Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does the leave have to be paid? I'm ambivalent about maternity provisions in general, but couldn't the nanny's employer give her unpaid leave for 3 months, with a guarantee of getting her job back at the end? Is that not good enough? Is it really impossible for a nanny to save up 3 months of basic living expenses before taking leave? And if that is impossible... should you really be having a child....? If you don't have enough money on your nanny salary to save for 3 months of living expenses, then how are you going to pay for childcare once you go back to work?

What are you paying your nanny? Seriously, if it’s enough to live on plus save three months of expenses, I’d live to apply!!! Beats my current income for sure.

I don't have a nanny. I'm just asking a question. And like I said, if you are truly unable to save even 3 months of living expenses... are you really financially read to have a child....? I'm not saying it would be saved overnight, but you have a lot of time to plan if you're thinking of having a child.

It must be awesome in Bubbleland. I hope one day to be as wise and perfect.

Many of us provide well and do plan, but there months incomeless would hurt most families. I’m self employed and had no maternity leave/pay. It was financially painful and took a few years to recover from. It’s not an uncommon scenario with independent contractors.

It’s great to tell others what they should do, privileged even.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No one is saying we want MORE babies. We simply want babies to have a better start to life and for new moms not to suffer. You don’t seem to realize how many women are forced to return to work after such a short period of time. You just don’t get it.

I understand wanting to give babies and better start in life and not wanting moms to suffer. But isn't the better option just to not have children...? To me, providing paid maternity leave is encouraging people to have more babies. If you cannot afford to provide for a child without having tax payers pay for it, or your employer pay you for not working, then I'm not sure you should be having a child. That is why they offer those programs in Europe, to encourage population growth.

This isn’t just about money. So many women have to leave their jobs because they can’t even get enough UNPAID leave. Middle class women are affected the most because most can afford to drop out of the workforce but this negatively affects them long term. You don’t want women quitting their jobs and no longer paying taxes because they had a child. You’re basically discriminating against 50 percent of the workforce. Paid (or even unpaid) leave provides more of a level playing field for men and women. How should a woman continue a career and have kids (it’s not like her husband can birth kids) if she can’t have enough time off of work to recover , bond and then return to work?

Also, for the women "who can afford to drop out of the workforce but this negatively affects them long term," wouldn't it be maybe more efficient tax dollars-wise to support something like a tax rebate for a company that hires a SAHP who is returning to the workforce?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No one is saying we want MORE babies. We simply want babies to have a better start to life and for new moms not to suffer. You don’t seem to realize how many women are forced to return to work after such a short period of time. You just don’t get it.

I understand wanting to give babies and better start in life and not wanting moms to suffer. But isn't the better option just to not have children...? To me, providing paid maternity leave is encouraging people to have more babies. If you cannot afford to provide for a child without having tax payers pay for it, or your employer pay you for not working, then I'm not sure you should be having a child. That is why they offer those programs in Europe, to encourage population growth.

True. We don't need population growth because of illegal immigration. Only the poor immigrants should have children!

I mean, I don't actually see a problem with bringing in desperate people from the rest of the world, instead of adding more babies to the world's population. And my point still stands - not sure we should be encouraging the "poor immigrants" to have children either.

Because more people aren’t going to NOT have kids because more immigrants arrive. It doesn’t work that way. Besides the babies born here are legal and PAY Taxes once they start working.

While it’s not good for the environment, it’s silly to argue we should stop having kids because of it. We also should stop flying on planes but who is going to do that?

Why not just make the immigrants legal so they pay taxes?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No one is saying we want MORE babies. We simply want babies to have a better start to life and for new moms not to suffer. You don’t seem to realize how many women are forced to return to work after such a short period of time. You just don’t get it.

I understand wanting to give babies and better start in life and not wanting moms to suffer. But isn't the better option just to not have children...? To me, providing paid maternity leave is encouraging people to have more babies. If you cannot afford to provide for a child without having tax payers pay for it, or your employer pay you for not working, then I'm not sure you should be having a child. That is why they offer those programs in Europe, to encourage population growth.

This isn’t just about money. So many women have to leave their jobs because they can’t even get enough UNPAID leave. Middle class women are affected the most because most can afford to drop out of the workforce but this negatively affects them long term. You don’t want women quitting their jobs and no longer paying taxes because they had a child. You’re basically discriminating against 50 percent of the workforce. Paid (or even unpaid) leave provides more of a level playing field for men and women. How should a woman continue a career and have kids (it’s not like her husband can birth kids) if she can’t have enough time off of work to recover , bond and then return to work?

