If we're going to regulate behavior, make it so each registered spouse must contribute 50% effort to childcare per work month. Have them clock in and out and report their hours vs. hours worked at their other job in an auditable document.
I set a stopwatch when I went out this weekend with my 12-month old and I won't lie it felt good knowing I had 2:05:00 banked when I get home
I think this proposal is salaried, so unfortunately logged hours would only be audited for compliance.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
The thread topic is openly hostile and isn't really instructive of the topic. It reinforces the gendering of roles in the household. It's hard to move past it because it is so inflammatory.
It hampers integration of immigrants. Immigrant mothers stay at home (even more so than natives) supported by kontanstøtta, and their kids never go to day care and socialize with natives (or immigrants from other cultures) or learn Norwegian.
On this point, I think it would also apply to native mothers. Our first son is now 5 months old. My wife went back to work after 12 weeks (I went back after 6). She hates leaving our son even more than I do, but being a new parent is also very isolating. Most social interactions are very hard with a newborn or infant. Many babies can't handle restaurants or travel or movies or bars and thus a lot of normal social interaction is very limited. Becoming a parent is a huge shift in many/most people's lifestyles.
Work, along with contributing to society more generally, is a social experience where you interact with other people (generally). Its a way to interface with people outside your household, often of different age, demographic and social situations.
If someone wants to stay at home to take care of their offspring, great. It is definitely work. But so is gardening and I don't expect to get a farm subsidy for it. So is cleaning my home, but I don't think I should get a subsidy for it. If anything, we want to encourage the opposite. Food is more efficiently grown on farms. Paying someone to clean homes creates jobs. Labor specialization is central to how the economy works.
Parenting works a little differently, granted. Family is very important to many people including myself. Some people will stay home even without an economic reason. But I don't think there's a reason to create incentives to encourage people to stay out of the workforce. If anything, subsidies should exist to provide child care to those who couldn't afford it otherwise so they can choose to participate in the workforce if they so choose.
Except it's not just about people wanting to stay at home. Children and parents benefit from parents being able to stay at home (at least to some extent) with their children.
A lot of the issues around parenting are a lack of widespread societal support for parenting as an activity. We basically expect people to just, like, deal with it. Like it's just a thing that happens.
I'm still not even sure where I land on the concept but it shouldn't be limited to gender.
As the OP, multiple studies, and common sense show, while it can (and usually does) say "parents", in reality it is "women". So I'm ok with the thread title as it stands. Let's look at the reality of the situation head-on, rather than hide it behind PR and ideals that are not applied in practice.
I'm aware it's primarily women. But if the proposal is to pay them and only them, then it will only further cement that concept.
No one is proposing the abstract concept of paying only women.
The real-world tangible impact of the proposal is that primarily women are paid.
That's not what the title proposes.
And as it stands in America, quite a few policies provide parental leave for women specifically. The Navy's policy specifies the mother for receiving four months of leave with the "secondary caregiver" receiving only two weeks unless they're willing to jump through hoops to get some of that time off transferred. This only adds barriers to changing the norm.
Again, I understand that it's primarily women that currently stay at home. One of the ways to change that is to stop specifying just them.
Pregnancy and childbirth are major health events. It makes complete sense that the mother gets more parental leave than the secondary caregiver. The secondary caregiver did not push a baby through its vagina or had its belly cut open to remove one.
Acknowledging that living through pregnancy and childbirth is much more demanding than living next to pregnancy and childbirth is not a norm that needs to be changed, and giving equal parental leave to the secondary caregiver is nonsensical.
That said, I agree that two weeks for the secondary caregiver is very short and should be increased. For that matter, so is two months for the mother.
+1
KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
edited September 2019
As someone who has been a primarily stay-at-home dad since my children were born, a lot of the "norms" in this area - particularly how people discuss them - have been a great source of frustration and angst for quite a while. My wife makes more money than I could ever hope to make and has an erratic schedule that is difficult to plan around, so I took the role of primary caregiver for the children. It was never a question for either one of us. I've met more than a few other dads at our children's schools in the same position, and that's been helpful, but it's fairly alienating when virtually everything aimed at stay-at-home parents is addressed to or about mothers/women only and that does take a toll at times.
First. Subsidizing women only when they work instead of allowing them to stay home is enforcing a gender role. Just a different one. Allowing women to choose the role they want instead of deciding for them is the road to gender equality. Yes women will be the majority of stay-at-home parents for the twin reasons of being told by society that it is their job, and getting paid less at all other jobs. They way to reduce this is to A. Do what we can to change our assumptions from stay at home MOM to stay at home parent. B. Combat the gender pay gap.
Second. Socialization is important, but you don't have to be in daycare 9-10 hours a day to socialize. I would prefer some sort of middle ground, where the child does a few hours of daycare a day, or a few days a week. One of the ways to help this along would be to remove the stigma and exploitation of part time labor. It doesn't have to be the dichotomy of work 40 hours a week, see your kid 3 waking hours a day Vs. stay at home all the time. Healthcare no longer being tied to exactly and only full time employment will help a bit, but not all the way.
With this in mind my major preference would be to subsidize daycare and stay at home parenting, in a flexible way that not only catches both ends but parents who want something in the middle.
BSoB on
+3
KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
I'm still not even sure where I land on the concept but it shouldn't be limited to gender.
As the OP, multiple studies, and common sense show, while it can (and usually does) say "parents", in reality it is "women". So I'm ok with the thread title as it stands. Let's look at the reality of the situation head-on, rather than hide it behind PR and ideals that are not applied in practice.
I'm aware it's primarily women. But if the proposal is to pay them and only them, then it will only further cement that concept.
No one is proposing the abstract concept of paying only women.
The real-world tangible impact of the proposal is that primarily women are paid.
That's not what the title proposes.
And as it stands in America, quite a few policies provide parental leave for women specifically. The Navy's policy specifies the mother for receiving four months of leave with the "secondary caregiver" receiving only two weeks unless they're willing to jump through hoops to get some of that time off transferred. This only adds barriers to changing the norm.
Again, I understand that it's primarily women that currently stay at home. One of the ways to change that is to stop specifying just them.
Pregnancy and childbirth are major health events. It makes complete sense that the mother gets more parental leave than the secondary caregiver. The secondary caregiver did not push a baby through its vagina or had its belly cut open to remove one.
Acknowledging that living through pregnancy and childbirth is much more demanding than living next to pregnancy and childbirth is not a norm that needs to be changed, and giving equal parental leave to the secondary caregiver is nonsensical.
That said, I agree that two weeks for the secondary caregiver is very short and should be increased. For that matter, so is two months for the mother.
I'm still not even sure where I land on the concept but it shouldn't be limited to gender.
As the OP, multiple studies, and common sense show, while it can (and usually does) say "parents", in reality it is "women". So I'm ok with the thread title as it stands. Let's look at the reality of the situation head-on, rather than hide it behind PR and ideals that are not applied in practice.
I'm aware it's primarily women. But if the proposal is to pay them and only them, then it will only further cement that concept.
No one is proposing the abstract concept of paying only women.
The real-world tangible impact of the proposal is that primarily women are paid.
That's not what the title proposes.
And as it stands in America, quite a few policies provide parental leave for women specifically. The Navy's policy specifies the mother for receiving four months of leave with the "secondary caregiver" receiving only two weeks unless they're willing to jump through hoops to get some of that time off transferred. This only adds barriers to changing the norm.
