[HN Gopher] Without parental leave I might be dead
___________________________________________________________________
Without parental leave I might be dead
Author : mooreds
Score : 193 points
Date : 2021-11-15 12:30 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| bbarn wrote:
| I agree with the author's point, but her jokes are cringy at best
| and trying to use funding for space programs as a way to blame
| lawmakers for ignoring people's basic needs is something that's
| been dead since Kennedy shut it down in the 60's.
|
| It's not like there's one pool of money, and some wizard
| distributes it.
| mataug wrote:
| This is one of the reasons why I don't want to have kids in the
| US.
|
| - Paid parental leave is inadequate
|
| - Child care is obscenely expensive
|
| - Putting my child through a good school district might make me
| house-poor.
|
| - I'm not sure I can save my child from crippling Student debt
| without killing my retirement savings.
|
| - The looming climate disaster that my child might have to go
| through.
|
| Given all these factors, it doesn't make sense for me to consider
| having children, I'd rather enjoy the life I have with my
| partner.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > The looming climate disaster that my child might have to go
| through.
|
| Climate disaster isn't an US thing. And it may strike Europe
| harder than the US.
| railsgirls112 wrote:
| Climate disaster is a fundamentally global issue? I fail to
| see how this invalidates anything
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| From the US live in Norway now.
|
| In Norway there are a lot of political parties that can matter.
| All depends on the election. Some grow, some dont, new ones are
| added, old ones go away.
|
| That is a dynamic that is entirely missing in the US.
|
| We have parties in the European left and we have parties on the
| European right, parties in the middle, green party etc etc.
|
| I try to get people to understand that we do not have a single
| party that is far right enough to compare with the Democrats in
| the US. (Discussing the Republicans is just hard).
|
| There is no left in US politics. and you could say that there is
| no right in Norway.
|
| The party considered to be "far right" would never think about
| advocating doing away with universal healthcare.
|
| The same for our main right party (Hoyre == Right) would not
| attempt such a thing either.
| seneca wrote:
| The illegal immigrant population alone in the US is estimated
| to be between 10 and 28 million. The entire population of
| Norway is about 5.5 million. Perhaps the two countries have
| very different political realities.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| One of my general beliefs is that political competition is
| necessary for healthy and responsive governance. Everywhere
| I've ever lived with single party rule has devolved into myopic
| and unresponsive governance. The exact details vary depending
| on _which_ party had total control, but the general issues
| remain. A party that is competing for voters is one that
| produces new ideas, and tries to persuade voters that they 're
| the best choice. A party that wins by default focuses on base
| service and winning primaries, which often doesn't worry as
| much about governing well.
|
| Unfortunately the US will never have the level of political
| diversity that is the norm in parliamentary democracies because
| FPTP heavily favors two party rule, and the two parties will
| never let go of FPTP for fairly obvious reasons. So the issue
| is, how can we make our system more dynamic given that the best
| solution, a change to our elector system, is probably out of
| reach?
| beaconstudios wrote:
| It's really strange to think that the American left (AOC,
| Bernie) are fighting for such radical concepts as social
| healthcare, free education and paid maternity leave. I'm from
| the UK, the most capitalist European country and we had all
| three until we regressed on university fees thanks to our
| wonderful Conservative party.
| lucaspm98 wrote:
| There's a reason for that. The majority of countries with
| these socialized services have suffered from the corruption,
| bureaucracy, and taxation innate with government control.
| This is with the notable exception of a few countries with
| vast natural resources providing an economic baseline, and
| likely more importantly a relatively small and homogenous
| population with similar needs and opinions.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| The US is one of the wealthiest MEDC countries, and
| "homogeneous population" is just racist drivel.
| freeflight wrote:
| _> The majority of countries with these socialized services
| have suffered from the corruption, bureaucracy, and
| taxation innate with government control._
|
| The majority of these countries rank better on these
| metrics than the US does.
|
| _> This is with the notable exception of a few countries
| with vast natural resources providing an economic baseline_
|
| I can only think of one notable exception on that front,
| that being Norway with it's oil resources.
|
| _> more importantly a relatively small and homogenous
| population with similar needs and opinions_
|
| How exactly do you define "homogenous population" and why
| do you think "needs and opinions" are inherent to certain
| types of "population", which you apparently seem to use as
| a synonym for race?
| alibarber wrote:
| Tuition fees were introduced in 1998, under a Labour
| government. Sure, at a tenth of their current rate but still,
| under a different government.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| Ah you're right it was Blair - in that case, I blame the
| other Conservative party; Blairite Labour.
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| In terms of abortion rights, immigration, progressive taxation,
| and a host of other issues the US is _to the left_ of Norway.
|
| I think people spend more time consuming the news than becoming
| familiar with the actual policies and laws of countries.
|
| In case you anyone misunderstands my claim, these are the
| facts: the US has more progressive taxation both on income tax
| and corporate tax, a minimum wage, and more liberal abortion
| laws (case vs planned parenthood ruling).
| AndyMcConachie wrote:
| From the US and live in The Netherlands now.
|
| Europeans can understand the Republican party through their own
| history. They're basically just corporate fascists. Italy,
| Spain, Portugal and Greece all had very similar corporate
| fascists governments for many years and their policies,
| politics and backers very closely tracked those of the
| contemporary American Republican party. Whereas the Dems are a
| better spoken, slightly more watered down and cuddly version of
| the same.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| I agree with the GP comment that the GOP has no right wing
| parallel in Europe. But your comparison with European Fascism
| is both innacurate and historically disrespectful.
|
| Literally all the fascist regimes in the countries you listed
| were Military coups in their origin and were all fairly
| economically inept regimes. They also included all out media
| censorship, political prisoners, prisoner torture and
| interrogation, political assasinations, and genuine terror
| across civil society.
| giantg2 wrote:
| While I agree that family leave is a good thing and needs some
| discussion about how to implement/fund it, I really dislike the
| title. It's a real stretch to claim that if she didn't have paid
| leave that she might be dead. The real root of the issue is that
| she should have been paying attention to her symptoms. One could
| even make the arguement that if she needed to go back to work
| sooner, that the symptoms would have been more disruptive and
| could have lead to addressing them even sooner. There are good
| arguments for family leave, but her story and the way she tells
| is not one of them.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I agree, the only way the author's premise makes sense is if
| she was given bad information, and she did not bother to
| research anywhere else. With both of my wife's pregnancies on
| both coasts of the US, we were told to immediately call the
| doctor if bleeding persisted after a couple weeks. You are even
| told exactly what the bleeding should look like and how its
| characteristics should change over time, and if it deviates, to
| call the doctor.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Given my working class background, she's spot on. If you don't
| have paid leave, you don't have time to see the doctor.
| Thousands of people die every year just because they don't have
| time to see a doctor since they're too busy making Subway
| sandwiches or whatever.
|
| She supported her point rather well, post pregnancy
| complications are extremely common and it shouldn't be a
| shocker to say you should have time to handle those.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Thousands of people die every year just because they don't
| have time to see a doctor since they're too busy making
| Subway sandwiches or whatever."
|
| I don't think this story shows that. This story involves a
| call to the doctor. The doctor says it's life threatening.
| Any person would choose to take off rather than die.
|
| In fact, in my experience the people who die because they
| didn't see a doctor didn't know how serious their condition
| was, or didn't know they even had a condition. If anything,
| this story is a good argument for better patient education.
| After all, she had time off and still didn't pay attention to
| her symptoms - symptoms which were almost certainly required
| to be covered with the discharge instructions. So this is
| really an example of what paid leave looks like and how
| patient education needs to be improved.
|
| "post pregnancy complications are extremely common and it
| shouldn't be a shocker to say you should have time to handle
| those."
|
| This shouldn't be specific to pregnancy. This same logic can
| be applied to other medical issues. Is there really any
| reason to differentiate on causation when talking about
| medical recovery? There may be childcare issues that could
| support maternity leave, but those were not really covered
| here. So I would say this was an article mostly focused on
| appeal to emotion and theatrics (just look at that intro),
| not a well reasoned argument.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| In a better world you'd also get paid time off after a car
| crash , heart surgery, etc.
|
| America's the only county that doesn't offer parental
| leave, it's not radical to say this leads to poor outcomes.
|
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5g8eq/amazon-denied-a-
| worke...
| giantg2 wrote:
| "America's the only county that doesn't offer parental
| leave, it's not radical to say this leads to poor
| outcomes."
|
| You mean paid parental leave? You should be able to take
| unpaid parental leave under FMLA for medical reasons.
|
| America is not the _only_ country. It depends on if you
| mean developed country or some other missing adjective.
| Also, you said parental leave. Many countries only offer
| maturity leave, and not parental leave (maturnity +
| paternity). These also have other impacts /reasons than
| the medical point the original article makes.
|
| I'm not sure why you linked that article. Maturnity leave
| refers to post delivery. Pre delivery would be prenatal
| leave, which isn't discussed here. They do discuss some
| _medical leave_ here, which brings me back to the point
| about not making this solely about maturnity leave, and
| that the original article is more about medical side and
| not the other aspects of parental leave.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| >You mean paid parental leave? You should be able to take
| unpaid parental leave under FMLA for medical reasons.
|
| No working class person can just take 6 months off and
| still make rent.
|
| In many countries you can take leave before having a kid
| or after. America lacks any such framework, or general
| worker protection. A family member of mine missed
| significant time from work due to a difficult pregnancy.
| Lucky the kid was fine, but her employer just fired her.
| *Yes this was illegal, but their wasn't any real recourse
| she could take*
|
| Most of us here are very privileged. But no normal person
| can sell some RSUs and take off half a year
| bko wrote:
| 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 take parental leave, but then
| that just further encourages discrimination against people of
| child bearing age.
|
| Even if the federal government picks up the bill, it's still a
| discontinuity in business, something an employer would want to
| avoid.
|
| > Withholding paid family leave isn't just bad for parents and
| babies, it's bad for business.
|
| If this were true businesses wouldn't have to be forced to
| provide parental leave. You can point to a study that "proves"
| that parental leave is good for business, and obviously it makes
| sense as a benefit. Some companies pride themselves on their
| parental leave and use it to attract candidates. But obviously it
| doesn't make sense for many businesses, otherwise they would all
| be doing it.
|
| It's like one of those things that promises everything to
| everyone. Like veganism. Proponents tell you it tastes better, is
| great for your health, is better for the environment, and is
| cheaper. Obviously it can't be better in all dimensions otherwise
| everyone would be doing it. You see the same thing with minimum
| wage. How paying people more is great for everyone and the
| business. Sometimes it is, but there are trade offs and someone
| that doesn't run a business can't do a "study" and tell you the
| optimal policy for your business
|
| When you can't even have a conversation in good faith about the
| tradeoffs in a policy, nothing will change.
|
| Saying "other countries do it" isn't really an answer. There's no
| clear solutions
| cm2012 wrote:
| 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 back after.
| yeetman21 wrote:
| 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.
| sjg007 wrote:
| 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.
| brazzy wrote:
| > Even if the federal government picks up the bill, it's still
| a discontinuity in business, something an employer would want
| to avoid.
|
| IMO this as well is something where the DevOps slogan "if it
| hurts, do it more often" _should be applied_.
|
| The "discontinuity" of an employee leaving temporarily with
| _months_ of warning in advance is the _easy case_. If that is a
| serious problem for your business, it 's a failure of company
| culture and management. How would you deal with the "Hit by a
| bus" scenario?
| yeetman21 wrote:
| I don't think your analogy is a good one. Women go on
| maternity leave, not men. So if one group of people are the
| only ones who get hit by busses, and are in-fact expected to
| be hit by busses, who in their right mind would hire them?
| johnchristopher wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Make it mandatory ?
|
| In my country it's mandatory for my employer to let me take my
| vacation days. They are risking fines if they don't make sure I
| do and I can't give up on these vacation days either.
| wastedhours wrote:
| > most men take only a fraction of the allowed time
|
| I truly don't understand this, and each time I see the stats on
| it sit in even greater disbelief. Why would anyone turn down
| the opportunity to spend, for an awful lot of companies, _fully
| paid_ time off work to spend time with their new family?
|
| Guessing I'm much less "career-minded" than of lot of these
| guys, but it makes zero sense to me that you wouldn't stretch
| this benefit as far as you can do.
|
| Edit: appreciate all the comments! Main themes are to reiterate
| it's not an easy task by any stretch, and fears (both real and
| assumed) over retaliation for time out. I'm not yet lucky
| enough to be father, but I still can't square either of those
| between work and family time.
| moron4hire wrote:
| When I took mine, I was told it was at a particularly
| convenient time because I had just started at the company
| (Deloitte, so huge corp) so wasn't deeply embedded in any
| projects yet, plus my billable time ratio "doesn't count in
| your first year".
|
| I _still_ got a lot of pressure from my bosses to cut it
| short and work part time while I was out. One of them even
| questioned my "loyalty to the team" at a holiday party that
| I attended in the middle of it (I went specifically because I
| wanted to get face time with people and not be distant).
|
| The way a lot of corporations work, you have the "policy",
| and then you have management interpreting that policy. Things
| like leave of any kind might be technically "guaranteed", but
| they come at a cost of fewer individual contributions to
| projects and lower billable rates. And, at the end of the
| day, you report to someone who only cares about his budget,
| who has control over your project assignments.
|
| So after that, suddenly my first year was only 6 months long
| (something something fiscal year), and it _did_ count (blah
| blah blah pattern extrapolation) and I wasn 't getting good
| assignments (constantly set up to fail, and even though I
| always pulled it off, I'd get terrible reviews for the
| smallest of issues). Eventually, I got "laid off". Really, I
| was fired because my billable rates was too low (and my
| billable rate was low due to retaliation for having slightly
| more going on in my life than living at work), but the
| company schedules regular layoffs to axe the lowest x% of
| employees. I guess that is one silver lining of that awful,
| Metropolis-esque machine: they gave me a (very small)
| severance on the way out.
|
| So yeah. You can have a company "guarantee" leave, but still
| will structure a reason to get rid of you.
| htrp wrote:
| For people who don't know... Deloitte is a literal
| partnership so every hour you aren't working and billing is
| directly impacting the income of your boss (the partner).
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Same thing happens frequently with ADA. You're not going
| anywhere other than out as soon as they can find a good
| excuse, if you're even hired in the first place. Doesn't
| matter if you can do the work or not.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Lots of folks out there who don't want to do newborn work or
| spend time with their family, anecdotally. It's a chore, not
| a benefit.
|
| Higher level, the value of children to parents is declining
| based on total fertility rate declines.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/20/paid-
| paternity... (Men who receive paid paternity leave in Spain
| want fewer children, study finds)
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00472.
| .. (Does paternity leave reduce fertility?)
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Or children are no longer a byproduct of sex due to ease
| and availability of birth control options, and women
| gaining financial freedom, so the cost of children is
| finally allowed to become explicit.
|
| As opposed to environments without prophylaxis options and
| where women do not have financial independence, where it
| was implicitly borne by women.
| orangepanda wrote:
| Might be different in other countries, but where I live only
| one parent can take the full 18 months leave. For the other
| parent, its only a few weeks. In practice, the one that's
| paid less takes the leave, and that's usually the mother.
| bko wrote:
| I took less than the allotted time. I was bored sitting at
| home. Much of the first 3 months is feeding the baby,
| something I am physically unequipped to do.
|
| I enjoy work and the comradery of my co-workers. I was
| working from home anyway, so there was no long commute. And
| it gave me something to do. I'm a programmer. I like my work.
| It gives me an outlet for my creativity and allows me to bond
| with co-workers. And I care about the product and
| deliverables I'm working on. I don't like letting my
| coworkers down as they cover for me.
|
| I took another 2 weeks after my wife went back to work.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| I felt similar after the first child. But the reality for
| my SO is that it was harder on them because of all the
| other non-baby chores I couldn't do when working.
|
| So for the second child I had to get VP approval to take a
| whopping 3 weeks (unlimited* PTO, technically no paternity
| leave). That was essential because now there was childcare,
| chores, and baby care involved. It should've been more like
| 8w.
| bko wrote:
| That's fair. I was working from home and tried to do a
| lot more of the non-baby chores, like cleaning and
| cooking. We're also fortunate enough to have paid
| cleaners. But it didn't require me to take any more time
| off work. I would log off relatively early. I think
| sitting around not doing anything or screwing around on
| my computer not at work would just annoy my partner more.
| But I know some people have a lot more chores
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Good points. We had a house to maintain, family was
| further away, and no paid help. Another big factor is
| C-section recovery can be a lot longer than natural
| birth. It is major surgery.
| giantg2 wrote:
| My career is basically non-existent. I realize that I have a
| job, not a career. I took my full amount. I think it
| indirectly hurt my rating that year. I took family medical
| leave this year. It appears that indirectly hurt my rating
| this year.
|
| By indirectly, I mean that when they compare me to the other
| people they don't seem to be prorating my "stats" for that
| extra time off.
| [deleted]
| jimmar wrote:
| If you thought your boss would resent you for taking the full
| benefit and would rank your performance poorly, would you
| take that risk knowing that you've now got a very small
| person who is relying on you? You could potentially be
| limiting bonuses, raises, and promotions for an extra few
| days off. I'm not saying this is right, but I can imagine a
| reasonable new father feeling this pressure.
|
| I doubt many people shorten their paid time off simply
| because they love work so much.
| genghisjahn wrote:
| I took all twelve weeks at my company spread out of the
| course of a year. 90% great, 10% work hassle. I manage 3
| teams and it was hard to get some larger initiatives moving
| with me being out so much. But we aren't good at leave like
| this is the US. Corp policies aside we as employees just
| aren't good at it. But it's the right way to go. And I wanted
| to encourage people on team to take the leave that was
| available.
| SaintGhurka wrote:
| I can think of a few reasons. Foremost is they feel
| threatened by the prospect of their employer realizing that
| they're not irreplaceable. Also they may love their project
| and want to be there for the next phase. Or maybe they just
| figure that their employer would be hurt by their absence and
| they'd feel guilty about.
| TimPC wrote:
| In most countries it's not fully paid but a fractional pay
| setup for paternity leave. Some good companies top the
| benefit up to 75% of base pay. But bonus and stock are
| challenges. For many people being on paternity leave they
| earn 40% of total compensation which may be part of the
| reason many dads go back early.
