So Marissa Mayer Is Only Going To Take Two Weeks Maternity Leave - And That's OK

The Yahoo CEO has confirmed that she'll be taking two weeks off when she gives birth to twins in December.

Hurrah for Marissa Mayer. The Yahoo CEO has revealed that she's expecting twin girls later this year, and that she'll be taking two weeks off following their birth, before returning to work ASAP.

'Since my pregnancy has been healthy and uncomplicated and since this is a unique time in Yahoo’s transformation, I plan to approach the pregnancy and delivery as I did with my son three years ago, taking limited time away and working throughout,' she confirmed in a Tumblr blog post. 'I’ve shared the news and my plans with Yahoo’s Board of Directors and my executive team, and they are incredibly supportive and happy for me.'

But instead of jumping up and down with glee, showering her with dummy-shaped confetti and wondering what her Twitter handle is so that they can congratulate her in 140 characters (or less), critics have crawled out of the woodwork and jumped upon the fact that she's not going to be taking the 16 weeks maternity package that Yahoo provides for its staff members.

And the thing is, that just doesn't make sense.

Parenting is personal choice. How you do it, when you do it, and whether or not you even want to do it comes down to two people, and two people alone. (And no, one of them isn't your mum.)

Meanwhile, Marissa Mayer is reportedly the fifth highest paid CEO in the world. She has the money and the privilege to do what she wants. If she wants to take time off, she can. If she doesn't want to take time off, she doesn't have to. Many, many women don't have those luxuries, and of course that isn't fair. But Marissa shouldn't be berated just because she does.

After all, she's tried this approach already - back in 2012, when she gave birth to her son, Macallister Bogue. Everybody in the Meyer family seemed quite happy with how that went down - but with a multi-million pound salary, if it hadn't worked out, she was under no financial pressure to repeat it this time around, unless it was exactly what she wanted.

But here's the real sticking point: if a man was CEO and was due to become a father, is unlikely that anybody would bat an eyelid about him skipping the paternity leave offered to him. And while he wouldn't have experienced the physical trauma of pregnancy and giving birth, there's no medical reason why Marissa - or any other healthy woman - shouldn't be able to return to work after two weeks if they want to.

Leaving us with only one thing to do:

Find out Marissa's Twitter handle, and tweet her a congratulations message immediately.

Read Marissa's blog post in full below:

With great happiness, Zack and I have some exciting news to share – I’m pregnant! In fact, I’m expecting identical twin girls, likely arriving in December. The twins part was quite a surprise, because I have no family history of twins or any other predisposing factors. However, as I’ve now learned, identical twins occur by random chance in roughly 1 out of approximately every 300 pregnancies. Zack and I have embraced the surprise and are very excited about these new additions to our family.

Since my pregnancy has been healthy and uncomplicated and since this is a unique time in Yahoo’s transformation, I plan to approach the pregnancy and delivery as I did with my son three years ago, taking limited time away and working throughout. I’ve shared the news and my plans with Yahoo’s Board of Directors and my executive team, and they are incredibly supportive and happy for me. I want to thank them for all of their encouragement as well as their offers of help and continued support.

Leading Yahoo in our renaissance, alongside a terrific and dedicated team, has given me tremendous professional pride in our accomplishments. I’ve never been more excited about our progress and the growth opportunities for our amazing company. At the same time, I’m blessed to have experienced some of my most extraordinary and proudest personal moments while being Yahoo’s CEO. Moving forward, there will be a lot to do for both my family and for Yahoo; both will require hard work and thoughtful prioritization. However, I’m extremely energized by and dedicated to both my family and Yahoo and will do all that is necessary and more to help both thrive. The future looks extremely bright on both fronts.