Family or Career: Why Not Both?

Congratulations, America! We're number one!

According to a recent report by the International Labor Organization, Americans are more productive and work longer hours yearly than our international counterparts. However, faced with ever-higher education and healthcare costs, American workers are being burdened with a choice: the paycheck they depend on, or the family they love? Excepting the passage of the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act, the U.S. has been lagging in polices that support working families. Luckily this period of inactivity seems to be drawing to a close, with new supports being introduced at the state and federal level. California has been a leader in paid leave legislation, offering paid leave since 2003. Recently Washington made strides with paid leave to parents of newborns or newly adopted children. On the Federal level, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) introduced the Healthy Families Act in Congress.

While the support for paid leave and paid sick days for employees is growing, the U.S. has a long way to go to properly support working families. Policies increasing the length of leave and expanding the number of workers eligible for leave must be implemented to maintain the great tradition of the American workforce. It is time our government recognized the value of work that occurs in the home, not just that work which garners a paycheck. We know that family-friendly workplace policies increase morale and decrease job turnover, promoting the productivity of our nation's workforce. It is morally unsound and economically unwise to continue the do-nothing policy that the government has taken over the past decade. One should not have to choose between their career and their family. People should be given the proper supports and policies to enjoy and succeed in both aspects of life.

Comments

[ParentPreneur]

I agree that people should not have to choose between work and family, but I do not agree that it is all up to the government to fix it. I started my first company 12 years ago to prove that a profitable business was not mutually exclusive with having a life. If your company won't provide what you need, go find it elsewhere. If you can't make ends meet in San Francisco, move to Houston. The bottom line is that we need to take responsibility for our own situations and do what we need to do to make it work for us. Start your own business. Move to a more affordable neighborhood. But don't wait around for someone else to fix it for you....

[schetikos]

Not everyone is cut out to stay at home. And some men and women are, in fact, better suite to stay at home. The key is what is our priority as a nation? If you make, let's say $140K per year and live in San Francisco, it would be difficult to ever afford a piece of the American dream. However, enter stage right, Country Wide and you can, but just barely. Now if your spouse goes to work, and he makes $100K per year, now you can really afford that new no-interest loan. So, do you both continue to work to pay an $8,000/mth mortage on your million dollar home and be a slave to your lifestyle or do you move to Houston and live comfortably on one income?

The challenge for couples is you can't miss a beat in the Bay area (my wife and I lived there). By contrast, we now in fact live in Houston and she stays at home with the little guys with a lot less stress. So the real question is, what is truly important? If career is important, then kids should probably take a back seat, because it IS hard to do both and give your children the foundation on which to build.

Our consumerism has gotten the best of us, and if we just pull back our spending a little bit our families would be stronger and happier. Instead, we want the double-fisted action of two busy careers. Tough one, but worth an intense discussion, because having both is extremely hard to do and do as well as your job. For more of my rants, visit me at http://mindset30.wordpress.com/

[chinohillster]

EACH family needs to make this decision for themselves, considering the needs/wants of individual family members.

As a Database Administrator, I would have NEVER been able to go back to work if I took YEARS off - Information Technology changes too quickly, and there is TOO MUCH to stay on top of!

Also - I'm the kind of person who would have gone STARK, RAVING MAD if I had to stay home all day long with young babies - NOT EVERY WOMAN is psychologically equipped to do this - some women want and need to stay home (AND SHOULD BE FULLY SUPPORTED in this decision) and SOME WOMEN NEED TO WORK OUTSIDE THE HOME (and SHOULD FULLY BE SUPPORTED IN THIS DECISION, AS WELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

(thank and praise the Lord for laptops, VPN's, DSL and WiFi - allows me to do quite of bit of work from home, when necessary - I have teenagers now, but there are still those occasions when I need to be readily available)

[realitytrumpsbull]

Um, if you're a 'working family', the idea
is that you're supporting YOURSELF. Welfare
donut? No, take two, they're small. Go ahead! LOLOL

[redanemone]

Americans have to realize that we were put on earth to consume, not to think. Otherwise our skewed capitalist system would be in jeopardy. The rich and the super rich wouldn't like that. So, we get on the treadmill of life, work, take care of your kids, take care of your elderly parents, commute a few hours a day, get stuck in traffic, and oops we forgot to exercise !
The conspiracy works perfectly, we forgot to be active citizens because hey, there are only 24 hours in a day!

[Mariel]

Right, redanemone. I tried to have a career and raise a family. The family suffered. In ways too complex to outline here. It could be different in different families.

We ARE living longer, so women could have a family first and then have a career, but they wouldn't get that head start you need to rise, if "rise" is what your career means to you.

Family businesses of many kinds could be different than this, if there are many hands and hearts to care for children...but for the most part, it's a rat race inflicted on us.

[ImmanuelGoldstein]

Just as America will make no progress on energy as long as the energy debate is restricted to cars, so we will make to progress on the work/family issue so long as 'family' is just a code work for 'female child care'.

I strongly believe that viewing the males contribution to the family as a career machine who just brings home the money (what the corporations really view them as), alienates them from family life, damages their relationships with their wives, puts TOO MUCH of the responsibility for socializing children on the shoulders of ONE member of the family.

[Pandu]

My wife homeschools the kids while I work in an office, but it's nothing at all like you describe. Everyone in our family agrees that it's the perfect situation. If I were to decide that we needed more money, I don't think I would be able to convince any of the kids, or my wife, that she should get a paying job.

The only difficulty is that money is very tight. We credit that to the overabundance of women in the workforce keeping wages down. I've yet to hear any argument refuting that economic effect.

Simply put, the encouragement of women in the workplace puts traditional families at a disadvantage, not only because of the single income but also because of depressed wages for everyone.

[Plowboy]

1. A smart nation would make sure all qualified students were able to get a free university education. The nation's greatest wealth is in the heads of its young.
2. A decent nation would see that every one of those workers, and every citizen, had health care. Those in ALL other industrialized nations have better health care than the US. Universal Health Care is a right.

BUT the USA is neither smart nor decent. (We prefer to make illegal wars, establish torture camps, hire mercenaries through crony corporations, etc..) And we hate democracy (for our citizens), hate peace (no profit in it), and obviously hate our goodness. (Anything good about the country is under attack -- from our government.)