This really pisses me off...sigh....?

[KevandKiki2 0]

http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exe...ew.cgi/35/12932

This should be a basic right of every mother and her newborn.

Just my opinion..but still...sigh

Best,

Kev

Edited February 6, 2006 by KevandKiki2

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

For the cubicle bound, can you post a synopsis? I do not click on unknown links from work.

[Mand 1]

We had a thread about this before the VJ server issue and maternity leave here is very basic compared to European and various other countries.

[apeach601 0]

Very interesting.... I agree we woman should have more time. Unfortunately it doesn't work out this way in the us.

It really sucks

[Mand 1]

Here you go A.S....

In Santa Fe, Linda Strauss McIlroy, a first-time mother, is trying to get used to the thought of soon putting her two-month-old boy in day care so she can get back to work.

"It's hard for me to imagine leaving him," she says. "Just not being with him all day, leaving him with a virtual stranger. And then that's it till, you know, I retire. It's kind of crazy to think about it."

Across the border in Vancouver, Canada, Suzanne Dobson is back at work after 14 months of paid maternity leave.

"It was great," she says. "I was still making pretty good money for being at home."

Across the ocean, in Sweden, Magnus Larsson is looking forward to splitting 16 months of parental leave at 80% pay with his girlfriend. They are expecting their first baby in a week.

With little public debate, the United States has chosen a radically different approach to maternity leave than the rest of the developed world. The United States and Australia are the only industrialized countries that don't provide paid leave for new mothers nationally, though there are exceptions in some U.S. states.

Australian mothers have it better, however, with one year of job-protected leave. The U.S. Family and Medical Leave Act provides for 12 weeks of job-protected leave, but it only covers those who work for larger companies.

To put it another way, out of 168 nations in a Harvard University study last year, 163 had some form of paid maternity leave, leaving the United States in the company of Lesotho, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.

How did it end up this way?

"To me it's a puzzle. I can give you all the arguments that have been used, but that still doesn't really solve the puzzle," says Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, a professor of child development and education at Columbia University.

According to Brooks-Gunn, some countries, like France, expanded maternity leave after World War II to fight falling fertility and encourage childbearing. That argument has been missing in the United States, where immigration has ensured population growth.

Jane Waldfogel, also a professor at Columbia, says another part of the puzzle is that the European and American feminist movements had differing goals.

In Europe, feminists emphasized special treatment for mothers, including maternity leave and child care.

"The American feminist movement didn't want to hear anything about mothers," Waldfogel says. "They wanted equal rights for women and didn't emphasize special treatment."

The U.S. feminist movement has moved away from this viewpoint, but that hasn't led to a change in maternity rules. One reason is that U.S. women are used to having about three months off and consider it the norm, Waldfogel says.

For many, of course, that norm feels alien. To Strauss McIlroy in Santa Fe, those three months certainly feel inadequate.

"I thought, being kind of a career woman, that I might be one of those who'd be kind of looking forward to going back, that I'd be all babied out," she says. "But I'm really very apprehensive about it."

In Canada, Dobson's feelings about her son, Gavin, and the country's maternity leave rules are a better fit.

"I don't think I would have been ready to hand him over to anyone at six months," Dobson says. "At 12 months, he's a little person, and he can kind of tell you what he wants and doesn't want."

There have been several attempts at introducing paid maternity leave in the United States. The Clinton administration wanted to allow states to use unemployment funds for maternity leaves, but that was shot down by the Bush administration after opposition from business groups concerned with increased contribution to state unemployment funds.

A bill introduced in the House by Reps. Pete Stark and George Miller, both D-Calif., would establish a fund that would replace 55% of pay for workers on FMLA leave. Contributions to the fund would come from employers.

"There are a couple of central problems when we look at paid leave legislation. The first is: who's paying for it?" asks Michael Eastman, director of labor policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

U.S. employers already pay $21 billion a year in direct costs related to the FMLA, Eastman says, in addition to indirect costs like additional overtime for those who fill in for workers on leave.

Waldfogel agrees that it's too much to ask employers to shoulder the cost of introducing paid maternity leave.

"As long as what we have in mind ... is asking employers to both hold the job open and pay the salary, we're going to get tremendous resistance from employers," she says.

California went a different route, and last year introduced family leave with around 50% pay for six weeks, paid from a fund that employees, not employers, pay into.

"Once they did that, there were no longer any objections from employers," Waldfogel says.

Five states - California, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island - and Puerto Rico require employers to have temporary disability programs, which pay benefits if the pregnancy is defined as a disability by a doctor. A few others have infant care programs that pay subsidies to low-income families for up to two years.

In New York City, Kelsey Goss, a public-school teacher, is trying to build her tutoring business so she and her husband can stay afloat financially when she goes on unpaid maternity leave in October.

"When I tell people that as a teacher I get zero paid maternity leave, they're stunned," she says. "In a job like that, that's about taking care of kids, those are the benefits?"

How does she think her benefits compare with Europe?

"I don't even want to know," she says.

[LostInIllinois 1]

The US is not a socialist country. Who is going to pay for this? Perhaps the parents should have saved a little money before deciding to have a baby to fund this time off of work? Why haven't you saved money for their college education?

