Maternity Leave

So, I got a copy of the employee handbook from my job and I will look at the benefits this weekend for adoptive parents. But our benefits person told me she's pretty sure maternity leave starts when the adoption is finalized. I told her the adoption would be finalized before I even left the country! What sense would that make for the time to start ticking while my baby is in one country and I'm in another?! Then I met informally with the heads of school to discuss day care and the Tuesday/Thursday class. She said that the T/Th class is full but that my child could just stay in daycare all day. Turns out that even at beyond two years of age, kids only go to school in the mornings and do daycare in the afternoons (kids of teachers). It's a mixed age group from infants to over 2. They said it would be fine to leave my child in daycare all day-all next year. That would be a lot cheaper as well. So everything was going fine until we started talking about the 6 weeks and how I hoped that my referral came around a vacation. At that point I got an earful about how employers really try to accommodate new parents by giving them 6 weeks and how dare I try to plan for more and take advantage of the system, blah, blah, blah. I have to say I am extremely impressed with myself for biting my tongue! (I'm maturing!) I am completely baffled and disgusted that American women only get six weeks to begin with and as a mother of four you would think she of all people would understand me hoping to get an additional (measly) two weeks with Spring Break. Uh, how about in the UK they get TWENTY-SIX weeks of 'Ordinary Maternity Leave' and 26 weeks 'Additional Maternity Leave' - making one year in total?!? In fact, the US lags behind most of the world in the paltry amount of leave mothers are given. It really shows how undervalued motherhood and family are in this country. Check out this article. I am annoyed. Extremely annoyed.

How would you have responded if berated for this?