<prompt> Human: My wife is currently 35 weeks pregnant with a due date of June 17th but the doctor thinks the baby may come early. She had scheduled the start of her leave for next Friday to go through September, which is the first available day we could get childcare where our first child goes.She works for a small employer and is not eligible for FMLA since they do not have 50 employees. We live in Massachusetts was has a similar law called MLA but only covers 8 weeks. There there is currently one other person in her Department after they downsized from 3. They were not planning on hiring attempt to replace her.Last week they started pressuring her to start her leave later and come back earlier saying they could not keep her job for more than 8 weeks. I feel this is a ploy by the company to avoid having to hire anybody to replace her for the summer for her boss to avoid doing the work herself. All of this is causing plenty of stress on my wife because she wants to be able to put the second child in care when they are able to take the baby.I think that my wife should be firm about the start and end of her maternity leave even though it exceeds the time that the company policy states. She has been employed there for over 10 years and is currently has the responsibilities of both her original work and the employee that they downsized. Last year she received a larger bonus then other employees 4k and a larger wage increase 4, I feel she is still under paid for the work she is doing at 56k. I have told her I think she should tell her employer that the start and end dates of her maternity are not negotiable and if the company is not willing to extend the unpaid time then she should be willing to part ways. No need to be disrespectful or angry about it just a thank you for the opportunity but we need this time to take care of our familyWe are financially stable right now with my income providing enough for us to survive without hers. We were currently paying down debt so this would have to put that on hold but the only debt we have aside from the mortgage is 15K on a car and 11 K on a personal loan. We currently have 13k in savings.I believe if she told her employer that she was not available until September they would likely hold the job for her anyways because she does most of the work for her department and it is pretty technical. They had said it would take 90 days to train a temp as their reason not to get one. I think its a bluff to force her back earlier. She wants to go on leave later and come back earlier to appease her employer. I think its the wrong thing to do. I think that if this end up being the end of her employment there she can do better elsewhere. I think its a terrible way for somebody to treat their employees especially so close to giving birth. What do you guys think she should do?  <response>: The company isnt obligated to hold her job longer than 8 weeks. Id say leave this decision up to your wife. Dont pressure her to quit her job. 