There is a fascinating discussion going on at the Chronicle of Higher Ed right now about family leave, gender, and the rights of childless people.
An untenured male professor wants to use FMLA to care for his soon-to-born child. He was essentially told by his chair that this would amount to career suicide, as would not coming in regularly during the summer, even though he is on a 9 month contract.
The comments go on for many pages, but some interesting questions arise:
Is FMLA a "benefit" to parents that is thus unfair to the childless, even though it is government madated and unpaid?
Is it ever okay to bring a child to work? If so, when and how often? Does bringing your child entitle the childless to bring in dogs and talking parrots?
Should the childless ever make any concession of sacrifice whatsoever for the benefit of those with children?
And finally, should fathers be considered parents, as epitomized by this comment:
I don't mean to be snarky--well, OK, maybe a little--but I don't get it. I know I come from blue-collar country folk, and maybe that's the difference, but how the hell is it that my dad never had to take off work when my sister and I were born, way back in the stone ages of 1950 and 1960? And my husband didn't take off work when I had our girls in 1988 and 1991, save the days I actually gave birth. Even when we were discharged from the hospital, we arranged it so he could get us after he got off work. (And no, I didn't have a house full of help--my mom stayed 4 days after the first was born, because I had a C-section, and not at all after the second, who wasn't a section.) And for the record, my dad was extremely close to both of us girls, as is my husband with our daughters, so apparently life went on and both men bonded just fine with their children. Seriously--I'm just asking. I honestly don't get it. Would it have been nice to have the dads around for us? Sure, but it was OK the way things worked out, too.
There is a fascinating discussion going on at the Chronicle of Higher Ed right now about family leave, gender, and the rights of childless people.
You can read the whole thread at here.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Should fathers parent?.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/13206
The FMLA is a government benefit designed for individuals to care for an ill, injured, or dying relative OR a new baby. Thus, it is not discriminatory against the childless because they can still use it to care for an ill parent, spouse, sibling, etc. It's basically a catch-all for anyone who needs an unpaid leave to care for any family member in any medical situation, be it a new baby, an illness, an injury, or anything else.
As far as fathers parenting, I think those of us here are enlightened enough to know that certain individuals are more nurturing and make better parents than certain other individuals, regardless of what gender they were born to or identify with. Gender identity is not the qualifying factor for who should be the primary caregiver, but rather that person's patience, nurturing, and desire to be the primary caregiver should win out. The only reason this is even still a question on anyone's mind is because the patriarchy tells us it should be one way (mothers parent, fathers make money) but we know better.
It is not discriminatory against the childless because they can still use it to care for an ill parent, spouse, sibling, etc
All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. Right?
People who need to use the medical leave to care for their parents and spouses (FMLA doesn't cover siblings, BTW) don't deliberately cause their parents and spouses to become ill. People who use the leave to care for an adopted/foster child do not cause the child to need care; other people do, and someone needs to take care of the child, hence leave (the alternative is taxpayer money going to group homes that cost hundreds of dollars a day). That's the crucial difference here.
People with biological children are the only ones who deliberately cause the situation which creates a burden on the employer, and then are able to claim full benefits. It's like if you could intentionally injure yourself at a workplace, everyone knew you did it on purpose, and you still got to collect full workers' comp which would be equal to that of someone who was injured through no fault of their own.
There is no justification required to reproduce. People can reproduce for no other reason than to have an animatronic doll that looks like them, or because they think it'll get them brownie points with their imaginary friend in the sky, or because they love hanging out at fertility clinics. And as far as society's concerned, these reasons are just awwright. Reproduce and take leave to your heart's content. Now, if instead of making new people (who didn't and couldn't consent to be brought into existence, BTW) a person wants to volunteer to take care of existing unrelated people at a hospice (or even their own sister or brother, for that matter) and comes to their employer asking for a 12-week leave, they are going to get laughed out of the building. But it's not discrimination. Not at all.
I myself don't ever plan on reproducing. But critiquing other people's reproductive decisions like that is not only unfair, but unproductive, especially when you imply that parents purposefully make their children ill (I don't think that's what you meant to say-- you meant that parents make their children-- but that's how it came out). And when you refer to having children as a 'situation.' Not cool.
But the fact that the FMLA and other similar legislation privileges people who reproduce simply reflects the state's interest in the reproduction of the population. In most legislation of this sort (including legislation on public education and even Roe v Wade) the interest of the state is explicitly claimed. And in a democracy, the interest of the state is considered to be the interest of the people.
So childless people themselves may object, but that's the official reasoning behind it, and that's the attitude you would have to change in order to change this kind of legislation. Of course it reflects Victorian ideals about reproducing the workforce and current values about reproducing the consumer base. I object more to the fact that it all boils down to capitalist values than that it privileges people with kids.
