since she had a C-Section and was laid up for a while. Kid #2, also a c-section I got 10 days paternal leave, just had to spend all in the NICU with my son due to issues, he's fine now so no worries. 1st civilian kid, July 13 of this year and also c-section, my company only gives you 5 days of paternity leave. Took FMLA to care for wife for two weeks since she couldn't drive and other stuff. Nothing really to add to the discussion just personal experiences. Is kind of funny the Army gave me more days than civilian job. Also kid #1 I left for Iraq 6 weeks later and kid #2 left for Korea for a year 8 weeks later. Just thankful now I see kid #3 as well as everyone else everyday.