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've had two maternity leaves and wouldn't want more than 12 weeks.

I'm a fed and it did hurt that last year my program had extra money in the budget because they didn't have to pay my salary out during maternity leave (also didn't hire a temp!). They blew the extra money on a xerox machine that no one needed.

Anonymous wrote:Ya’ll bash socialism, but aspire to socialist benefits.
At the end of the day someone has to pay. Employer, or taxpayers.

I do not bash socialism. I think we can and should pay. I advocate for this possibility on many different platforms. I'm not pretending it's going to happen in the near future, or especially during this administration, but small steps are not impossible.

Ya’ll bash socialism, but aspire to socialist benefits.
At the end of the day someone has to pay. Employer, or taxpayers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While reading the other maternity benefits topic about why women in US are not fighting for paid maternity leave and such...

Many women said they are not fighting because they are not CEOs, they only have one vote, they have no power, etc.

But how about your own employees? How common is it to pay maternity leave for nannies? Cleaning ladies? Tutors?
You have all the power to make that decision, right? Theoretically you can continue paying your tutors, cleaning lady, etc for first 12 weeks after she gave birth.

How many of you do it?

And if you don't, do you have the moral right to demand benefits from your employer that you deny your own employees?

This line of questioning is besides the point. Most women AND men should be advocating for the federal government to provide more support for postnatal care.

Are you kidding? Federal employees don't even have maternity leave. You think they're going to give it to everyone else when they don't even give it to their own employees? nope

uh, as a federal employee I am aware. That is the entire point of advocacy--to make change.

A friend of mine works in Canada and she works on a contract basis (at a high rate, but as a contractor) because it is hard for her to find payroll/non-contract work as a young married woman of childbearing age.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is why small employers are exempt from fmla. The cost of doing business would be too high and the large number of small businesses in the us would not survive.
In Europe the prenatal leave is paid though both personal and business taxes and atarting a business there is much harder and not all countries have anti discrimination rules either so women of childbearing age just don't get hired by some.
Also nannies are not legally allowed to be salaried employees, they are w2 employees but are hourly with overtime etc.

This. Discrimination against women is awful in Scandinavia.

+1. A lot of private employers avoid hiring women.

Anonymous wrote:This is why small employers are exempt from fmla. The cost of doing business would be too high and the large number of small businesses in the us would not survive.
In Europe the prenatal leave is paid though both personal and business taxes and atarting a business there is much harder and not all countries have anti discrimination rules either so women of childbearing age just don't get hired by some.
Also nannies are not legally allowed to be salaried employees, they are w2 employees but are hourly with overtime etc.

This. Discrimination against women is awful in Scandinavia.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While reading the other maternity benefits topic about why women in US are not fighting for paid maternity leave and such...

Many women said they are not fighting because they are not CEOs, they only have one vote, they have no power, etc.

But how about your own employees? How common is it to pay maternity leave for nannies? Cleaning ladies? Tutors?
You have all the power to make that decision, right? Theoretically you can continue paying your tutors, cleaning lady, etc for first 12 weeks after she gave birth.

How many of you do it?

And if you don't, do you have the moral right to demand benefits from your employer that you deny your own employees?

This line of questioning is besides the point. Most women AND men should be advocating for the federal government to provide more support for postnatal care.

Are you kidding? Federal employees don't even have maternity leave. You think they're going to give it to everyone else when they don't even give it to their own employees? nope

This is why small employers are exempt from fmla. The cost of doing business would be too high and the large number of small businesses in the us would not survive.
In Europe the prenatal leave is paid though both personal and business taxes and atarting a business there is much harder and not all countries have anti discrimination rules either so women of childbearing age just don't get hired by some.
Also nannies are not legally allowed to be salaried employees, they are w2 employees but are hourly with overtime etc.

Anonymous wrote:While reading the other maternity benefits topic about why women in US are not fighting for paid maternity leave and such...

Many women said they are not fighting because they are not CEOs, they only have one vote, they have no power, etc.

But how about your own employees? How common is it to pay maternity leave for nannies? Cleaning ladies? Tutors?
You have all the power to make that decision, right? Theoretically you can continue paying your tutors, cleaning lady, etc for first 12 weeks after she gave birth.

How many of you do it?

And if you don't, do you have the moral right to demand benefits from your employer that you deny your own employees?

This line of questioning is besides the point. Most women AND men should be advocating for the federal government to provide more support for postnatal care.

It’s something that should be handled when hiring. If you’re going to cheap out let your employee know in advance.

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.

“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.

Anonymous wrote:“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?

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.