I totally agree with you on the capitalist angle; I was just responding to the idea that the law is not discriminatory against people who don't have kids. I think all forms of discrimination/oppression are intertwined, and women have historically been treated as means of production themselves. I'm really not nearly as bothered by parental privileges as the fact that people are being bred as means to an end, both by the state or by biological parents.
I totally agree with you on the capitalist angle; I was just responding to the idea that the law is not discriminatory against people who don't have kids. I think all forms of discrimination/oppression are intertwined, and women have historically been treated as means of production themselves. I'm really not nearly as bothered by parental privileges as the fact that people are being bred as means to an end, both by the state or by biological parents.
FMLA also privileges people who can afford to take an unpaid leave!
Think about it - if you're a bank vice president, who makes $ 250,000 a year, married to an accountant who makes $ 100,000, you have something called "savings" - a cushion of money that would make it possible for one of the partners to take a few months off from work unpaid without serious economic consequences.
Now, imagine if you're a bank receptionist, who makes $ 25,000 a year, married to a messenger who makes $ 10,000.
For that couple, even a DAY off from work unpaid is an economic disaster! If one of the partners takes a lengthy unpaid leave from work, it's a catastrophe - bills go unpaid, rent doesn't get covered, there is an eviction notice and the couple is homeless.
So, FMLA only has meaning for those who are prosperous enough to have a whole pile of unspent money in their savings accounts.
For people who live from check to check, there might as well not be an FMLA.
not all pregnancies were on purpose. perhaps we should determine who decided to get pregnant on purpose before granting them FMLA?
one could argue that an ill person got ill on purpose, depending on the facts. a failed attempt at suicide or engaging in reckless behavior.
the fact is for a variety of situations the government has made it easier for employees to work n whatever situations are in their lives and return to work productive. everyone has access to these rights
I don't think this example is really representative as much of father parenthood as it is the nature of academia. In pre-tenure appointment at many institutions, taking leave -is- career suicide, regardless of gender. You simply can't meet the bar that these institutions set for tenure if you take time off.
The expectation is above-average pedagogy, 4+ articles in leading journals per year, in addition to being able to play nice with fellow faculty and not rock the boat. It's very akin to institutional 'hazing' a'la apprenticeships and medical residencies.
The consequences of losing a tenure bid are considerable. First, you lose your job. Second, it becomes a permanent stain on your record. As interconnected as academia is, networking is crucial, and any failed tenure bids circulate at the speed of light. It's close to a blacklisting from any major schools, and usually forces the individual to 'step down' a grade of institution to find another job.
In addition to losing your job and having your chances of finding another one in academe greatly hindered, your colleagues in the field you work in then proceed to treat you like you carry plague, which impacts your ability to publish, which affects... you see where this leads. Losing a tenure bid starts a cyclical pattern of career destruction that usually ends up with the individual either leaving academia or teaching at an institution that's not reflective of their actual capacity.
I'm not defending the system by any stretch; I'm just saying that in this instance, the person telling him that it was career suicide was simply giving him the advice he or she thought best, given the nature of academia.
-Sutro
This is very, very true and I wish I could press "liked" about ten thousand times. I don't know nearly as much about these issues because I'm still in grad school, but I know enough a few years ago I figured out "okay, I want to do the full-academic-career with tenure and all thing. I will have to get used to the idea that this will almost certainly mean I won't be able to have kids, because both is not an option."
And then they wonder why there are so few women in higher academia.
Maybe that's the INTENT.
As I'm sure you know better than I do, academia is a very sexist place - I'm sure smart people like them know how to discriminate without appearing to discriminate, and a good way to discriminate against women without appearing to be discriminatory is to make it constructively impossible for women academics of child bearing age to take maternity leave.
Sutro's commentary on academia is only too true. I too am still a grad student, in a physical science, where it's more imperative for professors to physically be on campus and in the lab, and I've already decided NOT to go into academia because I want children. I know some academics who waited until making tenure to have their only child, but I don't want to be trying to have my first child at 35-40. If it were feasible to both have children and an academic career I'd probably do both, I like both teaching and research, but as it is either a person's (male or female) career or children are going to suffer for it.
It's a shame people feel like that.. I'm currently working for a college and 4 of our 5 department heads are women. Two have kids. Everyone bent over backwards when they were pregnant and went on leave. No one complained and all of us pitched in to make sure neither of them did anything that could hurt the baby (like heavy lifting)
But then, people around here (the south) feel that it's a woman's first and most important duty to have children. The two childless women get funny looks and comments for their choices...I would be stranger for them to NOT support the pregant woman.
I wonder what people would say if a GUY asked for leave to take care of the child. Hmmm...
The expectations placed on pre-tenure academics still reflect a time when the traditional family structure was more accepted and prevalent.
However, while taking leave may be considered career suicide, I do think academia also can afford men and women unique opportunities to spend time with their children. As an academic (before and after getting tenure), my dad spent a fair amount of time with my brother and me when we were children. I attribute this to his ability to work from home and be free from the traditional 9-5 work schedule, which, from what I've observed, is characteristic of (non-administrative) academic professions.
