Family life sucks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do most women want to stay at home after having kids? I don't think they do. I personally would like to work 7 hour days after having kids (instead of 8.5). That would be ideal for me, and you could cut my salary by that same amount. I liked having 12 weeks paid maternity leave and then returning to work.

I see the stats in newspapers on maternity leave, but it doesn't mesh with what I see first hand. All of my girl friends have either had paid maternity leave through work, or paid through a work STD policy, or they used their own annual and sick leave (what I did). Career jobs do all have maternity leave or STD policies for birth.

Correct

Everyone with a professional salaried job gets 12 weeks paid by employer FMLA leave, must work there over 12 mos to qualify.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do most women want to stay at home after having kids? I don't think they do. I personally would like to work 7 hour days after having kids (instead of 8.5). That would be ideal for me, and you could cut my salary by that same amount. I liked having 12 weeks paid maternity leave and then returning to work.

I see the stats in newspapers on maternity leave, but it doesn't mesh with what I see first hand. All of my girl friends have either had paid maternity leave through work, or paid through a work STD policy, or they used their own annual and sick leave (what I did). Career jobs do all have maternity leave or STD policies for birth.

Correct

Everyone with a professional salaried job gets 12 weeks paid by employer FMLA leave, must work there over 12 mos to qualify.

Except that FMLA pays $1700/month max (in DC at least)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The reason why so many are deciding to remain childfree.

Or because males have failed off a cliff in terms of being mature and responsible enough to marry or start a family with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do most women want to stay at home after having kids? I don't think they do. I personally would like to work 7 hour days after having kids (instead of 8.5). That would be ideal for me, and you could cut my salary by that same amount. I liked having 12 weeks paid maternity leave and then returning to work.

I see the stats in newspapers on maternity leave, but it doesn't mesh with what I see first hand. All of my girl friends have either had paid maternity leave through work, or paid through a work STD policy, or they used their own annual and sick leave (what I did). Career jobs do all have maternity leave or STD policies for birth.

Correct

Everyone with a professional salaried job gets 12 weeks paid by employer FMLA leave, must work there over 12 mos to qualify.

Except that FMLA pays $1700/month max (in DC at least)

FMLA is a job protection clause.

Your employer can pay you whatever they want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do most women want to stay at home after having kids? I don't think they do. I personally would like to work 7 hour days after having kids (instead of 8.5). That would be ideal for me, and you could cut my salary by that same amount. I liked having 12 weeks paid maternity leave and then returning to work.

I see the stats in newspapers on maternity leave, but it doesn't mesh with what I see first hand. All of my girl friends have either had paid maternity leave through work, or paid through a work STD policy, or they used their own annual and sick leave (what I did). Career jobs do all have maternity leave or STD policies for birth.

Correct

Everyone with a professional salaried job gets 12 weeks paid by employer FMLA leave, must work there over 12 mos to qualify.

Except that FMLA pays $1700/month max (in DC at least)

That’s the extra tax on every employees’ paychecks that pays that, unclear who takes it.

Most white collar places don’t care and pay to retain their talent 12 weeks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree that the early years are HARD but now with my two children -- 1 college aged and one just-graduated college -- it is pretty sweet. Sure, there are significant costs involved at this phase, but these two kids of ours are developing into amazing young adults and it is a privilege to have front row seats. Yes, there are prior years of "hard" but the long-term payoff is better than I had imagined.

+1. So agree with this.

OP your sister is lucky to have you to vent to, to show her down and worst side. That is what you are seeing. You're picking up on it because you're not used to seeing her this way. But I guarantee that if you ask her in quiet moment if she would do it again, she would say YES in a heartbeat.

I think newborn stage through about 2nd grade was really really tough. But now my kids 5th grade twins bring me true joy. I have a job that has meaning with a workable schedule, and some really great kids, my marriage is definitely better now that the twins are relatively independent. To OP, when your nieces/nephews are old enough to hang out with and have conversations and are unapologetically uniquely themselves, you may even be jealous of your sister.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to stay with my sister for a week to help out as she just had her second child. I don’t have any kids yet, but honestly it seemed like her life is hellish. As is a lot of my friends in the same phase of life. They have high friction relationships with their partners, are trying to juggle too much on their own, and are squeezed financially.

It made me wonder if there’s something wrong with how we do the family thing America. Is there a better way? Or is this just life for a lot people with kids?

Yes! There is a better way. We need to stop expecting moms to do it all. Go to work and also be the mom from the 1950's. During WWII the government had daycares because women were needed when men went to war. They closed them when men came back.

To be fair, there are times where family life is really bad like after the birth of children so it isn't a fair snapshot of life. Like if you came over when you were puking every 20 minutes you would think life isn't worth living but, miss the sunsets.

Poor women and especially non-white women usually worked - well before during and after WWII.
The notion that women stay home and cook and clean and raise the kids is a uniquely 1950s to 1970s portrayal.
My mom was born in 1937. Her dad was a farmer, and her mom was a school teacher.

