381–390 of 570 posts
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I keep saying it: the ERA was a (successful) ruse by the elite class to further dilute and weaken the middle class dressed up with a feminist guise.
What is ERA?
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…
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.
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> 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…
> The amazing thing to me is you think the OP was asking for something unbelievable.
The five years that OP alluded to is a really long time to not be working. That's 5/40 years for any given career (for a single child), meaning one eighth of a childfree person's productivity has to cover for it. At least at this extreme scale.
> Both of us had comparatively long parental leave for both kids.
How long was it? I'm genuinely curious.
Again, I'm not against subsidizing childcare and supporting children. Some of the expectations of parents seem to be really high, especially to someone whose parents both worked throughout my early childhood.
The current costs of childcare in my area are $80-$250/wk for infants unless you're going for something super Bougie for your baby.
My first child is due January. I sat down with my boss about a month or so ago and told him I'm intending to take parental leave. "No problem" he said, I told him my intention was to take the full 8 weeks I'm entitled to. He didn't say anything right away to that... eventually it was more of a "...that's not typical for the guys around here" We did a bit of back and forth. (I think he went to HR to find out he can't…
The child got off the ground well and I think it stems from both parents being regularly present during the first year. Also, being a young parent is stressful, so it's good to share the effort.
If all goes well, my kid will be a productive member of society - so maybe it's not just family friendly, but profitable, too.
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> Maybe you should not live somewhere so expensive .. What should e.g. waiters / waitresses do then? Drive to work for hours every day so they can serve coffee to those who can afford to live where they need to work? You make it sound simple but it is not.
I mean, that’s an example where they could easily move. You can wait tables anywhere. Eventually there wouldn’t be enough in cities and they’d have to raise wages to equalize, but a lot of people can’t even envision not living in a mega-city.
And you also need to consider social networks. Poor people depend heavily on their existing social network for financial safety. Having a social safety network when things go poorly is the difference between having a bad time and going homeless. Moving to a new area involves potentially shedding that safety network, which is a high risk high reward maneuver. Often for those on the edge of financial ruin the potential downsides emotionally dominate the potential upsides, which is unsurprising if you've ever experienced poverty.
Can it be done? sure. People do do it, after all. But it's difficult, risky, and expensive. If you ever find yourself wondering why most people don't do something that's "easily" done, then chances are it's less about people being lazy or dumb and more about there being factors you've missed.
> but a lot of people can’t even envision not living in a mega-city.
I think the snide tone here is completely unwarranted. It's not that people "can't even envision not living in a mega-city", they live there for a variety of perfectly rational reasons. If you've ever talked with the working class in those "mega-cities", a lot of them would absolutely love to move to at least a smaller city, but feel like they can't because of everything I said above.
And even outside those mega cities it's not like everything is perfect either; there's not some magical utopia in Kansas or wherever with high wages and low COL that the workers are too stupid or too myopic to move to. Most of the areas with jobs are also expensive, and getting more expensive still. Places that are actually cheap are cheap because there isn't a lot of work to do, because they're unpleasant places to actually live, or because they involve a hellacious commute into the areas where the jobs are.
The commute thing might sound petty if you have a new car, but it's a big problem if you're poor. Long commutes cost more in gasoline and maintenance, and an unexpected breakage can put savings (if any exist) and jobs at risk. Nevermind that adding a long commute might not be possible on top of the hours required to float the household financially.
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> 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...
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…
It definitely helped us economically (it's nice to have so much paid holiday) but it forced me into a nurturing role which my partner was definitely better suited for. I ended up being quite depressed by the entire situation and had a series of mental health issues + lost most of my friends. At the same time I am definitely better at negotiating than her and I am earning more - so without that artificial incentive we would have naturally gravitated toward the best solution.
I agree two parents households work great, but you don't really need two parents hands-on with kids all the time. I find it great in limited doses but I would go completely insane if I had to do it all the time, while I can tolerate work just fine. My partner was getting incredibly stressed at work but with kids it seems like she found her balance.
She's looking forward to go back to work once all the kids go to nursery / school in 3 years, but not in a typical employers / employee setting, more like running the family software business.
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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.
One can treat an employment contract like a business relationship while also giving some preference to a company they like working for, and vice versa (always bearing in mind that all but very small personally run companies are likely brainless , soulless corporate entities regardless of any PR platitudes to the contrary). Agreed on that. However, in the OP above, the guy describes a situation in which despite being…
>I don't see why "they'd fire you in no time if you stopped providing value" is always thrown around as a negative.
It seems the whole loyalty thing is always sided heavily in favor of the employer. When both sides eschew loyalty and make cold, hard business decisions, my example is what the employee's might look like. Not very appealing I know, but neither is laying off 25% of your workforce because Zillow decided it wanted to be a real estate investor and failed miserably at it; an example of a cold, hard business decision.
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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.
You are asking for an incredibly high amount of welfare, essentially "everyone else in society should pay me for 5 years because I chose to have a kid". I'm choosing to have a kid too, but I'm taking the personal responsibility path of saving and paying for it on my own. Perhaps there is some middleground, but 5 years is absolutely absurd.
I would say 3 year is pretty good as kids starts to gain a lot from socializing after that age.
Why would this be absurd? It's perfectly normal. Looking after a toddler is hard 7/24 work with little time to spare. Of course you can go to work and instead pay for a house cleaner and a baby sitter to look after your house and your kid because.. work is more important? Or what is your argument here?
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If I didn't have to pay for medical, I likely could've survived on savings and GoFundMe.
It’s insane to me that our absurd health care system has routed around insurance systems shortcomings by literally begging friends, family and strangers to help us afford basic living. And the insurance companies are laughing all the way to bank.
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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…
I can vouch from personal experience that I did not enjoy my paternity leave at all and I'd much rather work.
Also, the gender gap is not a thing. There are so many variables that go into salaries that any argument around the topic is just an attempt at making a political statement.
There are tons of possible explanations to explain a delta in salary between men and women. Men generally tend to negotiate better and women tend to take more time off when a son is born. You can also slice subsets of data, to show whatever you want. For example, if you look at women in their 20s, they are outperforming men on both salary and education.