Again, I understand that it's primarily women that currently stay at home. One of the ways to change that is to stop specifying just them.
Pregnancy and childbirth are major health events. It makes complete sense that the mother gets more parental leave than the secondary caregiver. The secondary caregiver did not push a baby through its vagina or had its belly cut open to remove one.
Acknowledging that living through pregnancy and childbirth is much more demanding than living next to pregnancy and childbirth is not a norm that needs to be changed, and giving equal parental leave to the secondary caregiver is nonsensical.
That said, I agree that two weeks for the secondary caregiver is very short and should be increased. For that matter, so is two months for the mother.
Like this. This post made me actually see red.
I apologize, then. That was of course not my intention.
Would you elaborate on what I said that offended you?
First. Subsidizing women only when they work instead of allowing them to stay home is enforcing a gender role. Just a different one. Allowing women to choose the role they want instead of deciding for them is the road to gender equality. Yes women will be the majority of stay-at-home parents for the twin reasons of being told by society that it is their job, and getting paid less at all other jobs. They way to reduce this is to A. Do what we can to change our assumptions from stay at home MOM to stay at home parent. B. Combat the gender pay gap.
Second. Socialization is important, but you don't have to be in daycare 9-10 hours a day to socialize. I would prefer some sort of middle ground, where the child does a few hours of daycare a day, or a few days a week. One of the ways to help this along would be to remove the stigma and exploitation of part time labor. It doesn't have to be the dichotomy of work 40 hours a week, see your kid 3 waking hours a day Vs. stay at home all the time. Healthcare no longer being tied to exactly and only full time employment will help a bit, but not all the way.
With this in mind my major preference would be to subsidize daycare and stay at home parenting, in a flexible way that not only catches both ends but parents who want something in the middle.
The problem is that paying parents to stay at home just reinforces and furthers the gender pay gap. Both societal expectations and the pre-existing start state mean that the burden of giving up their career for childcare will fall disproportionately on women in a self-reinforcing cycle.
+4
SummaryJudgmentGrab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front doorRegistered Userregular
I'm still not even sure where I land on the concept but it shouldn't be limited to gender.
As the OP, multiple studies, and common sense show, while it can (and usually does) say "parents", in reality it is "women". So I'm ok with the thread title as it stands. Let's look at the reality of the situation head-on, rather than hide it behind PR and ideals that are not applied in practice.
I'm aware it's primarily women. But if the proposal is to pay them and only them, then it will only further cement that concept.
No one is proposing the abstract concept of paying only women.
The real-world tangible impact of the proposal is that primarily women are paid.
That's not what the title proposes.
And as it stands in America, quite a few policies provide parental leave for women specifically. The Navy's policy specifies the mother for receiving four months of leave with the "secondary caregiver" receiving only two weeks unless they're willing to jump through hoops to get some of that time off transferred. This only adds barriers to changing the norm.
Again, I understand that it's primarily women that currently stay at home. One of the ways to change that is to stop specifying just them.
Pregnancy and childbirth are major health events. It makes complete sense that the mother gets more parental leave than the secondary caregiver. The secondary caregiver did not push a baby through its vagina or had its belly cut open to remove one.
Acknowledging that living through pregnancy and childbirth is much more demanding than living next to pregnancy and childbirth is not a norm that needs to be changed, and giving equal parental leave to the secondary caregiver is nonsensical.
That said, I agree that two weeks for the secondary caregiver is very short and should be increased. For that matter, so is two months for the mother.
I don't agree with the bolded. As I mentioned, we're raising a 1 year old right now. Maternity leave time is rolled together at my wife's work, but as it happened she worked right up until her delivery date, and took that time after.
That time is intended for the care of the child and bonding, after birth. As my wife related to me - and I well know - that 2 hours of labor ain't shit compared to the unending continued attrition of no sleep and constant vigilance for the next 2 years. And an engaged dad can be there for just as much if that as mom.
You had a caesarean and need to take time off? There'd be nothing stopping you from FMLAing for that directly. That's not what extended parental leave is for, it's for being with your kid, and there's no reason it shouldn't be equitably extended to dads.
SummaryJudgment on
Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.
First. Subsidizing women only when they work instead of allowing them to stay home is enforcing a gender role. Just a different one. Allowing women to choose the role they want instead of deciding for them is the road to gender equality. Yes women will be the majority of stay-at-home parents for the twin reasons of being told by society that it is their job, and getting paid less at all other jobs. They way to reduce this is to A. Do what we can to change our assumptions from stay at home MOM to stay at home parent. B. Combat the gender pay gap.
Second. Socialization is important, but you don't have to be in daycare 9-10 hours a day to socialize. I would prefer some sort of middle ground, where the child does a few hours of daycare a day, or a few days a week. One of the ways to help this along would be to remove the stigma and exploitation of part time labor. It doesn't have to be the dichotomy of work 40 hours a week, see your kid 3 waking hours a day Vs. stay at home all the time. Healthcare no longer being tied to exactly and only full time employment will help a bit, but not all the way.
With this in mind my major preference would be to subsidize daycare and stay at home parenting, in a flexible way that not only catches both ends but parents who want something in the middle.
The problem is that paying parents to stay at home just reinforces and furthers the gender pay gap. Both societal expectations and the pre-existing start state mean that the burden of giving up their career for childcare will fall disproportionately on women in a self-reinforcing cycle.
Why? No one's explaining how that will happen. Are we assuming it's going to go "okay here's minimum wage ololol" ? Why does it have to be that way? Why is that the assumption?
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
Looks like there are a bunch of problems with paying a child's guardian to provide child care services
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
+1
EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
I'm still not even sure where I land on the concept but it shouldn't be limited to gender.
As the OP, multiple studies, and common sense show, while it can (and usually does) say "parents", in reality it is "women". So I'm ok with the thread title as it stands. Let's look at the reality of the situation head-on, rather than hide it behind PR and ideals that are not applied in practice.
I'm aware it's primarily women. But if the proposal is to pay them and only them, then it will only further cement that concept.
No one is proposing the abstract concept of paying only women.
The real-world tangible impact of the proposal is that primarily women are paid.
That's not what the title proposes.
And as it stands in America, quite a few policies provide parental leave for women specifically. The Navy's policy specifies the mother for receiving four months of leave with the "secondary caregiver" receiving only two weeks unless they're willing to jump through hoops to get some of that time off transferred. This only adds barriers to changing the norm.
Again, I understand that it's primarily women that currently stay at home. One of the ways to change that is to stop specifying just them.
Pregnancy and childbirth are major health events. It makes complete sense that the mother gets more parental leave than the secondary caregiver. The secondary caregiver did not push a baby through its vagina or had its belly cut open to remove one.
Acknowledging that living through pregnancy and childbirth is much more demanding than living next to pregnancy and childbirth is not a norm that needs to be changed, and giving equal parental leave to the secondary caregiver is nonsensical.
That said, I agree that two weeks for the secondary caregiver is very short and should be increased. For that matter, so is two months for the mother.
Uh, this thing right here? Super sexist. Equal parental leave isn't a measure of the suffering of childbirth, it's a measure of how well a family can support the child after birth.
Teaming up as both parents and using the time in a measured way (having both parents, regardless of gender, being able to take equal time to ensure both their own security with their child as well as the security of retaining both of their jobs... there is a lot here. Not to mention there are plenty of same sex couples, single parents of both genders who don't have a spouse by choice or by death in childbirth, and a million other edge cases that this view is essentially saying aren't worth considering as equal parents.
