Currently, no federal employees receive paid maternity or paternity leave. Parents who give birth must either use all of their own annual/sick leave or take up to 6 months of UNPAID leave.
For those employees just starting out in government jobs, it's very difficult to accrue enough leave to stay with your newborn for a few weeks, let alone a couple months. Also, few people can afford to take an extended leave without pay. The result is that people use up everything in their leave bank and return to work barely a month after giving birth or opt to go up to 6 months without income.
On the flip side, many private companies and even state government employees receive 1 to 3 months of paid maternity leave.
Let's put federal workers on equal footing with their private-sector counterparts.