| aerosmile wrote:
| I think you might be touching on a taboo that nobody will
| ever admit publicly: having a baby is no walk in the park,
| and in comparison sitting in a cubicle and answering a few
| emails can seem like a massive upgrade.
| thex10 wrote:
| This is why I, the nursing/birthing parent, went back to
| work after six (unpaid) weeks. That and I wanted to earn
| income again...
| parental wrote:
| That line of thinking applies to everything, though: age, race,
| religion, disability. There is no developed-world country where
| employers don't have to be considerate of their employees
| needs, including the US, it's just that the US currently draws
| the line differently to everywhere else... just move the line a
| little, this isn't a radical change.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > Saying "other countries do it" isn't really an answer.
|
| It is an answer. For example, my cousin in England was able to
| spend a year breastfeeding her daughters without having to go
| through the arduous process of pumping. Their family is alive
| and well, and so is the UK.
| bluesummers5651 wrote:
| Not disagreeing with the point of this comment, but just as
| an aside, pumping is something that even mothers who are on
| leave do. Speaking from personal experience as the dad, I was
| able to feed the baby pumped milk for some of the many daily
| feedings instead of my wife doing the breastfeeding, which
| let her get a few extra minutes/hours of sleep when the baby
| needed to be fed. Both of us were on parental leave during
| this period. That tradeoff (getting some extra sleep vs.
| pumping) is not one that all parents would make, but it did
| help us get through the first few weeks of a newborn.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Sure, but pumping once or every other feed is markedly
| different than pumping multiple times in a row over a solid
| 9 or 10 hour block of time.
| bluesummers5651 wrote:
| For sure. Certainly once she did start going back to work
| and pumping at the office, it was less "fun" - the
| pumping room wasn't the most comfortable, she had to do
| it a lot more and cart it back and forth in a cooler,
| etc.
| goldcd wrote:
| Yes.
|
| Also, I have never once heard anybody here complain that
| maternity/paternity leave is in some way damaging the
| company/employee/economy - just stuff that happens in the
| office.
| baq wrote:
| some countries understand that healthcare and children are a
| matter of national security.
|
| perhaps pentagon should get involved in parental leave
| policy. they could probably fund it outright out of their
| black budget.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I think they mean it's not a good premise for implementing it
| somewhere else. Your mention of not needing to pump and being
| able to spend time with the kids are stronger premises.
| speedgoose wrote:
| > Saying "other countries do it" isn't really an answer.
| There's no clear solutions
|
| Your argument makes me think about this satiric article :
| https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-na...
|
| I live in a country where it's exactly what we do, and it's
| fine. I took a 7 months paid parental leave as a dad recently
| and my company congratulated me for the birth.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| Which country? What do you mean by fine? It might not affect
| you directly but there's going to be some negative to
| treating it that way. A lot of countries that provide
| services like this tend to have massive burdens on their
| health systems as well.
|
| It's a tradeoff. It might be a better tradeoff for society as
| a whole but this idea that there aren't some cons to doing it
| that way is just false.
|
| Personally, I think if your company was able to do without
| you for 7 months then they don't need you as an employee. My
| guess is that your salaries are much lower than someone would
| receive in the US.
| pertymcpert wrote:
| Every company should be able to do without any employee. If
| not, that's a failure of the company. What if they decided
| to quit? What if they died?
| bko wrote:
| Again, saying "other countries do it" isn't really an answer.
| That's like saying why are incomes in Mexico so much lower
| than the US? Just do what the US does.
|
| In fact, Mexico has 12 weeks. And Greece has 40. I'd rather
| be a parent in the US than Greece or Mexico. Policies don't
| exist in a vacuum.
| freeflight wrote:
| _> Again, saying "other countries do it" isn't really an
| answer._
|
| It very much is part of the answer as it gives successful
| examples and as such proof how it's very much realistic to
| achieve, _if_ effort was actually put into it.
|
| Which is a much more constructive PoV than acting like even
| American problems are so exceptional that all of them need
| equally exceptional and unique solutions that no other
| country before could have figured out.
|
| _> Policies don 't exist in a vacuum._
|
| Indeed, that's why between Greece, Mexico and the US I
| would easily chose Greece, which has nearly half of the
| infant mortality rate of the US [0].
|
| [0] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.DYN.MORT
| baq wrote:
| the US also has significantly (in a statistical meaning of
| the word) lower average life expectancy than peer countries
| despite having by far the largest health care related
| expenses per capita.
|
| https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-
| lif...
|
| > Just do what the US does.
|
| thanks, but no thanks.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Sweden has 48 weeks. Would you rather be a parent in the US
| than Sweden?
| jseban wrote:
| A rational answer to that would be yes for anyone who is
| making an above average salary, and no only if you are
| below average. That's how all tax funded benefits work.
| cloudfifty wrote:
| Why's that? You're still not getting those benefits with
| an above average salary.
| jseban wrote:
| You would be better off financing your own "benefits" if
| you're above average. And everyone would theoretically
| also be better off without the benefits, because of how
| much money you would save in all the bureaucracy needed.
| It's only the people who are not able to take
| responsibility for having their own money, that are the
| ones that are really better off.
|
| Any tax financed benefits for everyone like this,
| pensions, maternal leave, unemployment, health care etc
| are really just an institution forcibly saving money for
| you, on your behalf. So that you don't have to be
| responsible for saving money yourself, and don't have to
| take the risk of over spending or mismanaging. And for
| that service you will pay the price of salaries for all
| the people working in these institutions.
| cloudfifty wrote:
| But this doesn't seem to be happening. Very well off
| people in the US still have very very modest vacations
| and parental leave, very expensive day care etc.
|
| What's even the upside if you're just trading universal
| tax to paying a for-profit corp monthly instead? Skipping
| the queue through wealth instead of need?
| jseban wrote:
| I suspect that "very well off" people in the US most
| likely have only one breadwinner and one stay at home
| parent more or less full time. And/or a nanny.
|
| The upside like I said, is that you save all that
| unnecessary work in the bureaucracy around the parental
| leave systems. Just look at sweden for example, it's a
| huge mess around the parental leave, they have a
| centralized agency now to micro manage _every single
| household_ in the country with exactly how many days here
| and there, they will stay home with their child. It 's
| basically central planning for child care.
|
| And there are tons of edge cases and contradictions and
| bugs in this, of course. It's even become somewhat of a
| virtual currency now these "days" that parents are given
| as a gift from the state. Every single family in the
| whole country is now basically a welfare case that has to
| be processed through this machinery, with all the
| applications, paperwork etc, regardless of how well they
| actually manage on their own. It's incredibly costly,
| inflexible and inefficient, compared to just giving
| people higher salaries and letting them manage their
| family time themselves.
|
| Edit: and, surprise surprise, it's also abused and people
| game the system. Many parents for example use their
| parental leave at the same time, to make extended
| vacations abroad of several months.
| baq wrote:
| > It's only the people who are not able to take
| responsibility for having their own money, that are the
| ones that are really better off.
|
| some people don't have the liberty of that privilege.
| being poor is very expensive.
| ajuc wrote:
| > Mexico has 12 weeks. And Greece has 40.
|
| And Sweden has 480 days. Poland 1 year. Switzerland 20
| weeks. Ireland 26 weeks. UK 52 weeks. Canada 50 weeks.
| Norway 12 months. Denmark 52 weeks. France 16 weeks for
| mothers and 4 weeks for fathers. I can go on. There's 120
| such countries in the world.
|
| BTW that leave is on top of 20-30 days of paid vacations
| each year and unlimited paid health leave in most of these
| countries.
|
| Notice that most of these also have free healthcare and
| free or cheap university education. Which is also
| "impossible" apparently :)
|
| Also notice that some of these countries have higher or
| similar GDP per capita to USA. Also ALL of the countries I
| mentioned have lower gender salary gap than USA. And most
| of them have higher women workforce participation.
|
| Somehow the argument used against paid parental leave turns
| out to work in favor of it :)
|
| If you choose to ignore almost all developed countries
| other than USA (that have 20 weeks or more of paid
| paternity leave ) and cherry-pick Mexico as your
| counterexample - you should at least be aware what you're
| doing. You are searching for excuses to keep your
| ideological delusions going.
|
| This isn't complicated, it works everywhere it's been
| tried, it's a simple change, the costs are marginal
| compared to benefits, even countries with GDP per capita
| one tenth of USA can afford it.
|
| You sound exactly like this: "8-hour work week can't be
| done, the argument that other countries do it means nothing
| - in USA it won't work. I prefer to work 12 hours a day 6
| days a week in USA than to work 8 hours in Wenezuela after
| all".
| m_ke wrote:
| It's always amusing to hear Americans act like basic
| social programs are impossible to implement as if they're
| living in a vacuum. I usually have to show them these
| charts: https://mobile.twitter.com/michalwols/status/1454
| 89419148668... or a comparison of cost of
| education/healthcare and ask them to explain why America
| is the only country that can't do it.
| tomp wrote:
| > Also notice that some of these countries have higher or
| similar GDP per capita to USA.
|
| In the US, households have 10% more money than the second
| closest competitor (Luxembourg), and 20% more money than
| next closest (Germany & Switzerland).
|
| I think that's a much better comparison than GDP (which
| isn't necessarily connected with employment), and shows
| how these tradeoffs work.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_pe
| r_c...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_pe
| r_c...
| Clubber wrote:
| You're looking at the mean which includes billionaire
| disposable income. Look at the median for a more
| realistic picture (scroll down 1 grid).
| tomp wrote:
| I doubt many billionaires have income. Although you're
| partially right, I'm not sure which is a better metric.
| Probably depends on where in the distribution you are
| (above or below the median).
| baq wrote:
| for this exercise, I'd consider 'loans against equity' to
| be disposable income.
| Clubber wrote:
| >I doubt many billionaires have income.
|
| Realized capital gains, dividend income, income on rents.
| I'm not sure how the calculate disposable income. If I
| have 200M in stock that I could sell, is that considered
| disposable income? If I earn 2M in dividends that I
| reinvest, is that considered disposable?
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| In Germany a person with median income will have access
| to free healthcare and education, good public
| transportation system and maybe even to an apartment with
| controlled rent. After you subtract all those expenses
| you may find that people in Germany may have more money
| in the pocket than in the USA. Anecdotal evidence does
| not prove anything, but few Americans who moved to Berlin
| were actually telling me that despite lower income and
| higher taxes they have more money here.
| [deleted]
| speedgoose wrote:
| Why US can't have better parental leave policies when
| Greece, France, or Mexico can?
| bko wrote:
| > Nevertheless, the participation of Greek women in the
| labour market continues to be 8-10 percent below the
| average of E.U. countries
|
| Unemployment in Greece is nearly triple what it is in the
| US (14%).
|
| Policies don't exist in a vacuum. Everything has trade
| offs. Until you accept that you'll never have a
| productive honest conversation.
|
| [0] https://ideas.repec.org/p/wiw/wiwrsa/ersa06p257.html
| freeflight wrote:
| _> Unemployment in Greece is nearly triple what it is in
| the US (14%)._
|
| This implies that Greece's unemployment is a result of
| their parental leave policies, which is, of course, not
| true at all.
|
| Greece is used as an example _particularly_ because of
| its bad economy; If a country that 's doing as badly as
| Greece can do it, why can't the US?
|
| If you want examples of "successful" economies doing it,
| there are plenty of those too.
| ajuc wrote:
| According to [1] USA is 86th in the world according to
| unemployment. Most of the countries with lower
| unemployment than USA have paid paternity leave. Please
| stop cherry-picking, you're not fooling anyone. 120
| counties in the world have paid maternity leave, often
| about a year or more of it. That includes countries with
| higher standards of living than USA.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_un
| employm...
| bko wrote:
| Everything is on the margin.
|
| All else being equal, providing a large benefit that's
| most likely to be exercised by one type of worker will
| discourage employers from hiring that type of worker.
|
| This shouldn't be complicated or controversial. It's
| basic incentives.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Perhaps you are artificially limiting the scope of what
| incentives/disincentives exist with regard to parental
| leave such that your ideological model is maintained.
| There certainly seems to be a significant amount of
| evidence to suggest your fears are unfounded.
| yardie wrote:
| If you're going to cherry pick irrelevant metrics you can
| also say that higher gun deaths are related to lower
| unemployment. Just shoot your way into a job promotion.
| speedgoose wrote:
| I don't understand the logic. Because Greece has some
| issues with its women employment rate, USA can't do
| anything about parental leaves? You even suggested in
| your initial post simple solutions for this problem, that
| work in other countries.
| geodel wrote:
| It's a damn clear logic to me. --Employers show
| reluctance to hire women of certain age--. It is same in
| India with govt's liberal policy of maternity leave,
| overall employment rate of Women has gone down.
|
| Resources do not come out of thin air. Something has to
| happen for it to change:
|
| 1) Govt provide income to family engaged in child raising
| activity. -Need high level of tax base and political
| support to actually fund it.
|
| 2) Govt open free and quality child daycare. - Again need
| political support and competent administration to do it.
|
| 3) Force private employers to pay. - Only business
| survive are with high income and revenues. Not gonna work
| with conservative politics.
|
| 4) Go back to old joint family structures where
| grandparents stay in same home with couples and provide
| "free" child care. - Needless to say absolutely not gonna
| work. Its antithesis of progressive vision of society.
|
| 5) Keep giving examples of other countries. Useless until
| one look at whole societal structure and find why many
| other things work in USA but not in those countries.
| 5560675260 wrote:
| > Its antithesis of progressive vision of society.
|
| Could you expand a bit on this? My impression was that it
| just became a cultural norm in places that could afford
| this, driven by the basic need to cultivate own "spaces".
| AutumnCurtain wrote:
| This is from the same poster who, when confronted with
| data refuting his position, said "I'm not interested in
| studies that show something", which says quite a lot
| about the value of discussion here.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| You might not want to use Greece or Mexico as a good
| example. One is literally a 3rd world country and the
| other had to be bailed out by the EU. So, no they
| actually can't monetarily support those policies.
| mrsuprawsm wrote:
| >Saying "other countries do it" isn't really an answer
|
| I mean it definitely is, since 186 other countries in the world
| do offer paid parental leave. The United States is a huge
| outlier, especially given its wealth.
| moron4hire wrote:
| I think the pandemic has handily proven that C-suite executives
| are really good at generating whatever reality distortion
| fields are necessary to ignore any evidence contrary to their
| own personal comfort and how they "always did things".
| rsj_hn wrote:
| > 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
| most people, which does mean that singles who never get
| pregnant will be paying you to take leave, and most likely the
| benefits will be capped so that high earners don't get 100% of
| their wages, and those who don't work much the year before may
| get some average of salary earned, nevertheless I'm OK
| subsidizing fertility like this.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Unless the singles are OK with no one coming to clean their
| bed pan, then it is not just pain for them.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| > Saying "other countries do it" isn't really an answer.
| There's no clear solutions
|
| Ah, the dark side of American exceptionalism. "Other countries
| do it" is absolutely an answer. We could, if we wanted to,
| peruse our way through the policies used in other countries and
| pick the one that best fits Americas needs and demographic
| situation. But that isn't possible if we put blinders on and
| pretend that the experience of other countries doesn't matter.
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| The so-called "progressives" in Congress couldn't even get
| paid leave in the transportation bill because they have no
| spine. It just shows how badly this country is fucked by
| corporations
| lifeformed wrote:
| How does "having a spine" force votes out of people who
| disagree?
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| 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.
| And it's why Democrats lost ground in elections (VA
| governor's race being the key one), and will be hit
| harder in the midterms.
| sjg007 wrote:
| 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.
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| > Saying "other countries do it" isn't really an answer.
| There's no clear solutions
|
| It is an answer, because it's been working well for decades in
| other countries. Right now I have a man in my team taking his
| parental leave and I as a manager have no problem with it at
| all. When hiring I just accept this risk and keep in mind
| possible mitigations (temporary reduction in capacity and
| expences or hiring substitution or redistribution of workload
| etc).