One of my best friends is the primary caregiver of his child since birth, his wife being a surgeon who took some time immediately after giving birth but went back to work well before he did, and he ended up changing careers to support hers and his child so he could work from home most days. This is far from uncommon in the modern workforce.
+14
EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
This thread as a whole really just seems to be inviting sexist views of parenting, from the thread title to the discussion here. Some new framework and narrowing of this lens is needed.
I'm still not even sure where I land on the concept but it shouldn't be limited to gender.
As the OP, multiple studies, and common sense show, while it can (and usually does) say "parents", in reality it is "women". So I'm ok with the thread title as it stands. Let's look at the reality of the situation head-on, rather than hide it behind PR and ideals that are not applied in practice.
I'm aware it's primarily women. But if the proposal is to pay them and only them, then it will only further cement that concept.
No one is proposing the abstract concept of paying only women.
The real-world tangible impact of the proposal is that primarily women are paid.
That's not what the title proposes.
And as it stands in America, quite a few policies provide parental leave for women specifically. The Navy's policy specifies the mother for receiving four months of leave with the "secondary caregiver" receiving only two weeks unless they're willing to jump through hoops to get some of that time off transferred. This only adds barriers to changing the norm.
Again, I understand that it's primarily women that currently stay at home. One of the ways to change that is to stop specifying just them.
Pregnancy and childbirth are major health events. It makes complete sense that the mother gets more parental leave than the secondary caregiver. The secondary caregiver did not push a baby through its vagina or had its belly cut open to remove one.
Acknowledging that living through pregnancy and childbirth is much more demanding than living next to pregnancy and childbirth is not a norm that needs to be changed, and giving equal parental leave to the secondary caregiver is nonsensical.
That said, I agree that two weeks for the secondary caregiver is very short and should be increased. For that matter, so is two months for the mother.
Uh, this thing right here? Super sexist. Equal parental leave isn't a measure of the suffering of childbirth, it's a measure of how well a family can support the child after birth.
Teaming up as both parents and using the time in a measured way (having both parents, regardless of gender, being able to take equal time to ensure both their own security with their child as well as the security of retaining both of their jobs... there is a lot here. Not to mention there are plenty of same sex couples, single parents of both genders who don't have a spouse by choice or by death in childbirth, and a million other edge cases that this view is essentially saying aren't worth considering as equal parents.
One of my best friends is the primary caregiver of his child since birth, his wife being a surgeon who took some time immediately after giving birth but went back to work well before he did, and he ended up changing careers to support hers and his child so he could work from home most days. This is far from uncommon in the modern workforce.
Uncommon but becoming increasingly more common and we should be encouraging it.
Because by doing so, we actually are helping women early in their lives make decisions not about "I need a career that'll let me have a family" that they currently do. One of the PAs here at work specifically avoided medical school because she wanted a 9-5 job so she could have a child at some point, and her dad (who was an MD) told her it would be a better decision for her to have time with the kid. Why should she give up on being a doctor? We should be changing the way we give leave for parents, both of them, so they don't have to do that. It's better for the child, better for the parents, and better for the society to not have 50% of them doing half the work they're capable of because "what if".
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
First. Subsidizing women only when they work instead of allowing them to stay home is enforcing a gender role. Just a different one. Allowing women to choose the role they want instead of deciding for them is the road to gender equality. Yes women will be the majority of stay-at-home parents for the twin reasons of being told by society that it is their job, and getting paid less at all other jobs. They way to reduce this is to A. Do what we can to change our assumptions from stay at home MOM to stay at home parent. B. Combat the gender pay gap.
Second. Socialization is important, but you don't have to be in daycare 9-10 hours a day to socialize. I would prefer some sort of middle ground, where the child does a few hours of daycare a day, or a few days a week. One of the ways to help this along would be to remove the stigma and exploitation of part time labor. It doesn't have to be the dichotomy of work 40 hours a week, see your kid 3 waking hours a day Vs. stay at home all the time. Healthcare no longer being tied to exactly and only full time employment will help a bit, but not all the way.
With this in mind my major preference would be to subsidize daycare and stay at home parenting, in a flexible way that not only catches both ends but parents who want something in the middle.
The problem is that paying parents to stay at home just reinforces and furthers the gender pay gap. Both societal expectations and the pre-existing start state mean that the burden of giving up their career for childcare will fall disproportionately on women in a self-reinforcing cycle.
That's a fun thing to say, but is it mistaking the cart for the horse.
To look at it one way. If you subsidize stay-at-home parenthood then you have effectively made a job that actually pays women and men the same amount. Is it a surprise that women want to work that job over all the other jobs that refuse to pay them what a man would make?
I submit that it is not.
0
EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
I'm still not even sure where I land on the concept but it shouldn't be limited to gender.
As the OP, multiple studies, and common sense show, while it can (and usually does) say "parents", in reality it is "women". So I'm ok with the thread title as it stands. Let's look at the reality of the situation head-on, rather than hide it behind PR and ideals that are not applied in practice.
I'm aware it's primarily women. But if the proposal is to pay them and only them, then it will only further cement that concept.
No one is proposing the abstract concept of paying only women.
The real-world tangible impact of the proposal is that primarily women are paid.
That's not what the title proposes.
And as it stands in America, quite a few policies provide parental leave for women specifically. The Navy's policy specifies the mother for receiving four months of leave with the "secondary caregiver" receiving only two weeks unless they're willing to jump through hoops to get some of that time off transferred. This only adds barriers to changing the norm.
Again, I understand that it's primarily women that currently stay at home. One of the ways to change that is to stop specifying just them.
Pregnancy and childbirth are major health events. It makes complete sense that the mother gets more parental leave than the secondary caregiver. The secondary caregiver did not push a baby through its vagina or had its belly cut open to remove one.
Acknowledging that living through pregnancy and childbirth is much more demanding than living next to pregnancy and childbirth is not a norm that needs to be changed, and giving equal parental leave to the secondary caregiver is nonsensical.
That said, I agree that two weeks for the secondary caregiver is very short and should be increased. For that matter, so is two months for the mother.
Uh, this thing right here? Super sexist. Equal parental leave isn't a measure of the suffering of childbirth, it's a measure of how well a family can support the child after birth.
Teaming up as both parents and using the time in a measured way (having both parents, regardless of gender, being able to take equal time to ensure both their own security with their child as well as the security of retaining both of their jobs... there is a lot here. Not to mention there are plenty of same sex couples, single parents of both genders who don't have a spouse by choice or by death in childbirth, and a million other edge cases that this view is essentially saying aren't worth considering as equal parents.
One of my best friends is the primary caregiver of his child since birth, his wife being a surgeon who took some time immediately after giving birth but went back to work well before he did, and he ended up changing careers to support hers and his child so he could work from home most days. This is far from uncommon in the modern workforce.
Uncommon but becoming increasingly more common and we should be encouraging it.
Because by doing so, we actually are helping women early in their lives make decisions not about "I need a career that'll let me have a family" that they currently do. One of the PAs here at work specifically avoided medical school because she wanted a 9-5 job so she could have a child at some point, and her dad (who was an MD) told her it would be a better decision for her to have time with the kid. Why should she give up on being a doctor? We should be changing the way we give leave for parents, both of them, so they don't have to do that. It's better for the child, better for the parents, and better for the society to not have 50% of them doing half the work they're capable of because "what if".
"far from uncommon." I;m saying it is already super common.
