i have gotten flack for this in the past but with all the talk about the very real bias against women due to maternity leave, i think it'd be nice if we tried to normalize "leaves" in general, medical diagnosis, new puppy, family crisis, etc

having a baby is clearly different than getting a new pet, and having an ill family member is different from having a water main explode in your house and destroy everything

at the end of the day, all sorts of things happen to all sorts of humans and acknowledging that those are real things that require lots of time can help us stop punishing a particular subset of folks for a particular thing