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| The goal of "the (political-)economy" is not to increase some
| number relentlessly.
|
| There is a trade off in all things. Something that is being
| studied now, Abused children cost society a fortune in missed
| productivity, court, criminal, medical and social care. What is
| the cost for those not _abused_ but just where the family is
| stressed for decades, what missed potential, what of those that
| fell into crime at the margin.
|
| We forsake the growing of our adults at a cost later on. And
| 90% of that growing comes from the family unit. So we forsake
| the family unit at our own cost.
|
| I am not saying we should all be the Waltons, but we should
| aspire in that direction. Schools, urban environments. Even
| seemingly crazy ideas like early start support, or therapy for
| couples every 5 years, all start to look like "stitches in
| time"
|
| There may be no clear solutions at the level of "who pays for
| missed working days" but then we are privileging private
| businesses beyond the level their role in society is I suspect.
| maxehmookau wrote:
| > But obviously it doesn't make sense for many businesses,
| otherwise they would all be doing it.
|
| Or, despite the fact that they believe so deeply that time off
| to produce the next generation of workers and consumers is a
| net loss to their bottom line, they're actually wrong and are
| yet to discover this.
|
| Parental leave should be a universal benefit for workers,
| period. Employers should foot the bill.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >Employers should foot the bill.
|
| I think society should foot the bill for society-wide
| benefits. I do not see any reason to expect small businesses
| (or even large businesses) to have to worry about the costs
| of funding parental leave benefits, outside of having the
| requisite staffing.
| maxehmookau wrote:
| Ok, sure. I'm on board with that. Except businesses will
| probably have to pay higher taxes to support such a scheme.
| Businesses are the wealth drivers of our economy (as we're
| so often told). Money either comes from taxes on them, or
| on taxes on the people that they pay. It doesn't really
| matter. It's all the same money.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >It's all the same money.
|
| Exactly, which is why tasking every business with
| calculating risks of pregnancies and funding for them is
| dumb. Just do it on a nation level, or at least state
| level.
| maxehmookau wrote:
| Sure. Which is the most pallatable to the US legislature
| to actually make this happen?
|
| It works in the UK and Europe because there is _some_
| understanding that a prospering society at all levels
| can't be achieved by blind liberalism and some collective
| risk sharing is actually a good thing.
| DavidVoid wrote:
| > 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
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Easy. It's not all about them.
|
| The long term interests of society, the employee and ultimately
| of the business is something that many business struggle to
| realize or care about.
|
| So we have the government, whose power reigns supreme, who can
| compel the business to act. Sometimes this is necessary,
| because business managers aren't always good at what they do.
|
| My favorite example was something my local conservative radio
| media went insane over about 15 years ago. The state passed a
| law that requires employers to, in writing: (a) tell the
| employee what their job title is, (b) tell the employee what
| their rate of pay is, (c) tell them what their available
| benefits are, and what they cost, and (d) tell them what
| expenses the employee will have and what they cost. (ie,
| uniforms, tools) Dire predictions of doom were made, small
| businesses were going to be destroyed, yadda yadda.
| ykevinator3 wrote:
| Yeah I agree, we need socialist child care and socialist health
| care (and pretty much everything else should be free market).
| The sooner we decouple basic health and child care from
| employers, watch how many people quit their jobs to stat
| businesses.
| vidarh wrote:
| Where it works best in other countries it very much tends to be
| covered via taxation, combined with increasing pressure for
| providing benefits to fathers as well which are _lost if not
| taken_ , coupled with strong legal protections against firing.
|
| But even then you're right that it's a struggle to get men to
| take the full available parental leave, often because "just"
| getting paid 100% of salary isn't enough. Losing X months of
| career progression is often seen as a bigger deal (and a not
| unsubstantial part of remaining pay discrepancies between men
| and women in some countries).
|
| That doesn't mean you can't get significant improvements,
| though.
|
| I live in the UK, and waking up to the harsh realities of how
| shitty parental leave provisions and nursery provisions are
| here compared to Norway where I grew up was not fun...
|
| (And yes, some people will try to discriminate, and some will
| succeed. )
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| _> 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._
|
| That's why many European countries are progressing towards
| giving fathers the same leave as mothers, and making it
| mandatory for both (e.g. in Spain mothers used to have much
| more leave than fathers, but they progressively increased the
| leave for fathers while also making things more inflexible -
| fathers used to be able to "give" their days to mothers, but
| that no longer works, and both must take at least six weeks
| mandatorily).
|
| I don't think there is a clear-cut optimal solution for the
| problem and every solution has pros and cons. For example,
| mandatory equal leave for both means losing flexibility (and
| there are biological arguments that mothers _need_ more leave).
| But I think it 's a reasonable compromise to mitigate
| discrimination and bias.
| mcguire wrote:
| I'm trying to figure out what "further encourages
| discrimination against people of child bearing age" means...
|
| Anyway, businesses have had to be forced to not do things that
| turn out to be bad for their business, up to and including not
| killing their customers and employees. "Obviously it can't be
| better in all dimensions otherwise everyone would be doing it"
| is the ultimate conservative arguments, since it means nothing
| could ever change---obviously we have reached the optimum,
| right?
| kristjansson wrote:
| Even accepting the tradeoff you posit, the basis of this
| argument seems to be that given the choice between guaranteed
| maternity leave and marginally higher expected pay, women
| should prefer the latter, or at least not be forced to chose
| the former.
|
| Have you asked any actual women about that?
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| _Long list of expected complications from pregnancy..._
|
| > OK. So ... what do you expect my employer to say about this?
|
| > Congratulations! See you Monday!
|
| Sadly accurate. I worry about my disability getting me fired if I
| have a bad episode.
| throwawaymanbot wrote:
| Can anyone tell this woman that she's being unmanly by taking
| time off?
| temp8964 wrote:
| Assume there is no border control among nations, people are free
| to choose whether they want to work where wage is lower and leave
| days are longer, or where wage is higher and leave days are
| shorter. No matter how people make their free choice, there will
| still be people complaining about leave days are not mandated to
| be longer.
|
| I will always celebrate the fact that we still have a nation on
| this planet does not mandate leave days. And I give full wish to
| people choose to move to countries with longer leave days.
| TheCapn wrote:
| 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 really deny that) and we've come to an agreement
| that works for both of us.
|
| But honestly... I'm quite shocked at just how atypical it is for
| fathers to ask for, and get time off to care for their newborn.
| Not even just the child, the mother needs support early on too.
|
| I've given a lot of myself to this company, and they've done a
| tremendous amount for me as well. So I _do_ have a small sense of
| loyalty to them and don 't want to leave them hard up on my
| absence. But if this helps my boss understand that we should hire
| extra hands for the times when I'm _not_ available, this is a
| long term benefit overall as I see it. I 'm hoping 8 weeks leave
| help me reset and address some of my anxieties about the work
| load. I hope it lets my coworkers understand exactly what level
| of shit I help shelter them from.
|
| ...and if none of that works out. I've already got a friend
| trying to poach me to a new business. Win/win in my eyes.
|
| Thanks for listening to my rant.
| helloworld11 wrote:
| Without knowing your company in detail, based on what you
| describe and general business practices, I'd be willing to bet
| that they'd fire you in no time if you ever stopped providing
| value for them. So why be loyal at all? 8 weeks is crumbs, and
| you even had to fight for that. I mean if you've been a solid
| employee for X years, briefly asking for a bit of time off for
| a life changing event should be absolutely fine, instead of the
| miserly response you describe. Just a bit of outsider's
| perspective, but I'd say you're hardly working with people who
| really respect you beyond their bottom line.
| pc86 wrote:
| 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).
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| You'll think very differently the moment you get a
| disability and people think you are no longer providing
| sufficient value to society.
| pc86 wrote:
| Great strawman/non sequitur but completely irrelevant.
| Clubber wrote:
| 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.
| helloworld11 wrote:
| 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 a well
| established employee, he had to basically claw for even a
| meager 8 weeks of paid leave for something as important
| as a newborn baby. Based on that description alone, I'd
| tentatively say that the employer hardly deserves much
| loyalty at all. As I already mentioned.
| Clubber wrote:
| Sure, I was replying to this:
|
| >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.
| pc86 wrote:
| 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.
| baq wrote:
| a fully rational actor would do exactly that, unless he
| also puts utility value on hard to define
| 'relationships', but why would he if money in hand has
| clearly defined utility...?
|
| just another hole in classical economics and theory of
| rational choice.
| pc86 wrote:
| You're building up a ridiculous strawman. Why, in your
| farcical example, does "fully rational" mean by
| definition maximizing short-term economic gain? Even if
| it's hard to give an exact value to a relationship (are
| you quoting something or do you mean the word
| ironically?) certainly a good relationship is better than
| a bad one, and poisoning a relationship strictly for
| economic gain has some sort of opportunity cost.
| hnaccount141 wrote:
| I don't think it's a negative in absolute terms, it's just
| an argument against loyalty to a company. Loyalty is a two
| way street, and is defined by how people treat each other
| when times are tough.
|
| It is common for companies to expect "loyalty" in the form
| of working extra hours when the company is in a tight spot
| or settling for meager raises rather than switching
| companies while at the same time laying people off at the
| first sign of trouble. In such an environment, an employee
| offering loyalty to a company when none is offered in
| return is setting themselves up to be taken advantage of.
| teawrecks wrote:
| Right, which is why you should never feel loyalty for a
| company. They're not people, they don't have brains, they
| don't have empathy or loyalty to you, they will drop you
| the moment it makes sense to.
|
| Have loyalty for people who deserve it, but never for
| companies.
| hedgehog wrote:
| My major advice on this is to consider splitting into two
| chunks, one right away and one a little later after the
| adrenaline wears off, you start bottle feeding, and you can
| take over the night shift (feeding etc).
| almost_usual wrote:
| That's bullshit your manager would even say that to you.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| It always surprises me how little companies think this through.
| They're willing to lose all your knowledge and damage morale
| over a trifling 8 weeks? Talk about penny wise and pound
| foolish.
|
| Never mind that in this labor market an open role might sit
| unfilled for more than 8 weeks!
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > So I do have a small sense of loyalty to them
|
| Why? They already showed they have no loyalty to you. Also, 8
| weeks is pretty bare bones as is. 12 weeks is the minimum even
| in US states that have managed to implement it.
| wayfarer1291 wrote:
| I am sorry to hear this. As a recent father myself, I find the
| fact that comparatively few fathers here in the US _do_ (or
| can) take this leave very sad. The act of caring for our
| newborn is how we form our attachments and love, and it is
| ultimately a loss for the dads that choose not to participate
| in the caring. My dad never really took care of me as a baby
| (in the feeding, diapers, etc. sense) and is squeamish / not
| able to do it with our own child now. Again, a loss for
| previous generations of men.
|
| Which is all to say - if this company in the slightest gives
| you more negative feedback about taking leave,.. I would, if I
| were in your shoes, be looking for a new place. They're not
| showing you any loyalty, so you don't owe it to them.
|
| A twitter thread from Ezra Klein (also recently took parental
| leave) that might resonate with you:
| https://twitter.com/ezraklein/status/1457771021327503360
| rizkeyz wrote:
| I could take 7 month off from my job - all I have to say is
| when - it's the law and I could not be happier.
|
| 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.
| MandieD wrote:
| Good on ya - your partner will be forever grateful, and you'll
| thank yourself as well for not trying to work while no one is
| getting a full night's sleep. Even if breastfeeding works out
| 100%, having someone else get some of those overnight diaper
| changes is the difference between holding it together and being
| a complete wreck.
|
| Those first few weeks present an unparalleled opportunity of
| becoming a larger part of the rhythm of your baby's life. My
| husband took the month after our kid's birth, and then the
| transition to daycare at a year old, and that has entrenched
| wake up/go to sleep as their special time together, no matter
| how long his work days have ended up.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Good on you.
|
| An important lesson we all need to remember: there are two ways
| to get the time off which is owed to you, the hard way or the
| easy way. If your boss is really willing to make it the hard
| way, it's on him/her to find a train a replacement. Get out of
| there.
|
| I've also seen this with vacation.... A skilled engineer saves
| up vacation with a well-known to the boss goal of making a 2
| month adventure trip. When it's time to go, he's "too valuable"
| to "lose" for 2 months. He threatens to quit. Now he's "too
| valuable" to lose over the situation and he gets his vacation.
| So stupid.
|
| Keeping yourself ready and able to change jobs is unfortunately
| necessary, because company loyalty is kaput, and the threat of
| quitting is unfortunately occasionally needed to get proper to
| treatment.
|
| Unions or humane work cultures would fix this. Not holding my
| breath in the USA. Europe is way better.
| nanidin wrote:
| My former company enacted a paternal leave policy around the
| time MSFT required suppliers/partners to offer them in order to
| continue doing business with MSFT.
|
| Shortly after I became the manager of my team, one of my
| reports informed me that he wanted to use 3-4 weeks of paternal
| leave (out of a max of 6) a few months after the birth of his
| child (company policy allowed it within 12 months.) He said
| he'd keep his laptop nearby in case of emergencies. "You're
| crazy!" I told him, "take the full 6 weeks! And leave the
| laptop off!"
|
| As a manager, if it's the company policy, then it's the
| employee's right to take the time off. There should be no
| amount of brow-beating (assuming sufficient advance notice, of
| course.) I checked in with HR for procedural details, and
| overall it was easy/painless from top to bottom.
| bluesquared wrote:
| I have an 18-mo old now. My company "generously" offers 2 weeks
| of paid parental leave. I went through similar conversations as
| you, only I was merely asking to use 2 weeks of PTO after my 2
| weeks of paid parental leave for a total of 1 month of time
| off. My management and HR refused that request, I was told that
| my option was take the 2 weeks of paid leave and then you can
| take unpaid leave (the legally mandated FMLA). Due to "project
| schedule" they could refuse my PTO but legally they were not
| allowed to deny unpaid FMLA. Truly a despicable amount of
| leverage. I was also told by my manager at the time how
| atypical my requested amount of time was and was asked why I
| needed that much time since I wasn't the one giving birth. I
| too am astonished at the typical amount of parental leave
| used/requested by men in the US. It seems like a very deep
| cultural issue.
|
| I have no loyalty and have just been biding my time. I've been
| _just_ comfortable enough so far, but things haven 't been
| great in a few aspects. They were not hard up for coverage and
| my absence, which should have been planned for _far_ in
| advance, would not have effected the schedule in any manner.
| pertymcpert wrote:
| The US is full of psychopaths. Just look at the comments in
| this thread. This amount of backlash against even _maternity_
| leave would be incredible in civilized countries.
| mabbo wrote:
| I'm about a month behind you, but the difference is that I'm in
| Canada. I'll be taking 8 weeks, and most people are asking "is
| that all?".
|
| My wife and I get to split 69 weeks, of which neither of us can
| take more than 61. She's going to take the max, plus her 15
| weeks she gets post-birth (76 weeks total) and I'll take 8
| right at the start. We get a small amount of government-paid
| employment insurance, and jobs will exist when we return.
|
| What's important is that here, it's enforced by _law_ , not by
| company generosity. To punish me (or my wife) for taking this
| time off is literally illegal. I soon need to have a
| conversation with my manager (based in the US) to make sure
| he's aware of the this all. He's a nice guy, but he may be
| surprised.
| charcircuit wrote:
| If you want that time off just ask for it off or just quit your
| job. No one is forcing you to work. You aren't a slave.
| rizkeyz wrote:
| I live in Europe and we became parents recently. The mother gets
| about four months of paid parental leave by default: two before
| and two after the day of birth (paid by the health insurer plus
| taxes). In addition, parents can take over a year of paid
| parental leave (paid by everyone, i.e. taxes).
|
| That's the baseline and no company needs to bother with any
| company-specific policy, pseudo-benefit. No company incurs any
| explicit costs for that.
|
| This is not even the most family friendly country in Europe, btw.
| nix23 wrote:
| >But if you are a person in America who has given birth or knows
| someone who has given birth, this is just a summary of a sobering
| and absolutely barbaric reality.
|
| It's just the US, not america, one writing for nytimes should
| know the difference
|
| https://www.angloinfo.com/how-to/brazil/healthcare/pregnancy...
|
| >>Brazil...In 2008, maternity leave was extended from 120 to 180
| days
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/02/10...
|
| >>Cuba wants more babies, so it's giving parental leave to
| grandparents, too
| Freak_NL wrote:
| 'America' can theoretically mean either the US or the two
| continents of the Americas depending on the context, but a US
| newspaper will invariably use 'America' to mean 'The United
| States of America'.
|
| In fact most people proficient in English (second language
| learners included) will expect that 'America' means the USA.
| Surely you're not hearing this for the first time? Anyone who
| wishes to reference the continents tends to use the plural
| form.
| nix23 wrote:
| >but a US newspaper will invariably use 'America' to mean
| 'The United States of America'.
|
| Yeah that's just plain wrong, but speaks for the "quality" of
| such News Papers.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States
| Hamuko wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America
| ilikehurdles wrote:
| Consider looking up the definition of "America".
|
| The first one in dictionaries I just checked (Oxford and
| Cambridge) references the country, The United States.
|
| I'm well aware of what the Americas are, but I've never once
| heard a speaker of American English use the singular form of
| the noun to refer to the collection of continents.
|
| edit: Since your reply has been rightfully flagged, read the
| first line of the definition you pasted. You really didn't need
| to share a link to show me exactly what I told you.
| nix23 wrote:
| https://www.dictionary.com/browse/america
|
| noun
|
| United States.
|
| North America.
|
| South America.
|
| Also called the Americas. North and South America, considered
| together.
| dagw wrote:
| Honest question, is there anywhere in the English speaking
| world that actually uses "America" rather than "The Americas"
| or "The American continent" to collectively refer to the
| continents of North and South America?
| Communitivity wrote:
| I, a man, did not get parental leave at the company I was with
| when my daughter was born. On top of that, I had asked to travel
| less and was still being sent on travel, so missed out even more.
| This was one of the factors in me eventually deciding to leave
| that company.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It was a factor in deciding where I wanted to live in the US. I
| was not going to raise my daughter or expect my wife to have
| kids in a place that did not have parental leave laws.
| endisneigh wrote:
| The problem with parental leave is the same problem with
| universal health care or any entitlement that isn't utilized by
| the entire population at the same rate constantly.
|
| Things like roads (and even then there are many locales with
| crappy roads) are easy to justify. Things like parental leave and
| universal health care are hard because the percentage of those
| utilizing will be low and the disproportionate benefit will
| inherently fall with a small percentage.
|
| It's inherently a Ponzi scheme. Not to say that we shouldn't
| participate, but it is what it is.
|
| Add in the mindset of maximizing wealth and it makes even less
| sense because those who need is will be increasingly less
| fortunate and those who don't can fund it themselves anyway.
| TimPC wrote:
| Roads aren't as easy to justify as you think. Different people
| use them at different rates and in order to account for this
| there is a concept called a "toll road" which is a road that
| has usage fees. I'd argue if you can support public roads
| despite them being used at different rates by the population
| then these benefits shouldn't be shot down by the same
| objection.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Roads are already funded by usage except for highways which
| is funded federally, which is my point to begin with.
| yokoprime wrote:
| Have you looked up what Ponzi scheme means? I agree parental
| leave is a forceful redistribution of wealth, but it's not a
| Ponzi scheme. First and foremost parents are not investors in
| the tax system, also how are recent "investors" paying previous
| investors if parental leave is a Ponzi scheme?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > percentage of those utilizing will be low and the
| disproportionate benefit will inherently fall with a small
| percentage.
|
| The percentage of society deriving a benefit from a healthy
| workforce is very high. On the order of 100%.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Indirectly sure. Directly, it's low. It has to be low for the
| math to work.
| dralley wrote:
| Not every societal benefit has to be quantified and
| accounted for to justify its existence. Pretty much
| everyone has experience with misguided middle managers
| trying to run organizations entirely from the context-free
| numbers their spreadsheets, why is this any different.
| endisneigh wrote:
| If you're trying to justify it to voters it does have to
| be.
| onionisafruit wrote:
| I don't think I will agree with you, but I'm curious to see how
| paid parental leave is like a Ponzi scheme.
| endisneigh wrote:
| The addition of more people to tax is necessary in order to
| fund the precious generation.
|
| Most insurance/probabilistic entitlements have the same
| property. It's the only way the math can work.
| onionisafruit wrote:
| I get you now. You mean the bigger system of mandating
| benefits to be paid for by future taxes, not specifically
| paid parental leave.
|
| I still don't agree it's a Ponzi scheme because it's not
| soliciting investments with promises of big payoffs unless
| you count paying taxes as investing. I would agree that is
| shares an important property with a Ponzi scheme. It will
| fail when it can no longer increase the amount that gets
| paid in.
| endisneigh wrote:
| I call it a Ponzi scheme because there's a discrete
| payoff - having a child and receiving paid time off.
|
| Taxes in general aren't a Ponzi scheme because many of
| the things paid for by taxes are continuous - less
| people, less tax collection needed. Tax collection for
| roads being an example.
|
| Parental leave and the amount of taxes necessary is more
| contingent on the future population than the present.