First. Subsidizing women only when they work instead of allowing them to stay home is enforcing a gender role. Just a different one. Allowing women to choose the role they want instead of deciding for them is the road to gender equality. Yes women will be the majority of stay-at-home parents for the twin reasons of being told by society that it is their job, and getting paid less at all other jobs. They way to reduce this is to A. Do what we can to change our assumptions from stay at home MOM to stay at home parent. B. Combat the gender pay gap.
Second. Socialization is important, but you don't have to be in daycare 9-10 hours a day to socialize. I would prefer some sort of middle ground, where the child does a few hours of daycare a day, or a few days a week. One of the ways to help this along would be to remove the stigma and exploitation of part time labor. It doesn't have to be the dichotomy of work 40 hours a week, see your kid 3 waking hours a day Vs. stay at home all the time. Healthcare no longer being tied to exactly and only full time employment will help a bit, but not all the way.
With this in mind my major preference would be to subsidize daycare and stay at home parenting, in a flexible way that not only catches both ends but parents who want something in the middle.
The problem is that paying parents to stay at home just reinforces and furthers the gender pay gap. Both societal expectations and the pre-existing start state mean that the burden of giving up their career for childcare will fall disproportionately on women in a self-reinforcing cycle.
Why? No one's explaining how that will happen. Are we assuming it's going to go "okay here's minimum wage ololol" ? Why does it have to be that way? Why is that the assumption?
We aren't assuming it. This is literally what the OP is talking about. They've implemented these ideas and the results are that the burden falls disproportionately on women. Both because of societal expectations ("mothers are the ones that should look after the children") and economics (women make less, ergo the women giving up her salary and/or career makes the most sense). The results of these kind of policies have been studied a bunch as far as I've read and the results are what we've been discussing.
The way in which this becomes self-reinforcing is that the above then both further cements the expectation that women stay home and, far more critically, strengthens the economic argument since women make less already -? women stay at home to raise the kids -> women make less -> women staying home makes more sense for the family, etc, etc. Childbirth and childcare are a critical parts of the gender pay gap.
I know a couple with a kid where the lady is a nurse who takes on a lot of work so the gent is a full on house spouse. It's an increasingly common arrangement.
+2
EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
That's good then, enc! Surprises me because I thought it was still a relatively small amount of men doing that.
Most of my group of friends are academics, medical professionals, small business owners, or defense contractors. Out of everyone in my circle that has kids, only 1 had the mother stay home over the father, 5 have had the father stay home, and the rest are mostly equal time split between both parents who both kept their careers. In the highly educated, specialist fields this has been common since the early 2000s.
When/if Mrs. Enc and I have children, our plan is to take maximum leave for both of us, keep both home for the first two months, and then alternate specific days/weeks moving forward so we can push that 4 months to most of a year's worth of coverage before we have to figure out additional childcare options. This has been the norm for most folks I know, and is part of why having equal leave is so important. This is even more important in the LGBTQ circles as with surrogate pregnancies and other infant adoptions as you need as much time as possible to bond with your child.
Suffice to say, like Ketar, a lot of what I've seen in here is pretty upsettingly regressive views on what this leave is for.
Enc on
+4
KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
edited September 2019
Richy, it starts with the language used by the Navy that you continue with, in which the mother is automatically the primary caregiver and the father the secondary caregiver. That isn't something that should be assumed.
It continues with your belief that of course the mother should get more time off, and that equal time for the father is nonsensical. My wife went back to work within 2-3 weeks of the births of both of our children. She didn't want to - she works in a position where paid parental leave, or even lengthy unpaid leave, simply isn't possible because of the strain it would place on her partners - but physically it was not a problem for her. It was tough mentally and emotionally, but there was no physical reason why she needed extended leave. When our first was born I was in a position with no paternity leave whatsoever. I took a day off for the birth of my child and went right back to work the day after he was born. I worked for about a month after that and ended up quitting to be the primary caregiver for our son. There were a variety of factors involved in the choice to leave my job, but the largest was the lack of leave. If taking leave and returning to work in a few months had been possible, I might have made other plans and arranged other care for him at that time. But there was no leave available because the father is automatically assumed to be the "secondary" caregiver.
Parental leave should be available to both parents. Beyond that, it should be possible for the parent that will be taking on the role of primary caregiver to take the greater length of time (if reasonable lengths of equal time are for some reason not possible), regardless of whether that parent actually birthed the child or not. The belief that of course it should be the mother is just another shitty gender norm that people should be able to move past in this day and age.
First. Subsidizing women only when they work instead of allowing them to stay home is enforcing a gender role. Just a different one. Allowing women to choose the role they want instead of deciding for them is the road to gender equality. Yes women will be the majority of stay-at-home parents for the twin reasons of being told by society that it is their job, and getting paid less at all other jobs. They way to reduce this is to A. Do what we can to change our assumptions from stay at home MOM to stay at home parent. B. Combat the gender pay gap.
Second. Socialization is important, but you don't have to be in daycare 9-10 hours a day to socialize. I would prefer some sort of middle ground, where the child does a few hours of daycare a day, or a few days a week. One of the ways to help this along would be to remove the stigma and exploitation of part time labor. It doesn't have to be the dichotomy of work 40 hours a week, see your kid 3 waking hours a day Vs. stay at home all the time. Healthcare no longer being tied to exactly and only full time employment will help a bit, but not all the way.
With this in mind my major preference would be to subsidize daycare and stay at home parenting, in a flexible way that not only catches both ends but parents who want something in the middle.
The problem is that paying parents to stay at home just reinforces and furthers the gender pay gap. Both societal expectations and the pre-existing start state mean that the burden of giving up their career for childcare will fall disproportionately on women in a self-reinforcing cycle.
That's a fun thing to say, but is it mistaking the cart for the horse.
To look at it one way. If you subsidize stay-at-home parenthood then you have effectively made a job that actually pays women and men the same amount. Is it a surprise that women want to work that job over all the other jobs that refuse to pay them what a man would make?
I submit that it is not.
No, it's what the actual real-world results of these policies have been. By subsidizing stay-at-home parenting, what ends up happening is that women are the stay-at-home parents. Which is equivalent to women sacrificing long-term earning potential, since childbirth and childcare is a huge part of the gender pay gap. And this just further reinforces the very thing you are trying to fight. In part because the way people end up treating parental leave just further reinforces the arguments that lead to the burden of childcare disproportionately falling on women in the first place.
The basic issue is that these policies, when actually implemented, do not end up having the desired effect on behaviour and in fact, in some ways, reinforce the very behaviour they are trying to fight.
Except it's not just about people wanting to stay at home. Children and parents benefit from parents being able to stay at home (at least to some extent) with their children.
A lot of the issues around parenting are a lack of widespread societal support for parenting as an activity. We basically expect people to just, like, deal with it. Like it's just a thing that happens.
The research does not show a strong benefit for children from stay at home mothers (or fathers). Some shows a benefit for working mothers, some shows a negative but the effect is certainly not large.
Its certainly the more traditional route and that's fine. But the delta of even a fairly slanted reading of the research does not really justify a subsidy specifically to encourage the behavior even before you get the reduced labor participation downside.
I'm still not even sure where I land on the concept but it shouldn't be limited to gender.
As the OP, multiple studies, and common sense show, while it can (and usually does) say "parents", in reality it is "women". So I'm ok with the thread title as it stands. Let's look at the reality of the situation head-on, rather than hide it behind PR and ideals that are not applied in practice.
