Maternity/Paternity Leave

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November 4th, 2021 at 9:51:38 AM permalink
AZDuffman
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 135
Posts: 18136
Quote: gamerfreak
I just got married, my wife earns significantly more than I do.

Paternity leave is to help the mother recover and bond with the child. It is absolutely a should be considered necessity.

Work should not be fetishized. It is a means to an end. Family should always come before work, it’s not even a question.

Traditional conservatives who still care about family values are on board with paternity leave.


You want to stay home with family, fine. Just quit demanding someone pay you to sit at home with them.
The President is a fink.
November 4th, 2021 at 9:58:23 AM permalink
gamerfreak
Member since: Feb 19, 2018
Threads: 4
Posts: 527
Quote: AZDuffman
You want to stay home with family, fine. Just quit demanding someone pay you to sit at home with them.

As a STEM professional my skills are in high demand. So I absolutely can, and do, demand to be paid to stay home with my family (should I decide to have children).

If my current employer didn’t agree with that, I can easily find one that will.

That’s how the labor market works.
November 4th, 2021 at 10:03:51 AM permalink
Mission146
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Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 23
Posts: 4147
Quote: gamerfreak
As a STEM professional my skills are in high demand. So I absolutely can, and do, demand to be paid to stay home with my family (should I decide to have children).

If my current employer didn’t agree with that, I can easily find one that will.

That’s how the labor market works.


Labor market works two ways, demand and supply. You're supplying a labor commodity that is not easy to come by, so that puts you in a position to demand an employer who will give you what you want.

For various reasons, some employees are more sought after than others. The ones who are not as valuable (exist in greater supply) aren't in a position to make the same demands. That's how the labor market works.
"War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen..let us give them all they want." William T. Sherman
November 4th, 2021 at 10:05:47 AM permalink
rxwine
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 188
Posts: 18633
I guess to sum up my position (as different than Mission)

1. There's very little we can do about people's initial choices about children. Some may pine for a baby, then find out it was way more effort than taking care of cats. But only give as much effort as if it were a cat.

2. Early childcare is an investment for all of us, not just parents. Early childcare provides the foundation to survive poor conditions later. Doing everything after early childcare is just a patch, not a fix, for what was failed at in the beginning, whether it was poor nutrition or other forms of neglect or abuse.

3. Plenty of evidence that early brain development sometimes is a permanent disability if it's bad enough.

4. Attempts to punish parents for their initial poor decisions through deprivation of goods or services just doesn't seem feasible without backfiring and giving the children higher chances of poor outcomes and affecting us all in some way or other.
You believe in an invisible god, and dismiss people who say they are trans? Really?
November 4th, 2021 at 10:07:08 AM permalink
Mission146
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Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 23
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Quote: gamerfreak
You could make the same argument about any benefit given to govt employees.

Employees should demand adequate benefits from their employers, whether that is government or private business, including maternity/paternity leave.

I voted for Trump so I am not sure how much of a lefty that makes me.


Well, that's perfectly fine.

I guess that maybe I made some assumptions from your OP that I shouldn't have made. Is it your position that the Federal Government should mandate paternity and maternity leave, and if so, how much? If not, then what are you advocating for?
"War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen..let us give them all they want." William T. Sherman
November 4th, 2021 at 10:18:38 AM permalink
gamerfreak
Member since: Feb 19, 2018
Threads: 4
Posts: 527
Quote: Mission146
Labor market works two ways, demand and supply. You're supplying a labor commodity that is not easy to come by, so that puts you in a position to demand an employer who will give you what you want.

For various reasons, some employees are more sought after than others. The ones who are not as valuable (exist in greater supply) aren't in a position to make the same demands. That's how the labor market works.

I completely agree.

I probably muddy’d the conversation a bit by including maternity and the worldwide infographic, but if you look at my OP, I specifically linked the opinion of 4 wealthy fathers who are saying paternity leave should not be taken by a man under any circumstance.

My only point here is that I believe that opinion comes from a place of using work as an excuse to skirt paternal responsibility.
November 4th, 2021 at 10:23:02 AM permalink
terapined
Member since: Aug 6, 2014
Threads: 73
Posts: 11786
Quote: Mission146
Labor market works two ways, demand and supply. You're supplying a labor commodity that is not easy to come by, so that puts you in a position to demand an employer who will give you what you want.

For various reasons, some employees are more sought after than others. The ones who are not as valuable (exist in greater supply) aren't in a position to make the same demands. That's how the labor market works.

For some the most successful companies
Acquiring talent and keeping talent is the key to a profitable business.
I worked for American Express
Retaining talent was key to keeping profits up
That's why they have 20 weeks full pay, Mom and Dad
Its a key benefit that helps retain the most talented employees in the world to stay with the company
This is a business looking to stay competitive now and in the future
Sometimes we live no particular way but our own - Grateful Dead "Eyes of the World"
November 4th, 2021 at 10:25:11 AM permalink
Mission146
Administrator
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 23
Posts: 4147
Quote: rxwine
I guess to sum up my position (as different than Mission)

1. There's very little we can do about people's initial choices about children. Some may pine for a baby, then find out it was way more effort than taking care of cats. But only give as much effort as if it were a cat.