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _I call it a Ponzi scheme because there's a discrete
| payoff - having a child and receiving paid time off._
|
| By this definition, my job is a Ponzi scheme.
| sjg007 wrote:
| Nonsense.
| nix23 wrote:
| Not sure why it works (parental leave and universal health
| care) in the rest of the world but ~cannot not work in the US.
| Maybe the US is so focused on being "pure capitalist" that you
| forgot the peoples who are part of the system?
| endisneigh wrote:
| It works in other countries by having higher tax rates, lower
| incomes, smaller populations and less wealth inequality.
| nix23 wrote:
| >higher tax rates
|
| That's the secret sauce, and a smaller military
|
| >lower incomes
|
| That makes no sense, maybe don't sell your medicine for 10x
| more...but NO that would not be compatible with a pure
| capitalism
|
| >and smaller populations
|
| That's a NON argument
| jseban wrote:
| Lower incomes is a direct requirement of higher taxes.
| nix23 wrote:
| Higher incomes is a direct requirement for higher living
| costs ;)
| letmeinhere wrote:
| That's...not what a Ponzi scheme is. Also, lol at entire
| population using roads at exactly the same rate, I've been
| subsidizing rural and exurban lifestyles my whole urban
| lifetime.
| endisneigh wrote:
| How is it not a Ponzi scheme? You need more people to fund
| the previous beneficiaries.
|
| You think the math works if the population never increases?
| Consider how you'd fund it if the population decreased and
| immigration did not exist.
| letmeinhere wrote:
| So in your mind Charles Ponzi innovated the principle of
| factoring in the likelihood of growth into economic
| planning? And any investment that is premised on that
| growth is thus a Ponzi scheme? I guess we can use words
| however we want, sure.
|
| Also, again, lol that roads pass this criteria. No
| expectation of growth and expanding tax bases there...
| endisneigh wrote:
| Requiring growth is not a Ponzi scheme, requiring
| additional investors for the initial ones to be paid is.
|
| Do you have an actual rebuttal?
| letmeinhere wrote:
| It's hard to rebut your arguments when you don't really
| explain them, instead relying on scarewords that don't
| fit at all.
|
| Who are the "additional investors"? The children? In what
| way would parental leave had been a horrible misstep if
| they do not show up? Seems like a wash.
|
| Or are the additional investors individuals and families
| who won't ever need paid leave, don't care about their
| neighbors, and don't care about the next generation of
| residents? If so, Ponzi schemes are when market
| participants indirectly spend money on things that they
| don't 100% agree to? So, like, every interaction in life
| outside of the household that one individual might fully
| dominate?
| endisneigh wrote:
| The additional investors are all individuals necessary in
| taking care of the new children directly or indirectly.
|
| You introduce paid leave, which is fine, this creates
| more demand for children which is also fine.
|
| So now you have more children. Who's going to take care
| of these people? Presumably child care workers who are
| disproportionately women. And if those women have
| children as well? Who replaces them? And who replaces the
| women who originally were on leave?
|
| If you think every industry can absorb 12 weeks (original
| proposal) of paid leave you're in for a ride awakening.
| That's if everyone only has a single child, by the way.
| Multiple children only compound the problem.
|
| If you believe this problem will sort itself out you
| should consider that in San Francisco day care can be as
| high as 3000 a child per month. Keep in mind about 3
| years of day care is necessary. So that's almost 100k
| after tax. Even someone making 400k a year before tax
| would notice that. And that's _only daycare_.
|
| That being said this kind of Ponzi scheme isn't really a
| big deal because that's basically just having kids in a
| nutshell. However if you're trying to convince your
| fellow citizens to pay for it you're need some luck.
| yokoprime wrote:
| I think the parent post is a troll, willingly or not.
| Leave it, he or she has made up their mind that
| infrastructure and services are a Ponzi schm. Sigh.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Just because someone has a different opinion than you
| doesn't make someone a troll smh.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Where do you think the additional inventors come from
| (especial if everyone is forced to invest)?
| nucleardog wrote:
| Is there any indication it actually requires continued
| growth to break even?
|
| Given average salary where I am and roughly average tax
| rate, a typical household with two working adults is going
| to pay somewhere in the neighbourhood of $2m in tax over
| their working life. Paying 3% of that back to them is not
| going to break the bank.
|
| There are other programs vying for their tax dollars, but I
| can't see any inherent reason why it requires population
| growth to fund the benefits unless as you look at a
| timeline longer than a single tax year.
|
| As well, kind of an odd program to make that argument on.
| Parental leave is one of the few programs where you can
| pretty definitely guarantee the population growth since
| it's paying out for population growth that has already
| happened.
| endisneigh wrote:
| I see what you're saying, but parental leave is a direct
| cost, but there are subsidiary costs, such as the lost
| productivity as well as the lifetime resources to raise
| the newly born child that require more people to
| subsidize.
|
| If a child were something that required no ongoing
| resources to provide for, then yeah I'd agree with you.
|
| That being said I didn't really properly articulate that,
| so the way I described it I'd have to concede that
| perhaps it's not a Ponzi scheme.
| kristjansson wrote:
| The benefit side of that equation is the perpetuation of
| human society, so it's worth some investment. Humans and
| economies aren't cost minimizers, they're utility
| maximizers.
| Mvandenbergh wrote:
| The majority of the population over time will use parental
| leave if it is available. Most people do have at least one
| child in their lifetime so this is a terrible example of an
| entitlement which is unequally distributed. Health care is even
| worse, especially if you are guaranteeing access prospectively.
| Even people who are not currently using healthcare resources
| (hopefully most people) know that there is a very good change
| that they will have to and realistically as you age the chance
| that you need substantial medical care approaches 100% pretty
| rapidly.
|
| It is not a Ponzi scheme for a number of reasons.
|
| First, Ponzi schemes use money from new members to pay for
| older members. This might be a model for retirement spending
| (it isn't, see my next point) but it has the timeline reversed
| for parental leave. Parental leave is effectively funded by the
| fraction of the population not currently using it for the
| benefit of the fraction that currently is. It effectively
| serves a few different distributional roles:
|
| a) It moves resources from your own pre-child and post-parental
| leave career to the period when the child is born. Many people
| who can easily fund a year of not working from their total
| career earnings cannot do so in their peak child-bearing years
| and there aren't any efficient ways of using saving or
| borrowing to shift that money either. For these people,
| parental leave uses the risk pooling and payment guarantee
| capabilities of the state to effectively borrow cheaply against
| their lifetime earnings.
|
| b) It distributes resources from higher to lower earners,
| depending on how the obligation is structured there is usually
| a progressive taxation element which ensures a certain minimum
| is available.
|
| Second point, retirement schemes are also not Ponzi schemes.
|
| A Ponzi scheme requires an ever-increasing number of new
| entrants to maintain payouts. Pay-as-you-go retirement schemes
| require maintaining a balance between payers and payees which
| can be disrupted by changes to demographics but that does not
| mean that they are inherently fraudulent, just that in the
| presence of demographic trends which lead to a change in that
| ratio, they either need to reduce payouts, or increase payments
| in, or borrow to bridge temporary gaps. The difference is that
| in a Ponzi scheme, the changes required to maintain this are
| exponential and rapidly become impossible. There is no stable
| state to a Ponzi scheme.
| endisneigh wrote:
| > The majority of the population over time will use parental
| leave if it is available.
|
| I agree with this. However:
|
| > b) It distributes resources from higher to lower earners,
| depending on how the obligation is structured there is
| usually a progressive taxation element which ensures a
| certain minimum is available.
|
| This is irrelevant to whether or not parental leave is a
| ponzi scheme.
|
| > a) It moves resources from your own pre-child and post-
| parental leave career to the period when the child is born.
| Many people who can easily fund a year of not working from
| their total career earnings cannot do so in their peak child-
| bearing years and there aren't any efficient ways of using
| saving or borrowing to shift that money either. For these
| people, parental leave uses the risk pooling and payment
| guarantee capabilities of the state to effectively borrow
| cheaply against their lifetime earnings.
|
| Parental leave's true cost is more than just the income lost.
| It's the labor required to raise the new children.
|
| If we say parents cannot just stay at home (in which case
| parental leave is unnecessary) then the people required to
| sustain the new children will be exponential in growth.
| Mvandenbergh wrote:
| Parental leave temporarily moves labour output from the
| measurable "economy" to the non-measured domestic economy
| (and displaces a small amount of what would otherwise be
| wage-labour childcare by non-parents).
|
| Children raised in this way will require childcare of their
| own but I don't see how the labour required to raise
| children goes up over time unless the fraction of the
| population which is children goes up.
| bbarn wrote:
| Except that, normalizing long time off for both maternity and
| paternity has much broader societal benefit, even if people
| don't think they need to.
|
| This author's case is extreme, but any child benefits from more
| developmental time in the earliest stages.
| standardUser wrote:
| To be against parents being with their children during their
| earliest months and years is to be against humanity. The other
| word for that is "capitalism".
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| My wife took a year off (she got 3 months salary) so I worked a
| second job in the evenings to make up the shortfall.
|
| Thanks to my parents they only went to daycare when they were
| about 4 years old - the baby section of their daycare took in
| babies from 6 months old.
|
| To me it looked like those Romanian orphanages you saw after the
| fall of Soviet era dictator.
| Fiahil wrote:
| > If you live in Canada or, say, France, you are probably amused
| by this little thought experiment.
|
| Yes, we (France) get a __mandatory__ 6 weeks paid leave before
| the baby is born, then 10 weeks after.
|
| Dads get a little less, 25 calendar days after the baby is born.
| pertymcpert wrote:
| The frequency of people on HN who think that paid parental leave
| isn't important is frankly disgusting. I'm so disappointed with
| this community.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| 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:
|
| Yes, mums working is an anathema, but given that exceedingly
| difficult to own a good house, have good health insurance _and_
| have an economically inactive partner at home, I suspect the
| problem here isn 't the mum. I suspect its the salami slicing of
| wages to the average joe/joelle.
|
| Even if it undermines the american nuclear family, having such a
| big obstacle to the "correct"[1] type of family having babies is
| going to undermine the "correct" family having babies. Which
| means one's chosen view of family dies out with inflation.
|
| Given that _every_ other "civilised" country has some sort of
| rudimentary care for new parents, which doesn't acutally cost
| that much, I can't see any reasonable objection to not having it.
|
| [1]I'm not going to define what correct is, its divisive and
| allows people to project what they think is wrong with "the other
| side" who ever they might be, rather than engage with the
| specifics at hand.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| There is nothing wrong with parental leave, but I don't see a
| compelling reason to have it be mandated by law. If company
| wants to offer it, good for them. It may help retaining senior
| employees who reached the phase in their life when they want to
| have children.
|
| I don't think we should incentivise families with two working
| parents and young kids. It increases the pool of workers
| keeping wages down, benefiting employers, and increases stress
| in the family, likely contributing to the epidemic of broken
| families we're looking at - which have negative effects on
| these generations' mental health and crime history.
|
| If you're middle class and you manage well your spending and
| are willing to relocate / look into alternative career paths,
| it's possible to maintain a family on one career and I firmly
| believe it's better for the children. If you're having kids you
| can either outsource your kids early years education to the
| government or do it yourself. There are some studies (albeit I
| find social studies to be murky and hard to rely on) finding
| correlations between UK government programs paying for
| nurseries and increase in teenage crime roughly 15 years later.
| Study or not, I think that kids before 2/3 should not go to
| nursery, the social trauma of being unattended with other
| bigger kids needs to wait a bit longer, once they're ready.
|
| In our family, we didn't send the kids to nursery before 2.5/3
| years and my partner didn't work (for an employer, she kept
| working on her own personal projects, for "entertainment").
| They integrated in nursery very well, we never had detachment
| problems and they're fairly well behaved. We're both
| developers, so maintaining the family on one salary is trivial,
| but I've met people from all walks of life who managed to do
| it.
|
| Sure, some people are simply not creating enough value for
| society to break even on one salary and that's suboptimal. I'd
| advise to sort their life out to earn enough to support a new
| family, before making babies.
|
| There are plenty of studies that link stable family structures
| to success and unstable family structures to crime and mental
| health issues.
|
| The last time the government meddled with families, it didn't
| end up well for the black community:
| https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/03/the_decline...
|
| And nowadays the stats for broken families, across all
| ethnicities, is higher than ever.
| jseban wrote:
| I don't think companies should be involved in people's
| personal lives at all, it's out of scope. The state is the
| only one that can subsidise a particular constellation of
| family life. You would open up to all kind of different
| excuses for why people should get special treatment in the
| work place because of their private life.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Maybe we should look at why three sectors of the economy have
| had insane cost growth for three plus decades (housing,
| healthcare, education) and fix that instead of trying to band
| aid the negative consequences?
| lifeformed wrote:
| You mean there's a choice?! Cool, I'd be happy if we _simply_
| _just_ fixed all the massive, complex problems of the entire
| economy over just having parental leave.
| hattmall wrote:
| Of course there's a choice, there's a singular reason for
| the rising cost of all those things. Government
| intervention and injecting money into those markets. Costs
| will rise to absorb availability of funds. Give people
| virtually unlimited finding for higher education?? Expect
| costs to rise at a similar rate. Force everyone to buy
| insurance through a rigid process and heavily subsidize the
| worst possible coverage. Makes perfect sense that prices
| rise and quality deteriorates.
|
| Have the government lend trillions of dollars at low
| interest with minimal qualifications for housing. Expected
| outcome is realized.
|
| Same is happening with childcare. Government increases
| child care credit. No surprise that daycare has raised the
| rate $30 per week.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| We haven't even tried.
|
| For healthcare, the last time I heard about bending the
| cost curve was during the Obama administration.
|
| For education, I've never seen any politician suggests we
| try to reign in cost growth---just proposals around who
| should eat the costs.
|
| For housing, governments at all levels have been pulling
| every policy lever they can find to _increase_ costs.
| Falling costs are wildly considered a national emergency.
|
| Why is it that progressives' solution to everything is to
| dump money out of the air? Are there no structural
| improvements to be made anywhere?
| mjevans wrote:
| Free Money is popular with voters; be that in the form of
| cut / "no new taxes" or handouts.
|
| Want to fix that? A true multiparty system, IRV, and
| eliminating gerrymandering as possibilities. The last one
| would mostly be by eliminating geographic boundaries
| generally; instead representation would be decided by
| proportionally voting in representatives from the IRV
| list, which might be preferenced by area specific
| politicians first and could then fall back to those who
| represent other types of interest focus.
|
| Similarly the relative representation power of each voter
| in a body such as the senate should be resolved by
| merging similarly leaning smaller bodies until each voter
| is within relatively the same representation strength as
| other voters.
|
| https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_
| pop...
|
| This is an issue for E.G. California (~20M/senator) and
| Texas (~15M/senator) compared to Vermont (~310K/senator)
| and Wyoming (~240K/senator).
|
| In the past the senate started out FAR more balanced by
| state.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_ter
| rit...
|
| For example in 1820 the top three most populace states
| were all around 1 million each. A core belle-curve hump
| ranges from around 600K down to 150K, and about 5 states
| have less than 100K. Senators representing roughly ~500K,
| ~250K, and 50K respectively, a weight difference of only
| a factor of 10 rather than a number approaching almost a
| factor of 100.
| coryrc wrote:
| You're correct except IRV is hardly better than FPTP.
| Please endorse any ranked voting system except IRV.
| mjevans wrote:
| I'm using IRV as a shorthand for ANY of the instant
| runoff voting (ranked voting) systems.
|
| I happen to prefer (Path Vote)
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulze_method as a method
| of performing an election with instant runoffs for one
| round of ranked ballots.
|
| For the later proposal (where districts are replaced by a
| mixed bag of candidates and issues)
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schulze_STV might be a good
| way of determining the membership of a body.
|
| It looks like research into proportional voter
| representation is still ongoing, with important new
| papers released even this year.
| sofixa wrote:
| Even if you fix those three, no parental leave is barbaric.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Is this kind of thing supposed to persuasive? You've
| presented no argument whatsoever. Is the idea that if use
| an emotionally laden term like "barbaric" you think it will
| browbeat people into falling into line with your opinion?
| epivosism wrote:
| I think the request is fair.
|
| Be time-idempotent; imagine if you were talking to
| someone from the 15th century and they were SURE they
| were right about their crazy opinions.
|
| The meta-stable way to be reasonable is that as long as
| someone seems to be honestly asking the reasoning for
| your beliefs, and your principles, you should try to
| explain yourself, rather than just shut them down by
| repeating your assertion of correctness.
|
| Otherwise, how will you find out about the likely beliefs
| you hold right now, which our descendants will consider
| insane and evil? Forcing yourself to self-introspection
| is a good practice. I don't expect anyone to change their
| mind about this, but being able to explain to others your
| reasoning can also clear up your own views, and help
| convince your adversary much more effectively than the
| "just repeat your position" argument style.
| dralley wrote:
| This is one of those things that shouldn't _need_ to be
| explained, even to 20-something tech bros who 've never
| had a child themselves.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Of course not. Nothing needs to be explained or justified
| anymore. We have an entire generation so fully confident
| in the absolute correctness and obviousness of every
| single iota of their many strongly held moral opinions
| that even asking for an explanation offends them.
|
| And they can't understand why they keep on failing to
| achieve their policy goals.
|
| PS: I don't think there were too many <= 19 year olds
| signing up for hacker news in 2011.
| jensensbutton wrote:
| OK, please explain how fixing housing, healthcare,
| education will remove the need for parental leave. It's
| your argument, motivate it.
| dralley wrote:
| > Of course not. Nothing needs to be explained or
| justified anymore. We have an entire generation so fully
| confident in the absolute correctness and obviousness of
| every single iota of their many strongly held moral
| opinions that even asking for an explanation offends
| them.