Yeah my grandparents were born in the early 1900s and were poor. The women in the family always worked outside the home. That’s what poor and non white women have always done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do most women want to stay at home after having kids? I don't think they do. I personally would like to work 7 hour days after having kids (instead of 8.5). That would be ideal for me, and you could cut my salary by that same amount. I liked having 12 weeks paid maternity leave and then returning to work.

I see the stats in newspapers on maternity leave, but it doesn't mesh with what I see first hand. All of my girl friends have either had paid maternity leave through work, or paid through a work STD policy, or they used their own annual and sick leave (what I did). Career jobs do all have maternity leave or STD policies for birth.

Correct

Everyone with a professional salaried job gets 12 weeks paid by employer FMLA leave, must work there over 12 mos to qualify.

Hi. This is wrong. If your employer has fewer than 50 employees AT YOUR WORK SITE (or within 75 miles) you are not eligible for FMLA. While I get paid parental leave, I have no job protection because we have fewer than 50 employees in DC (but hundreds nationwide).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do most women want to stay at home after having kids? I don't think they do. I personally would like to work 7 hour days after having kids (instead of 8.5). That would be ideal for me, and you could cut my salary by that same amount. I liked having 12 weeks paid maternity leave and then returning to work.

I see the stats in newspapers on maternity leave, but it doesn't mesh with what I see first hand. All of my girl friends have either had paid maternity leave through work, or paid through a work STD policy, or they used their own annual and sick leave (what I did). Career jobs do all have maternity leave or STD policies for birth.

Correct

Everyone with a professional salaried job gets 12 weeks paid by employer FMLA leave, must work there over 12 mos to qualify.

Except that FMLA pays $1700/month max (in DC at least)

FMLA is a job protection clause.

Your employer can pay you whatever they want.

3 months with a newborn is nothing regardless

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do most women want to stay at home after having kids? I don't think they do. I personally would like to work 7 hour days after having kids (instead of 8.5). That would be ideal for me, and you could cut my salary by that same amount. I liked having 12 weeks paid maternity leave and then returning to work.

I see the stats in newspapers on maternity leave, but it doesn't mesh with what I see first hand. All of my girl friends have either had paid maternity leave through work, or paid through a work STD policy, or they used their own annual and sick leave (what I did). Career jobs do all have maternity leave or STD policies for birth.

Correct

Everyone with a professional salaried job gets 12 weeks paid by employer FMLA leave, must work there over 12 mos to qualify.

Except that FMLA pays $1700/month max (in DC at least)

That’s the extra tax on every employees’ paychecks that pays that, unclear who takes it.

Most white collar places don’t care and pay to retain their talent 12 weeks.

Come on, that's not an extra tax on others paychecks. That's LACK of proper tax and government regulation of the top 0.0001%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Np I have friends overseas. The pay isn’t 100% of your salary on maternity leave (and their pay is already lower). So once they have a baby, their salaries take a big hit. They can’t return to work earlier because it’s stigmatized and daycare don’t take babies before 1 (one friend mentioned before 3 but idk if that’s true). Once kids are school aged, they have the same issues that moms have here where school ends at 3 but work ends at 5, however aftercare’s aren’t plentiful. Many stick to one kid for financial and logistical reasons. My Norwegian friends own their own condo, but it’s a 2 bedroom. They only had one kid for space reasons. I’m sure none of those reasons are insurmountable for people who really want kids but maternity leave isn’t this panacea that it’s purported to be.

I'm sure you understand that it varies by country. In Norway, the pay is 80%. For one year of parental leave split between two parents. Their pay takes a 20% hit but they don't have to do any work, and their jobs are protected.

Do you think things work better in the U.S., where there are 0 weeks of mandated paid parental leave for either parent? And only 40% of Americans have access to unpaid leave under FMLA? Do you think that's encouraging people to have babies more than 80% paid leave for a year?

And I ask again, why are we as a society okay with only women taking a salary hit for having children? Why shouldn't parents bear equal risk in bringing children into the world?

If your solution is to fund parental leave 100% of salary instead of 80% of salary, I'm all for it. But I strongly suspect that's not what you're suggesting.

The max parental leave amount is $1,538 a week in Norway. It’s 80% if you have a lower wage job in Norway. Stop being misleading.

Wages aren't comparable in the US and Norway. Norwegians pay a maximum of $300 in a healthcare costs (free for minors and pregnant women), have free higher education, have highly subsidized childcare (costs about $115/mo), and get a monthly cash benefit for all children under the age of 18 to offset the cost of having children (with an extra supplement for infants and single parents).

Where are you getting your information and pls check the sliding scale. Only low income workers get that and they have to have individually paid into the system several years. You don’t just show up pregnant and your kid gets ER free delivery, snap and Medicaid like here.

Also, if you’re going to throw around “cost” data, you need to include what the employers or taxpayers are paying per month, not just the employee.
United Nations data has a good breakdown they release every few years.

I don't care what employers pay per month. I care about what ordinary citizens are paying.

And before you melt down, Norway literally has higher GDP per capita than the U.S. They're plenty productive.

You still don’t understand SWF work do you?
Nor have you event been to Norway, nor have any friends there.

