Another Thing the US Will Not Do

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And then people ask why there is a glass cieling for female employees

My mothers' husband runs a small business and openly says he will not employ a young woman just in case she 'runs off to have a child' which is, quite simply, discrimination. He has no way of telling from a CV if a woman is even in a relationship or has children already.

During maternity leave in england you get paid a proportion of your salary which is decreased as time goes on. One of my teachers recieved her paycheque for a whole total of... 2p.

Yes, tuppence. It would probably have been more cost effective to send the coin in the mail to be frank.

She even came into work when she wasn't supposed to. She actually forgot she was on maternity leave at one point. Had to bite my tongue at that announcement I must admit.

Paternity leave I personally believe is important, maternity leave is necessary due to the physical and mental toll childbirth takes on a body, including bone strength and adjustments from often violent changes in hormonal levels.

If you want a woman about the workplace with the equivalent of bipolar PMT on a mix of acid and meth then you are a far braver soul than I am!

Paternity leave though people seem to think it's a bit of a cop out. Sure perhaps the maternity pay could pay for someone to help care for the woman who spent a day pushing another human being out of a small and intimate part of her anatomy, or an unemployed family member can drop by now and then.

Yet here's a novel idea - THE FATHER?! Some of the most vital bonding time between a father and child is shortly after the child is born and the mother is still probably out of her gourd and trying to blot the realisation that the male side of the relationship got off easy in the physical effort department

People complain about abortion being on the rise citing that putting a child up for adoption is a preferable option yet the prospect of who pays while the mother is unable to work seems kicked to the sides. You can't have it both ways.

Personally, I would take the maternity support into account when taking on a job, (along with options and support for disabilities, promotion prospects and all that jazz) There is nothing preventing a company making deals with employees to make transitions as painless as possible for BOTH parties. Including alterations in contracts and hours as well as work from home options and making the workplace as accessable as possible for a woman who shouldn't have to decide to put a career over a family life.

 

Granted, that is a consideration for private businesses. That is imo why some state support would be nice - yes, you are still going to pay for some of it, but the burden is shared between more people. Which can be a consideration if the person whose maternity you are paying is NOT your wife, lover, or any other carnal relation .

One option I can imagine is federal funding for the maternity leave, and a guarantee that the employee doesn't lose the job. This way, her employer can advertise for a temporary position and have someone filling out for her for, say, a year. Said employer may get some minor tax rebate or something for the trouble. And if the new guy should prove capable enough, well, at least they know a good guy if they want to hire more people.

 

I can certainly see why a business would promote a non-expecting woman or man over a woman or man that is expecting. It's discrimination, sure; but all promotions work off of discrimination. They're going to pick the person that is best for the job; if the job requires you to be there working (which most do, but some can be done from home), no one would promote the pregnant mother who is going to take 6+ months of maternity leave.

That said, I'm all for maternity leave and paternity leave. I think anything more than 6 months is of excess though, for either sex. Certainly a woman needs to recover physically and may want to be there to breast feed, but I do think family OR work should be a choice. People who try to focus entirely on both often fail at one or the other (or both). Which leads to the stereotypical working parent/stay-at-home parent; because it works. It gives both child and finances adequate attention.

My mother was a single parent, she had a few months of maternity leave but then went back to work (her pay was steadily declining). She put my sister and I into daycare for most of our young lives. One parent simply cannot do both. If you cannot work, you shouldn't get paid. If you cannot take care of your children because you need to work, someone else needs to take care of them. Few more personal tidbits: my mom remarried and my step-dad supported our family while she stayed home with my younger siblings. After they were grown (about 13-14 youngest), she went back to school, got her Ph.D. and now works full time as a teacher.

Final word: I strongly believe parents should choose one or the other (work or family) to focus on while the child is young. (That doesn't mean the working parent should be completely devoid of familial responsibility!) If the parents choose to put their child into some sort of daycare and both focus on work, ma/paternity leave should be provided for the early months, but ma/paternity leave should 'not' be an alternative to having a job [raising a child is a job in and of itself, but not the job your employer pays you for. If you're committed to the company, they're investing in you with ma/paternity leave: they're not paying you because it's your god given right to raise a child and do nothing else, but because you're a good employee and they expect you to return to them when you can].

 

Of course, the simple answer to that is to make paternity leave as standard as maternity leave (which I recognize is a social change as much as a legal one). Then there can be glass ceilings for everyone!

 

This was a major political issue in Australia not long ago with both sides trying to make their paid parental leave scheme bigger and better than the other's. Now that the Coalition lost the election though they're naturally trying to tear it down as costing too much. Isn't politics wonderful?

From some government website:

It's a popular policy and seems to avoid most of the problems being talked about here - except for people who think that all welfare is terrible and communist and whatever else, I guess.

I'm sure such a thing would never fly in America because the majority would be against it. *shrug* Personally I find the 'if you don't work, you don't eat' thing to be a horrible mentality - but hey, it's not my country that holds it so I don't really care.

 

I am flabbergasted that USA can consider themselves a modern progressive nation and NOT see the benefits in paid parental leave. Note that in New Zealand it is'parental' leave, not 'maternity' leave because either the mother or the father can take it (but not both).

It makes sense for so many reasons, most of which have been articulated above.

Jeepers - get with the programme, USA.