|
| Just to be clear hear, we're talking about parents being
| able to take care of their newborns and not being forced
| back to work after "2-4 weeks" as the OP stated.
| sofixa wrote:
| It was meant to illustrate that we're talking about
| separate things. "Fixing" three things getting more
| expensive doesn't in any way negate the barbarism that is
| no parental leave. Even if you think that them getting
| cheaper will mean the return of a stay at home parent
| (assuming they actually want it), it's still barbaric not
| to give the other parent an opportunity to spend time and
| help with the infant.
| [deleted]
| sershe wrote:
| That doesn't start with the right premise. An employee might be
| frazzled after a night of partying but nobody advocates for
| "hangover leave"... I don't understand what the point is in
| society indulging and encouraging somebody's child-rearing
| hobby when it doesn't need population growth; moreover given
| the carbon impact of a first world child and potential supply
| of immigrants willing to move here, it might want to actively
| discourage it.
|
| EDIT2: for the meta, I don't care about points, I just find
| downvoting-as-disagreeing without a response to argument in
| extremely bad taste. And I am smug because I believe it
| indicates the disagree-er admits that I am right ;)
|
| EDIT: thanks for the downvotes! I assume these are insulted
| parents who feel like they are making a great contribution to
| society, but don't have a real argument to respond. Sorry, you
| are not. It's a hobby. Nobody else cares any more than they do
| for a cool ski run or an amateur documentary. Get over
| yourself.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar.
|
| Please also don't break the site guidelines by going on about
| downvotes and certainly not by getting nasty about them. Your
| comment was correctly downvoted because it was a major step
| further into flamewar.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| sershe wrote:
| 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 ;)
| dang wrote:
| Parenting is one of the most emotional topics that
| exists, which means it's flammable material in internet
| discussions. If you lead by comparing parental leave to
| "hangover leave", that's already a provocation, and if
| you throw in more provocative words like "indulging" and
| "hobby", at that point you're posting flamebait. You're
| going to get flamewar responses, not a reasonable
| conversation, and that's against the site guidelines.
|
| If you really want to have a reasonable conversation
| about a divisive, inflammatory topic, you need to sand
| off all such sharp edges. That's not a moral or ethical
| point, just an empirical observation about internet
| dynamics, which are relatively predictable.
| klyrs wrote:
| > 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.
| dang wrote:
| 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
| pc86 wrote:
| For the record, I only downvoted after I read the smug self-
| satisfied edit, and only then because discussing your fake
| internet points is exceedingly boring (not to mention
| violates the site guidelines).
| sershe wrote:
| I don't refer to downvotes because of the internet points
| at all, only as a method of disagreeing.
|
| [This is all for before-the-edit] According to (or at least
| in the spirit) of guidelines, downvoting is not for the
| comments that you disagree with, it's for comments that
| don't contribute or make a point in the discussion. So,
| reddit-style passive-aggressive downvoting (again, before
| the meta-edit) really ticks me off. If you have something
| of substance to say, respond. Otherwise, what are you
| trying to do?
|
| The reason is I'm smug is in fact, yes, I think less of
| someone silently downvoting-as-disagreeing, as a discussion
| participant, than I would of someone who would have
| insulted me in all caps. At least the latter person stands
| by their potentially-unjustified position in person ;)
| refurb wrote:
| 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.
| mattferderer wrote:
| I would suggest a compromise of "until they have all of their
| primary teeth". There is no sleep until all those **** are
| in.
| pyrrhotech wrote:
| 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.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| I see what you're saying there, but perhaps look at it this
| way:
|
| our comfortable retirement is dependent on a good crop of
| reasonably successful children being born now, or in the
| previous 5 years.
|
| It benefits us that those children are brought up to be
| balanced, rational pragmatic people. Perhaps extended child
| care might be the thing that does it?
|
| I suspect that five years is indeed too much.
|
| However perhaps the answer is one year "off" plus cheap,
| good quality child care from 1 year plus?
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| This actually highlights a major misunderstanding in
| parental leave discussions: Most government-sponsored paid
| parental leave programs in other countries aren't paying
| 100% salary during the leave.
|
| Sweden has one of the more generous programs that pays up
| to $41K/year (USD equivalent) or 80% of your income,
| whichever is lower. That amount is actually quite good if
| you're living modestly, but it may not be what people
| earning $100-150K have in mind when they see "paid parental
| leave".
|
| Definitely better than nothing, though!
| Cd00d wrote:
| I think parent asked for subsidy, not total compensation of
| expenses.
|
| I have two kids, 2.5 years apart, and there was one year in
| NYC where a small family daycare was running us ~$5k per
| month in childcare. We'd been aiming for the kids to be a
| bit further apart, partly for financial reasons, but shrug,
| it didn't happen that way (first kid took a lot longer of
| trying than the second). We're fortunate in that we can
| afford that, but it did impact our long-term savings and
| eventual home ownership.
|
| I honestly don't know what the working poor do. I guess
| you're not aloud to move away from extended family.
| croo wrote:
| Uhh, it's 3 years where I live (though the welfare money
| for the last one and half year is very low and lots of
| mother go back to work before that)
|
| 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?
| pyrrhotech wrote:
| I believe in taking time away from work to raise kids. In
| fact, I am taking several years away from work now for
| that purpose. What I disagree with is who should pay for
| it. I'm paying for my living expenses and raising my
| child from my savings that I earned at my generous paying
| job. I think the government should pay for up to perhaps
| 3 months for raising kids (and it shouldn't be based on
| your salary, but tied to some universally agreed upon
| basic living wage), but any more than that should be
| self-financed. There is a set amount of handouts society
| can give out before it implodes, and there are far better
| uses for that money than giving you the privilege of a
| plush lifestyle while you choose to stay at home with
| your toddler.
| jseban wrote:
| Yeah this makes perfect sense. Paid parental leave is
| just a welfare system like any other, and has the same
| drawbacks as always. People act as if it's some invention
| to create free time out of thin air.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Is there anyone who _wouldn't_ high five someone who pays
| them for five years without needing to go into work?
| echelon wrote:
| > 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 those without children.
|
| Both of my parents had jobs when I was growing up. Why are we
| suddenly expecting this to change? Childcare can be paid for
| at rates under minimum wage in aggregate. Look at our school
| system and daycare businesses. Just because you think your
| child deserves only the best does not make it economical, and
| lots of people make this work. Thousands of years of child
| rearing has happened in suboptimal conditions.
|
| Raising children has been an incredible chore more often than
| not throughout history. It's only been briefly punctuated by
| moments of ease, and even then, it wasn't evenly distributed.
| Children are not easy.
|
| I think modern parents are seeing their childfree peers and
| remarking on the delta in quality of life.
|
| I honestly don't mean this as an attack. I'm just interested
| in the varying perspectives on this.
| humanwhosits wrote:
| > 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?
| echelon wrote:
| 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?
| foogazi wrote:
| > How much money is enough? How much is too much?
|
| Depends on who is paying
| nickff wrote:
| You're comparing very different levels of welfare/wealth
| transfer.
| anoonmoose wrote:
| > offloads the entire burden onto those without children
|
| Are you including "people with children over the age of
| five to six years" in this group? Because it seems like
| they would be helping to raise others people's children (in
| your words) but would also have benefitted.
|
| According to the first Google result I found it looks like
| in 2018 only 15% of women age 50 were childless. A first-
| order approximation assuming younger generations have kids
| at the same rate and it's the same for both genders
| (neither of these are guaranteed but it's a starting point)
| would lead me to believe that more than most people have
| children and would benefit from a policy like this over the
| course of their lives. People without cars help pay for
| roads, people without children pay for public schools...I'm
| not really seeing much here to suggest there's an undue
| burden on those without children.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| 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.
| closeparen wrote:
| Big difference between providing a free/affordable
| childcare center vs. paying the parent to not work for 5
| years.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| Yes but I didn't take the OP as wanting not to work or
| needing all their expenses covered. Subsidise doesn't
| necessarily mean that.
| echelon wrote:
| I'm trying to find reasonable thresholds and weigh the
| societal pros and cons.
|
| > 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.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| Three months each with six months shared.
|
| My friends and coworkers who've lived in the US describe
| pre-school childcare as dystopian. Even when expensive.
|
| If you think of it as 5/(40 * 2) or if you had two kids
| relatively close together 7/(40 * 3) the math is
| significantly better. It's also very telling that caring
| for kids is not seen as being productive.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| What has changed is that due to labour mobility and
| contemporary society generally the extended family has
| become a non-thing for so many of us.
|
| If we're expected to move wherever for work, then that
| wherever needs to provide support. Because right now I'm
| hours from my sole remaining inlaw and a whole country
| apart from my own parents and brother, and it's been hell
| raising children like this. And not just young children; my
| teenagers' mental health would be much better if they were
| to have their uncle and grandma nearby.
| deanCommie wrote:
| > 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 societal pool to
| offset for the fact that they are existing in human society
| but not contributing their part to it's ongoing
| propagation.
|
| Ultimately though, you're right - no parent should expect
| to have the same lifestyle as their childfree counterpart.
| Not with free time, disposable income, or even day-to-day
| "happiness".
|
| > Both of my parents had jobs when I was growing up. Why
| are we suddenly expecting this to change?
|
| Mine too. Here's what I think has changed: in that era (and
| for much of human history), it was assumed/expected that it
| "took a village" to raise children. Families stayed closer
| together - the previous generation was around to help with
| childrearing. And in general, communities took care of
| everyone's children in a pool that would be considered
| completely outlandish today. Heck, the concept of a Wet
| Nurse [1] is something that would probably explode most
| people's minds today. I bet at least one person will read
| this comment and not realize that this was something that
| was completely ubiquitous and standard for much of human
| history. Can you imagine that existing today? It would be
| inconceivable. Not that we need it since the advent of
| formula, but the point is simply that societies helped take
| care of children more in the past than they do now.
|
| Today, people move further from home from work (losing
| direct family access), have children later in life (less
| energy to contribute/harder to tradeoff career
| responsibilities), and build fewer local community social
| bonds (online relationships may be meaningful but they
| don't help babysit).
|
| I don't think we have adjusted accordingly yet.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_nurse
| foogazi wrote:
| > people move further from home from work (losing direct
| family access),
|
| Sounds like personal choices to me
| Terr_ wrote:
| > But at some threshold of subsidization this equation tips
| and actively offloads the entire burden onto those without
| children.
|
| True, but on a long enough timeframe one could also view it
| as a _repayment_ from the people who (with or without
| children) were once children-being-subsidized themselves.
| echelon wrote:
| That's a great point, actually. Inverse social security.
| robocat wrote:
| The taxes of people without children already subsidise
| schooling, healthcare and social welfare (benefits for
| parents).
|
| The point stated was that there needs to be a threshold.
| You have introduced another topic entirely, and the
| person you are answering implied nothing about your
| topic.
| jbreiding wrote:
| I would argue we just need to bring public school earlier.
|
| We don't need this tied to an employer like health insurance
| as this is something that benefits us all.
| jbreiding wrote:
| My word choices might not have been the best here.
|
| But consider if everyone was able to take the first year at
| some percentage less of regular salary. Then public funded
| care available with learning included?
|
| My wife would have preferred this to having exhausted fmla
| just before giving birth because of early complications.
|
| Returning to work was not an option for her, 6 years later
| returning to work was one of the most emotionally draining
| experiences for her.
| belorn wrote:
| Plato suggested that the state should have communal rearing
| of children.
|
| We could have a society were children goes to public school
| as soon they can take formula.
| kkjjkgjjgg wrote:
| "forcing women back into work" - I think it is simply a matter
| of money, not forcing. If you can afford it, you take the time
| off, if not, you go back to work.
| xibalba wrote:
| > forcing women back into work
|
| This is not what happens. No one is being "forced" to do
| anything. Rather, free individuals (speaking from a U.S.
| centric viewpoint) make a choice to become pregnant and birth a
| child. It seems reasonable to me that the result of this
| private choice should not be the burden of others. Note that
| FMLA (again, U.S.-centric) grants _unpaid_ leave. In other
| words, you can 't be fired for certain finite length absences
| resulting from certain medical occurrences. But you're not
| entitled to payment for non-work.
|
| So, when Mom gives birth, she absolutely has the right to say,
| "You know what, I can't/don't want to work." She just isn't
| entitled to force a company to pay her for the privilege of her
| non-work.
|
| I may be in the minority on this, but I find it really weird
| how people, more and more nowadays, believe the consequences
| private, personal choices should be borne by everyone else. The
| entitlement is really hard to stomach. This idea seems to be
| coalescing with a belief that "stuff just happens". But the
| reality is, the economy-any economy-is powered by labor.
|
| People need to work. If enough people don't, we go back to the
| default state of reality: poverty, starvation, etc etc.
|
| > The employer gets half an employee back
|
| This is a self defeating claim. Under your (implied) proposal,
| the employer would just not get _any_ employee back for an even
| longer period of time. Or, worse, they have to hire a temporary
| employee to fill in, and are now paying two sets of wages, all
| as a result of decisions over which they have absolutely
| influence!
| gambiting wrote:
| >>I may be in the minority on this, but I find it really
| weird how people, more and more nowadays, believe the
| consequences private, personal choices should be borne by
| everyone else
|
| Starting or not starting a company is a completely private
| decision, yet we as a society have recognized that having
| entrepreneurs and a functional business culture is very
| important and actually profitable. So most governments, even
| the American ones, give grants and support to new companies
| to prop them up. Even though again, they are the consequence
| of someone's personal choice - yet the taxpayer bears the
| burden. Sounds familiar?
|
| Bearing children is a benefit to the society as a whole -
| someone has to work, someone has to pay taxes, etc etc. So as
| a society we support mothers by allowing them to take
| maternal leave, even if having a child is very much a
| personal choice.
|
| Also I don't see anyone advocating that companies pay mothers
| through entirety of maternity pay - in most countries it's
| the public budget that does after some short initial time
| period.
|
| >>People need to work. If enough people don't, we go back to
| the default state of reality: poverty, starvation, etc etc.
|
| And within reason, people need to have children or the
| country you are part of won't have enough citizens to support
| it within few decades - that's the reality of life.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| > It seems reasonable to me that the result of this private
| choice should not be the burden of others.
|
| Wow, clearly you are not a parent, and probably thats good
| for society. You know, parenting isn't a past time hobby of
| the privileged, but activity via which all of us came to
| existence. If we stop it, society, states and whole human
| civilization will collapse in 1 generation.
|
| Nobody paying for social/medical/police etc services old ass
| xibalba would enjoy when retired.
|
| But sure, lets maximize profits, lets raise a messed up
| generation with lack of strong parental touch in first years,
| child psychologists all agree there is no harm in that,
| right. I am sure that... 3%? 4%? extra income will make up
| for that.
|
| As much as I admire the positive aspects what makes US so
| great, the negative aspects are such a horrible fucked up
| mess I politely say 'No, thank you' anytime offer comes from
| across the pond. Can't imagine raising family and growing old
| in such system, not once I've experienced what many western
| Europe countries offer.
|
| Side info - recently Swiss improved paid paternal leave to 2
| weeks. Just about take it off for my daughter. My company
| counted it into our social security dues. The added 0.05% of
| extra costs from each salary mean nothing, absolutely
| nothing, for anybody. It means the world to me. Thank you,
| Swiss.
| octokatt wrote:
| With compassion, may I say the following:
|
| Some pregnancies are not planned. Some sex is not consensual.
| Unless we have free abortions available, people with uteruses
| are sometimes not free to decide not to be pregnant.
|
| The decision to support pregnant people is a decision to
| support the baby. At some point, everyone reading this was a
| pregnancy, everyone reading this was helpless. One of the
| core functions of society is to protect helpless, young
| humans. Full stop.
|
| If you are under the impression society exists for a purpose
| other than pooling resources to protect the citizens from
| outside threats of hunger, violence, or famine, I urge you to
| reconsider.
|
| Moralizing about how better decisions should have been made
| is Monday-night-quarterbacking at best. The reality is there
| is now a small human. The small, helpless human should get
| the best shot we can give them, because otherwise, what the
| fuck are we doing.
|
| Name something we should spend money on that's more
| worthwhile than a helpless baby not suffering.
| the-dude wrote:
| Not all women are equal. I have seen women who gave birth just
| a couple of weeks before, thriving & bursting of energy in the
| workplace.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Old family wisdom: There is no "normal" for normal (meaning
| non-C-section) childbirth. A mother's physical and mental
| recovery timelines will vary (possibly widely) with each
| birth, and assumptions that it'll just keep getting easier
| tend to end badly.
|
| (C-sections are _somewhat_ more predictable on the physical
| recovery side...but do not lack for issues of their own.)
| kchl wrote:
| I beseech anyone to take a comment on this subject from
| someone who chose "the dude" as his handle with a big, big
| grain of salt, and to note that this dude totally missed the
| point of this editorial.
| the-dude wrote:
| Totally not cool ad hominem. Very undude.
|
| Also, I replied to a comment, not at the top level.
| nzmsv wrote:
| Sucks to be the kid of these bursting energy balls though.
| Hope the kid has a nanny or a grandmother who isn't like
| that.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| Or a father.
| mbesto wrote:
| > 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...
| danShumway wrote:
| 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 around to help with care can let you avoid the worst
| parts of the whole 3 hours of sleep a night thing.
|
| And from a "nuclear family" point of view, most cultural
| traditionalists I know would argue to me that it's good for
| kids to be in multiple-parent households. When people talk
| about stereotypical traditionalist nuclear families, these
| are very often families that have extended support structures
| of multiple people involved in child-rearing.
|
| Opponents to parental leave (even feminist opponents) are in
| some ways attempting to equalize the time-off risk between
| mothers[0] and fathers. And that can be done by reducing the
| mother's time off to zero to match the father, but it can
| also be done by letting fathers get involved in early child-
| rearing and giving them more time to help their partners.
|
| ----
|
| [0] And nonbinary/transgender/adoptive/etc parents too of
| course, but I'm just using a shorthand here.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| 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 sphere" labor hours is not a huge issue.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| They attempted that in Sweden and it backfired massively.
| The more you try to force people into what they don't
| naturally gravitate towards (eg. women in STEM and
| engineering, men in nursing / teaching roles) the more
| the difference grows.