Well, I'm not sure I agree with your "50% of the workforce" comment, if you take out all the women who don't want to have children, want to have children and stay home, or want to have children and are able to fund their own maternity leaves. But actually, yes, I think I agree with a guaranteed UNPAID 3-month leave. And I think even employers of nannies could work with that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No one is saying we want MORE babies. We simply want babies to have a better start to life and for new moms not to suffer. You don’t seem to realize how many women are forced to return to work after such a short period of time. You just don’t get it.

I understand wanting to give babies and better start in life and not wanting moms to suffer. But isn't the better option just to not have children...? To me, providing paid maternity leave is encouraging people to have more babies. If you cannot afford to provide for a child without having tax payers pay for it, or your employer pay you for not working, then I'm not sure you should be having a child. That is why they offer those programs in Europe, to encourage population growth.

Actually the main reason they have these programs is because they want population growth among educated, working women. NOT poor immigrants.

Not supporting paid leave is going to simply continue to increase inequality in this country.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No one is saying we want MORE babies. We simply want babies to have a better start to life and for new moms not to suffer. You don’t seem to realize how many women are forced to return to work after such a short period of time. You just don’t get it.

I understand wanting to give babies and better start in life and not wanting moms to suffer. But isn't the better option just to not have children...? To me, providing paid maternity leave is encouraging people to have more babies. If you cannot afford to provide for a child without having tax payers pay for it, or your employer pay you for not working, then I'm not sure you should be having a child. That is why they offer those programs in Europe, to encourage population growth.

True. We don't need population growth because of illegal immigration. Only the poor immigrants should have children!

I mean, I don't actually see a problem with bringing in desperate people from the rest of the world, instead of adding more babies to the world's population. And my point still stands - not sure we should be encouraging the "poor immigrants" to have children either.

Because more people aren’t going to NOT have kids because more immigrants arrive. It doesn’t work that way. Besides the babies born here are legal and PAY Taxes once they start working.

While it’s not good for the environment, it’s silly to argue we should stop having kids because of it. We also should stop flying on planes but who is going to do that?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No one is saying we want MORE babies. We simply want babies to have a better start to life and for new moms not to suffer. You don’t seem to realize how many women are forced to return to work after such a short period of time. You just don’t get it.

I understand wanting to give babies and better start in life and not wanting moms to suffer. But isn't the better option just to not have children...? To me, providing paid maternity leave is encouraging people to have more babies. If you cannot afford to provide for a child without having tax payers pay for it, or your employer pay you for not working, then I'm not sure you should be having a child. That is why they offer those programs in Europe, to encourage population growth.

This isn’t just about money. So many women have to leave their jobs because they can’t even get enough UNPAID leave. Middle class women are affected the most because most can afford to drop out of the workforce but this negatively affects them long term. You don’t want women quitting their jobs and no longer paying taxes because they had a child. You’re basically discriminating against 50 percent of the workforce. Paid (or even unpaid) leave provides more of a level playing field for men and women. How should a woman continue a career and have kids (it’s not like her husband can birth kids) if she can’t have enough time off of work to recover , bond and then return to work?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No one is saying we want MORE babies. We simply want babies to have a better start to life and for new moms not to suffer. You don’t seem to realize how many women are forced to return to work after such a short period of time. You just don’t get it.

I understand wanting to give babies and better start in life and not wanting moms to suffer. But isn't the better option just to not have children...? To me, providing paid maternity leave is encouraging people to have more babies. If you cannot afford to provide for a child without having tax payers pay for it, or your employer pay you for not working, then I'm not sure you should be having a child. That is why they offer those programs in Europe, to encourage population growth.

True. We don't need population growth because of illegal immigration. Only the poor immigrants should have children!

I mean, I don't actually see a problem with bringing in desperate people from the rest of the world, instead of adding more babies to the world's population. And my point still stands - not sure we should be encouraging the "poor immigrants" to have children either.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
No one is saying we want MORE babies. We simply want babies to have a better start to life and for new moms not to suffer. You don’t seem to realize how many women are forced to return to work after such a short period of time. You just don’t get it.

I understand wanting to give babies and better start in life and not wanting moms to suffer. But isn't the better option just to not have children...? To me, providing paid maternity leave is encouraging people to have more babies. If you cannot afford to provide for a child without having tax payers pay for it, or your employer pay you for not working, then I'm not sure you should be having a child. That is why they offer those programs in Europe, to encourage population growth.

True. We don't need population growth because of illegal immigration. Only the poor immigrants should have children!

Anonymous wrote:
No one is saying we want MORE babies. We simply want babies to have a better start to life and for new moms not to suffer. You don’t seem to realize how many women are forced to return to work after such a short period of time. You just don’t get it.

