paid maternity leave for your employees?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is why the law exempts small businesses from these expectations. Having to replace that missing employee while paying for both creates a burden that threatens the company’s viability. Even if mandated, a homeowner is never going to be responsible for paid maternity leave of a nanny. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Teachers and even house servants used to have to quit as soon as they married. European employers manage to provide maternity leave.

[Anonymous]

European countries offer this benefit (and I believe it's usually done through taxes, not employer sponsored, correct?) because they want citizens to have more babies to counteract falling birth rates. Do we want/need that in America? If we do need to increase our population, why not do it through immigration, rather than paying citizens to have babies? I'm not actually sure why European countries prefer citizens to have babies vs. bringing in immigrants - is it because they have more cultural issues with immigrants than we do? Is it because their economies aren't strong enough to attract immigrants?

I don't think a lot of pro-maternity leave people are thinking about this in practical terms. They just think we should make it easier for women to have babies and careers at the same time because it's the "right thing to do." Why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a professor and a grad student works for me as a research assistant and gets paid hourly for 15 hrs per week. I continued to pay her when she gave birth and 2 months afterwards

A student making 15/hour is really dumb to have a baby in the first place. Not sure you want to support bad decision making.

She’s doing fine, thank you.

[Anonymous]

I think people don't realize the impact that unpaid maternity leave has on the middle class. Instead of saving, they either wait or just don't have kids. Only the poor (welfare) or the rich can afford to have kids. Is that the society we want?

[Anonymous]

We don't have it where I work. 10 days sick and 5 days PTO per year. Take it or leave it. Kinda sucks but the mission of my employer is important to me and I'm not in a position to have any leverage on these issues.

The last time I checked, we were still in America where maternity leave and health care are perks to be given out (or not) by employers. They are not rights that we deserve.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think people don't realize the impact that unpaid maternity leave has on the middle class. Instead of saving, they either wait or just don't have kids. Only the poor (welfare) or the rich can afford to have kids. Is that the society we want?

So because they can't or won't save it's now everyone else's problem to continue enabling their poor decisions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think people don't realize the impact that unpaid maternity leave has on the middle class. Instead of saving, they either wait or just don't have kids. Only the poor (welfare) or the rich can afford to have kids. Is that the society we want?

It seems like plenty of middle class people are having children. Do you have evidence that they aren't? Are you only talking about "the middle class" in very expensive cities like DC, NYC, SF?
And if the middle class really aren't having kids.... so? What is really the logical reason that we need to incentivize middle class people having children?
And also, if the middle class really aren't having kids, wouldn't it be because housing costs are too high, student loans are too high, and a lot of jobs are not steady? Shouldn't we tackle those problems first?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:European countries offer this benefit (and I believe it's usually done through taxes, not employer sponsored, correct?) because they want citizens to have more babies to counteract falling birth rates. Do we want/need that in America? If we do need to increase our population, why not do it through immigration, rather than paying citizens to have babies? I'm not actually sure why European countries prefer citizens to have babies vs. bringing in immigrants - is it because they have more cultural issues with immigrants than we do? Is it because their economies aren't strong enough to attract immigrants?

I don't think a lot of pro-maternity leave people are thinking about this in practical terms. They just think we should make it easier for women to have babies and careers at the same time because it's the "right thing to do." Why?

Canada gives 12 months right now, and just approved 18. Paid for through taxes. The employer doesn't pay two people. Parental leave is paid at a reduced rate... something like 60% for a certain period and then I think it drops. Either parent can use it.

This is seen as better for babies, to be with a parent for the first year. It also makes breastfeeding for that length of time more doable for those who wantbto. But I'll tell you, it sucks in other ways. Employers have to have something available at the end of the leave. You can be transferred if necessary. But... This means that teachers, doctors, therapists, etc are all gone for a year. Medical specialists already in short supply, off for a year. Not so easy to replace.

You also have to have worked enough hours in the previous 12 months to qualify. I know a nurse who had kids 18 months apart. She went back early with the first to have enough hours to take a year with the second. Finding daycare for under 12 months isn't easy anymore either.

It sounds lovely but are people willing to pay more taxes... even for 12 weeks leave?