|
| 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.
| danShumway wrote:
| There might be a middle ground here between forcing men
| to spend less time at work and offering them the
| opportunity to spend more time at home if they want to.
| Everyone is unique, but I know a number of fathers who
| would have liked to take more time off for their kids and
| would have chosen to if they had the opportunity, I
| suspect the ratio here may be higher than you expect.
|
| > 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.
|
| The gender gap was the explanation mbesto gave for why
| paid family leave for women might be opposed even by
| women. If the gender gap doesn't exist, and unbalanced
| paid time off between genders won't drive increased wage
| differences, then it seems like it might be fine to
| ignore mbesto's worry and just offer women that time off
| regardless of what paternal leave policies are.
| belorn wrote:
| We can follow the tactic used in other gender equality
| initiatives and creates targeted incentives to raise
| participation levels.
|
| As an example, they could add extra parental leave days
| that are earmarked for father classes.
| mambru wrote:
| That's the case in Spain since 2021. Both parents get 19
| weeks paid leave.
| DavidVoid wrote:
| Some European countries require the parental leave to be
| shared to some degree. Here in Sweden each parent gets 90
| days of parental leave each, and the remaining 300 days can
| be split in whatever way the parents choose. You also don't
| have to take all the parental leave at once, you can spread
| it out over a few years (and 96 of the days can even be
| saved until the child is between 4 and 12 years old if you
| want).
| jseban wrote:
| Yeah which doesn't make any sense, how can you motivate
| to have two adults full time only to care for your own
| children. Sure I agree with the parent that "it's nice"
| but come on, it's extremely privileged. And it's commonly
| abused in Sweden to take several month long vacations
| abroad with the whole family, which literally nobody else
| can do, unless you have children. It's a privilege not
| available to single people at all.
| danShumway wrote:
| > It's a privilege not available to single people at all.
|
| And getting more than 3 hours of sleep a lot is a
| privilege that's not available to recent parents.
|
| I don't know the exact details of what policies are
| correct for paid time off, but the fact is still true
| that we have a strong societal incentive to handle
| situations like this in a way that's beneficial both to
| the parents and (especially) beneficial to kids -- at
| least if we believe that parental presence helps early
| development, which seems reasonably well supported.
|
| I say this as a single person with no plans to ever marry
| or have children, but the reality is that being single or
| having kids each carries its own set of advantages and
| disadvantages, and I'm not sure that fairness between
| parents and childless individuals is necessarily the best
| lens to look at policy through.
|
| There's a lot of middle ground here between status quo
| and what GP describes, but even in that case raising a
| child is still an 18+ year commitment; I don't think that
| a single family vacation significantly changes that.
| DavidVoid wrote:
| Yes, it is a privilege that won't be available to me
| (since I don't plan on having any kids), but I believe
| these benefits are good for the children, which is
| ultimately good for society.
|
| And sure, as a non-parent I can't take a multi-month long
| vacation every year, but even as a recent graduate I get
| 25 paid vacation days per year (5 of which can be saved
| for a few years). So long vacations aren't a pipe dream
| for non-parents.
|
| And with the way the economy currently works and the
| gradually increasing life expectancy, increasing the
| birth rate is a good thing, and generous parental
| benefits are a way to encourage that. I personally think
| it would be best if society/the economy wasn't dependant
| on an increasing population, but that's a separate
| conversation.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| My employer privately gave me tons of paid parental leave.
| I took a portion of it at the beginning and ended up using
| the rest of it to work every other day for the remaining
| year - and my partner used the chance to work on her stuff.
|
| 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.
| deanCommie wrote:
| > 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 relationship allows a working father to focus on their
| career with someone taking care of the home)
| petsormeat wrote:
| I'm not a parent, yet have never made even 90% of what my
| male peers were paid.
| angelzen wrote:
| Perhaps this is a case of metrics getting ahead of reality.
| Some circles have taken as an axiomatic truth that any
| disparity in wages between males and females is an intrinsic
| scandal. Perhaps there are some reasons for that, for example
| the tradeoff between forcing mothers back into the workforce
| vs. giving them ample time (order of 12 months) to recover
| and take care of the new born. For the not parents out there,
| a new born requires feeding every 2-3 hours. Expecting a
| mother to feed on that schedule _and_ perform as an employee
| is inhuman.
| TuringTest wrote:
| _> Some circles have taken as an axiomatic truth that any
| disparity in wages between males and females is an
| intrinsic scandal._
|
| All babies are created by two humans.* Why should the
| career of one of them be penalized for it? Why not instead
| create as a society the tools so that both can share the
| upbringing and care of the baby while the mother is
| recovering?
|
| * (although the parents are not always the same persons who
| have biologically made it; yet it is a good idea that the
| solution for such a case is the default behaviour).
| angelzen wrote:
| Your question: "Why should mothers take care of infants?"
| A passing familiarity with mammal biology is required.
| FYI, babies do not subsist on hamburgers and fries.
|
| Admittedly, it is very difficult to have this
| conversation when some people hold _axiomatically_ that
| men and women are biologically interchangeable. Unless we
| can agree to a minimally reasonable set of differences
| between men and women in the reproductive realm, before
| and after birth, we won 't get very far.
|
| PS. There is nothing "penalizing" in taking care of an
| infant. It is a fundamental part of life. Some even see
| it as rewarding.
| TuringTest wrote:
| _> Your question: "Why should mothers take care of
| infants?"_
|
| Admittedly, you can't read properly, because that's not a
| question I asked.
|
| _> Admittedly, it is very difficult to have this
| conversation when some people hold axiomatically that men
| and women are biologically interchangeable._
|
| Speak for yourself if you want to introduce straw men in
| the discourse; no one else did. Here we adults are
| talking about participation in society in equal
| conditions for all humans, irrespective of debilitating
| conditions that may temporarily affect them, whether due
| to illness or strenuous exertion.
|
| Excluding half of the human kind from the social sphere
| because some of them have a higher biological burden in
| reproduction is anything but a libertarian ideal. Having
| men participating in equal terms in the responsibility
| and joy of raising their children should be seen as a
| right as well as an obligation. A society that is unable
| to guarantee that right and claim that duty is a society
| that has lost its way.
| jensensbutton wrote:
| > is an attempt my mothers to minimize wage decreases
|
| There's a lot of evidence around wage discrepancies, but I
| have never heard anyone claim that it's the _mothers_ who are
| forcing themselves back to work. That seems like a huge
| stretch and doesn't align with anything I've seen before.
| sokoloff wrote:
| To whatever extent time out of the workforce is a driver of
| future wage discrepancy, it seems like at least some women
| would make an entirely economically rational choice to
| minimize that time out of the workforce. (I'm not claiming
| it's a good or bad thing, just that there exists a strong
| force that would motivate people in this direction.)
| mbesto wrote:
| I should probably clarify and reword. I don't think mothers
| are explicitly forcing themselves out of maternal leave -
| I'm saying that it's not culturally acceptable to do so.
| The cultural implications are that you will likely miss out
| on job opportunities and thus wage increases.
|
| The cultural components manifest themselves different ways:
|
| As a biz owner: Why would you give a raise to someone who
| hasn't contributed anything to the company in the last 2-4
| months?
|
| As an employee: how would you (man or woman) feel if your
| equal peer didn't contribute anything for 2-4 months and
| got the same raise as you?
| jensensbutton wrote:
| Ah makes sense.
|
| > The cultural implications are that you will likely miss
| out on job opportunities and thus wage increases.
|
| Strongly agree with the above.
| tomp wrote:
| You're free to move to Europe, earn 3x less, and get 1-2 years
| parental leave (actually not just for mothers in some
| countries!)
| ahevia wrote:
| An extremely impractical solution for majority of Americans
| who don't want to uproot their life.
|
| Surely we can show some empathy and demand better benefits
| for all. You know youre included in that pool too! I'm sure
| most folks on their deathbed will be glad they spent more
| time with their children then at their desk.
| antoinealb wrote:
| I think lumping together all European countries like that is
| not really helpful: not many european countries have a median
| income one third of the american one, and some are even
| higher than the US one.
|
| wrt duration of maternity leave, western europe is pretty
| much at 3-6 months, while some of the eastern countries go
| longer. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave)
| kazen44 wrote:
| Also, immigrating to european countries for americans is
| not so easy, especially if you are not in a high paying in
| demand field.
| pertymcpert wrote:
| Are you actually proposing that as a solution? Are you
| against paid parental leave?
| jseban wrote:
| 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 parental leave, what's the reason
| why? "it's nice"?
| pertymcpert wrote:
| Do you think that's the right thing to do from a moral
| standpoint? Are you aware of how callous you are?
| jseban wrote:
| To educate people to take responsibility for their lives?
| Yes, I think that's the right thing to do from a moral
| standpoint. People deserve freedom and deserve
| empowerment. I think it's morally wrong to have forced
| guardianship of adults.
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| > 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.
| acdha wrote:
| This isn't practical advice for most people and a significant
| fraction of the people affected are not looking at anything
| like a 3x pay cut, especially when you factor in the
| significantly greater amount we pay for healthcare, which
| parents will likely use more than they previously did.
| colechristensen wrote:
| I think the core of the problem has a few basic parts:
|
| * the average person/family is trying to live a little beyond
| their means
|
| * "work needed to do" is like a gas, it expands to fit the
| hours worked
|
| * rent seeking elements expand to keep #1 true
|
| The takeaway is that there is a lot of "work" being done in the
| economy that doesn't need to be done because prices will always
| rise a little past what people can pay comfortably so... people
| work too much and think that they need to.
|
| If you cut the lifetime hours worked by half, the standard of
| living probably wouldn't change much.
|
| The solution to this is radical modification of the markets
| which leech away extra income.
|
| One such method would be to control real estate prices by
| enacting huge taxes on rental property and profits
| simultaneously making it extremely difficult or impossible to
| acquire large loans for real estate (owned or rented out).
| Making owning s home that isn't your primary residence a huge
| financial liability and removing the ability to sell it for
| high prices would crash the market and remove the rent paid to
| landlords or "rent" paid to banks for mortgages. Both betting
| industries that take far more value than they give back.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Renters are paying all the costs imposed upon landlords. Many
| people have perfectly valid reasons to want to rent housing
| rather than being coerced to buy by bearing the impact of
| huge taxes on rental property.
|
| I'm not a landlord, but I rented 6 different places for a
| total of about 13 years _after college_ plus my time during
| college. I'm glad those places were available at prices I
| could afford.
| mjevans wrote:
| Regulations must be altered to encourage building sufficient
| housing where it's wanted.
|
| After the prerequisite step is taken, then the tax code
| should be changed to fix that rent seeking, in houses yes,
| but generally too. Seeking rent is not an overall economic
| good, but a wealth transfer mechanism from the poor to the
| rich.
| chinchilla2020 wrote:
| This was attempted in New York City and failed miserably.
|
| Property values rise in locations that are highly desirable
| regardless of government or market intervention. It has more
| do to with the surface area of the earth than any particular
| policy.
|
| A government system will result in similar issues - Look at
| the retirees and trust funder tenants living in mostly-empty
| 4 bedroom rent controlled apartments in NYC.
|
| You have to allocate the limited space somehow. You cannot
| fit more people into one square meter of land without
| building higher or denser, and building higher is not always
| a simple option.
| bko wrote:
| > Given that _every_ other "civilised" country has some sort of
| rudimentary care for new parents, which doesn't acutally cost
| that much, I can't see any reasonable objection to not having
| it.
|
| Giving a special benefit that will for the most part only be
| exercised by women discourages hiring women. You can still
| think its worth it, but don't pretend like you're baffled by
| anyone who would object or question how this impacts women.
| timssopomo wrote:
| https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.FE.ZS?view=.
| ..
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_pay_gap#/media/File:OEC.
| ..
|
| Seems like countries with paid leave have comparable or
| higher rates of labor participation and (on average) lower
| gender pay gap.
| TheAceOfHearts wrote:
| Agreed, this sounds like a very good reason to ensure
| parental leave is available for both men and women.
| kgwgk wrote:
| It's an even better reason to make it compulsory. (!?)
| fileeditview wrote:
| It's like that here in Germany. It's a little more
| complicated but in the end mom and dad can split up to 14
| months of paid parental leave time where no one can take
| more than 12 months.
|
| Now the pay does not replace a full salary of course. It is
| a percentage of your pay up to a maximum of 1800EUR.
|
| I know many dads (myself included) that have used this
| program.
| MandieD wrote:
| It's one of my favorite things about Germany. Here in
| (relatively) socially conservative greater Nuremberg, the
| split tends to be 12 months Mom, two months Dad, with Dad
| taking a month right after birth, and another when Mom
| goes back to work, but that "max 12 months of 14" pushes
| a lot of dads to take those two months.
|
| Since the pay is capped at 1800, I know a few fathers who
| didn't take even their two months because they were
| living at the edge of their paychecks (yes, it's possible
| to live a little too large anywhere, and Germans aren't
| immune), and one mother who went back to work at the end
| of the eight weeks post-birth that we're absolutely
| forbidden to work (but are paid quite close to our pre-
| maternal net pay) because she was the primary earner.
| It's also rougher on single mothers than partnered ones,
| of course, but at least isn't as harsh for them here as
| it is back in the US, and for low earners, 2/3 of your
| previous net + 200 child benefit is not much less than
| net + child care (subsidized for big earners, highly
| subsidized for lower earners) + general costs of working.
|
| "But you could have saved even more than that over the
| past few years if you didn't have to pay really high
| German income taxes!" Yes, we certainly could have, and
| would have, given our behavior even with taxes the way
| they are.
|
| However...
|
| Most people wouldn't/couldn't, and because the benefit is
| so widespread, employers expect you'll take it and have
| policies in place to accommodate it. The fact that a
| maternity year is normal makes it less of a career risk,
| and the same with several months away for fathers.
| Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote:
| Give the benefits to dads too. 4 weeks for the first kid is
| challenging. It could be different for 2+ kids, but remember
| that every child has a few complications when they are born,
| that. Fade away after a while.
| OJFord wrote:
| It is in the UK, or rather it's given to both, and up to
| them how they split it.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| So UK maternity leave is shared. Its a year with 6 months
| "pay"
|
| How its taken is up to the parents. The people that I know
| who've taken it have split it fairly evenly. (I know I know
| sample size.)
|
| I did not take any, as I was not eligible at the time.
|
| As someone who does a lot of recruiting, I don't think "hmm
| I'm going to have to pay this woman for mat leave" because
| frankly that's bollocks, who knows who's going to be here for
| six months, 1 year or 8?
|
| From a purely business point of view, the women that have
| come back from maternity are normally bargains. They don't
| ask for more pay, they are flexible and are loyal, assuming
| we have made the correct allowances for being parents.
|
| also being a parent in tech allows people to deal much better
| with the toddler tantrums/playground fights that seem to be
| common in this industry.
| er4hn wrote:
| > also being a parent in tech allows people to deal much
| better with the toddler tantrums/playground fights that
| seem to be common in this industry.
|
| An insight that comes from a place of being forced to be
| more mature yourself. Well said!
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| Maternity/parental leave is typically paid by the state, not
| by the employers. If both parents can take a leave, then it
| does not discourage hiring women.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Yeah, sure. Only the american libertarian knows how things
| really work. All those other countries are stupid, and
| because of their stupidity, look at them, all the women are
| out of the labor market.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| This graph shows the gender pay gap trending down in the UK
| since they implemented parental leave:
|
| https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwor.
| ..
|
| This graph shows women's employment rate trending up in the
| UK:
|
| https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwor.
| ..
| bko wrote:
| Policy changes don't exist in a vacuum. I'm not interested
| in studies that show something. I'm interested in a mental
| model that results in employers being indifferent to hiring
| men or women when statistically women are much more likely
| to take a considerable amount of paid time off with
| restrictions set on replacing them.
|
| The model could be that employers are altruistic. Or that
| employers are dumb and don't realize this. Or they're
| sufficiently compelled by the law and the penalties and
| enforcement are strict enough.
|
| And your model also has to account for the system not being
| a closed system. For instance, its not enough that all
| employers are altruistic, but any prospective employers
| that could enter the market would similarly be altruistic.
|
| Again, it could be worth it, but don't pretend that there's
| no disincentive by this policy.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >I'm not interested in studies that show something.
|
| An interesting way to think, to say the least.
| SamBam wrote:
| > The model could be that employers are altruistic. Or
| that employers are dumb and don't realize this.
|
| It's telling that your only conclusion for why companies
| could possibly continue to hire women is that they must
| be stupid or chivalrous.
| yardie wrote:
| > I'm not interested in studies that show something.
|
| The study doesn't agree with how I believe the world
| works so therefore they must be wrong.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > I'm not interested in studies that show something. I'm
| interested in a mental model [...]
|
| So you're interested in theory, not reality?
| KaiserPro wrote:
| This isn't a model. its not a study, its a metric
| collected from the UK for the last 20 years.
|
| The arguments for "not hiring women because they'll just
| go and get pregnant" have largely been settled in the UK.
|
| shared parental leave is a thing, its just what happens.
| Employers that don't facilitate it are punished, either
| by employment tribunal, or people leaving to join
| somewhere that does.
| bko wrote:
| > This isn't a model. its not a study, its a metric
| collected from the UK for the last 20 years.
|
| And absolutely nothing else changed in the UK in the last
| 20 years that may affect this number? Logic would tell
| you the disincentive exists. Looking at aggregate country
| data over 20 years doesn't tell you anything about a
| single policy.
|
| > Employers that don't facilitate it are punished, either
| by employment tribunal, or people leaving to join
| somewhere that does.
|
| That's a lot of employers to keep track of. In terms of
| people leaving for jobs that do offer paid parental leave
| only works for those wishing to take parental leave. If
| someone does not wish to have children, she would be
| willing to take a higher salary in lieu of a company that
| provides generous parental leave.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > And absolutely nothing else changed in the UK in the
| last 20 years that may affect this number? Logic would
| tell you the disincentive exists. Looking at aggregate
| country data over 20 years doesn't tell you anything
| about a single policy.
|
| The main argument against paid parental leave is that is
| will cause wage gap to grow. I don't see the data backing
| that up.
|
| Yes, there have been other landmark cases in the courts
| about equal pay.
