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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is why we’re seeing an increase of SAHM.[/quote]

I despise the way some people think the automatic solution to childcare costs is for the mom to stay home, like the assumption is that the woman’s income is so paltry that it couldn’t possibly more than childcare costs! [/quote]

I agree with you about how people assume this is the fix, as a policy position. Creating good, affordable childcare is the right decision, it's what we should be working for as a society in order to boost both economic output and birth rates.

[b]But as a woman who chose to SAHM for a couple years when I had a baby (and who didn't have a paltry income when I did so),[/b] there is a separate component where I really wanted to be home with my baby. It was a sacrifice but I wanted to make it, and the maternity leave I was offered was barely enough time to recover from the physical toll of childbirth and get past that early newborn stage when everything is a blur. I wanted to stay home and actually enjoy my baby. My DH did not feel the same way at that time (though it's the opposite now -- he'd happily stay home with our 10 yr old now while I want to work and don't feel the need to be home with her all the time).

I say this because it's not just about affordable childcare. Longer parental leave times are actually the centerpiece of other countries' family support policies, and it actually makes it far more feasible to provide affordable childcare because infant care is also way more expensive and labor intensive. If I could have had even a 12 or 18 months parental leave, I wouldn't have left my job. But I had two months and it wasn't enough. I could not imagine going back to work.[/quote]

I’d argue you did have generous maternity leave - through your spouse.

So many of the countries providing long, generous leaves do not have jobs paying the type of salary you likely earn. Most European white collar jobs earn way, way less and the long leaves are a necessity for women to have children. It’s essentially government welfare for women to have children.

My point is that you’re still better off given you were able to stay home and you returned to work.

[/quote]

Hardly, because in the US we also have to pay for our own health insurance, pay for our kid's health insurance, pay through the nose for childcare, pay for college, and prepare for our own retirement. In most EU countries, they don't have to do any of that. That's how they live comfortable lives on less money than we do here.

Also, you are assuming a mom who leaves her job to SAHM for a couple years will return at the same salary (she often doesn't, in part due to discrimination for having left the workforce, and in part due to the need for a family-friendly job). So the SAHM loses income during her SAHM years but then this is compounded by lower wages moving forward. A longer maternity leave and workplace protections would protect women from the high cost of leaving the workplace even for short periods of time in order to provide family caregiving.

Also, it is hilarious that you describe the long parental leaves in the EU (which are NOT just for women and in many companies are taken by men in large numbers as well) as "government welfare for women to have children." Like having children is a pointless hobby that women, and only women, engage in, and it's so weird these countries have chosen to subsidize it. In reality, these countries are dealing with plunging birthrates and started heavily subsidizing children because population decline is a critical problem for economic stability. They don't offer long parental leaves, subsidized childcare, or benefits like monthly checks for kids because they just want women to enjoy their mommying hobby. They view it as essential for a functional society for people to procreate and go to great lengths to make it feasible when other forces often discourage people from having more kids or having them at all.

Seriously: read more. You write as though you are an authority on these issues but you clearly have no idea.[/quote]

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