More than 20 years ago, I was the first woman to take maternity leave at Google.

But I almost didn’t come back to work after my first baby was born. It felt like too much to spend the workday away from my newborn while juggling the demands of my job and parenthood. If I had made a different decision in that moment, it would have changed the course of my career.

That’s one of the reasons why I’ve long advocated for better maternity leave policies. In 2014, I wrote about why offering this benefit is good for business, just as I took maternity leave for the fifth time.

Today, the way we work is changing. The pandemic showed us that we don’t have to sit in a cubicle to be productive in our jobs. People need flexibility to do their best work, and th…