Marissa Mayer returned to work as Yahoo CEO less than three weeks after she gave birth to her first child. (WireImage)
When pregnant, newly appointed Yahoo CEO and president Marissa Mayer announced she’d only take a three-week maternity leave, many were skeptical — especially new moms, who know how easy it is to overestimate one’s ability to bounce back, both mentally and physically, after having a baby.
But after her son was born
Oct. 1, Mayer actually downgraded her time off, returning to the office full-time yesterday. Criticism of her truncated leave has been fast and furious, with many alleging she’d set back progress for working mothers.
“Will all new working moms be expected to do the same? When we tell our bosses that we want three months off, will they look at us and say, ‘Marissa Mayer only took two weeks off! So can you!’?” ranted Amy Graff, a blogger at SFGate.
But should Mayer — who’s being paid $1 million a year and an annual bonus of 200 percent of her base salary to reinvigorate Yahoo’s saggy image — really be slammed for wanting to be back at her workplace, which, let’s face it, needs all the help it can get?
Now that the initial backlash has died down, many women’s advocates are actually taking her side.
She’s in “an extreme job, an extreme work-life balance situation,” says Carol Evans, president of Working Mother Media, who found herself in a similar spot.
“I went through this, on a much smaller scale, when my company was acquired when I was pregnant with my first child,” Evans says. “I was promoted while I was in the hospital! The new CEO called me and told me I was promoted to the top job as publisher. I think I had my first meeting when my son was 7 days old. I wasn’t in the office for six weeks, but I was working after six days.”
Ultimately, Evans says, it’s different for every woman. But when you’ve opted to take on a leadership position, sometimes you have to make your own rules, and it doesn’t mean you’re setting down a boilerplate example for everyone to follow.
To the contrary, she adds, “I think millions of women are taking more leave than they have in the past. We should encourage them to take more leave.”
Others go so far as to say Mayer’s short leave is a good thing. “I think it’s extremely positive that she feels able to do this,” says Stephanie Coontz, director of research and public education for the Council on Contemporary Families, “and that she feels free to make her own individual decision about her own situation and her own company.”
The fact that Mayer, 37, was hired when she was pregnant, actually indicates a possible move forward for women in the workplace, Coontz continues. “There are plenty of studies,” Coontz says, “that show there’s a prejudice in many workplaces where, as soon as you become a mother, people assume you’re less committed. Clearly her company didn’t … and that’s positive.”
And Tory Johnson, creator of the female recruitment service Women for Hire, says that to present Mayer’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it maternity leave as an example for all would be a mistake. “One woman’s decision doesn’t make a trend,” she says — even if she is a very high-profile woman — and “it’s doubtful she is trying to establish a ‘new normal’ that all women should follow.”
Johnson, who took off three months when her now-16-year-old twins were born, says that’s a more realistic timetable for most women (the legal amount — 12 unpaid weeks — as specified by the Family Medical Leave Act).
Of Mayer’s short maternity leave, Johnson says, “I think women are smart enough and sophisticated enough to say, ‘That wouldn’t work for me.’ ”
Even so, will Mayer’s quick reappearance ead to a rash of pregnant women being told they don’t have to come back early — but it’d be a lot more impressive to the boss if they did?
“It certainly sets the bar high,” says Coontz. “It could be used as a model: ‘Marissa did it. Why can’t you?’ And I would say she has to be very careful about the message she sends to the women in her own employ.” Mayer’s female employees may measure themselves by her standards, even if they don’t have the resources she does. (In addition to her seven-figure salary, Mayer’s annual equity award for 2012 will be $12 million in a variety of stock and stock options.)
Mary Teague, creator of the blog A Momma Grows in Brooklyn, says looking for a new standard set by Mayer’s decision isn’t the point. The point is that no matter how much time off women choose or are permitted to take, they’re still not where they should be in terms of actual paid leave.
“The truth is that there is no standard,” she says. “Employers do not have to give any paid maternity leave, and plenty don’t. Wouldn’t it be interesting if, instead of devoting so much energy to analyzing Mayer’s personal choices, we engaged in a substantive discussion about whether we, as a country, think some minimal amount of paid maternity leave should be an option for every woman?”
sstewart@nypost.com