Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Without parental leave I might be dead

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 570 posts

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#201

Post by Apocryphon »

charcircuit wrote: post #188
ashtonkem wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreeing with parent here is in conflict with your original point. Your original point is that poor people are in that position because they're bad with money and make bad financial choices. Parent is asserting that it's a systemic issue that is unrelated to individual financial responsibility. These positions are incompatible.

I thought he was saying that it was a systemic issue that people were irresponsible with money.

Yes, but in that case "irresponsibility" becomes less of individual character failings and more of a society-wide issue that requires society-wide solutions. People do not receive sufficient financial education. [0] There are is too much cheap credit and major institutions desire it. [1] They are too enticed to consume. [2] Basic costs of living have risen sharply [3] while wages have not. [4] When all of this is considered, it is clear that the aggregate problem is less irresponsibility, and more that Americans are simply being pushed to their limits from every direction, by structures and systems that are stacked against them.

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/danipascarella/2018/04/03/4-sta...

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/30/covid-consumers-did-great-jo...

[2] https://www.apa.org/monitor/2008/07-08/consumerism

[3] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/04/47-percent-of-americans-say-...

[4] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us...

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#202

Post by jbreiding »

jbreiding wrote: post #195
refurb wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a parent who got 6 months that barely fucking scratches the surface of the time it take to raise a human. Subsidize me until they are in public school and I’ll high five you.

I would argue we just need to bring public school earlier. We don’t need this tied to an employer like health insurance as this is something that benefits us all.

My word choices might not have been the best here.

But consider if everyone was able to take the first year at some percentage less of regular salary. Then public funded care available with learning included?

My wife would have preferred this to having exhausted fmla just before giving birth because of early complications.

Returning to work was not an option for her, 6 years later returning to work was one of the most emotionally draining experiences for her.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#203

Post by ahevia »

tomp wrote: post #194
KaiserPro wrote: post #28

I really cant understand the logic of forcing women back into work after 2-4 weeks. Its just not beneficial for anyone. The mum is utterly frazzled. The employer gets half an employee back Society is conditioned to think that the only practical way to raise a baby is to give up on work/get live in care. now, to look at it from a "my mum managed, I don't want to undermine the american nuclear family" point of view: Ye…

You're free to move to Europe, earn 3x less, and get 1-2 years parental leave (actually not just for mothers in some countries!)

An extremely impractical solution for majority of Americans who don’t want to uproot their life.

Surely we can show some empathy and demand better benefits for all. You know youre included in that pool too! I’m sure most folks on their deathbed will be glad they spent more time with their children then at their desk.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#204

Post by kgwgk »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #65
bko wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given that _every_ other "civilised" country has some sort of rudimentary care for new parents, which doesn't acutally cost that much, I can't see any reasonable objection to not having it. Giving a special benefit that will for the most part only be exercised by women discourages hiring women. You can still think its worth it, but don't pretend like you're baffled by anyone who would object or question how this im…

Agreed, this sounds like a very good reason to ensure parental leave is available for both men and women.

It’s an even better reason to make it compulsory. (!?)

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#205

Post by antoinealb »

tomp wrote: post #194
KaiserPro wrote: post #28

I really cant understand the logic of forcing women back into work after 2-4 weeks. Its just not beneficial for anyone. The mum is utterly frazzled. The employer gets half an employee back Society is conditioned to think that the only practical way to raise a baby is to give up on work/get live in care. now, to look at it from a "my mum managed, I don't want to undermine the american nuclear family" point of view: Ye…

You're free to move to Europe, earn 3x less, and get 1-2 years parental leave (actually not just for mothers in some countries!)

I think lumping together all European countries like that is not really helpful: not many european countries have a median income one third of the american one, and some are even higher than the US one.

wrt duration of maternity leave, western europe is pretty much at 3-6 months, while some of the eastern countries go longer. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave)

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#206

Post by dralley »

bradleyjg wrote: post #187
sofixa wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you fix those three, no parental leave is barbaric.