I'm aware it's primarily women. But if the proposal is to pay them and only them, then it will only further cement that concept.
No one is proposing the abstract concept of paying only women.
The real-world tangible impact of the proposal is that primarily women are paid.
That's not what the title proposes.
And as it stands in America, quite a few policies provide parental leave for women specifically. The Navy's policy specifies the mother for receiving four months of leave with the "secondary caregiver" receiving only two weeks unless they're willing to jump through hoops to get some of that time off transferred. This only adds barriers to changing the norm.
Again, I understand that it's primarily women that currently stay at home. One of the ways to change that is to stop specifying just them.
Pregnancy and childbirth are major health events. It makes complete sense that the mother gets more parental leave than the secondary caregiver. The secondary caregiver did not push a baby through its vagina or had its belly cut open to remove one.
Acknowledging that living through pregnancy and childbirth is much more demanding than living next to pregnancy and childbirth is not a norm that needs to be changed, and giving equal parental leave to the secondary caregiver is nonsensical.
That said, I agree that two weeks for the secondary caregiver is very short and should be increased. For that matter, so is two months for the mother.
Uh, this thing right here? Super sexist. Equal parental leave isn't a measure of the suffering of childbirth, it's a measure of how well a family can support the child after birth.
Teaming up as both parents and using the time in a measured way (having both parents, regardless of gender, being able to take equal time to ensure both their own security with their child as well as the security of retaining both of their jobs... there is a lot here. Not to mention there are plenty of same sex couples, single parents of both genders who don't have a spouse by choice or by death in childbirth, and a million other edge cases that this view is essentially saying aren't worth considering as equal parents.
One of my best friends is the primary caregiver of his child since birth, his wife being a surgeon who took some time immediately after giving birth but went back to work well before he did, and he ended up changing careers to support hers and his child so he could work from home most days. This is far from uncommon in the modern workforce.
Yeah, first of all, a secondary caregiver is not necessarily a father. I deliberately used non-gendered pronouns there for a reason. The secondary caregiver is the parent that did not physically give birth, and their gender and sexual orientation are irrelevant.
Edge cases are real, and are worthy of consideration and solutions. But they are, by definition, edge cases. You do not make general population-affecting policies to deal with edge cases, you make it to deal with the general case, and then write in special-case exceptions to deal with edge cases.
And yes, parental leave is important for both parents to bond with the child and care for them in the critically-important first months of their life. I'm not arguing the opposite. I'm not arguing the secondary caregiver (nor the father specifically) is less important or capable of this. Geez.
But at the same time, reality being, you know, real, it makes perfect sense that the partner that actually physically delivered the baby gets more time, since their after-birth parental bonding time is bundled with after-birth recovery time in a way that it is not for the partner that did not actually physically deliver the baby.
We had a baby last year. I spent every second in the hospital delivery room next to my partner. I held her hand, I helped her breathe, I applied pressure points, I held her up to walk to the pool when she wanted to try lying in water, I comforted her while she got the epidural, I did every fucking thing I could. And I would not, for one fucking second, pretend I went through one-tenth the experience she has when actually pushing this baby out. The idea that she would not deserve extra time off compared to me given the different experiences we lived through because "gender equality" is farcical.
Richy on
+1
syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
edited September 2019
I think another part of this is that we as a society used to function in a way where one breadwinner could provide for a normal-sized family, jobs had better benefits, pensions, etc. etc. and we have allowed the capitalist machine to falsely leverage issues like gender equality to keep wages flat and more or less demand both parents in a family to work in order to survive.
That sucks.
A much better turn would be forcing proper living wages and benefits to go back to where they were, or tax the fuck out of the topmost earners in the country to subsidize the families who need that kind of income and safety net to support a family on the wages of one worker. Or why not both.
And instead of getting stuck in this "your value comes from work" bullshit that leads everyone to think that a career is the one true path to fulfillment, we can start recognizing the value of work in the home, in the community, etc.
This will only get exacerbated as automation guts the next layer of the workforce. We need to start looking beyond all adults needing to be employed in the traditional sense in order to survive as a society, and I think subsidizing families who choose to have one parent stay home is a great start.
syndalis on
SW-4158-3990-6116
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
I'm still not even sure where I land on the concept but it shouldn't be limited to gender.
As the OP, multiple studies, and common sense show, while it can (and usually does) say "parents", in reality it is "women". So I'm ok with the thread title as it stands. Let's look at the reality of the situation head-on, rather than hide it behind PR and ideals that are not applied in practice.
I'm aware it's primarily women. But if the proposal is to pay them and only them, then it will only further cement that concept.
No one is proposing the abstract concept of paying only women.
The real-world tangible impact of the proposal is that primarily women are paid.
That's not what the title proposes.
And as it stands in America, quite a few policies provide parental leave for women specifically. The Navy's policy specifies the mother for receiving four months of leave with the "secondary caregiver" receiving only two weeks unless they're willing to jump through hoops to get some of that time off transferred. This only adds barriers to changing the norm.
Again, I understand that it's primarily women that currently stay at home. One of the ways to change that is to stop specifying just them.
Pregnancy and childbirth are major health events. It makes complete sense that the mother gets more parental leave than the secondary caregiver. The secondary caregiver did not push a baby through its vagina or had its belly cut open to remove one.
Acknowledging that living through pregnancy and childbirth is much more demanding than living next to pregnancy and childbirth is not a norm that needs to be changed, and giving equal parental leave to the secondary caregiver is nonsensical.
That said, I agree that two weeks for the secondary caregiver is very short and should be increased. For that matter, so is two months for the mother.
Uh, this thing right here? Super sexist. Equal parental leave isn't a measure of the suffering of childbirth, it's a measure of how well a family can support the child after birth.
Teaming up as both parents and using the time in a measured way (having both parents, regardless of gender, being able to take equal time to ensure both their own security with their child as well as the security of retaining both of their jobs... there is a lot here. Not to mention there are plenty of same sex couples, single parents of both genders who don't have a spouse by choice or by death in childbirth, and a million other edge cases that this view is essentially saying aren't worth considering as equal parents.
One of my best friends is the primary caregiver of his child since birth, his wife being a surgeon who took some time immediately after giving birth but went back to work well before he did, and he ended up changing careers to support hers and his child so he could work from home most days. This is far from uncommon in the modern workforce.
On top of the other outlined ways this thread's subject shoots itself in the foot, even if it *was* based on post-birth physical recovery leading to longer time off for women only, this just ignores that whoops, trans or nonbinary people can birth children too
Isolating benefits to a single concept of gender doesn't work with the modern understanding of it
It hampers integration of immigrants. Immigrant mothers stay at home (even more so than natives) supported by kontanstøtta, and their kids never go to day care and socialize with natives (or immigrants from other cultures) or learn Norwegian.
On this point, I think it would also apply to native mothers. Our first son is now 5 months old. My wife went back to work after 12 weeks (I went back after 6). She hates leaving our son even more than I do, but being a new parent is also very isolating. Most social interactions are very hard with a newborn or infant. Many babies can't handle restaurants or travel or movies or bars and thus a lot of normal social interaction is very limited. Becoming a parent is a huge shift in many/most people's lifestyles.
Work, along with contributing to society more generally, is a social experience where you interact with other people (generally). Its a way to interface with people outside your household, often of different age, demographic and social situations.
