The frequency of people on HN who think that paid parental leave isn't important is frankly disgusting. I'm so disappointed with this community.
Without parental leave I might be dead
321–330 of 570 posts
Re: Without parental leave I might be dead
#322I 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…
> forcing women back into work
This is not what happens. No one is being "forced" to do anything. Rather, free individuals (speaking from a U.S. centric viewpoint) make a choice to become pregnant and birth a child. It seems reasonable to me that the result of this private choice should not be the burden of others. Note that FMLA (again, U.S.-centric) grants unpaid leave. In other words, you can't be fired for certain finite length absences resulting from certain medical occurrences. But you're not entitled to payment for non-work.
So, when Mom gives birth, she absolutely has the right to say, "You know what, I can't/don't want to work." She just isn't entitled to force a company to pay her for the privilege of her non-work.
I may be in the minority on this, but I find it really weird how people, more and more nowadays, believe the consequences private, personal choices should be borne by everyone else. The entitlement is really hard to stomach. This idea seems to be coalescing with a belief that "stuff just happens". But the reality is, the economy–any economy–is powered by labor.
People need to work. If enough people don't, we go back to the default state of reality: poverty, starvation, etc etc.
> The employer gets half an employee back
This is a self defeating claim. Under your (implied) proposal, the employer would just not get any employee back for an even longer period of time. Or, worse, they have to hire a temporary employee to fill in, and are now paying two sets of wages, all as a result of decisions over which they have absolutely influence!
Re: Without parental leave I might be dead
#323I believe parental leave should be provided, but I don't see how anyone expects employers to shoulder the burden of providing paid parental (in reality maternity) leave without an implicit bias towards hiring men (or at least paying women less). You can provide the same benefit to men and women, but let's be honest, even when available most men take only a fraction of the allowed time. I guess you can force people to…
> Saying "other countries do it" isn't really an answer. It is an answer. For example, my cousin in England was able to spend a year breastfeeding her daughters without having to go through the arduous process of pumping. Their family is alive and well, and so is the UK.
some countries understand that healthcare and children are a matter of national security.
perhaps pentagon should get involved in parental leave policy. they could probably fund it outright out of their black budget.
Re: Without parental leave I might be dead
#324The problem with parental leave is the same problem with universal health care or any entitlement that isn’t utilized by the entire population at the same rate constantly. Things like roads (and even then there are many locales with crappy roads) are easy to justify. Things like parental leave and universal health care are hard because the percentage of those utilizing will be low and the disproportionate benefit wil…
Nonsense.
Re: Without parental leave I might be dead
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder how much this would change if parental leave was also granted to fathers at similar or equal rates. The article mentions postpartum issues -- this is stuff that isn't really mitigated by having one parent alone care for a kid. If you're struggling with depression by yourself in the house with a kid... it's nice to have more people around to help. Even if you're not struggling with depression, having people a…
Yes exactly. The only way to close gender gaps is to force men to do less work outside the home, not women more. (Men doing more work inside the home and women less follows from that more easily than in the other direction.) Better childcare / pre-k can help too, but there musn't be a gap between when at least partial leave ends and childcare begins. Good thing we all work to much already, so reducing total "public s…
We can follow the tactic used in other gender equality initiatives and creates targeted incentives to raise participation levels.
As an example, they could add extra parental leave days that are earmarked for father classes.
Re: Without parental leave I might be dead
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not true. A comfortable lifestyle perhaps, but "basic" can be had on just a single average salary.
I think your frame of reference may be a bit warped. What is an 'average' salary? The median personal income in 2019 was $35,805 (cf. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N ). I think you'd be hard pressed to live on that with a family of 3+ people. And what about the 50% of people who have a personal income less than the median? edit: that stat was for 2019, not 2020, my bad
That's $2983 per month.
Biggest costs of life are housing, food and transportation. With one person staying at home, both the cost of transpo and food go down (because: one less person commuting to job, everything can be home cooked and the person staying at home have time to shop smartly and save a lot thanks to it).
This lives housing costs. Here, it's all about location. In many areas (assuming renting), you can have a house or apartment suitable for a family of three for less than $1000 a month.
Re: Without parental leave I might be dead
#327Earlier 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.
> Subsidize me until they are in public school and I’ll high five you. I know this is an exaggeration, but it drew my interest. This expects that the rest of us have to work to subsidize you having children for five to six years . I'm wholly on board with helping parents raise children. Children are our future. But at some threshold of subsidization this equation tips and actively offloads the entire burden onto thos…
What has changed is that due to labour mobility and contemporary society generally the extended family has become a non-thing for so many of us.
If we're expected to move wherever for work, then that wherever needs to provide support. Because right now I'm hours from my sole remaining inlaw and a whole country apart from my own parents and brother, and it's been hell raising children like this. And not just young children; my teenagers' mental health would be much better if they were to have their uncle and grandma nearby.
Re: Without parental leave I might be dead
#328Earlier 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.
> Subsidize me until they are in public school and I’ll high five you. I know this is an exaggeration, but it drew my interest. This expects that the rest of us have to work to subsidize you having children for five to six years . I'm wholly on board with helping parents raise children. Children are our future. But at some threshold of subsidization this equation tips and actively offloads the entire burden onto thos…
> But at some threshold of subsidization this equation tips and actively offloads the entire burden onto those without children.
True, but on a long enough timeframe one could also view it as a repayment from the people who (with or without children) were once children-being-subsidized themselves.
Re: Without parental leave I might be dead
#329I literally worked for most of my child's 8 month life, from her ICU room, I worked the morning of her 9 surgeries, I worked through the genetic diagnosis, I worked through being told my child has brain bleeds, neuroblastoma, is deaf, re-intubated, etc... if my insurance wasn't tied to my work, I would've quit in a heartbeat. I'm convinced I'll go to my grave with working that time being my biggest regret in life. I…
Sorry for your loss, but this is textbook appeal to emotion.
Re: Without parental leave I might be dead
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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,…
> Some circles have taken as an axiomatic truth that any disparity in wages between males and females is an intrinsic scandal.
All babies are created by two humans.* Why should the career of one of them be penalized for it? Why not instead create as a society the tools so that both can share the upbringing and care of the baby while the mother is recovering?
* (although the parents are not always the same persons who have biologically made it; yet it is a good idea that the solution for such a case is the default behaviour).