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Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

bbc.com

501–510 of 617 posts

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#501
post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a tech worker in California, your income is triple to that of a Finnish tech worker. You can easily take unpaid time off for your paternity leave, perhaps even quit your job for a year, and still get out ahead.

...and his living costs are probably way higher too, so it's not a fair comparison.

I think it's fair to say even if we adjusted for lower US taxes, higher livings costs, that the Californian worker would be far better ahead still.

There is a reason the entire Silicon Valley doesn't pack up and move to Finland. The money is in California right now.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#502
post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please cite the studies on breastfeeding. Most show very little long term benefit (meaning, excluding upset stomachs in the first year of life and similar). Example article: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jun/20/is-brea...

Such newspaper articles are of limited use because they don't cite the studies they refer to. No one's gonna buy the author's book to verify her statements. You also have to consider that women are sometimes bullied into breastfeeding even when it's very hard for them and that is the author's main message. Otherwise she still thinks that "breast is best": "Breastfeeding seems to improve digestion in the first year, l…

None of the above appear to confirm that breastfeeding creates a long term benefit?

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#503
post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, no one is taking anything away from you as is. You can prefer that the money was given to mothers instead, that's fine.

Money is limited and the government decides how to distribute it. The difference between spending it on B and taking it away from A is, to me, absolutely unsubstantial.

By that logic, by giving the money to you, the government is taking it away from starving children. It simply doesn't work this way.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#504
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious what what happen if someone wanted to have ten kids and abused this system, and the mother didn’t work. At a gut I feel like I’d be less likely to have kids, not more, if I felt like I was burdening other people by accepting benefits like this. I have no worries as an American having as many kids as I want because I make a good salary, can afford them, and won’t take more than a weeks, maybe two weeks tim…

> I’m curious what what happen if someone wanted to have ten kids and abused this system, and the mother didn’t work. Don't take this the wrong way, but that is such an American way of thinking. You guys are so preoccupied with thinking about somebody getting something they don't deserve that you forget about thinking about what is good for everybody else. Consider this, Nordic countries have generous public services…

To be fair right wing governments have put time limits on things like paid for higher education.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's no longer a bigger risk for companies to hire late 20-s women compared to late 20-s men - both will go on leave if they get kids True. But now it is a risk to hire people in certain age groups in general. Could this become a "don't hire married people in their late 20s and early 30s" incentive?

> Could this become a "don't hire married people in their late 20s and early 30s" incentive? Not for a good company. I've had several employees go on maternity and paternity leave. I've given them respect, and time, and money, in order to make this time of their lives as unstressful as possible. I've done it because it's the right thing, but these people remember being treated well. They've come back to work and done…

So you had good people that you wanted to get back? Great. A lot of us employ people who are just average and cannot afford to pay them multiple thousands while they are on leave, paying someone else to cover them, and then they could always decide to leave anyway.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#506
post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mothers already have a year of maternal leave, this is about fathers getting decent amount of leave as well. No one is taking anything away from you.

Please edit out swipes like "What are you on about" from your comments here. They poison discussion badly. The rest of your comment is fine. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

My apologies. Unfortunately I cannot edit that comment anymore.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#507
post #402
post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had you bothered to read this little sub thread, you would have noticed that the original post was down voted into oblivion. Is that what you call a conversation in Sweden?

And saying that "you are not allowed to have this conversation" is like saying: "If you argue against me you are part of the problem". So it is a good way of just throwing out an argument and killing conversation.

It really isn't. Preventing someone to converse is killing the conversation not a plea express an opinion.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#508
post #439

I'm a dad (of three) and I am not convinced that time spent at the very start of their lives is as significant as that later in their lives (note the "as", I am not saying it has no value!) when you can really nurture their passions, knowledge, etc. I did spend a lot of time with my children in their earliest days because it was the right thing to do, but I don't feel either they or I particularly gained from it (tha…

I view it from a totally different perspective -- I took 2 months off at the start (and my wife left her job a while before that). Since we had no hired helper (nanny or doula) during that time and had limited grandparents help, it was mostly the 2 of us baby-caring during the first 2 months. It was both rewarding and exhausting, and we both agree that it was the most physically-intense time of our lives, to the poin…

I'm guessing that most people have (or create) a support network. Their parents might move closer, they join parenting groups etc. so that there are people to watch the babies, give you help etc.

Of course there are people who don't have that but that is a sad state whether you have children or not.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#509
post #384

Where does the money come from? I'm an American and so I'm less familiar with other countries policies. I get that mandating a very generous family leave policy is wonderful for parents and good for society. To me it seems it's gotta be tough for small business owners though. A business of lets say 8 employees simply cannot afford a paid six month leave without it impacting its performance. How is that handled in tho…

The company does not pay the parent on leave. The state does. Its part of the concept of a welfare state.

Re: Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

#510
post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, considering that original post was immediately downvoted into unreadability, it has a bit of point.

Not agreeing is not the same as not allowing. I think this is a false logic. I see a lot of people mistaken freedom of speech with some god-given right of being listened to.

We are talking about a conversation(a dialog) not freedom of speech or god given rights.
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