If someone wants to stay at home to take care of their offspring, great. It is definitely work. But so is gardening and I don't expect to get a farm subsidy for it. So is cleaning my home, but I don't think I should get a subsidy for it. If anything, we want to encourage the opposite. Food is more efficiently grown on farms. Paying someone to clean homes creates jobs. Labor specialization is central to how the economy works.
Parenting works a little differently, granted. Family is very important to many people including myself. Some people will stay home even without an economic reason. But I don't think there's a reason to create incentives to encourage people to stay out of the workforce. If anything, subsidies should exist to provide child care to those who couldn't afford it otherwise so they can choose to participate in the workforce if they so choose.
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Comparing taking care of children to the hobby of gardening is quite the take.
Saying that raising children isn't part of the workforce, or is anything less than a vital role in the workforce, is a total bullshit claim that should be smashed to fuckin bits. It's one of the most vital fuckin roles in the workforce. This whole 'staying home to take care of kids isn't a real part of the workforce' philosophy is why teachers and shit don't get paid well enough. Taking care of children in any capacity is among the most important roles in the workforce. If you don't do it correctly, all of a sudden there's no more workforce.
No matter what kids need to be taken care of, the choice between daycare or staying home to take care of the kids shouldn't be an option only open to the vastly over compensated.
Except it's not just about people wanting to stay at home. Children and parents benefit from parents being able to stay at home (at least to some extent) with their children.
A lot of the issues around parenting are a lack of widespread societal support for parenting as an activity. We basically expect people to just, like, deal with it. Like it's just a thing that happens.
The research does not show a strong benefit for children from stay at home mothers (or fathers). Some shows a benefit for working mothers, some shows a negative but the effect is certainly not large.
Its certainly the more traditional route and that's fine. But the delta of even a fairly slanted reading of the research does not really justify a subsidy specifically to encourage the behavior even before you get the reduced labor participation downside.
The research shows strong benefits from children spending more time with their parents. This is especially true for fathers who, under traditional roles, tend to spend the least time on childcare for various reasons.
0
EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
I'm still not even sure where I land on the concept but it shouldn't be limited to gender.
As the OP, multiple studies, and common sense show, while it can (and usually does) say "parents", in reality it is "women". So I'm ok with the thread title as it stands. Let's look at the reality of the situation head-on, rather than hide it behind PR and ideals that are not applied in practice.
I'm aware it's primarily women. But if the proposal is to pay them and only them, then it will only further cement that concept.
No one is proposing the abstract concept of paying only women.
The real-world tangible impact of the proposal is that primarily women are paid.
That's not what the title proposes.
And as it stands in America, quite a few policies provide parental leave for women specifically. The Navy's policy specifies the mother for receiving four months of leave with the "secondary caregiver" receiving only two weeks unless they're willing to jump through hoops to get some of that time off transferred. This only adds barriers to changing the norm.
Again, I understand that it's primarily women that currently stay at home. One of the ways to change that is to stop specifying just them.
Pregnancy and childbirth are major health events. It makes complete sense that the mother gets more parental leave than the secondary caregiver. The secondary caregiver did not push a baby through its vagina or had its belly cut open to remove one.
Acknowledging that living through pregnancy and childbirth is much more demanding than living next to pregnancy and childbirth is not a norm that needs to be changed, and giving equal parental leave to the secondary caregiver is nonsensical.
That said, I agree that two weeks for the secondary caregiver is very short and should be increased. For that matter, so is two months for the mother.
Uh, this thing right here? Super sexist. Equal parental leave isn't a measure of the suffering of childbirth, it's a measure of how well a family can support the child after birth.
Teaming up as both parents and using the time in a measured way (having both parents, regardless of gender, being able to take equal time to ensure both their own security with their child as well as the security of retaining both of their jobs... there is a lot here. Not to mention there are plenty of same sex couples, single parents of both genders who don't have a spouse by choice or by death in childbirth, and a million other edge cases that this view is essentially saying aren't worth considering as equal parents.
One of my best friends is the primary caregiver of his child since birth, his wife being a surgeon who took some time immediately after giving birth but went back to work well before he did, and he ended up changing careers to support hers and his child so he could work from home most days. This is far from uncommon in the modern workforce.
Yeah, first of all, a secondary caregiver is not necessarily a father. I deliberately used non-gendered pronouns there for a reason. The secondary caregiver is the parent that did not physically give birth, and their gender and sexual orientation are irrelevant.
Edge cases are real, and are worthy of consideration and solutions. But they are, by definition, edge cases. You do not make general population-affecting policies to deal with edge cases, you make it to deal with the general case, and then write in special-case exceptions to deal with edge cases.
And yes, parental leave is important for both parents to bond with the child and care for them in the critically-important first months of their life. I'm not arguing the opposite. I'm not arguing the secondary caregiver (nor the father specifically) is less important or capable of this. Geez.
But at the same time, reality being, you know, real, it makes perfect sense that the partner that actually physically delivered the baby gets more time, since their after-birth parental bonding time is bundled with after-birth recovery time in a way that it is not for the partner that did not actually physically deliver the baby.
We had a baby last year. I spent every second in the hospital delivery room next to my partner. I held her hand, I helped her breathe, I applied pressure points, I held her up to walk to the pool when she wanted to try lying in water, I comforted her while she got the epidural, I did every fucking thing I could. And I would not, for one fucking second, pretend I went through one-tenth the experience she has when actually pushing this baby out. The idea that she would not deserve extra time off compared to me given the different experiences we lived through because "gender equality" is farcical.
Parental leave is not a measure of suffering, of course the mother suffers more! No one is arguing that. Literally everything in that last paragraph is utterly meaningless to parental leave.
It's not a matter of "who gets more time." It's not an award for suffering. It's not some kind of goddamn prize for childbirth. It's an actual structural need that needs to accommodate the household as a whole for the needs of that household. And while your household might fit stereotypical norms, a hell of a lot of households don't and writing them off as edge cases is 100% sexist and, frankly, highly offending.
Re-policy decisions, this is even more ridiculous. Nearly every state government has (all but 12 in the US), on law, equal leave for both parents as part of state benefits packages for state employees. And it works. The fact the military is regressive is hardly surprising, but don't assume that the norms of the US Navy somehow apply across the rest of the nation.
+6
EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
Bringing some stats in this, Pew Research has about 1 in 5 parents being stat-at-home, of which stay at home dads have increased from 4% to 7% in 2016, and are anticipated to break 12% by 2020. To give you an idea, in 2012, when this number was about 6%, this represented about 2.2 million stay-at-home dads as primary caregivers of their children.
The thread topic is openly hostile and isn't really instructive of the topic. It reinforces the gendering of roles in the household. It's hard to move past it because it is so inflammatory.
This is literally the opposite of what I am doing / trying to do. I apologize for being unclear.
We (in Norway) are de facto paying women to stay at home. We should not do that.
The thread title describes the de facto effect of a policy that is de jure paying whichever parent (if any) chooses to be at home with their young children.
The thread topic is openly hostile and isn't really instructive of the topic. It reinforces the gendering of roles in the household. It's hard to move past it because it is so inflammatory.
This is literally the opposite of what I am doing / trying to do. I apologize for being unclear.
We (in Norway) are de facto paying women to stay at home. We should not do that.
The thread title describes the de facto effect of a policy that is de jure paying whichever parent (if any) chooses to be at home with their young children.