Is this kind of thing supposed to persuasive? You’ve presented no argument whatsoever. Is the idea that if use an emotionally laden term like “barbaric” you think it will browbeat people into falling into line with your opinion?

This is one of those things that shouldn't need to be explained, even to 20-something tech bros who've never had a child themselves.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#207

Post by tomp »

ajuc wrote: post #107
bko wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, saying "other countries do it" isn't really an answer. That's like saying why are incomes in Mexico so much lower than the US? Just do what the US does. In fact, Mexico has 12 weeks. And Greece has 40. I'd rather be a parent in the US than Greece or Mexico. Policies don't exist in a vacuum.

> Mexico has 12 weeks. And Greece has 40. And Sweden has 480 days. Poland 1 year. Switzerland 20 weeks. Ireland 26 weeks. UK 52 weeks. Canada 50 weeks. Norway 12 months. Denmark 52 weeks. France 16 weeks for mothers and 4 weeks for fathers. I can go on. There's 120 such countries in the world. BTW that leave is on top of 20-30 days of paid vacations each year and unlimited paid health leave in most of these countries…

> Also notice that some of these countries have higher or similar GDP per capita to USA.

In the US, households have 10% more money than the second closest competitor (Luxembourg), and 20% more money than next closest (Germany & Switzerland).

I think that's a much better comparison than GDP (which isn't necessarily connected with employment), and shows how these tradeoffs work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#208

Post by hnaccount141 »

pc86 wrote: post #176
helloworld11 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without knowing your company in detail, based on what you describe and general business practices, I'd be willing to bet that they'd fire you in no time if you ever stopped providing value for them. So why be loyal at all? 8 weeks is crumbs, and you even had to fight for that. I mean if you've been a solid employee for X years, briefly asking for a bit of time off for a life changing event should be absolutely fine,…

It's a business relationship so I don't see why "they'd fire you in no time if you stopped providing value" is always thrown around as a negative. Of course that's the case. You'd stopped working in no time if they stopped providing value to you too. As it should be, from both sides. You can have loyalty and still understand that there's a social/informal contract in place (and maybe a formal one in some places).

I don't think it's a negative in absolute terms, it's just an argument against loyalty to a company. Loyalty is a two way street, and is defined by how people treat each other when times are tough.

It is common for companies to expect "loyalty" in the form of working extra hours when the company is in a tight spot or settling for meager raises rather than switching companies while at the same time laying people off at the first sign of trouble. In such an environment, an employee offering loyalty to a company when none is offered in return is setting themselves up to be taken advantage of.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#209

Post by bradleyjg »

dralley wrote: post #206
bradleyjg wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this kind of thing supposed to persuasive? You’ve presented no argument whatsoever. Is the idea that if use an emotionally laden term like “barbaric” you think it will browbeat people into falling into line with your opinion?

This is one of those things that shouldn't need to be explained, even to 20-something tech bros who've never had a child themselves.

Of course not. Nothing needs to be explained or justified anymore. We have an entire generation so fully confident in the absolute correctness and obviousness of every single iota of their many strongly held moral opinions that even asking for an explanation offends them.

And they can’t understand why they keep on failing to achieve their policy goals.

PS: I don’t think there were too many <= 19 year olds signing up for hacker news in 2011.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#210

Post by dralley »

endisneigh wrote: post #38
lotsofpulp wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> percentage of those utilizing will be low and the disproportionate benefit will inherently fall with a small percentage. The percentage of society deriving a benefit from a healthy workforce is very high. On the order of 100%.

Indirectly sure. Directly, it’s low. It has to be low for the math to work.

Not every societal benefit has to be quantified and accounted for to justify its existence. Pretty much everyone has experience with misguided middle managers trying to run organizations entirely from the context-free numbers their spreadsheets, why is this any different.
Post reply on HN