|
| > That's a lot of employers to keep track of. In terms of
| people leaving for jobs that do offer paid parental leave
| only works for those wishing to take parental leave.
|
| You see this is where I think we differ. Here in the UK
| parental leave is part of a few measures that are aimed
| at flexibility. There is the right to flexible working
| (ie working non standard hours) Working from home (which
| is implied rather than a legal obligation) All of these
| in 2019 were part of a movement to make work a bit less
| shit. I had a number of employees who were childless that
| we enabled hybrid working. So that they could avoid
| coming in hungover, or work non standard times from
| abroad. Or just not come in with a cold and get everyone
| ill.
|
| When a company advertises its "benefits" (this was pre
| covid) they used to use parental leave as a signal that
| they had a more relaxed working atmosphere.
|
| For me, I've found that happy employees are loyal, more
| productive and willing to forgive mistakes. I have tried
| to make sure that those I manage feel like they have some
| level of work security, which rewards me as a manager
| with better productivity and lower staff turnover.
|
| I used to try and be a bit like malcom tucker
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjKHPv7b3fQ) it doesnt
| work as well as just being reasonably caring.
|
| > she would be willing to take a higher salary in lieu of
| a company that provides generous parental leave.
|
| again this is not a british thing to do. A right is a
| right, opting out of a right to get more money undermines
| everyone. I mean sure you can come back two weeks after
| giving birth, (I know someone who came back after a
| month) but you're not going to get more money for it.
| m4x wrote:
| > And absolutely nothing else changed in the UK in the
| last 20 years that may affect this number?
|
| Explain why this matters? The data demonstrates that you
| can increase parental leave while also reducing
| employment discrimination and improving conditions.
| That's the real world outcome.
|
| > Logic would tell you the disincentive exists.
|
| Surely logic would tell you to give more weight to real
| world outcomes than to imagined mental models about how
| others "should" behave?
|
| I'd question why you think people should think that way
| in the first place.
| fisherjeff wrote:
| Hmmm, so it seems like the signal we'd expect to see in
| the time series data is either (1) tiny, and completely
| buried in the noise, or (2) as you suggest, is large but
| more than completely canceled out by some other, unnamed,
| contemporaneous signal(s).
|
| Either way, seems like a net win for women!
| yokoprime wrote:
| So we're just throwing out random graphs and assuming
| causality? How about stork population vs birthrate?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I am not assuming causality.
|
| See this comment for explanation:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29230197
| endisneigh wrote:
| Who is forcing women back to work?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Reality. Way too many people only can make ends meet by both
| partners being full-time employed - and in some cases (such
| as shown by a recent Last Week Tonight episode) even _that_
| is not enough to prevent being homeless.
|
| Rents are too high, and wages are too low.
| endisneigh wrote:
| People don't have to have children. And people can and do
| stay at home with their children at all income levels.
| jseban wrote:
| Yeah and also, most (upper) middle class families in the
| US are making a lot more money so can actually afford
| much more time home with their children, compared to the
| paid leave that Europe has. So that's actually better
| from one point of view, the only "downside" then is
| traditional gender roles. Who cares about 1 year maternal
| leave, when you can already afford 10 years maternal
| leave?
|
| Would be very interesting to see actual time spent not
| working, and caring for children at home, in relation to
| amount of paid leave. And across income brackets. Would
| not be surprised if it comes out to more time with
| children in many cases even though paid leave is less..
| comeonseriously wrote:
| > People don't have to have children.
|
| Ah, here we go. This is a veiled "only people who have
| enough money should have children" argument.
|
| > And people can and do stay at home with their children
| at all income levels.
|
| I am sure that disproportionately favors certain income
| levels.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Poor people have more children than rich both per capita
| and in aggregate
|
| Also, I never said only rich people should be able to
| have children. However at the end of the day raising
| children requires money. Hence the newly introduced
| children tax credit.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Birthrates among poor people are way down:
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/562541/birth-rate-by-
| pov...
|
| There may be some effect of the very poorest people
| having children for the purposes of benefits, but the
| vast majority of women will have fewer kids once they get
| access to birth control and financial independence.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Birthrate isn't my point. Per your chart birth rates are
| down for everyone. The fact remains that poor people have
| more children. And more to the original point, people
| aren't being forced to leave their children.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| My point is lack of access to contraceptives and lack of
| women's financial independence might be the reason poorer
| women have more children. My conjecture is their higher
| birth rates have little to do with them being poorer.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Sure, but that has nothing to do with the original
| comment which is to say that women don't have to go to
| work. Nor do men.
| orangepurple wrote:
| I am "poor" by choice because my wife takes care of the
| children in our household. Our lives are richer than
| those of countless lonely $ millionaires.
| hattmall wrote:
| This is the real answer. Nothing else is going to change
| that. A basic lifestyle isn't that expensive and it's
| exponentially better than 99% of people's lives 50 years
| ago. Just making smart shopping decisions can literally
| double or more your buying power.
|
| I really don't get the point of doing something you don't
| enjoy for 8-12 hours a day just so you can have expensive
| things.
| orangepurple wrote:
| > The fact remains that poor people have more children.
|
| Not quite. $ rich people can't afford time with children.
| wbsss4412 wrote:
| Didn't you hear? Children are a consumer good now.
| jseban wrote:
| It doesn't need to be veiled, that's already the official
| policy: people are responsible for providing for their
| children. You have to have money to have kids. It's just
| a little less.
|
| On some level you have to encourage people to somehow try
| to support themselves and their children, and to adapt
| their footprint to match their contributions.
| mindslight wrote:
| Most people being unable to afford taking even a moderate
| amount of time off is the deeper problem. The sustainable
| answer is to fix the underlying economic problems - end
| this trickle up financial treadmill that has caused the
| majority to become so poor and disempowered [0], rather
| than creating a patchwork of allowances for specific
| system-legible purposes. For example bringing it back into
| the emotional realm - even if there were a comfortable 12
| weeks of guaranteed parental leave, that itself wouldn't
| help a family who had lost their baby. Nor would it help
| someone who had to care for a terminally ill parent, nor
| after losing them and needing to deal with their estate.
| Nevermind the myriad of unenumerable reasons someone might
| need months off.
|
| [0] If you cannot afford to unilaterally walk away from
| employment for several months, you have no economic power
| regardless of your churn rate. Sorry to break it to you.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Society actually needs _all_ of what you mentioned:
|
| - specific allowances (paid parental leave, paid sick
| leave) for obvious reasons
|
| - "blanket" paid time off outside of federal holidays for
| recreation and stuff like parents dying
|
| - extra PTO or working hours reduction to take care of
| sick/terminally ill relatives
|
| - wages big enough to allow everyone working full time to
| save a meaningful amount of money
|
| Most developed countries outside of the US have realized
| this. All countries in Europe have the first two points
| already covered (paid parental, sick and general time
| off), Germany has the third one covered since 2012
| ("Familienpflegezeit").
|
| The only thing we all seem to be lacking after decades of
| wage starvation and neoliberalism is the last one - but
| COVID-related disruption is likely to incite a massive
| paradigm shift as the market goes from an employer market
| to an employee market and companies are pulling
| production back on-shore for a myriad of reasons.
| mindslight wrote:
| So yeah, the nuance to my comment is that the first
| things you list are important for _social_ reasons -
| keeping your same position in the face of these
| additional burdens. I admit that my above comment is
| addressing the social problem purely through economic
| means (if an employer doesn 't engage with your needs,
| walk away and find a new employer when you're available
| again). Unfortunately what we're offered in the US is
| mainly this economic lens, both policy and politically.
|
| I don't know that I agree with the specific optimism in
| your last paragraph. Apart from the basic death toll, I
| think most of what is driving the "labor shortage" is
| people knocked out of situations where they were barely
| treading water, and retreating to lower rent areas and
| living with family. So wages will only rise enough to get
| people moving back onto the rent treadmill, and won't
| necessarily give away surplus wealth to increase their
| bargaining power. I'd love love to be wrong about this,
| of course.
|
| IMO what is really needed to fix the economy is for the
| government to stop feeding the asset bubbles (aka
| giveaway to the upper class) through this ongoing
| combination of ZIRP plus austerity. Raising interest
| rates would lower asset prices, making home ownership
| more obtainable (despite the short term pain). And
| government-spent stimulus will cause distributed price
| inflation that will hopefully make the Fed raise rates,
| as opposed to the past few decades of runaway asset-only
| inflation that they've been able to conveniently ignore.
| DrBazza wrote:
| > Who is forcing women back to work?
|
| A modern Western lifestyle. Almost every Western country
| without fail requires dual incomes to afford a basic
| lifestyle.
|
| The working-dad stay-at-home mum has long gone.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > Almost every Western country without fail requires dual
| incomes to afford a basic lifestyle
|
| It will be remiss not to mention that America stands alone
| among western countries in not providing livable
| subsidies/incomes to recent parents, and expects them to be
| back in the workforce after a couple of weeks. The rest of
| the western world is _far_ less aggressive in "forcing"
| women back to work.
| burntoutfire wrote:
| That's not true. A comfortable lifestyle perhaps, but
| "basic" can be had on just a single average salary.
| cure wrote:
| 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
| treis wrote:
| That looks like it counts everyone over 14 including
| students and retirees. And it's the highest it has ever
| been in real terms.
| burntoutfire wrote:
| 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 have a house or
| apartment suitable for a family of three for less than
| $1000 a month.
| athenot wrote:
| > That's $2983 per month.
|
| Gross. More like $2200 after tax.
|
| Healthcare for a family of 4 averaged to $1777/month in
| 2020[1]. The higher up the income ladder, the more the
| employer pays that. On the low-end, the employer doesn't
| pick up much of that tab. So that's the largest
| expense... unless it's sacrificed in order to maintain a
| roof, food and transportation.
|
| And we're assuming zero contributions towards retirement,
| here.
|
| So... no, it is NOT easy to live on that amount of money
| anywhere where there are opportunities to grow one's
| job/career.
|
| [1] In 2020, annual premiums for health coverage for a
| family of four averaged $21,342, but employers picked up
| 73% of that cost. - https://www.investopedia.com/how-
| much-does-health-insurance-...
| Fantosism wrote:
| 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 for insurance.
| nickff wrote:
| > _" 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.
| Fantosism wrote:
| Medicaid is for low-income earners.
|
| The parent described the median-income earner.
|
| In my state of Arizona, if you were grossing 36,000 a
| year with a family of 3 you would be about 20% _over_ the
| threshold to qualify for medicaid.
| showerst wrote:
| > That's $2983 per month.
|
| Before taxes. That's in the area of 2400/mo after taxes
| [1]. My family of 3 pays around 600/mo for health
| insurance after employer subsidies, so call it 1800/mo.
| So after rent now you're living (with an infant!) on 800
| a month. That's brutal.
|
| My newborn burns nearly that much just on formula,
| diapers, and life-critical medicine.
|
| [1] https://smartasset.com/taxes/paycheck-
| calculator#nNffey40fm
| jrumbut wrote:
| And of course, this is the median salary. 50% of people
| make less.
| jrumbut wrote:
| 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.
| lifeformed wrote:
| A single family member earning a wage as a low income
| worker is not making enough to pay for the health
| insurance for a family with newborns, on top of rent,
| food, transportation, clothing, all the costs of having a
| child, saving for emergencies/future/education, and some
| semblance of entertainment and having a life.
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| 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.
| celtain wrote:
| You know the ERA hasn't been ratified, right?
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| Yes? You also know that something as momentous as a
| constitutional amendment doesn't happen in a vacuum either,
| right? It still had the effect of nearly doubling the size
| of the workforce, and now ~50 years later we're now seeing
| what it means to have a dual-earner family income.
|
| The middle class is rapidly shrinking and the dream of
| owning a house for many newlyweds is fast receding in the
| rear view mirror, but hey, equality! Right?
| adolph wrote:
| It is interesting to think about the societal changes
| that drive or are driven by a constitutional amendment.
| If the ERA was a 1920s progressivist goal [1] then maybe
| one could say that it was part of a broader change to
| formalize work effort that existed in informal household
| economies. If the ERA reference is to the early 1970s
| effort [1] then it was a lagging indicator since the
| economic integration of women into the formal economy was
| well underway and would arrive at an equilibrium by the
| 1990s [0].
|
| Exploring the counterfactual numbers: If the workforce
| gender share remained at the 4:6 F:M ratio of 1972, then
| a male workforce of 85m would mean a female workforce of
| 34m instead of the actual 75m. This would lead to a total
| workforce of 119m instead of 160m, a decrease of 41m or
| 25%.
|
| Would the USSR have won the cold war if the US had 25%
| less economic growth over the last 50 years?
|
| 0.
| https://www.dol.gov/agencies/wb/data/lfp/civilianlfbysex
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > It still had the effect of nearly doubling the size of
| the workforce
|
| No, it didn't.
|
| That ship had already sailed before ERA was proposed, and
| was a major driver for it.
| pomian wrote:
| What is ERA?
| mikestew wrote:
| A proposed amendment to the U. S. Constitution called the
| Equal Rights Amendment, giving equal legal rights to all
| regardless of gender:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment
| mikestew wrote:
| You might not have to "keep saying it" if you gave a little
| more context and detail as to what you're on about. That, and
| explain the acronym for those that are under, oh, about sixty
| years old.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| Apart from the very obvious argument that parental leave should
| be a human right and is essential to women's rights, the HN crowd
| might appreciate that there are significant individual and
| societal long-term benefits to mothers being able to care for
| their newborns.
|
| Such as an estimated 2.6 point boost in IQ from breastfeeding [1]
| (95% CI: 1.25; 3.98)
|
| [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26211556/
| charcircuit wrote:
| Maybe you should not live somewhere so expensive and stop
| spending money on unnecessary things. You can switch to eating
| cheap food and minimize your expenses.
|
| If you are just making ends meet you are not financially
| responsible.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Maybe you should not live somewhere so expensive
|
| That is one of the problems of the "cycle of poverty". Moving
| requires a _large_ upfront capital investment for a moving
| truck or gas for your own vehicle at the very least, as well as
| taking time off of work for house and job hunting (since
| _getting to_ your old job may be unfeasible from wherever you
| manage to find a home). Not to mention you 'll need to pay up
| for a deposit for the new location without having the old
| deposit back yet and in almost all cases either a fee for
| breaking your lease or paying two rents simultaneously for a
| month or more.
|
| Summarized, that is _easily_ hitting 5.000 $ if not more.
|
| > If you are just making ends meet you are not financially
| responsible.
|
| Are you really calling nearly 70% [1] (or, after COVID, likely
| more!) of Americans "irresponsible" for having less than 1000$
| in savings?
|
| Were the rate of people in that circumstances something like 5%
| or lower, I might be inclined to agree. But that large amount
| speaks rather for a systematic problem!
|
| [1]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/survey-69-americans-
| less-1-17...
| charcircuit wrote:
| >investment for a moving truck or gas for your own vehicle at
| the very least, as well as taking time off of work for house
| and job hunting
|
| There are financial instruments like loans where you can for
| a fee get money which you can use now and pay back later.
|
| >Are you really calling nearly 70% [1] (or, after COVID,
| likely more!) of Americans "irresponsible" for having less
| than 1000$ in savings?
|
| Yes. I don't even have a job that pays well and I could quit
| my job and live for years if I wanted to off my savings. Now
| I'm perhaps an outlier, but you should have a buffer in case
| you can't work for whatever reason or something unexpected
| happens.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| If irresponsibility becomes the norm, then it ceases to be
| an individual personal failing to be scolded for, and is
| instead a systemic societal issue that should be addressed.
| charcircuit wrote:
| I agree that it is a problem and should be addressed.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Agreeing with parent here is in conflict with your
| original point. Your original point is that poor people
| are in that position because they're bad with money and
| make bad financial choices. Parent is asserting that it's
| a systemic issue that is unrelated to individual
| financial responsibility. These positions are
| incompatible.
| charcircuit wrote:
| I thought he was saying that it was a systemic issue that
| people were irresponsible with money.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Yes, but in that case "irresponsibility" becomes less of
| individual character failings and more of a society-wide
| issue that requires society-wide solutions. People do not
| receive sufficient financial education. [0] There are is
| too much cheap credit and major institutions desire it.
| [1] They are too enticed to consume. [2] Basic costs of
| living have risen sharply [3] while wages have not. [4]
| When all of this is considered, it is clear that the
| aggregate problem is less irresponsibility, and more that
| Americans are simply being pushed to their limits from
| every direction, by structures and systems that are
| stacked against them.
|
| [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/danipascarella/2018/04/0
| 3/4-sta...
|
| [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/30/covid-consumers-did-
| great-jo...
|
| [2] https://www.apa.org/monitor/2008/07-08/consumerism
|
| [3] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/04/47-percent-of-
| americans-say-...
|
| [4] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-
| most-us...
| lovecg wrote:
| > There are financial instruments like loans where you can
| for a fee get money which you can use now and pay back
| later.
|
| If you're poor your credit history is likely shot. Good
| luck getting good terms on that loan.
|
| > Yes. I don't even have a job that pays well and I could
| quit my job and live for years if I wanted to off my
| savings.
|
| It means your job in fact does pay well.
|
| > you should have a buffer in case you can't work for
| whatever reason or something unexpected happens.
|
| You should also not get sick, have an education, be born
| into a wealthy family. There are a lot of nonactionable
| "shoulds" one can throw around.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > If you are just making ends meet you are not financially
| responsible.
|
| your grasp of statistics lets you down. US pay is distributed
| like this:
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/203183/percentage-distri...
|
| Given that education requires _spare_ income, and spare time,
| how are you supposed to gain qualifications /training to allow
| you to up your income?
|
| Assuming that everyone was able to become qualified, given the
| saturation in the market place of cheap, new people, how will
| that glut of supply increase media wage?
|
| If you cannot earn, how are you supposed to save for "financial
| responsibility"?
|
| You have a workplace accident, not your fault. Now you have
| huge hospital debt. This is coupled by inflation on fuel and
| housing. Minimum wage doesn't rise. how are you supposed to
| earn more?
| hairofadog wrote:
| Not exactly on topic but the recent Netflix series _Maid_
| does an excellent job of making the viewer feel how difficult
| it can be to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. I
| almost hesitate to recommend it because everyone I know is so
| stressed right now and the series is so anxiety inducing, but
| if you're someone like me who thinks _rising tension_ is the
| heart of good storytelling, I can't recommend it highly
| enough. Everything about it is excellent.