You should be doing that. The alternative is either forcing people to do unpaid work or forcing them to send their kids to day care because they need the second income. The fact that paying stay-at-home parents ends up reinforcing traditional gender roles sucks, but the alternative is worse.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
I for one support subsidized daycare. Parents can get more face time with their children if we solve the other problems of capitalism (say, the long work hours, not including commute times, the way that it grinds us down such that we do not have time for most things important for us) but I don't think the nuclear family is something that we should be encouraging through policy. I think communal child rearing and more wide frames of reference for what we consider family is incredibly important and the nuclear family is actively deleterious to society in favor of a family unit that is easy to market to and predict and sculpt.
However, I would entertain the utility of perhaps instituting a wholly sexist "pay men to stay at home" system, if only to break down gender norms. Or maybe we should subsidize women for going to work, to make up for the wage gap? Or maybe throwing money at a problem is a very blunt force tool for policy and would be better with a more holistic and nuanced program that would ultimately lead to off-topic subjects for this thread.
The thread topic is openly hostile and isn't really instructive of the topic. It reinforces the gendering of roles in the household. It's hard to move past it because it is so inflammatory.
This is literally the opposite of what I am doing / trying to do. I apologize for being unclear.
We (in Norway) are de facto paying women to stay at home. We should not do that.
The thread title describes the de facto effect of a policy that is de jure paying whichever parent (if any) chooses to be at home with their young children.
You should be doing that. The alternative is either forcing people to do unpaid work or forcing them to send their kids to day care because they need the second income. The fact that paying stay-at-home parents ends up reinforcing traditional gender roles sucks, but the alternative is worse.
The alternative is to find (or in this case at least, discuss and argue about) better policies that actual accomplish the desired goal.
Posts
I think this proposal is salaried, so unfortunately logged hours would only be audited for compliance.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Except it's not just about people wanting to stay at home. Children and parents benefit from parents being able to stay at home (at least to some extent) with their children.
A lot of the issues around parenting are a lack of widespread societal support for parenting as an activity. We basically expect people to just, like, deal with it. Like it's just a thing that happens.
Pregnancy and childbirth are major health events. It makes complete sense that the mother gets more parental leave than the secondary caregiver. The secondary caregiver did not push a baby through its vagina or had its belly cut open to remove one.
Acknowledging that living through pregnancy and childbirth is much more demanding than living next to pregnancy and childbirth is not a norm that needs to be changed, and giving equal parental leave to the secondary caregiver is nonsensical.
That said, I agree that two weeks for the secondary caregiver is very short and should be increased. For that matter, so is two months for the mother.
This thread so far, well...it's not great.
Not unless you also want to get licensed and insured as a daycare provider
probably!
First. Subsidizing women only when they work instead of allowing them to stay home is enforcing a gender role. Just a different one. Allowing women to choose the role they want instead of deciding for them is the road to gender equality. Yes women will be the majority of stay-at-home parents for the twin reasons of being told by society that it is their job, and getting paid less at all other jobs. They way to reduce this is to A. Do what we can to change our assumptions from stay at home MOM to stay at home parent. B. Combat the gender pay gap.
Second. Socialization is important, but you don't have to be in daycare 9-10 hours a day to socialize. I would prefer some sort of middle ground, where the child does a few hours of daycare a day, or a few days a week. One of the ways to help this along would be to remove the stigma and exploitation of part time labor. It doesn't have to be the dichotomy of work 40 hours a week, see your kid 3 waking hours a day Vs. stay at home all the time. Healthcare no longer being tied to exactly and only full time employment will help a bit, but not all the way.
With this in mind my major preference would be to subsidize daycare and stay at home parenting, in a flexible way that not only catches both ends but parents who want something in the middle.
Like this. This post made me actually see red.
I apologize, then. That was of course not my intention.
Would you elaborate on what I said that offended you?
The problem is that paying parents to stay at home just reinforces and furthers the gender pay gap. Both societal expectations and the pre-existing start state mean that the burden of giving up their career for childcare will fall disproportionately on women in a self-reinforcing cycle.
I don't agree with the bolded. As I mentioned, we're raising a 1 year old right now. Maternity leave time is rolled together at my wife's work, but as it happened she worked right up until her delivery date, and took that time after.
That time is intended for the care of the child and bonding, after birth. As my wife related to me - and I well know - that 2 hours of labor ain't shit compared to the unending continued attrition of no sleep and constant vigilance for the next 2 years. And an engaged dad can be there for just as much if that as mom.
You had a caesarean and need to take time off? There'd be nothing stopping you from FMLAing for that directly. That's not what extended parental leave is for, it's for being with your kid, and there's no reason it shouldn't be equitably extended to dads.
Why? No one's explaining how that will happen. Are we assuming it's going to go "okay here's minimum wage ololol" ? Why does it have to be that way? Why is that the assumption?
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Uh, this thing right here? Super sexist. Equal parental leave isn't a measure of the suffering of childbirth, it's a measure of how well a family can support the child after birth.
Teaming up as both parents and using the time in a measured way (having both parents, regardless of gender, being able to take equal time to ensure both their own security with their child as well as the security of retaining both of their jobs... there is a lot here. Not to mention there are plenty of same sex couples, single parents of both genders who don't have a spouse by choice or by death in childbirth, and a million other edge cases that this view is essentially saying aren't worth considering as equal parents.
One of my best friends is the primary caregiver of his child since birth, his wife being a surgeon who took some time immediately after giving birth but went back to work well before he did, and he ended up changing careers to support hers and his child so he could work from home most days. This is far from uncommon in the modern workforce.
Uncommon but becoming increasingly more common and we should be encouraging it.
Because by doing so, we actually are helping women early in their lives make decisions not about "I need a career that'll let me have a family" that they currently do. One of the PAs here at work specifically avoided medical school because she wanted a 9-5 job so she could have a child at some point, and her dad (who was an MD) told her it would be a better decision for her to have time with the kid. Why should she give up on being a doctor? We should be changing the way we give leave for parents, both of them, so they don't have to do that. It's better for the child, better for the parents, and better for the society to not have 50% of them doing half the work they're capable of because "what if".
That's a fun thing to say, but is it mistaking the cart for the horse.
To look at it one way. If you subsidize stay-at-home parenthood then you have effectively made a job that actually pays women and men the same amount. Is it a surprise that women want to work that job over all the other jobs that refuse to pay them what a man would make?
I submit that it is not.
"far from uncommon." I;m saying it is already super common.
We aren't assuming it. This is literally what the OP is talking about. They've implemented these ideas and the results are that the burden falls disproportionately on women. Both because of societal expectations ("mothers are the ones that should look after the children") and economics (women make less, ergo the women giving up her salary and/or career makes the most sense). The results of these kind of policies have been studied a bunch as far as I've read and the results are what we've been discussing.
The way in which this becomes self-reinforcing is that the above then both further cements the expectation that women stay home and, far more critically, strengthens the economic argument since women make less already -? women stay at home to raise the kids -> women make less -> women staying home makes more sense for the family, etc, etc. Childbirth and childcare are a critical parts of the gender pay gap.
Most of my group of friends are academics, medical professionals, small business owners, or defense contractors. Out of everyone in my circle that has kids, only 1 had the mother stay home over the father, 5 have had the father stay home, and the rest are mostly equal time split between both parents who both kept their careers. In the highly educated, specialist fields this has been common since the early 2000s.