2. Early childcare is an investment for all of us, not just parents. Early childcare provides the foundation to survive poor conditions later. Doing everything after early childcare is just a patch, not a fix, for what was failed at in the beginning, whether it was poor nutrition or other forms of neglect or abuse.

3. Plenty of evidence that early brain development sometimes is a permanent disability if it's bad enough.

4. Attempts to punish parents for their initial poor decisions through deprivation of goods or services just doesn't seem feasible without backfiring and giving the children higher chances of poor outcomes and affecting us all in some way or other.


1.) We agree as to this point. That said, the state does have means to deal with parents who are outright neglectful or abusive. If nothing else, they overreach in that realm in some ways, while in others, you have parents who apparently have custody of their kids and it just makes you scratch your head in bewilderment that such is still the case.

2.) It is an investment, but as with any other investment, people do a cost/benefit analysis. We agree that there is a non-zero cost, which would most likely (if Federally mandated) would come about by way of taxation. We agree that there is probably, at least in some cases, a benefit---so, the question becomes whether or not these theoretical and abstract (if you're not the one with the kids) benefits justify the cost.

It would be interesting if things of that nature could be, or were, put to a National vote. Of course, we don't have national votes on this matter (or many others) because these are matters that would be best left for individual states to handle.

I also tend not to think the Federal Government should have anything to do with it because advocates of the traditional family structure several decades ago advanced the argument that this is why women should stay at home with the kids in the first place. How was this argument overcome? The argument was overcome because arguments for personal choice were made that were deemed meritorious and, in my opinion, were and are meritorious.

With that, women would enter the workforce in greater numbers and, for those in the family way, they recognized that their choice would result in less time with their children---and that those children would either have to spend time with another family member, or in the alternative, that the family would have to pay for a childcare provider.

In a relatively short period of time, particularly for the lower and lower-middle classes, it eventually reached the point that many jobs that may have once paid sufficiently to provide for an entire family, quite comfortably, no longer did and both parents working would become more common as a matter of necessity.

Ultimately, the whole thing has come full circle and the choice, choice, choice, my choice (meritorious) argument for the right to work is now being increasingly replaced with the demand that other people pay for childcare, or pay for an individual to stay at home for a particular amount of time, due to that individual or family's choice to work and have a family.

If this endeavor is successful and we see the Government fund such a thing, then what you end up with is a great many individuals who will be put in the position of having no choice (taxation) but to pay for the choices that other people have decided to make.

It is with that we now get into the discussion of societal investment and the notion that these things would exist as having great social utility. The notion being, of course, that this creates greater stability and support for the child----which was the argument that the other side was making in the first place all those decades ago.

You have people that choose not to have kids, or still, some families who can afford to have only one income provider with one parent or the other staying home with the kids...so, again, why should those people have to pay for the choices of others?

3.) The same can be said for exposure to organized religion, but we can't ban that.

4.) The parents aren't being deprived of anything. Nothing is being withheld from them. By way of their own decisions, they have limited their own ability to go out and acquire goods and services....there's nobody out there saying, "By virtue of the fact that you had a kid, you are no longer permitted to buy an expensive automobile."
"War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen..let us give them all they want." William T. Sherman
November 4th, 2021 at 10:26:44 AM permalink
rxwine
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 188
Posts: 18633
Quote: terapined
For some the most successful companies
Acquiring talent and keeping talent is the key to a profitable business.
I worked for American Express
Retaining talent was key to keeping profits up
That's why they have 20 weeks full pay, Mom and Dad
Its a key benefit that helps retain the most talented employees in the world to stay with the company
This is a business looking to stay competitive now and in the future


Probably true, that even if single people can work more hours, parents with children and bills to pay, are more stable in the long run to a company.
You believe in an invisible god, and dismiss people who say they are trans? Really?
November 4th, 2021 at 10:29:41 AM permalink
Mission146
Administrator
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 23
Posts: 4147
Quote: gamerfreak
I completely agree.

I probably muddy’d the conversation a bit by including maternity and the worldwide infographic, but if you look at my OP, I specifically linked the opinion of 4 wealthy fathers who are saying paternity leave should not be taken by a man under any circumstance.

My only point here is that I believe that opinion comes from a place of using work as an excuse to skirt paternal responsibility.


I don't know why their opinion is their opinion, but had I worked at a place that offered paternity leave, then I obviously would have went ahead and used it as long as I didn't think it would get me fired. My firstborn actually had to be transferred out of the area and be in the NICU for a couple of weeks, or so, so my attendance was kind of spotty during that time. I think I missed two days and was just happy not to get fired---definitely didn't get paid for the missed time.

That's just where you get into personal choice, though. If I'd been given the choice between being down there for the whole day the first day, or keeping my job, obviously I would have had to have gone into work. Yeah, I know, FMLA---but you know and I know they'll just trump up some other reason to fire you, or in many states, can keep out of trouble by simply not giving a reason.
"War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen..let us give them all they want." William T. Sherman
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