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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

#351

Post by echelon »

humanwhosits wrote: post #346
echelon wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> This expects that the rest of us have to work to subsidize you having children This is exactly how society works for ages 5-18 and we call it 'school', how is 0-4 different?

It was my impression that the OP wanted subsidized parental leave until age 5 so that they could spend 1:1 time with their child and family needs.

Public school is typically less than $50/day per student. I vaguely suggested minimum wage stipends for an extended parental leave (1 year+), and this would be more than we spend on public schooling.

Lots of poor families make childcare work on shoestring budgets and have done so all throughout history. My parents did.

How much money is enough? How much is too much?

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#352

Post by nickff »

humanwhosits wrote: post #346
echelon wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> This expects that the rest of us have to work to subsidize you having children This is exactly how society works for ages 5-18 and we call it 'school', how is 0-4 different?

You're comparing very different levels of welfare/wealth transfer.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#353

Post by kingsloi »

kingsloi wrote: post #217

I 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…

I can't edit this post, but I just want to add that I feel incredible lucky that I was able to work from my child's bedside at all.

We met many other parents in the ICU who worked jobs that weren't remote, crane operators, waste management professionals, mill workers, etc. I imagine they share the same sentiment as me.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#354

Post by jrumbut »

burntoutfire wrote: post #326
cure wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

That leaves 0 margin for error. If your kid breaks a bone and you have to pay for $X000 ambulance ride to an out of network hospital you're screwed for years.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#355

Post by nickff »

Fantosism wrote: post #349
burntoutfire wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

On average in the US, 1 in 2 bankruptcies are due to medical debt. I think it's disingenuous to include the "biggest costs of life" and omit what is arguably the largest for an american citizen. 3000 gross is more like 2-25 net depending on the state. I haven't been in many industries where an employer is going to be covering healthcare costs for an $18/hr employee. So for a family of 3, that's another $1,000 a month…

>" On average in the US, 1 in 2 bankruptcies are due to medical debt. I think it's disingenuous to include the "biggest costs of life" and omit what is arguably the largest for an american citizen."

If one's income is as low as the parent described, they would likely be eligible for Medicaid.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#356

Post by pc86 »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #200
pc86 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

You'll think very differently the moment you get a disability and people think you are no longer providing sufficient value to society.

Great strawman/non sequitur but completely irrelevant.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#357

Post by DavidVoid »

bko wrote: post #7

I 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…

> 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 bet over time that fraction would grow larger as paternal leave got more normalized, especially if the parental leave could be spread out over a few years (like it can in many European countries) instead of over the first few months.

Here's how the percentage of parental leave days taken by mothers and fathers in Sweden has changed over the years [1]. Note that between 2002-2015 each parent had exclusive right to 60 of the total 480 days of parental leave (12.5%), that has since then been increased to 90 (18.75%).

[1] https://i.imgur.com/FSOK5eD.png

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#358

Post by Tijdreiziger »

kingsloi wrote: post #296
conductr wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US? FMLA? Just curious if you felt you couldn't take it due to company culture or if it just didn't apply to you? Either way, a horrible experience for you I know. I’ve been fortunate to work with folks that are family friendly when things like this arise. I can’t even imagine opening my laptop while in the hospital and in that headspace.

Yeah, in the US. I had 2 weeks-ish off total and random days/hours when there were big procedures, but was "saving" the rest for when my wife returned to work. My child was chronically sick (but worse than I/we knew), and I had no idea what the future had in store for us, I was worried if I "used" it all, then I'd be forced to work from home and care for my child. I have a great manager, who would've been ok with wha…

I'm so sorry for your loss.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#359

Post by pc86 »

Clubber wrote: post #250
pc86 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

If you really wanted to treat it like a business relationship, any employee should constantly be looking for higher paying / better job and leave immediately when that job is offered, not even giving 2 weeks, because that's 2 weeks of additional income the employee wouldn't be getting. Are you in agreeable with that as well? Hard, cold business decisions work both ways.

I don't think this is true. I've been given resumes by bosses of people I've worked with before and told them not to interview based on previous interactions, whether they were good to work with or not, etc. You can burn every bridge as you cross it but eventually that will bite you. We software people like to pretend everything is a 1 or a 0 but that's not the case in the real world. Relationships matter.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#360

Post by meheleventyone »

echelon wrote: post #290
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.

> 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…

It sounds totally bonkers if you’re not used to it but this is actually the norm in other countries. Both of us had comparatively long parental leave for both kids. Both kids went into really nice state kindergarten before they were 18 months. Before that if we were poorer we’d have our childcare subsidised. Both kids get things like a sports club grant each year, free dental care and free healthcare. There are state run after school clubs and so on.

The amazing thing to me is you think the OP was asking for something unbelievable.

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