Reply to paid maternity leave for your employees?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]“You agreed to hire a nanny. That means you bear the risk of sickness/maternity leave/illness that come with having an individual employee rather than a daycare center. If you don’t want that risk, put your kid in daycare.”

Sorry but nope. It is never going to be the case that employers of just 1 or 2 people are expected to solely shoulder the cost of maternity leave. Now if there is a program the government runs where you chip in X% of salary towards a fund that pays for leave, then absolutely they should be included. That’s very different though. [/quote]

+1 to "sorry but nope." First, pregnancy isn't a "risk" like an illness. And yes, if we're going to maternity leave, it needs to be funded by taxes, not individual employers.[/quote]

And when that day comes where there's a federal or state policy on maternity leave, that will be great.  But in the meantime, if you hire a nanny, you have the moral obligation to pay maternity leave.  Because there's no other option right now.  If you can't afford that possibility, don't get a nanny, because there's nothing worse than people who say, "I appreciate you, but I can't afford to pay you now that you're pregnant."[/quote]

NP. "No other option"? There are lots of other options. Like hiring an older nanny who's not going to become pregnant. [b]And I STILL don't understand why it's "moral" to pay for someone else's choice to have a child[/b]. I think it's moral to support a sick employee because it's not a choice to become sick, and I think it's inhumane to let sick people lose their jobs and go into financial ruin. But I think pregnancy is way different from an illness.[/quote]

It’s moral because in order to have a child, most women and men need to work.  By not offering leave, you’re limiting their ability to work and support themselves.  Forcing a woman to drop out of the workforce because she had a child is grossly unfair.  A man can have child after child and not have it affect his employment.

On an individual level is it a choice to have a child?  Yes.

For the US, could we economically survive as a country if not one woman had children?  No.

If you don’t believe in some sort of leave, then you also shouldn’t believe in public schools.  After all having a child is a choice, right?  Why should society have to support and help pay for your decision to have children?  You should pay for their education.  Except it doesn’t work that way since as a society we understand the value of educating children.   Just like most people are waking up to the fact that there is a significant benefit to providing leave so that women can work AND have children. 
[/quote]

"...if not one woman had children"? There are millions of children born in America everyday even though we don't have maternity policies in place.
I pay for public schools because it's very important to me that the children who are here are educated because they will be voting for things that affect me. [b]What is the benefit to me of all mothers and fathers of young children being in the workforce[/b]?[/quote]

The benefit isn’t directly for you.  Just like the benefit of educating children who are not your own isn’t to your direct benefit.   The specific benefit is that babies are breastfed longer and women are able to continue gainful employment and not lose out on contributing to retirement and social security only because they had a child.  I could go on with the benefits. If you really don’t see how women in this country are disadvantaged by not having paid leave I don’t know what to tell you.

You’re right there are millions of children born.  But many of these are in single parent homes or in poverty.  Not offering paid leave of some sort supports only poor (who live off of the government) and very rich people having babies.  [/quote]

No, having educated children IS a direct benefit to me. Like I said, they grow up to vote for policies that affect me. Very huge benefit to me if they are educated.

I'm not sure what is inherently "wrong" with only rich people having children. Yes, I agree it is sad. But is it WRONG? I agree with you that poor people having children and being supported by the government is also problematic in its own way, but I personally don't want to see truly poor children starve or grow up in truly terrible environments, so I will pay for public support for those poor children.

I honestly don't see the evidence that middle class people are not having children. I see middle class people around me having children all the time. Is it EASY for them, no? Are they able to make it work, yes. A lot of times, when I hear "middle class people can't have children" what that person is usually actually saying is "I am not able to live in an expensive cool city, work outside the home at a fulfilling job, have someone else take care of my child during the day, and buy a house with money leftover." I am a middle class person. Could I have afforded a child in DC/Boston/NYC/SF? No. So we moved to a lower cost of living city! I know someone who lived in NYC with her husband and they both had awesome jobs that they liked. When they had a child, they moved back to a "boring" midwestern city and live in a duplex with her parents. They seem very happy.

Also, I don't understand why we need to subsidize more babies in the first place. The planet is overpopulated. The economy is shrinking. The future is automation, not full human employment. I think it is ridiculous to contemplate a future where all adults have full-time employment outside the home (while their children are cared for by nannies or daycare workers). We need to be looking at other ways to arrange life.[/quote]

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