IMO - the year is unnecessary. We used to get six months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a professor and a grad student works for me as a research assistant and gets paid hourly for 15 hrs per week. I continued to pay her when she gave birth and 2 months afterwards

A student making 15/hour is really dumb to have a baby in the first place. Not sure you want to support bad decision making.

Paying a nanny only $15.00/hr is also really dumb and cheap.

[Anonymous]

I use to nanny and was fired during my pregnancy by a woman who would go on and in about how bad maternity leave and healthcare is in this country. She’d go out in her “Universal Healthcare is so in” t-shirt but refuse to give me even a stipend for my health insurance despite working 55 hours a week for her.

During her maternity leave (16 weeks) she moaned daily about how much of an asshole her boss was and how she wish she had a year like they do in Canada.

Within a week of me telling her I was pregnant I was fired. I was 5 months along, and managed to hide it because I figured it would happen. When I mentioned maternity leave she laughed and said, “so I’m suppose to pay you while your at home doing nothing and also pay someone else to be here?”

I’ve found that most of these upper class neo-liberal pussy hate wearing white ladies only want the perks of feminism for themselves. The working class don’t deserve the healthcare and maternity leave they do. Peak white feminism.

And nannies are legally household employees, they aren’t contract workers and it’s illegal to pay them as such. They’re a families employers. Most of us work 45+ hours a week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a professor and a grad student works for me as a research assistant and gets paid hourly for 15 hrs per week. I continued to pay her when she gave birth and 2 months afterwards

A student making 15/hour is really dumb to have a baby in the first place. Not sure you want to support bad decision making.

Paying a nanny only $15.00/hr is also really dumb and cheap.

Nobody here is saying they do this. The poster paid her graduate research assistant 15/hr., not her nanny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a professor and a grad student works for me as a research assistant and gets paid hourly for 15 hrs per week. I continued to pay her when she gave birth and 2 months afterwards

A student making 15/hour is really dumb to have a baby in the first place. Not sure you want to support bad decision making.

Paying a nanny only $15.00/hr is also really dumb and cheap.

Nobody here is saying they do this. The poster paid her graduate research assistant 15/hr., not her nanny.

ACTUALLY, what PP said was that the grad student worked 15 hours a week. Not for $15/hour.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I use to nanny and was fired during my pregnancy by a woman who would go on and in about how bad maternity leave and healthcare is in this country. She’d go out in her “Universal Healthcare is so in” t-shirt but refuse to give me even a stipend for my health insurance despite working 55 hours a week for her.

During her maternity leave (16 weeks) she moaned daily about how much of an asshole her boss was and how she wish she had a year like they do in Canada.

Within a week of me telling her I was pregnant I was fired. I was 5 months along, and managed to hide it because I figured it would happen. When I mentioned maternity leave she laughed and said, “so I’m suppose to pay you while your at home doing nothing and also pay someone else to be here?”

I’ve found that most of these upper class neo-liberal pussy hate wearing white ladies only want the perks of feminism for themselves. The working class don’t deserve the healthcare and maternity leave they do. Peak white feminism.

And nannies are legally household employees, they aren’t contract workers and it’s illegal to pay them as such. They’re a families employers. Most of us work 45+ hours a week.

That's really sad. I find evidence of this on my local mom's listserv. You have these women with 1 million dollar homes, but they can't fathom paying for maternity leave for the person caring for their kids 50 hours a week. "It would be such a hardship!" No. Hardship is being a pregnant nanny with no paid maternity leave.

[Anonymous]

“It's just so very interesting that people believe that their company has a moral obligation to pay them maternity leave benefits but then they turn around and deny maternity pay to people who work for them.. ”

You can’t see ANY difference between a company of at least 10 employees or so vs a family paying all costs for nanny out of pocket after taxes and relying on that one worker for them to work too?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think people don't realize the impact that unpaid maternity leave has on the middle class. Instead of saving, they either wait or just don't have kids. Only the poor (welfare) or the rich can afford to have kids. Is that the society we want?

So because they can't or won't save it's now everyone else's problem to continue enabling their poor decisions?

It is everyone’s problem.

Technically everyone could save for their own retirement, right? But they don’t. So we have social security.