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Without parental leave I might be dead

nytimes.com

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Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#231

Post by lifeformed »

burntoutfire wrote: post #212
DrBazza wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who is forcing women back to work? A modern Western lifestyle. Almost every Western country without fail requires dual incomes to afford a basic lifestyle. The working-dad stay-at-home mum has long gone.

That's not true. A comfortable lifestyle perhaps, but "basic" can be had on just a single average salary.

A single family member earning a wage as a low income worker is not making enough to pay for the health insurance for a family with newborns, on top of rent, food, transportation, clothing, all the costs of having a child, saving for emergencies/future/education, and some semblance of entertainment and having a life.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#232

Post by dang »

comeonseriously wrote: post #98
charcircuit wrote: post #87

Maybe you should not live somewhere so expensive and stop spending money on unnecessary things. You can switch to eating cheap food and minimize your expenses. If you are just making ends meet you are not financially responsible.

> Maybe you should not live somewhere so expensive and stop spending money on unnecessary things. Because The Poors waste their money? > You can switch to eating cheap food and minimize your expenses. So, The Poors shouldn't care about nutrition? > If you are just making ends meet you are not financially responsible. This is so naive.

Please do not respond to flamebait with another flamewar comment. That makes everything worse, and is against the site guidelines in its own right.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#233

Post by dralley »

bradleyjg wrote: post #209
dralley wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

Just to be clear hear, we're talking about parents being able to take care of their newborns and not being forced back to work after "2-4 weeks" as the OP stated.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#234

Post by 999900000999 »

giantg2 wrote: post #64

While I agree that family leave is a good thing and needs some discussion about how to implement/fund it, I really dislike the title. It's a real stretch to claim that if she didn't have paid leave that she might be dead. The real root of the issue is that she should have been paying attention to her symptoms. One could even make the arguement that if she needed to go back to work sooner, that the symptoms would have…

Given my working class background, she's spot on. If you don't have paid leave, you don't have time to see the doctor. Thousands of people die every year just because they don't have time to see a doctor since they're too busy making Subway sandwiches or whatever.

She supported her point rather well, post pregnancy complications are extremely common and it shouldn't be a shocker to say you should have time to handle those.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#235

Post by dang »

haunter wrote: post #129
charcircuit wrote: post #87

Maybe you should not live somewhere so expensive and stop spending money on unnecessary things. You can switch to eating cheap food and minimize your expenses. If you are just making ends meet you are not financially responsible.

What a grade A asshole you are

Attacking another user like this will get you banned here, regardless of how bad their comments are or you feel they are. You may not feel you owe them better, but you owe this community better if you're participating here.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#237

Post by teawrecks »

charcircuit wrote: post #146
teddyh wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I suggest these informative articles? • 5 Things Nobody Tells You About Being Poor , May 27, 2011: https://www.cracked.com/blog/5-things-nobody-tells-you-about... • The 5 Stupidest Habits You Develop Growing Up Poor , January 19, 2012: https://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-stupidest-habits-you-deve... • 4 Things Politicians Will Never Understand About Poor People , February 21, 2013: https://www.cracked.com/blog/4-t…

1. Okay 2. This article would be better for poor people to read. 3. Okay

If only bring frugal were as simple as you make it sound. The food industry has optimized how cheap food can get both in price and nutritional content. If you eat the cheap stuff, you WILL develop health issues, which will compromise your ability to work and your child's development.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#238

Post by rojeee »

I have a 5 week old son. I'm lucky enough to be able to quit my job to help mum look after him because we don't have any family nearby to help. It's still a struggle with both of us doing it full-time! I have no idea how single mothers cope. I've no idea how people can work in the early months of parenting a child. I'm in the UK and had 2 weeks parternity leave - it's really not enough!

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#239

Post by angelzen »

mbesto wrote: post #213
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…

> Its just not beneficial for anyone. I'm personally a proponent of parental leave, but I'll answer this one point. "Forcing women" back into work after pregnancy is an attempt my mothers to minimize wage decreases. All of the evidence for wage discrepancies between male and female is due largely to women's role of motherhood. https://bfi.uchicago.edu/insight/research-summary/motherhood...

Perhaps this is a case of metrics getting ahead of reality. Some circles have taken as an axiomatic truth that any disparity in wages between males and females is an intrinsic scandal. Perhaps there are some reasons for that, for example the tradeoff between forcing mothers back into the workforce vs. giving them ample time (order of 12 months) to recover and take care of the new born. For the not parents out there, a new born requires feeding every 2-3 hours. Expecting a mother to feed on that schedule and perform as an employee is inhuman.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#240

Post by endisneigh »

dralley wrote: post #210
endisneigh wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you’re trying to justify it to voters it does have to be.
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