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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

#451

Post by sixstringtheory »

jseban wrote: post #419
pertymcpert wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you actually proposing that as a solution? Are you against paid parental leave?

I'm against it. Why give people less responsibility and less freedom, as they get smarter and more educated. And why revert to a more costly and inefficient public sector to achieve this. Seems like moving in the absolute wrong direction to me. Socialism and "free stuff" is something that I'm absolutely against in every way. And people have full control over having children. I see no point whatsoever in having paid p…

> people have full control over having children

I disagree. There are plenty of people without access to birth control, abortion, or even proper sexual education in the US.

I've spoken with so many people who are at once against sex ed, abortion, contraception and parental benefits. That is wanting to have your cake and eat it, too. Without the first three you're going to need the last one. Not everyone has a good familial or social safety net. Not everyone is independently wealthy. Exceedingly few can live completely pastorally.

It's like asking for a software product fast, cheap and high quality. Pick two.

Same with society: you can have a healthy, free and educated populace, able to fulfill personal/social obligations (ie child rearing, taking care of aging parents, building lasting friendships), and/or working at peak economic production/efficiency. But I doubt you can have all three at the same time without massive subsidization or regulation. An individual's time and resources spent on one are the opportunity cost of the others. I'd be interested to know counterexamples of societies that were able to achieve all three.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#452

Post by sjg007 »

yeetman21 wrote: post #446
cm2012 wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there should be more leave but it needs very strong federal subsidies. I worked with someone from a European company working in the USA. She started her full time job here while she was on an 8 month maternity leave from her old European company (which she didn't plan on returning to afterwards). It would be fucked if her old company had to eat 8 months expenses and then not even have an employee returning ba…

Does that not encourage people to then become baby factories? If you know you get 8 months paid leave every time you had a baby, why would any man or woman go to work again? They would just sit at home and breed.

Unlikely. 8 months of paid parental leave would not encourage multiple births considering the true cost of raising kids. You've got to clothe, feed, and house them.

But we are also in population decline and that is worse than having decent parental leave.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#453

Post by foogazi »

echelon wrote: post #351
humanwhosits wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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

Depends on who is paying

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#454

Post by sjg007 »

JohnWhigham wrote: post #261
lifeformed wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does "having a spine" force votes out of people who disagree?

Because if a caucus isn't willing to stand their ground to get what they want, then what is the fucking point? Not to mention it was one of Pete Buttigieg's things he was pushing for. Yet when asked about why it didn't get included, he just kind of shrugged his shoulders like he didn't really give a shit. It's why the Tea Party had limited success in the early part of the decade: they were willing not to participate.…

Dems are screwed no matter what. If the progressive stick it to the center then nothing gets passed and 2022 roles around and republicans trounce them with empty promises. And then 2024 will look even worse for Dems because nothing will get done and the Republicans will say vote for our guy and we will pass infrastructure. The Dems need something to pass now so that there is 3 years of progress.

We need steady incremental progress.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#455

Post by merpnderp »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #97
merpnderp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generations of kids have grown up this way without issue. Sleeping 7/8 hours at a daycare is barely different than sleeping 7/8 hours at home. And the other hour bing broken up while being held with a bottle and a diaper change.

I can only assume you have no experience of what breast pumping entails, and the biological and chemical effects of a mother breastfeeding her baby. It is not true that it is "without issue". Not being able to directly breastfeed your baby leads to many downsides, even just mechanical ones. Such as decreased or erratic milk production, clogged nipple ducts, engorged breasts, all which are greatly reduced when an infa…

Yes, I've raised kids. Mine were only up maybe 30 minutes every 2-3 hours when born. And there are 16 hours when a mom isn't working to have all those benefits you discussed. And if you can find a study that says there's a discernible difference in childhood outcomes based on those additional 8 hours of contact between a child and mother, I'd love to see it because I can't imagine in all the factors that involve childhood, those 8 hours difference (for a few months) are detectible.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#456

Post by petsormeat »

deanCommie wrote: post #427
mbesto wrote: post #213

Earlier 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...

> All of the evidence for wage discrepancies between male and female is due largely to women's role of motherhood. Citation needed. It's PART of the discrepancy, but the evidence is far from conclusive. Even the link you pasted shows otherwise. Women without children still peak at 90% of relative wages to men without children, which themselves are lower than wages of fathers (presumably because being in a stable rela…

I'm not a parent, yet have never made even 90% of what my male peers were paid.

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#457

Post by foogazi »

deanCommie wrote: post #432
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 We can obviously unpack all the ways that this is abused, but generally speaking children are necessary for the continuation of the species. Children are also absolutely a burden on the parents, physically, emotionally, and financially. So yes, broadly speaking, I would expect the childfree to disproportionately contribute into a societa…

> people move further from home from work (losing direct family access),

Sounds like personal choices to me

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#458

Post by dang »

klyrs wrote: post #291
sershe wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, I admit the edit could have been done better. I'll stop pursuing this path :). However, it was downvoted before the edit for expressing an unpopular, but IMHO factually justified (i.e. anti-natalist) position. I think that was a fair point to make in a discussion of paid parental leave. Again, I don't care about points. I want to hear from people who disagree with the original comment ;)

> factually justified (i.e. anti-natalist) position... I want to hear from people who disagree with the original comment Does your mom agree with this "factually justified" position? She might have more patience with you than you'll find among strangers on the internet.

Please don't get personal about this. It can only land as a personal attack and make things worse.

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

Re: Without parental leave I might be dead

#460

Post by MandieD »

rsj_hn wrote: post #79
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…

> 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) It is always citizens that shoulder the burden one way or another. Self: Pay with your own savings Firm: Pay with higher prices and lower wages State: Pay with higher taxes paid to the state If you ask me, option 3) seems to distribute the pain to the mos…

That’s the deal here in Germany (taxes pay for parental leave), and I was ok with it, in a high-minded “it’s good for the children” way despite looking like I was just going to be on the paying-for-it side.

Fast forward to a rather late “happy accident”, and I thank whatever compelled me to move here soon after college.

Would I have saved more than the 18k EUR in parental leave pay had I been on even a non-SV US tech salary with US-only taxes? Yes.

Would I have had a whole work and regulatory culture around me that guaranteed that I could take that year, and come back to my choice of part-time schedule for the same type of work? No.

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