But hey, the generic ChatGPT links and studies out of context suit you just fine. I bet you even call that “research”.

Yeah NIH and OECD studies are whack! Yes, I know how the SWF works. If you’re now trying to pivot and say Norway’s policy can only be pulled off because of that, you’re wrong. Numerous countries without an equivalent have similar policies. And the United States is wealthier overall.

Do we need to increase taxes to pay for this in the U.S.? Definitely. That’s okay! More taxes but healthcare at a tenth of price, childcare at a quarter of the cost, and college for free is a very reasonable trade off.

And fwiw, I’m in the highest tax bracket and would benefit the least from such policies. Part of why I’m passionate about parental leave is because my employer offers 22 weeks paid. Everyone should get that.

Exactly! Norway and USA are so similar in everything - size, demographics, races, religions, marriage rates, education levels, literacy, incarceration rates, generational welfare recipients, climate, university entrance exam systems, diet, job track systems, language, health treatments, etc.

We’re practically the same! They just get free everything like PP said! Life must be so easy there, you can do anything you want.

How is it that 95% of countries and every industrialized nation has paid parental leave except the United States, we have people acting like paid parental leave is the completely unworkable, socialist policy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good grief. Don’t want kids, that’s fine but some of you need to call your therapist. Sorry but you sound miserable.
Life with kids can be difficult but if it is all the time, it is a you problem(exception for those with SN children- you have valid reason to complain). Just take care of what is in front of you.
I worked FT with 3 DC. It was just not that hard. Well, did I get to the gym, no. Read a book, no. Watch an adult movie in 12 years, no. But I did that through my twenties and no, mid fifties, I can go back to doing whatever I want. Putting DC before me for ~ 1/4 of my life makes me enjoy what I have now.”

Don’t have kids if it is not for you, but there are trade offs in life and I love the village I am
In.

There are so many posts like this right now I think these are trolls.

Seriously. People often say “I didn’t realize it was this hard,” to which I ask, “what the heck did you think it was going to be like?”

I have been blessed with healthy, smart, well behaved children (which is a result mainly of them not being special needs, and maybe a sprinkling of decent parenting). Has it been time consuming? Yes. Is it a limited amount of time in my life? Also yes. Are they fun and amazing? You can’t even imagine!

I’d just like to pop on here to add that having SN children does not make parenting less fulfilling! Harder, yes. But you don’t have to have well-behaved, smart child to enjoy parenting them!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do most women want to stay at home after having kids? I don't think they do. I personally would like to work 7 hour days after having kids (instead of 8.5). That would be ideal for me, and you could cut my salary by that same amount. I liked having 12 weeks paid maternity leave and then returning to work.

I see the stats in newspapers on maternity leave, but it doesn't mesh with what I see first hand. All of my girl friends have either had paid maternity leave through work, or paid through a work STD policy, or they used their own annual and sick leave (what I did). Career jobs do all have maternity leave or STD policies for birth.

Nope. Not true in the us. There are plenty of “career” jobs that don’t have paid parental leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do most women want to stay at home after having kids? I don't think they do. I personally would like to work 7 hour days after having kids (instead of 8.5). That would be ideal for me, and you could cut my salary by that same amount. I liked having 12 weeks paid maternity leave and then returning to work.

I see the stats in newspapers on maternity leave, but it doesn't mesh with what I see first hand. All of my girl friends have either had paid maternity leave through work, or paid through a work STD policy, or they used their own annual and sick leave (what I did). Career jobs do all have maternity leave or STD policies for birth.

Correct

Everyone with a professional salaried job gets 12 weeks paid by employer FMLA leave, must work there over 12 mos to qualify.

Hi. This is wrong. If your employer has fewer than 50 employees AT YOUR WORK SITE (or within 75 miles) you are not eligible for FMLA. While I get paid parental leave, I have no job protection because we have fewer than 50 employees in DC (but hundreds nationwide).

Correct. What about it? Your employees can’t hold your small business ransom.


Did they let go the last several pregnant women while they were home on (unprotected) leave?

How many weeks of (unprotected) leave did they pay or at what %?

Are these even high value, skilled roles? Because the more easily replaceable you are, the less you’re going to make at the office or on leave.


Go work somewhere else if that bothers you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do most women want to stay at home after having kids? I don't think they do. I personally would like to work 7 hour days after having kids (instead of 8.5). That would be ideal for me, and you could cut my salary by that same amount. I liked having 12 weeks paid maternity leave and then returning to work.

I see the stats in newspapers on maternity leave, but it doesn't mesh with what I see first hand. All of my girl friends have either had paid maternity leave through work, or paid through a work STD policy, or they used their own annual and sick leave (what I did). Career jobs do all have maternity leave or STD policies for birth.

Correct

Everyone with a professional salaried job gets 12 weeks paid by employer FMLA leave, must work there over 12 mos to qualify.

Except that FMLA pays $1700/month max (in DC at least)

FMLA is a job protection clause.

Your employer can pay you whatever they want.

3 months with a newborn is nothing regardless

Ok then. Dump them off at grandmas house like half the world does.