When/if Mrs. Enc and I have children, our plan is to take maximum leave for both of us, keep both home for the first two months, and then alternate specific days/weeks moving forward so we can push that 4 months to most of a year's worth of coverage before we have to figure out additional childcare options. This has been the norm for most folks I know, and is part of why having equal leave is so important. This is even more important in the LGBTQ circles as with surrogate pregnancies and other infant adoptions as you need as much time as possible to bond with your child.
Suffice to say, like Ketar, a lot of what I've seen in here is pretty upsettingly regressive views on what this leave is for.
It continues with your belief that of course the mother should get more time off, and that equal time for the father is nonsensical. My wife went back to work within 2-3 weeks of the births of both of our children. She didn't want to - she works in a position where paid parental leave, or even lengthy unpaid leave, simply isn't possible because of the strain it would place on her partners - but physically it was not a problem for her. It was tough mentally and emotionally, but there was no physical reason why she needed extended leave. When our first was born I was in a position with no paternity leave whatsoever. I took a day off for the birth of my child and went right back to work the day after he was born. I worked for about a month after that and ended up quitting to be the primary caregiver for our son. There were a variety of factors involved in the choice to leave my job, but the largest was the lack of leave. If taking leave and returning to work in a few months had been possible, I might have made other plans and arranged other care for him at that time. But there was no leave available because the father is automatically assumed to be the "secondary" caregiver.
Parental leave should be available to both parents. Beyond that, it should be possible for the parent that will be taking on the role of primary caregiver to take the greater length of time (if reasonable lengths of equal time are for some reason not possible), regardless of whether that parent actually birthed the child or not. The belief that of course it should be the mother is just another shitty gender norm that people should be able to move past in this day and age.
No, it's what the actual real-world results of these policies have been. By subsidizing stay-at-home parenting, what ends up happening is that women are the stay-at-home parents. Which is equivalent to women sacrificing long-term earning potential, since childbirth and childcare is a huge part of the gender pay gap. And this just further reinforces the very thing you are trying to fight. In part because the way people end up treating parental leave just further reinforces the arguments that lead to the burden of childcare disproportionately falling on women in the first place.
The basic issue is that these policies, when actually implemented, do not end up having the desired effect on behaviour and in fact, in some ways, reinforce the very behaviour they are trying to fight.
The research does not show a strong benefit for children from stay at home mothers (or fathers). Some shows a benefit for working mothers, some shows a negative but the effect is certainly not large.
https://journalistsresource.org/studies/economics/jobs/working-mother-employment-research/
Its certainly the more traditional route and that's fine. But the delta of even a fairly slanted reading of the research does not really justify a subsidy specifically to encourage the behavior even before you get the reduced labor participation downside.
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Yeah, first of all, a secondary caregiver is not necessarily a father. I deliberately used non-gendered pronouns there for a reason. The secondary caregiver is the parent that did not physically give birth, and their gender and sexual orientation are irrelevant.
Edge cases are real, and are worthy of consideration and solutions. But they are, by definition, edge cases. You do not make general population-affecting policies to deal with edge cases, you make it to deal with the general case, and then write in special-case exceptions to deal with edge cases.
And yes, parental leave is important for both parents to bond with the child and care for them in the critically-important first months of their life. I'm not arguing the opposite. I'm not arguing the secondary caregiver (nor the father specifically) is less important or capable of this. Geez.
But at the same time, reality being, you know, real, it makes perfect sense that the partner that actually physically delivered the baby gets more time, since their after-birth parental bonding time is bundled with after-birth recovery time in a way that it is not for the partner that did not actually physically deliver the baby.
We had a baby last year. I spent every second in the hospital delivery room next to my partner. I held her hand, I helped her breathe, I applied pressure points, I held her up to walk to the pool when she wanted to try lying in water, I comforted her while she got the epidural, I did every fucking thing I could. And I would not, for one fucking second, pretend I went through one-tenth the experience she has when actually pushing this baby out. The idea that she would not deserve extra time off compared to me given the different experiences we lived through because "gender equality" is farcical.
That sucks.
A much better turn would be forcing proper living wages and benefits to go back to where they were, or tax the fuck out of the topmost earners in the country to subsidize the families who need that kind of income and safety net to support a family on the wages of one worker. Or why not both.
And instead of getting stuck in this "your value comes from work" bullshit that leads everyone to think that a career is the one true path to fulfillment, we can start recognizing the value of work in the home, in the community, etc.
This will only get exacerbated as automation guts the next layer of the workforce. We need to start looking beyond all adults needing to be employed in the traditional sense in order to survive as a society, and I think subsidizing families who choose to have one parent stay home is a great start.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
On top of the other outlined ways this thread's subject shoots itself in the foot, even if it *was* based on post-birth physical recovery leading to longer time off for women only, this just ignores that whoops, trans or nonbinary people can birth children too
Isolating benefits to a single concept of gender doesn't work with the modern understanding of it
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Comparing taking care of children to the hobby of gardening is quite the take.
Saying that raising children isn't part of the workforce, or is anything less than a vital role in the workforce, is a total bullshit claim that should be smashed to fuckin bits. It's one of the most vital fuckin roles in the workforce. This whole 'staying home to take care of kids isn't a real part of the workforce' philosophy is why teachers and shit don't get paid well enough. Taking care of children in any capacity is among the most important roles in the workforce. If you don't do it correctly, all of a sudden there's no more workforce.
No matter what kids need to be taken care of, the choice between daycare or staying home to take care of the kids shouldn't be an option only open to the vastly over compensated.
The research shows strong benefits from children spending more time with their parents. This is especially true for fathers who, under traditional roles, tend to spend the least time on childcare for various reasons.
Parental leave is not a measure of suffering, of course the mother suffers more! No one is arguing that. Literally everything in that last paragraph is utterly meaningless to parental leave.
It's not a matter of "who gets more time." It's not an award for suffering. It's not some kind of goddamn prize for childbirth. It's an actual structural need that needs to accommodate the household as a whole for the needs of that household. And while your household might fit stereotypical norms, a hell of a lot of households don't and writing them off as edge cases is 100% sexist and, frankly, highly offending.
Re-policy decisions, this is even more ridiculous. Nearly every state government has (all but 12 in the US), on law, equal leave for both parents as part of state benefits packages for state employees. And it works. The fact the military is regressive is hardly surprising, but don't assume that the norms of the US Navy somehow apply across the rest of the nation.
This is not an edge case.
This is literally the opposite of what I am doing / trying to do. I apologize for being unclear.
We (in Norway) are de facto paying women to stay at home. We should not do that.
The thread title describes the de facto effect of a policy that is de jure paying whichever parent (if any) chooses to be at home with their young children.
Hope that clarifies my intent.
I thought I was being clear, but obviously was not.
I do not endorse paying women to stay at home watching kids. This is not the de jure policy of the Norwegian government, either.
However, the de facto effect of the policy is that parents can, if they want, get money for staying at home with their young kids.
I think this is bad. So do many experts.
You should be doing that. The alternative is either forcing people to do unpaid work or forcing them to send their kids to day care because they need the second income. The fact that paying stay-at-home parents ends up reinforcing traditional gender roles sucks, but the alternative is worse.
However, I would entertain the utility of perhaps instituting a wholly sexist "pay men to stay at home" system, if only to break down gender norms. Or maybe we should subsidize women for going to work, to make up for the wage gap? Or maybe throwing money at a problem is a very blunt force tool for policy and would be better with a more holistic and nuanced program that would ultimately lead to off-topic subjects for this thread.
The alternative is to find (or in this case at least, discuss and argue about) better policies that actual accomplish the desired goal.