 

No way. For two reasons:

First, some (social) conservatives in the US see the current wave of 'budget crises' in the US as an opportunity to defund obviously socialist programs like public schools and kindergartens, to get government off the back of the people. Indeed, if women were to stay home again, as they traditionally did (and according to some still are supposed to), they could take care of the children and more jobs would be available for men earning the money for their families by the sweat of their brow! And while at it, these stay-at-home moms can home school their children. And the state could save money. Synergies! 'Maternal leave' doesn't fit in with such plans.

Second, even for mainstream politicians, reforms like maternal leave are apparently politically not doable in the US. Think of the ridiculous brouhaha over health care. Generally, Americans are in the western world the people who work most and have the least time off - it is only consequent they they also don't have things like maternal leave.

Public health insurance? The devil! The US medical system is the most expensive in the world, and for middle class people who have the misfortune of getting cancer bankruptcy (and losing their homes etc pp) is a real danger. So what? Take a nut like Michelle Bachmann and she'll tell you that the medical system in the US is the best in the world, and she'll believe it. It's nonsense of course.

Only one in five Americans has a passport. It suggests that as a result of simple lack of exposure most Americans are blissfully unaware of European or Western achievements, and the ways of other nations in general, including things like maternal leave, or public health care. IMO, they probably won't adopt it any time soon, since the US way of doing things is by default the best ever anyway. The current political climate makes it even less likely (keyword: Socialism!).

 

Have you actually heard any conservatives propose this, Ragusa? The closest I've heard (and I know the liberal comentators have gone to town exagerating this) is to defund the federal Department of Education (already an extreme position), on the basis that the federal government doesn't actually educate anyone and the states should have the ability to customize their own education systems without Uncle Sam sticking his thumb into things. No one I've heard has actually suggested defunding schools.

The reality is that, like with so many other policies, the US prefers to let individuals (meaning individual companies) sort out their own policies. You can't legally fire someone for getting pregnant, or refuse to hire them because they may get pregnant, but paying them to do so would seem too much like government forcing people to do things. Americans don't like that, at least not if it's us being forced. Plenty of liberals are all for the government forcing other people to do things, and I suppose there are a lot of conservatives who like the government to force other people not to do things

Honestly, I wouldn't mind a system like Aikanaro described, provided there are checks for abuse of the system. I'm also thinking I'd prefer to base it off of the worker's pay rather than minimum wage. Maybe based off of tax reports, to accomodate those who are self-employed. That way, not only do you get a fair, scaled basis for pay, you also get extra incentive for them to accurately report their income (a big problem in certain areas). The more income they reported over the past X years, the more benefit they get if they (or their spouse) get pregnant.

 

As a matter of fact I have. They usually don't spell it out quite as openly but it can very clearly be read between the lines. For instance (but it isn't limited to that place), if one takes it upon himself to wade through what they produce at Pat Robertson's place you will hear or find just such stuff. Having been there just relatively recently I still feel a little sick in the stomach. By the way, I said clearly that such views are not mainstream.

But fringe, schminge, I think you habitually underestimate the nuttiness the Republican fringe and some of the Tea Part People are capable of.

Spoiler

Just for the heck of it:
Abolish Public Schools. If you feel mischievous you can check the freepers' comments, too.
I proclaim publicly that I favor ending government involvement in education.

 

Fair enough. I had never actually heard or seen any of that stuff.

For the record, as crappy as I think many of our public schools are, they're much better than nothing. The average taxpayer can't afford private schools, and the poor, the ones who need the education the most, definitely can't.

 

Yup.

 

To address the original question, in Canada, the issue of maternity leave is both a federal and provincial one. Labour laws are a provincial responsibility, so maternity leave is up to individual provinces. In Manitoba (my province), both mothers and fathers are entitled to unpaid leave, but the father’s entitlement is less.

The federal system of Employment Insurance provides for the ability to draw on EI benefits during maternity leave.

 

Actually, I think private schools can be particularly valuable for the US for one specific reason - the US is a very diverse country, especially when it comes the large migrant population. The US has had to come for a lot of immigrants, and, I don't see that changing radically anytime soon. This means a lot of children growing up in the country with rudimentary or no knowledge of the language and culture; they need to be introduced to both at least somewhat so they can function in society with minimal disruption. These kids need to know basic English, Math, and have at least a modicum of acceptance in the "mainstream" culture, or what will they do when they grow up?

Public schools, by creating an environment that is more or less open to everyone, serve another purpose from the purely educational - they provide some cultural training (indoctrination, if you will) to the pupils, teaching them that a) they are part of the same society, and b) what this society believes it is about. Basically, they get a common identity and common values - perhaps not perfectly the same, but at least close enough that they can work together. The kids will not accept that all the way - but even some training in social cooperation is better than none. Without at least some of that you have a much higher chance of getting self-segregated communities that don't acknowledge each other, don't cooperate with each other, and may even be hostile to each other. This is an environment that is harmful in several ways - from fomenting political partisanship to being beneficial for organized crime (how many such organizations started in immigrant communities) or possibly even terrorism. Even among regular Americans, these years spent in school can reinforce the notion that everyone - black or white, rich or poor, Christian, Buddhist, atheist, from neighborhood X or Y - is American, and that trumps all. Identity and values are subjective - if the kids believe it, they make it true. Diversity is a strength when harnessed to a common goal, but without a shared identity, diversity is much more likely to lead to sectarianism instead.