A recent article in The New York Times shows that while the feminist movement has made significant gains for women in the workplace, mothers are still punished for taking time off and being unavailable to work the long hours of their male or childless female counterparts. The Times illustrates this by comparing the last three men nominated to The Supreme Court (Justices Breyer, Roberts and Alito) to the last three women (Harriet Meyers, Justices Sotomayor and Kagan). The men are married, with seven children between them, while the woman are single and childless.
The odds are against mothers having as successful a career as non-mothers, and a Wall Street Journal article from May, 2010 posits that stay-at-home dads also face an uphill battle when returning to the workplace.
Not surprisingly, the gap between mothers and non-mothers grows as you look further down the economic stratum. A wealthy mother can afford childcare and continue her career, while lower-income mothers tend to take more time off, thereby jeopardizing chances of advancement in the workplace, or find the cost of childcare a more crippling economic burden.
For me, this issue came to light before our son was even born. While my wife didn't suffer from morning sickness, pregnancy greatly fatigued her, and she took some small amount of time--an afternoon here, a couple hours there--off of work to rest. Furthermore, the frequent appointments--to the OB, for ultrasounds, etc.--necessitated time off. It bothered me that her absences counted as "sick time," as if her pregnancy were an illness, like a cold or stomach virus.
We were fortunate enough that her time off caused no financial hardship, nor did my wife's bosses give her any problems about it. But what if that wasn't the case? There should be a pregnancy leave option, providing women a certain amount of paid leave to deal with her health and that of the fetus she carries. Ideally this leave would extend to fathers-to-be who want to be there at the important moments such as ultrasounds and genetic counseling.
After our son's birth, my wife was given a guarantee her position would be held for her for one year, but she received zero paid time off, and had to deplete her reserves of sick and vacation days in order to be at home with the baby for the first three months. Again, we were fortunate. But why should our situation be unusual?
The United States is the only wealthy nation that does not offer parental leave. In the many countries that have such leave, working mothers are provided either all or a percentage of their income, often for a minimum of 10 weeks. Australia, until recently a hold-out on adopting such a policy, will begin offering mothers 18 weeks of leave at minimum wage in 2011. This falls far short of Sweden, which offers parents 16 months of leave to split, or Canada, which provides 15 weeks for the mother alone, and 35 weeks for parents to share. But at least it's something.
A national paid parental and pregnancy leave program in the U.S. would lessen the impact of having children upon a woman's economic resources, and would make the time off my wife was able to take a right, not a luxury--a luxury that required my wife to carefully orchestrate her maternity leave and hoard the time off available to her in the years leading to her pregnancy.
Our society values providing children a high level of care, and also recognizes that healthy, involved parents lead to well-adjusted children. On logic alone, it makes sense that parents should be encouraged to be present for their kids, and no American should view having children a hardship or hindrance to their professional goals. Though given the weak state of our economy, and the contentiousness over national health issues, it seems unlikely that any policy addressing these issues will be adopted in the U.S. soon.
The cynic in me wonders if, as men become more and more likely to take at least some time out to help care for newborns, there won't be some move toward making such time off less punishing professionally. Or as Time Magazine suggests, only children may become more of the norm as parents attempt to balance work and child-rearing by cutting back on the size of the families they have, thereby limiting the amount of time they need to take out of their careers.
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Just who should pay for maternity leave: government or big business?
We need this is the US too!
Also, the "you can not have it all" argument irks me, because the you is always a woman. Why can't a woman have as successful a career as any man, and still have children as well? I believe this can and does happen for the lucky, hardworking, fortunate few, and that it should be able to happen for more women. A parental leave policy would be a step in this direction.
Very few people - male or female - have (or even want) it all.
People who have children need more time and money than people who do not. However, should parents also be given salary increases per child, since many parents have difficulty affording their children? No, it wouldn't be fair that employee A gets paid more than employee B for the same job just because she's super fertile. Time IS money, personally if I was offered the choice between a raise or additional vacation time of comparable value... I would take the time in a heartbeat!
Now, how about instead, we talk about how Europeans just get a lot more time off in general. Maybe we all could use a few more weeks of paid time off. Stay home with the babies if you so choose, otherwise you could advance your education, travel, volunteer, or whatever else you want.
While some employers pay family leave, it is generally paid through the disability tax (at least in California) -- employers that do paying the portion of salary that disability does not pay.
You are also right that people get tax credits for children. They get as much as a $1000 per kid. I guess I don't care, because well, thats just not a whole lot. I suppose over the 17 years of tax credit, the parents could earn about $17,000/child more than the non parents (but most likely it will be less). If they got say a refundable $40,000 dollar tax credit. Then I would have a serious problem with it. That might encourage people to actually have babies for income. $40,000 might be a reasonable equivalent to a year of time off. Even 10 weeks would be worth around $8,000. That is if the mother only makes 40k a year and you don't include the cost of benefits.
Gresko is talking about big numbers here.
I'm not even totally against the idea of paid maternity leave. I just think that there are two sides to this issue. It seems that the commenters here think that if you are even question the idea, then you are obviously completely selfish.
And no, we aren't really all in it together on this one. I don't have any say in who has babies or how they raise them. If paid maternity leave could also incorporate measures to encourage responsible reproduction. I would be far more supportive.
My wife and I developed a plan where she could quit work and raise our 3 children from birth. We don't have new cars or a big house, but that's the sacrifice we had to make to have children. We found a way to afford being parents. We don't have to warehouse our children with minumum wage strangers all day, the stress level in the relationship is lower with only one person working (2 jobs), and the children are happier and safer.
And yet we spend billions daily on war. What are our priorities as a country?
Those that profess not to want pay taxes for such a thing should look more closely at where your tax dollars go now. I love this country - but we've got a long way to go.
Pretending childbearing is just lady business shows very little respect for fathers.
You cannot have it all. Doesn't the current population of adolescents PROVE
capitalism is the problem. capitalists are the problem. republicans are the problem.