When I first told a fellow American about my 12-month maternity leave in Canada, she raised her eyebrows: "Not paid though, right?" Paid parental leave [1] was a reality my friends back home couldn't comprehend. They were used to fighting for any leave at all and measuring it in weeks. But outside the US, having a baby looks a little different.

For the first year of my daughter's life, Wednesday afternoons were spent clinking glasses with a Circle of Moms [2] at the local brewery as our babies cooed on a blanket beneath us. We swapped stories about how naps were going (not good) and whose babies were starting to crawl [3] (not mine). I was a first-time mom far from home, and these women had become family to me. We gathered every Monday at music class, Tuesday at yoga, Thursday at the park, and Fridays at a rotation of house concerts, where string quartets and guitar sing-a-longs transfixed our babies.

Since year-long parental leave is normalized in Canada, it was easy to find a group of parents on the same schedule as me. At the end of a challenging year of sleepless nights [4] and messy meals, I was grateful for the built-in friends and support during what could have otherwise been a lonely time.

Because society in Canada is arranged in a way to support substantial parental leaves, it also wasn't seen as an inconvenience when I left my job for a year. My team hired a maternity leave cover so they weren't left scrambling, and I didn't have to feel guilty for not being there or pressured to check in.

And when it came time for my daughter to start daycare [5], I watched her wave goodbye to me and walk right in, a big girl who was ready to start making friends. (And then I went and cried in my car.) But I was ready, too: taking the year to care for my body and mental health alongside my baby helped me feel prepared to return to work.

Five years later, I was back in the US, walking through my quiet neighborhood with my second baby strapped to my chest. We were both crying. Life was chaotic, and I constantly felt alone. Without the same culture of regular parent meetups, I struggled to find community. There were probably programs at the library, but I had only recently come out from under the fog of having a newborn [6], and it was almost time to go back to work already, so it seemed too late to make the effort. The idea of somehow seeking out a group of friends seemed exhausting and I couldn't muster up the strength to organize anything.

At four months old, my daughter still felt so young. It was heart-wrenching to say goodbye to her as I put on clothes that weren't sweatpants and prepared myself to fake-smile at my first morning meeting.

I was lucky to be working remotely, but still, pumping felt impossible to schedule — I would get so caught up that I'd realize I missed a session, and by ten months, I wasn't producing any more milk. I can only imagine how much harder it would have been if I had to schedule a pumping room and coordinate bringing everything to and from the office [7] every day.

Postpartum depression [8] snuck up on me, until I felt constantly frustrated and out of energy. The difficulties that a support structure helped alleviate with my first child now felt insurmountable. The baby wouldn't nap in her crib, she wouldn't breastfeed, and alone, I felt like a failure. Sometimes I'd lay on the floor, unable to stop my racing thoughts. It took me a year to finally realize what was wrong and get the help I needed.

Parental leave in Canada isn't perfect, but I did feel like society was working with me to help set me up to bond with my baby, feel confident in parenting, and form strong connections with my community [9]. It allowed me to keep my job and feel valued in my career. Most importantly, it made me feel like I could take the time I needed to be a mom. In the US, I felt like I was swimming through sand, trying desperately to raise a baby before I had to go back to work, and the effects lasted long after the day I signed back into my email. But it doesn't have to be like this.

Several countries offer over a year of paid leave, according to Pew Research Center [10]: Bulgaria, Hungary, Japan, Lithuania, Austria, Slovakia, Latvia, Norway and Slovenia. Estonia offers a year and a half. The United States is in the minority as only one of six countries [11] to offer no national leave at all [12]. Although some states are beginning to pass leave laws, it's not comprehensive enough.

I hope that Americans can stop taking our lack of parental leave as a given. We deserve the same protections that other countries provide to help support new parents and set them up for success. I wish Americans knew that the idea of sipping a beer with fellow parents next to a blanket of cooing babies is not so wild after all.

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