Parental leave and family at work

La protection de la maternité holds a noun that does two jobs in French, and only one of them crosses into English. The abstract job is the one this list needs: la maternité is the state of being a mother and the stretch of law built around it, which is what « maternity » does in « maternity protection » or « maternity pay ». The second job is concrete, and in ordinary speech it is much the commoner of the two: la maternité is the building. It is the maternity hospital, or the maternity unit inside a larger one, the place with the delivery rooms in it. Elle est partie à la maternité reports a car journey and not a legal status, and la maternité la plus proche is an address. English cannot do this at all. « Maternity » on its own is never a place: it has to have « hospital », « unit » or « ward » bolted on before it becomes one. So a translation that keeps the bare noun turns a building quietly back into an idea, and a reader who meets la maternité outside a legal text should look for a roof before looking for a right.