If you want to be a mother, than be mother. If you a want to work, then be a worker. Exit the workforce and search for a new job when you are able to work. Fathers, this goes for you too...It doesn't always have to be the mothers who stay at home with the baby.

Come on people, get the government pacifier out of your mouth, support your own decisions, and quit sucking on the government teat for your choices because Immaculate Conception doesn't happen very often! Quit being such babies yourself... oh yeah, get a haircut while your at it because I know all the liberals are going to flame this!

Geez.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

For the cubicle bound, can you post a synopsis? I do not click on unknown links from work.

Here's your synopsis, bro:

To put it another way, out of 168 nations in a Harvard University study last year, 163 had some form of paid maternity leave, leaving the United States in the company of Lesotho, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.

Yeah, it's a shame indeed...

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

The United States and Australia are the only industrialized countries that don't provide paid leave for new mothers nationally, though there are exceptions in some U.S. states.

Which states?

[ChristinaM 0]

The US is not a socialist country. Who is going to pay for this? Perhaps the parents should have saved a little money before deciding to have a baby to fund this time off of work? Why haven't you saved money for their college education?

If you want to be a mother, than be mother. If you a want to work, then be a worker. Exit the workforce and search for a new job when you are able to work. Fathers, this goes for you too...It doesn't always have to be the mothers who stay at home with the baby.

Come on people, get the government pacifier out of your mouth, support your own decisions, and quit sucking on the government teat for your choices because Immaculate Conception doesn't happen very often! Quit being such babies yourself... oh yeah, get a haircut while your at it because I know all the liberals are going to flame this!

Geez.

I really hope you never reproduce. Maybe you'll stop being such a narrow-minded bigot and consider the issues some day. I can recommend some very good books.

But then with a whole 5 posts on the boards so far, you're obviously so au fait with the political landscape here....

I have to claim short-term disability to get paid maternity from my company. It sucks.

Edited February 6, 2006 by clmarsh

[Mand 1]

The US is not a socialist country. Who is going to pay for this? Perhaps the parents should have saved a little money before deciding to have a baby to fund this time off of work? Why haven't you saved money for their college education?

If you want to be a mother, than be mother. If you a want to work, then be a worker. Exit the workforce and search for a new job when you are able to work. Fathers, this goes for you too...It doesn't always have to be the mothers who stay at home with the baby.

Come on people, get the government pacifier out of your mouth, support your own decisions, and quit sucking on the government teat for your choices because Immaculate Conception doesn't happen very often! Quit being such babies yourself... oh yeah, get a haircut while your at it because I know all the liberals are going to flame this!

Geez.

Hmmmm....not a very enlightened chappie are you?!

[KiKi 0]

I agree....PLEASE do not reproduce. Lost indeed.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

I'm torn on this issue...

On one hand, I'd love to see motherhood encouraged. And what better way is there to do that then to provide women with paid maternity leave?

On the other hand, any entitlements-program will be taken advantage of in this country. That's just how our people are. Just thinking off the cuff here, but if there were any paid maternity leave guaranteed through legislation, I don't think I'd like to see the costs put on corporations directly, but rather on individual taxpayers in all tax brackets. Making companies bear the cost will make them less likely to hire women. I'd also like to see a cap on how much money a woman can get in her lifetime for maternity leave. This would be targeted at the ladies out there (they do exist) who will happily become baby machines if it means the government always pays for them to stay home. I'd put the limit at a level that would accomodate two pregnancies per lifetime. After that, you should bear your own costs.

[john_and_marlene 162]

The US is not a socialist country. Who is going to pay for this? Perhaps the parents should have saved a little money before deciding to have a baby to fund this time off of work? Why haven't you saved money for their college education?

If you want to be a mother, than be mother. If you a want to work, then be a worker. Exit the workforce and search for a new job when you are able to work. Fathers, this goes for you too...It doesn't always have to be the mothers who stay at home with the baby.

Come on people, get the government pacifier out of your mouth, support your own decisions, and quit sucking on the government teat for your choices because Immaculate Conception doesn't happen very often! Quit being such babies yourself... oh yeah, get a haircut while your at it because I know all the liberals are going to flame this!

Geez.

I really hope you never reproduce. Maybe you'll stop being such a narrow-minded bigot and consider the issues some day. I can recommend some very good books.

But then with a whole 5 posts on the boards so far, you're obviously so au fait with the political landscape here....

I have to claim short-term disability to get paid maternity from my company. It sucks.

I didn't see anything is that post that shows bigotry... and is he narrow-minded because he doesn't agree with you?

It's a different view ... he's not the only one advocating that people should take care of themselves. I see narrow-mindedness in disregarding this point of view with such aggression.

[rebeccajo 14]

If you want to be a mother, than be mother. If you a want to work, then be a worker. Exit the workforce and search for a new job when you are able to work. Fathers, this goes for you too...It doesn't always have to be the mothers who stay at home with the baby.

Eeeny Meeny miney mo.....let's see which one do I choose....

The next episode of 'Lost' will be broadcast soon.

[Sister Fracas 5]

Just for the sake of argument....taking Lost's first two sentences...

The US is not a socialist country. Who is going to pay for this?

He/she has a point...who IS going to pay for more time off??

As for you Lost...I consider myself a Liberal and don't need a haircut, thanks!

Edited February 6, 2006 by Frances