Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo, recently announced that after giving birth—to twins!—she will only take two weeks off for maternity leave.

Two. Weeks.

That’s barely enough time for any woman who recently gave birth to go to the bathroom without searing pain, let alone sit comfortably at a desk while running a major company.

There’s no question that Mayer can afford good childcare; and with twins, she’s going to need it, no matter how long she takes to bond with her new babies. But her decision to take such a short maternity leave has been controversial: critics say it undermines her commitment to women, and even her commitment to children; she is, after all, clearly putting her career first.

“[L]ess than 5% of the CEOs in the S&P 500 are female,” reports Forbes, “and career disruptions (among them, having children) have proven to be impediments to advancement.”

Others say that despite her quick return to her desk, her work performance may be compromised, and that she’s also feeding an unhealthy obsession with success: “[H]er decision seems emblematic of a workaholic culture that leaves too little time for family or even personal health, preventing either men or women from ‘having it all,’” writes Katherine Reynolds Lewis in Fortune.

There’s no question that having a child and a career requires a series of sacrifices. (As I sit here typing this, my daughter, who is turning two next week, is off with her nanny on a lunch and play date with a few of her friends, who are also accompanied by their nannies filling in for busy working parents.)

Handing off our children to caregivers is more common today than at perhaps any other time in history. Relatives, nurses, and nannies have always assisted in the upbringing of children; but  it’s only in recent history that it’s happened so that both parents can focus on their careers.

And that’s worth looking at.

Whatever we feel about women in the workforce, there’s a big difference between a mother taking a break from her children to have a nap, (or even enjoy some time with other adults and/or alcohol), and the mom who is inundated by a career and all the pressures it brings. Whether that’s driven by financial needs or simply career goals, is the mother who is checking work emails while breastfeeding really giving her family the critical attention it needs? What about the mother who foregoes breastfeeding because it’s too time consuming and will interfere with her work responsibilities? Not all mothers can breastfeed, but those who can are encouraged to do it for the countless benefits it provides the child (and the mom: breastfeeding has been linked to a reduced risk of breast cancer).

Yes, women are absolutely entitled to careers and the same opportunities as men (and while we’re on it, the same pay). But when we take on the responsibility of having a child—a responsibility exclusive to being a woman—our priorities need to shift. They have to. That’s not to say we can’t maintain or further our career goals. But being the bearer of children does make us different from men. It makes us stronger, more nurturing, and more capable in many regards. And, for a relatively short period of time, it also makes us beholden to someone (or several someones) else. Should we really be asking our children to sacrifice those few critical months so that we can get back to work? In the big picture, it’s such a short period of time for us to stop everything and simply nurture, connect, and form the bonds that, we hope, will aid our children in developing their own balanced and beautiful lives.

“[Mayer] conveys the image of someone who’s perfectly capable of combining her personal life and her public responsibilities without one derailing the other. That’s a message we should applaud,” Kathleen Gerson, professor at New York University and author of “The Unfinished Revolution: Coming of Age in a New Era of Gender, Work and Family” told Lewis. “It also suggests that somehow it’s illegitimate for women—and by implication for men as well—to take some time off at critical moments in their own lives and the lives of their children. To that extent, it’s a backward-looking message.”

Mayer’s decision is reflective of her own capabilities, as Gerson explains, but it’s also clearly a decision driven by priorities–and not just Mayer’s, but also the priorities of our culture. Had she been running a company in, say, France, there wouldn’t be as much pressure for her to return to work so soon, because the universal health care system and the generous maternity leave programs reinforce the importance of this incredible time for mother and baby. It reinforces the reality that life is not permanent and certainly our careers are not, no matter how important they seem.

The experience of parenting is fleeting and precious–and the joy of those moments with our children enrich us not just as parents, but as a culture too. But here in the U.S., maternity leave is often treated more like an inconvenient vacation than the miracle it is. So, it’s no surprise that Mayer has decided to attempt the impossible. But she shouldn’t have to.

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ColumnYahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s controversial decision to outlaw working from home has nothing to do with motherhood.

If we all follow Marissa Mayer’s lead, I can stop working from home. This is going to be awesome. No more answering emails while I make dinner. No more updating my company’s Facebook page after 5. No more Sunday afternoon proposal reviews. It will be like the early ’90s when we left work and work was over. The ’90s were great.

I think you see my point. Marissa Mayer’s new mandate that all Yahoo! employees work onsite feels like a big step back in time. There are loads of studies showing that flexible work days are better for people—and productivity (not to mention the environment). And there are studies showing just the opposite. Most tech workers don’t have to punch a clock anymore, and very few people want to. But, I don’t work for Yahoo!—and neither do most people who are freaking out about this. Why do we all care so much about Mayer’s new policy?

More than a fear that our own employers will make us suit up and come in, reasoning that if it’s good enough for Yahoo!, it’s good enough for us, it’s pretty clear that people are interested because Mayer is a woman, not to mention a new mom. Many are asking how she, a working parent, could do this to us.

Which begs some questions: Why is working at home linked to parenthood? If a male CEO did the same thing would anyone bat an eyelash?

There are tons of reasons to work at home, or in a coffee shop, that have nothing to do with kids. And shouldn’t. Once the right to work remotely is tied to whether a person has kids, how long her commute is or another matter unrelated to her job responsibilities and performance, the door is open for an HR nightmare and employee morale problems.

If someone is working at home, he should be working, not just replying to email in between watching kids—or the episode of Nashville he missed earlier in the week. In reality, there’s time spent not working no matter where you spend the workday, whether that break is to throw in a load of laundry at home or watch a cute animal video for two minutes at your desk. For many people, that mini break between tasks is actually part of how they work effectively.

As an employer, you either trust people to get their work done wherever they are, or you don’t. It seems Mayer doesn’t. I don’t see how taking away a benefit most people seem to want will change that, but then, I am not the CEO of a global enterprise, so maybe she knows something I don’t.

Which brings me to my next point. There’s been criticism about Mayer not sympathizing with real women—which I assume means those women with kids and without access to a private jet and unlimited resources. To that I say, so what? She has worked her ass off to become one of a handful of high-profile female CEOs. This isn’t US Weekly and she’s not just like us; she’s Marissa Yahoo! Mayer. She doesn’t have to identify with us (and doesn’t seem to)—she has to turn around a struggling empire.

I would hope her decision to put the smackdown on working from home was a business decision, not a personal one. And the assumption, by men and women alike, that her decision had anything to do with her ability to make babies leads us to the second question: If she was a man, would this discussion be about anything other than employee productivity? Maybe. There might be criticism about him not sympathizing with work-life balance, but I don’t think the outrage would be the same. She’s the CEO. She’s not the kindly Yahoo! aunt, and she didn’t do this to screw over women or families.

Ultimately, Mayer knows her workforce, and if it needs cleaning up and a strong kick in the ass, that’s her job. But, to an outsider like me, it looks like a throwback blanket policy that is going to be a disaster for morale. What it says to most of us is what most people already think about Yahoo!: It’s no Google.

Photo: TechCrunch

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