I understand wanting to give babies and better start in life and not wanting moms to suffer. But isn't the better option just to not have children...? To me, providing paid maternity leave is encouraging people to have more babies. If you cannot afford to provide for a child without having tax payers pay for it, or your employer pay you for not working, then I'm not sure you should be having a child. That is why they offer those programs in Europe, to encourage population growth.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“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.

+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.

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."

NP. "No other option"? There are lots of other options. Like hiring an older nanny who's not going to become pregnant. And I STILL don't understand why it's "moral" to pay for someone else's choice to have a child. 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.

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.

"...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. What is the benefit to me of all mothers and fathers of young children being in the workforce?

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.

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.

This has nothing to do with the topic. You’re in a bubble if you think paid leave isn’t necessary because people can just leave an expensive city and go live in a less expensive one.

The bolded is funny because most paid leave supports think a young baby should be at home with parents and not in daycare/with a nanny. That’s what paternal leave is about - allowing mothers to return to their jobs after adequate time with a young baby.

No one is saying we want MORE babies. We simply want babies to have a better start to life and for new moms not to suffer. You don’t seem to realize how many women are forced to return to work after such a short period of time. You just don’t get it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“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.

+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.

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."

NP. "No other option"? There are lots of other options. Like hiring an older nanny who's not going to become pregnant. And I STILL don't understand why it's "moral" to pay for someone else's choice to have a child. 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.

So your answer to the lack of maternity leave in this country is age discrimination? If you don't realize why it's immoral to leave your child's caretaker with no source of income because she's pregnant, we don't have a political disagreement, we have a fundamental difference in value systems.

If you demand that individual employers pay for their nanny's maternity leave, then discrimination is what you're going to get. If I have a choice between two equally great nannies, one of whom is past childbearing age, and one of whom might possibly get pregnant and make me pay double for 3 months, why would I choose the one who is going to get pregnant?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“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.

+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.

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."

NP. "No other option"? There are lots of other options. Like hiring an older nanny who's not going to become pregnant. And I STILL don't understand why it's "moral" to pay for someone else's choice to have a child. 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.

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.

"...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. What is the benefit to me of all mothers and fathers of young children being in the workforce?

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.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“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.

+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.

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."

NP. "No other option"? There are lots of other options. Like hiring an older nanny who's not going to become pregnant. And I STILL don't understand why it's "moral" to pay for someone else's choice to have a child. 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.

So your answer to the lack of maternity leave in this country is age discrimination? If you don't realize why it's immoral to leave your child's caretaker with no source of income because she's pregnant, we don't have a political disagreement, we have a fundamental difference in value systems.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We provide our nanny with a generous leave package each year. She typically uses every single day of her leave throughout the year, but she is allowed to keep it and roll it over from year to year. We're moving across the country this summer so she won't be with us anymore but I know she's planning to try to get pregnant soon and I do wonder about what her maternity leave situation will be with a new employer. We said from the beginning that we'd pay her out any unused leave, but she plans to use it all up before then. I used to work for the federal government as a GS-11, so I had however many sick and personal days that came with. I saved my leave for the first few years and then took it when I had my twins. I had to take a few days of leave without pay, but I sprinkled them throughout and the financial hit was minimal. I took 14 weeks off total, 98% of which was paid by my leave. To be honest, it was difficult to listen to the women who weren't going to have much or any paid maternity leave complain when they had been taking multiple-week vacations for the previous five years. I had planned and saved and sacrificed because I knew the rules and as a result, I had paid maternity leave. I'm all for requiring companies to provide paid leave to their employees, but I do think a lot of people are rubbed the wrong way by those who want fully paid maternity leave on top of regular leave. It's a huge burden for smaller companies, and even if it's paid out of taxes, someone is paying for it.

I know it's hard to imagine, but a lot of feds are new employees (we start at 0 leave and accrue. A lot of private sector gives you leave as a new employee). Or have existing issues that they already use their leave for.

My first maternity leave was mostly paid because I saved up. My second and third were almost entirely unpaid. I never could accumulate any sick leave once I had kids because I spent every winter extremely sick from the kids.

What private sector companies start employees with a balance of leave? We accrue leave in the private sector, the same as Feds. Everyone starts at zero. Companies with “unlimited PTO” typically have provisions on how medical needs are covered.

+1 No private sector company I know of gives you leave as a new employee, you accrue it. Maybe one or two personal days. And if you talk to your HR department, they may allow you to "borrow" time against your future leave in the case of an emergency (not for something as long as maternity leave, but if you need to borrow a couple days for your grandmother's funeral).