My Two-and-a-Half Year Maternity Leave in the Czech Republic

In mere days, the curtain falls on my two-and-a-half year long maternity leave here in the Czech Republic. It was everything I had hoped it would be and more.

How it actually works is that there is a six-month-long maternity leave if you are an employee (read: not a freelance worker) that you are granted through your organization and the state, then after this six month period you previously got to choose a two, three or four year parental leave which can be divided or taken by either parent. For the purposes of this post and because I am the parent who took the leave, I will refer to it simply by the well-known term “maternity leave” in this post.

What does maternity(parental) leave mean in the Czech Republic? This means that I was registered as “on leave” from my job and got to stay home with my baby for years. The state pays out a total sum of 300,000kc over the period of either two or three years that you choose upon registering for it at the Labor Office. As an American, a period of six months plus two years seemed like enough (and very generous and satisfying) to me, especially as children are accepted to state preschools from age 3, where they can begin attending daily (at very little tuition cost). I decided then that I would just make do with covering the last six months of childcare at the time (precisely the phase I am in right now, more about that later). This child allowance has helped so much in providing some financial support to our family while I mostly stayed home. Those years of staying home (having made the decision to raise a child in a country that does not speak our mother language) were incredibly foundational.

In full disclosure, I did actually have a terrible snafu with the paperwork (not on my side) not being aligned between my job and my unexpected, early birth at the hospital which resulted in my application for the six month maternity leave (also, with its own sum of child allowance) not being filed, which made for an incredibly difficult couple of months, but once that was worked out, it was smooth sailing from then on.

But let’s take it from the top… a little walk down memory lane, if you will, on this beautiful maternity leave. As our Mouse was born in early June, it was quite good timing with the school year ending and, by the time we were released from hospital two weeks after the birth, Alex was off work and we started our quiet and lovely “summer of baby together“, as he wouldn’t have to go back to his teaching job until the first couple of weeks of September. Truly a blessing.

I feel incredibly lucky also that many friends of mine also happened to be on maternity leave at the same time as I did that first year. Especially as September arrived and Alex went back to work, I had a lot of coffee dates and meeting up with mama friends for pram walks along the river. From birth to now, I never felt at all lonely in my maternity leave, and I think that is something special the Czech Republic’s long maternity policies help foster. Instead of, for example, Americans being on a six-week maternity leave, mamas have years to be with their babies and meet with other mama friends doing the same, as well as join baby activity clubs or groups.

In the first year, though, I was so busy just spending time taking care of baby and breastfeeding, which, for awhile there, was truly a full-time job, no doubt about it, and I don’t think I had a single lonely thought. We were so lucky to go on trips to Iceland and Rome in that first year as well — that year was so full of light and love and general well-being, I have to say.

At three months old (in September, when the school year began) I slowly started with a handful of private (teaching) lessons and also rejoined my choir (after the pandemic period, in which I was being especially cautious of because of my pregnancy). These private lessons helped me keep my teaching brain on, because even then I definitely felt grammar items flying out of my head after so long out of a classroom. For these, Alex either covers for me or I’ve brought Mouse along with me. Rejoining the choir was nice because it was an hour or so in which I could really be Cynthia again. Not being needed for an hour and a half was truly something I got used to again immediately 😀 I can definitely say that sometimes I just barely showed up – dishelved hair, smelling of dinner cooking and possible milk splotches on my clothes, but I got myself there and it’s always good to sing.

“So… don’t you miss work?”

“Nope, not a bit.”

My mother-in-law to me, six months postpartum.

At six months in, I couldn’t even have imagined returning to work! I think the earliest I could have even imagined this would be at about eighteen months, honestly.

At ten months, I signed my little one and I up for our first baby activity, swim lessons, which we still take part in to this day! Once a week I go with my son in a group of five other mamas or papas and their babes to such a sweet swim class filled with Czech nursery songs and fun toys to keep the little ones interested. Before and afterwards they get to play in a playroom (herna). Not only is it really fun for both of us but it has been a great way to get out of the house and do an activity that wouldn’t be possible at home, learn a useful skill, chat with other Czech mamas and get early Czech language exposure for Mouse, who loves rhymes such as Já mám koně and Jede, jede poštovský panáček which we sing together, even at home. It’s been worth every crown. Big proponent of infant/toddler mama-and-me activities!

In the summers, we took our little one on our annual trip to the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in northwest Czech Republic, which is actually a great place to bring your child (and even dog!). There is so much for little ones to do there while one parent is tucked away in a cinema watching a screening that especially at one year old when things were not as demanding, we really enjoyed this so much. At two years old it became a bit more intense, but the good news is that there is even childcare at the festival (for childrens eighteen months or older in Hotel Thermal) if you want to both pop away to see a screening for two hours.

At about thirteen months, my employer asked if I would be willing to start slowly taking some classes on again in the fall, but, even then, I wasn’t ready. I mentally steadied myself that in the summer semester (twenty months postpartum) I would return for the first time, and it was absolutely a fine time to do so. In addition to my handful of private lessons, I returned one morning a week to the classroom. As Alex is home many mornings and works afternoons, this was entirely possible to do without additional childcare, and it was actually really nice to be back one morning a week! I really enjoyed the slow pace that my work life was ramping up while still having caregiving be my main occupation. The “ramping up” style of returning to work is so much more preferable than an “all or nothing” approach. I know some have been a little confused how I can still be on maternity leave but work two mornings a week, but that’s just how it is here. As long as you don’t send your child to childcare a certain amount of hours per week, you are still eligible to be on maternity[parental] leave. It was nice to make a little extra cash while testing the waters back at the workplace and helping out my department, who kindly found some teachers to cover my leave for me.

Since first dipping my toe back into worklife, I ramped up to two mornings a week this past fall and we hired our first (wonderful!) babysitter for a couple hours of coverage between Alex leaving and me coming home, which has been great because Mouse absolutely loves her.

And here we are… two-and-a-half years in. There’s still always someone to call for a baby play date as so many women at my age are still on maternity leave or at least have free afternoons with their kiddos. I am getting ready to go back to full-time work (nearly full-time teaching and some online work) this month and my son started a couple of days a week at a nursery school, which he loves — especially playing with the bikes outside or in the whimsical playyard. Having a couple extra hours per week of childcare (having no relatives living anywhere near us) has been everything!

I am so thankful to have been so cared for and supported by everyone over my maternity leave — not only my spouse but mama friends, other kind people we’ve met during this time and the Czech Republic, which provides an incredible experience for its young mothers, especially those who wish to spend as much time with their little one in the younger years. I may not have been drawing a large salary (and honestly, we’ve really had to scale back on things like vacations and large purchases we would have made otherwise) but the time with my young child, time that you would never get back and only happens once in a life time is worth so much more to me than any financial gains. It is wealth.

Because of these years at home with Mouse I was able to give him so many experiences and grow our close bond, as well as provide him with a very solid foundation and enrichment in his mother tongue, the English language before he now goes off to a completely Czech-language nursery and learns the community language from caregivers, teachers and other children his age. I don’t know what my maternity experience would have looked like in the United States and I might never know firsthand what it’s like, but my instinct to stick around during these baby years here has only been reaffirmed every day.