| temphnaccount wrote:
| Some comments on this thread are really something. I know my
| comment adds nothing here but honestly I don't have any words
| to argue with this. Just disappointed.
| dang wrote:
| Flamewar comments will get you banned here. Personal attacks
| also will, and your comment crossed into that. Not cool. If
| you'd please review the site guidelines and stick to the rules,
| we'd appreciate it.
|
| Edit: you've posted a bunch of other flamebait and/or
| unsubstantive comments in this thread as well. Please stop
| doing that. It's not what HN is for, and it destroys what it is
| for.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29227287.
| teddyh wrote:
| May I suggest these informative articles?
|
| * _5 Things Nobody Tells You About Being Poor_ , May 27, 2011:
| https://www.cracked.com/blog/5-things-nobody-tells-you-about...
|
| * _The 5 Stupidest Habits You Develop Growing Up Poor_ ,
| January 19, 2012: https://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-stupidest-
| habits-you-deve...
|
| * _4 Things Politicians Will Never Understand About Poor
| People_ , February 21, 2013:
| https://www.cracked.com/blog/4-things-politicians-will-never...
| charcircuit wrote:
| 1. Okay
|
| 2. This article would be better for poor people to read.
|
| 3. Okay
| teddyh wrote:
| > _2. This article would be better for poor people to
| read._
|
| It's also useful for non-poor people to know how poor
| people are conditioned to think and behave.
| teawrecks wrote:
| If only bring frugal were as simple as you make it sound.
| The food industry has optimized how cheap food can get both
| in price and nutritional content. If you eat the cheap
| stuff, you WILL develop health issues, which will
| compromise your ability to work and your child's
| development.
| haunter wrote:
| What a grade A asshole you are
| charcircuit wrote:
| Well okay then.
| dang wrote:
| Please stop now.
| dang wrote:
| Attacking another user like this will get you banned here,
| regardless of how bad their comments are or you feel they
| are. You may not feel you owe them better, but you owe this
| community better if you're participating here.
|
| If you wouldn't mind reviewing
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking
| the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be
| grateful.
| fileeditview wrote:
| > 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.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| 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.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| "Easily" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that first
| sentence. Moving is very expensive, and requires a lot of
| spare capital and time off. Renting trucks, breaking
| leases, paying deposits, and not working all burn through
| money pretty quickly. It's also logistically tricky, as
| often you have to land a job before moving because
| landlords want to see a job and income before letting you
| move, and low skill jobs don't want to hire someone in the
| indeterminate future.
|
| 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.
| charcircuit wrote:
| idk find another job maybe
| comeonseriously wrote:
| > Maybe you should not live somewhere so expensive and stop
| spending money on unnecessary things.
|
| Because The Poors waste their money?
|
| > You can switch to eating cheap food and minimize your
| expenses.
|
| So, The Poors shouldn't care about nutrition?
|
| > If you are just making ends meet you are not financially
| responsible.
|
| This is so naive.
| dang wrote:
| Please do not respond to flamebait with another flamewar
| comment. That makes everything worse, and is against the site
| guidelines in its own right.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| charcircuit wrote:
| >Because The Poors waste their money?
|
| Either that or they are not using their time well for making
| money.
|
| >So, The Poors shouldn't care about nutrition?
|
| cheap and nutritious don't have to be mutually exclusive
|
| >This is so naive.
|
| It means you are living a life you can't afford.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| The thing that isn't talked about is that a significant
| portion of the population simply isn't intelligent enough
| for a decent paying job. Men of that type can usually go in
| to a field where they trade their long term health for more
| pay, but women that's harder. Either way there's a good
| chance you'll be on disability by the time you're 50.
|
| I agree that a lot of people make really poor financial
| decisions, but don't think everyone has the same earning
| potential as you.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > not using their time well for making money.
|
| you've not worked in retail have you?
| charcircuit wrote:
| I have never worked in retail. I have only made money
| from programming.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Consider this discussion as an exercise in humility, that
| the mental model of poverty as a result of poor choice
| may be flawed.
| charcircuit wrote:
| I choose to hone a skill by teaching myself programming
| and I monetized it at an early age. Anyone can do what I
| did. I'm not special.
| the-smug-one wrote:
| You are very special. Do you meet a lot of different
| people? Like, different countries, adults with parents
| from other socioeconomic backgrounds, people with chronic
| diseases, all of that stuff? Because, to me, it really
| seems like you don't.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Yes, I'm in a lot of discord servers. I have talked to
| people from many countries. I have even talked to others
| using their native language. I'm sure that I've
| encountered people from different socioeconomic
| backgrounds and people with chronic diseases.
| tiagod wrote:
| And you think discord users are a good sample of the
| population? It's absolutely not true that not everyone
| could just pick a skill like programming and work on it
| until they're employable, especially as many people need
| to start working as soon as possible to be able to
| survive.
|
| If you had to work 50h/week plus 3-4h commute every day,
| how would you study programming exactly? If you didn't
| have access to a computer, how would you do it? If
| everyone around you made it seem like it's an activity
| out of your reach, how would you figure out it's not?
| ashtonkem wrote:
| And it shows.
| csunbird wrote:
| I really can not follow the logic of this thread here,
| especially the last sentence.
|
| When the choice is between "living a life you can't afford"
| and "not living at all as they do not have any money to pay
| rent", I think it is clear that people should try to live.
| charcircuit wrote:
| I used life in the same meaning as "start a new life"
| it's metaphorical. Sometimes you just need to reset
| everything.
| helge9210 wrote:
| I really can't understand how can a newborn be separated from his
| mother at the age of 12 weeks.
| endisneigh wrote:
| I very much support paid parental leave, but having to go to
| work isn't really being "separated," in the sense that it's
| forced or non-voluntary.
|
| Plenty of women (and men) can and do just stay with their
| child, paid or unpaid. Many permanently do so.
| [deleted]
| zarzavat wrote:
| At the intersection of capitalism and feminism.
|
| On one end of the spectrum you have certain European countries
| where women receive ample maternity leave. The right to have a
| family is protected by law.
|
| On the other end of the spectrum you have certain countries
| where married women are not expected to work. The right to have
| a family is protected by traditional beliefs and customs.
|
| But there is this nasty area in the middle where married women
| are expected to work but there's few workers rights - having a
| family becomes a privilege rather than a right.
| merpnderp wrote:
| 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.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| 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 infant feeds from the breast.
|
| Not to mention the effects of oxytocin on the mother's
| healing body from having skin to skin contact with the baby.
|
| The effects are extremely complex, I do not even see how you
| can measure them to claim dropping an infant off at daycare
| is "without issue".
|
| If you also cared for an infant, you would also know they
| don't sleep 7 hours, and feed 1 hour. They feed every 2
| hours, and they can take anywhere from 10 min to 45 min to
| feed every time. And every time, the infant will need to be
| burped, or maybe they will need to poop and the mom has to
| wait that process out, and then go back to feeding.
|
| And to keep up this production while the infant is at
| daycare, the mom has to pump every 2 hours. Which means going
| to the pumping room, taking out the pump equipment, cleaning
| the pump equipment, storing (refrigerated or frozen) and
| transporting the breast milk, heating it up.
| merpnderp wrote:
| 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.
| zwirbl wrote:
| The free market will also fix this, you'll see /s
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| It would if people would just stop having children beyond
| their means. But they continue to do so and then cry about
| it.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Because we have formula and breast pumps. Whether or not they
| should is apparently irrelevant to many US voters.
| rojeee wrote:
| I have a 5 week old son. I'm lucky enough to be able to quit my
| job to help mum look after him because we don't have any family
| nearby to help. It's still a struggle with both of us doing it
| full-time! I have no idea how single mothers cope. I've no idea
| how people can work in the early months of parenting a child. I'm
| in the UK and had 2 weeks parternity leave - it's really not
| enough!
| elzbardico wrote:
| One thing most libertarians never understood about Keynes, is
| that Keynes was probably as much, if not more, anti-communist
| than they. But keynes also knew that people that are hungry
| today, don't have too much patience to wait for the markets to
| reach an equilibrium, and because of that they tend to make
| revolutions. This American Market fundamentalism is probably the
| biggest threat that the liberal capitalism ever met, because this
| is what is going to radicalize the american worker, and soo, the
| disappearing middle class.
| Clubber wrote:
| Business people don't have the training to think about that
| sort of thing and politicians should, but they do whatever
| their corporate donors tell them to do. I believe FDR said he
| did what he did to save capitalism.
|
| Anyway, it's all short term thinking. We've had two
| revolutionary type events in the last year, the BLM movement
| and the Jan 6 movement. We currently have a general employment
| strike going on. People are pissed. Once they realize that the
| party divisions are mostly intentional and mostly cultural
| rather than economic, and everybody wants the same thing, who
| knows what will happen.
| 5tefan wrote:
| Thank God I live in a civilized country. Live and let live. Could
| be so easy for so many. But well... earning the next dollar is
| more important than supporting others in times of need.
| Separating parents from their children is miserable.
| [deleted]
| askonomm wrote:
| And yet again I have no idea why people don't leave to EU or
| Canada where there are actual human rights. I understand it is
| your homeland, but your homeland is treating you like it's still
| the middle ages.
| still_grokking wrote:
| > barbaric reality
|
| Form an European standpoint this describes almost everything
| about the US quite accurate.
|
| The US is in dire need of a social benefits system worth its
| name. The current situation truly can't be described as anything
| other than "barbaric".
|
| Sorry for the hard words but it's just the reality.
| xyzal wrote:
| https://archive.md/8c9hs
| kingsloi wrote:
| 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 had benefits, but was saving the
| limited time for when my wife returned to work... to only lose it
| when my child passed.
|
| I couldn't advocate more for maternal/paternal leave.
| chriselles wrote:
| I am so very sorry for your loss.
|
| As a parent, your post is incredibly impactful.
|
| As a company owner(20 FTE), I've had several staff take leave
| for catastrophic health issues in their immediate family.
|
| It's been incredibly costly for my small company to keep paying
| them indefinitely beyond their accrued and used holiday/sick
| leave, but it's been worth it in the long run.
|
| It has engendered the kind of effort, loyalty, and performance
| that can't be bought, only earned.
|
| From the company's perspective, it hurts a lot up front but it
| makes sense ethically, morally, and I think financially as
| well.
|
| Here in NZ, we have paid parental leave. Mostly taken by
| mothers, but with some nudging for fathers to take some of it
| as well.
|
| When we had our children it was 12 weeks total combined paid
| parental leave.
|
| It has since been extended to 26 weeks combined paid, with up
| to another 26 weeks unpaid.
| vadfa wrote:
| Sorry for your loss, but this is textbook appeal to emotion.
| [deleted]
| kingsloi wrote:
| I don't want sympathy or want to invoke empathy. I've heard
| enough "I'm sorry for you loss" to last me many, many
| lifetimes.
|
| I just want to share my 2c on how my/our situation was made
| worse, now my girl is gone, I feel like it would be a
| disservice to her if I sugar coated my experience. I would've
| loved to never have worked a single moment during that time.
| Also, I'm a British guy who used the NHS extensively before I
| moved here. So there's that.
| organsnyder wrote:
| Thank you for sharing your experience. Your testimony is
| both heartrending and necessary.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| Did you ask for an extended leave of absence? Many employers
| are a lot more humane than a lot of employees give them credit
| for, whether they're bound by law or not.
| teawrecks wrote:
| I assume you mean an unpaid situation?
| familyemta123 wrote:
| I created a throw away for this, but during a recent family
| emergency, my small 100 person company decided to fire me
| rather than allow my request for 3 months off without pay.
| They could easily have supported it, and I was a good
| employee, but instead I heard now they've replaced me with an
| Eastern European contractor for cheap. So rather than help me
| in my time of need, after I had saved their ass from some
| other crappier contractors in the preceding year, they took
| it as a chance to cut costs. They had also just gone public
| and have a huge war chest from that, so it isn't like they
| were strapped.
|
| I'm not going to respond to those comments, inevitability,
| that will say there's more to this story, because there
| isn't, I was a good employee and understood my job, but they
| just saw a replaceable body. I'm never going to dedicate more
| than the minimum effort to a company ever again.
| bell-cot wrote:
| A slightly more sophisticated strategy - dedicate more then
| the minimum effort to a company...but only after they
| demonstrate decent devotion to good employees. So "Tit for
| Tat", very roughly.
| chinchilla2020 wrote:
| It might be an ethical move to name and shame this company.
| It could save a future employee from joining them.
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| I too think it would be proper to share that information
| if you feel it would not impact your job search (and
| let's be frank, if they would do what they did they can't
| do much worse). Protecting abusers is not a good policy.
| kingsloi wrote:
| Yeah, you pretty much hit the nail for me, too. I was
| worried of that exact situation. I'm a great employee, with
| a great team/manager, but it's a F500 company, where I'm
| just a replaceable body.
|
| The best thing I could do for my child is to not rock the
| boat.
| [deleted]
| grecy wrote:
| I find it heartbreaking and incredibly sad this is reality for
| hundreds of millions of people living in the richest country
| that has ever existed.
|
| I immigrated to a country with healthcare that is not tied to a
| job, and this kind of treatment is unheard of and barbaric.
|
| I'm still shocked the US can't improve the quality of life for
| it's citizens.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| It can, it just has no interest in doing so.
| mooreds wrote:
| This is heartbreaking. I'm so sorry.
| kingsloi wrote:
| I hate evoking empathy/sympathy, but with my child being
| gone, I really think it's important to share the real story
| and things that made our/my situation worse.
| lordgrenville wrote:
| Heart-breaking to read this. I'm so sorry for your loss.
| 1-more wrote:
| it's so depressing working a good job in the imperial core and
| having it be like this. The generations of exploitation and
| extraction we've waged against the natural world and the people
| outside of the imperial core would at least make some sense _if
| we all got to have the good stuff stuff_ but we don 't.
| kingsloi wrote:
| 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.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| Sorry to hear - you did the best under circumstances - you
| could not help her medically or otherwise but did the only
| thing in your control - make sure the insurance coverage was
| there.
| AnthonBerg wrote:
| This is not untrue.
|
| With complete respect, I feel I must add however: Society on
| the other hand did not do the best it could have done -
| sheltered and cared for the people in this situation. It
| isn't even efficient at any scale or context to just let it
| ride like this. This breaks people. Grief and burnout burns
| people up.
|
| They shouldn't have had to keep powering the treadmill,
| shouldn't have to had to do anything to ensure insurance
| coverage didn't run out. Earnestly and calmly speaking, I
| honestly think it's most useful to view the practice as...
| barbaric.
| conductr wrote:
| 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.
| ProAm wrote:
| FMLA only applies for companies of a certain size
| kingsloi wrote:
| 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 whatever,
| but there's only so much I was entitled too. I also had bills
| rolling in, so anything unpaid was out of the question. I'm
| sure I could've survived with being unpaid, but living off
| GoFundMe donations didn't sit well with me. Ultimately
| GoFundMe paid for her funeral.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| I'm so sorry for your loss.
| sangnoir wrote:
| FMLA leave is unpaid. Not many people can afford to go
| through 8 months without income, especially with a child in
| the NICU.
| conductr wrote:
| Good point. Suppose I was assuming that wasn't a factor
| here since they said they would have quit if not for
| employer based insurance.
| kingsloi wrote:
| If I didn't have to pay for medical, I likely could've
| survived on savings and GoFundMe.
| conductr wrote:
| That's unfortunate, as is the whole situation. My thought
| was it should protect your job/insurance and you'd have
| to still just pay your normal premiums. Potential loss of
| income depending on how your company handles that (my and
| my wife's company has always opted to pay us). We paid
| the out of pocket maximum, something like $10K and that
| was it, realize that's a substantial amount for some. I'd
| agree with the overall sentiment of the discussion, we
| should move towards a system that is predictable and
| humane and not so heavily tied to your employer at the
| moment. I work in healthcare industry for past 20 years
| (corp finance) and am continually perplexed by how silly
| things are.
|
| If anyone else reading is ever in a similar situation
| talk to your HR department. I help HR departments
| negotiate things all the time. A common thing is taking
| an LOA and the company will pay your COBRA premiums. They
| don't have to, it's technically unpaid time, but if you
| have some savings and insurance is your barrier this is
| actually kind of common. But again, I'm in healthcare
| industry so YMMV.
| sircastor wrote:
| 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.
| handrous wrote:
| It's an alarming sign of political and social rot, IMO,
| that this has become so normal that barely-computer-
| literate people out in my flyover part of the US
| regularly launch healthcare-related GoFundMes, if their
| kids get seriously ill especially, and there hasn't been
| an overwhelming "holy shit, this is very not OK, drop
| everything and fix this _now_ " reaction.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > It's an alarming sign of political and social rot
|
| For some people, charity replacing government social
| safety nets is a feature, not a bug, since they want to
| control where "their" money goes. Sure, it sucks when
| you're not photogenic[1] enough to hit your GoFundMe
| targets, but look at the bright side: we'd have avoided
| wasteful government spending.
|
| 1. Wink wink.
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| Unfortunately, insurance doesn't provide any pay for sick
| leave, but rather, makes medical bills less than they
| would be otherwise (in general). Lots of folks are stuck
| with unpaid leave from jobs they need for the health
| insurance, and it really is a shame.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| _" If you live in Canada or, say, France, you are probably amused
| by this little thought experiment. And possibly drinking a beer
| from a small and dainty glass."_
|
| Not really. Yes we have one year parental leave here in Canada,
| but the $$ value of that is not very high all things considered.
| It's not enough to live on on its own. Maximum in Ontario right
| now is $595 CAD a week for the highest income earners and lower
| than that (2/3rds of pre-leave earnings) for others, and rents
| and housing have climbed very high, so in reality you still need
| a working spouse to make ends meet on that.
|
| So, no, we're not laughing, but we do have sympathy.
| mountain_peak wrote:
| Completely my experience as well (x3 kids)...can you enlighten
| me on what the author meant by, "drinking beer from a small and
| dainty glass"? If there's a social reference or analogy, I'm
| missing it.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| I guess some American perception of sophisticated European
| Frenchmen? I dunno :-)
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