Lisa Kudrow Had to Return to Work 10 Days After Giving Birth and Got No Maternity Leave in the 1990s: ‘It’s Insane. I Would Never Do It Now’
by cmaia1503
Lisa Kudrow Had to Return to Work 10 Days After Giving Birth and Got No Maternity Leave in the 1990s: ‘It’s Insane. I Would Never Do It Now’
by cmaia1503
5 Comments
> “I had given birth to my son, and 10 days later I did ‘The Tonight Show,” Kudrow said. “And then I was in a meeting for ‘Analyze This,’ and my agents were like: ‘Yeah, we’ll be ok, you’re not shooting until July, and it’s May, it’s no big deal.’ I was like: ‘Ok, yeah, I might be by then…’ In the meeting, Billy Crystal said, ‘I mean, you look great, are you sure you’re able to do this? When did you give birth?’ And I told him, and he’s like: ‘Alright, well, we start Thursday.’”
> “It was: ‘So today’s Monday, and then Thursday you have to fly to New York,’” she said. “I remember my husband’s parents were visiting from France, my parents were around, everyone around me went: ‘Of course you can do it,’ and I said: ‘But it’s wrong, I have a newborn!’ ‘… ‘But a baby nurse will go with you, look after the baby, baby won’t remember anything, it’s fine… you go do it.’ I went: ‘Alright, I don’t know,’ like, you know, your hormones are just like… ‘Alright, I mean, I guess!’”
> “It’s insane,” Kudrow summarized. “I would never do it now. I thought this was insane. Everybody else thought [it’s fine]… I just deferred to everybody else and thought, ‘I guess it’s okay to go back to work immediately.’ I’m not mad at anybody. It was at a time when work was priority and everything else has to accommodate. That was sort of the ethos at that time.”
There are a lot of people who have stories like this and its honestly sad as hell. Childbirth is already so stressful and post partum such an issue and your job just wants you back for more.
Is she whining about making millions of dollars and being asked to come back to work for millions of dollars- in America people are forced to that for 22/ hr. If you’re going to whine about it atleast become an advocate for women that go through this for poverty level wages without the best doctors, therapists, nutrionists, and agents. Jeeez get a clue lady
Well it’s easy to say she wouldn’t do it now – she’s a well established multi-millionaire, she doesn’t need to. But at that time she clearly did need to do it to maintain her career so she could possibly have discussed that aspect in addition to the millions of normal women who need to return to work so soon after giving birth.
In Canada and so many other countries, we don’t need to worry about this (anymore), thankfully.
My attorney friends in private practice in the 1990s? They all did this. Yes, it was inhumane