I wish it were like this everywhere: my university is absolutely supportive of faculty members taking parental leave, and my department chair, who is an amazing, awesome feminist, would *never* suggest that it would negatively impact one's career. I know this isn't true everywhere, but we're not the only place--I know professors, both mothers and fathers, at other universities who have taken leave, and gotten tenure. I'm not sure how they manage to raise their children and write their books, but they do. I'm in the humanities, which I know is different (it's common for women in my discipline to have children, and increasingly common for junior professors to go ahead and start having children before tenure). But I wanted to say this because I think we can sometimes set graduate students up to expect universities to treat them badly, which makes it hard to know when a department is a bad department and when it's just that the profession is screwed up. For all my usual cynicism, I'm pretty shocked that a department at an R1 school would be like this. This has not been my experience, or the experience of the people with whom I went to graduate school.
Even us childless folk who would never dream of having children have to make concessions to the people who do, because children represent the future of the species. Without them, uh, any progress we are making now would be pointless from a strictly rational perspective (philosophy can stay in philosophy class).
That said, children should not be in the workspace. They are very distracting. I'm not sure they deserve being equated to dogs and talking birds, but I can imagine they'll turn a department unproductive in no time flat for one reason or another.
One of the issues that is not addressed enough is what men do when they are given the opportunity to take a leave-of-absence for their kids' sake. Many times they do not leave because, exactly as described here, it's "career suicide." When women do it the same thing occurs, and since women are more likely to be taking months/years off for the sake of children they don't get to rise as far professionally. There's a country somewhere that has mandatory paid leave for both parents (I can't remember/don't have time to Google atm) which seems the best policy with regards to equality for salary jobs. Unfortunately commission jobs do not fare very well in any case, especially if the family needs the extra commission dollars (and not just an average or baseline income from paid leave) to survive.
As far as fathers parenting...um, yes? Only lazy jackasses like me shouldn't be parents, and I'm a woman. But I'll temper this with a note that in my family my mother works 80 zillion hours a week, and my dad did most of the childcare and day trips. So what's normal for most folks was not normal to me, and I have always expected the woman to be the worker.
"Childless Rights" advocates are sometimes the same people telling breastfeeding women to cover up their boobs in public (or not to come out in public with a baby who is still being breastfed). This is because they place their own right to not feel squeamish over the rights of mothers, which obviously is about as fair as a bar sign telling gays to go away so the straight folks don't have to see them holding hands.
One last thing: as a childless academic I direct your attention to the soon-to-be-father's description of the hostile parties: largely married men with children post-tenure, and childless, possibly unmarried women. Women with children are exceptionally rare in the sciences where I work. When you are working your way up the ladder, children should be the last thing on your mind. This doesn't seem to be quite as true for the liberal arts sector.
(Actually Sutro explains this better in the comment above mine. Oh well. End anecdote.)
Philosophy, being about life and all, probably shouldn't stay in the classroom.
I don't even know where to start with this.
First of all, 'Childless Rights' people are far from being the main or even only group of people who don't want to see breastfeeding mothers exposing breasts in public places. It is also disingenuous to suggest that people who oppose public nudity also oppose breastfeeding in public since the two do not go hand in hand as a given. Many, many mothers who have successfully breastfed their children in public places take issue with the minority of breastfeeding mothers who feel it is necessary to sit somewhere in public completely or partially topless daring someone to say something about it just so they can get all righteous about their choice to do what is best for their child, societal norms be damned. Most breastfeeding mothers I know (and in my 30’s I know plenty) feed their children anywhere they need to and they do it without most anyone else even realizing what they are doing. Most feed their kids and don’t need to make some kind of statement by exposing themselves needlessly just to make a point about how they aren’t going to let anyone tell them what to do. Many older women also disagree with the tactics of the few militants who seem to think you can’t feed your kid without showing the world your full set. It is not a childed vs. childless issue by a long shot.
You said: “Only lazy jackasses like me shouldn't be parents, and I'm a woman.” I’m pretty sure there is some hyperbole in there somewhere but in case there isn’t, I think there are many valid reasons for not wanting to parent besides being lazy or a jackass. Maybe it just doesn’t look like something that is at all interesting to everyone? Maybe there are just other things that some people would rather do? Not everyone enjoys children or all the activities that come along with having them. I work 3 jobs by choice and love them all and I’m doing as much good in the world as I can while I’m here for the people (and yes, animals) that are here with me. Honestly, I could not care less what becomes of the world when I’m gone. I’ll leave that up to the next inhabitants to decide what kind of world they want to create for themselves. I’m not responsible for making sure that everyone else makes good choices for themselves and it’s beyond my control anyway.
As far as fathers go, they are as important as mothers and it’s up to each couple to decide for themselves how they want to construct their family. I don’t have a responsibility to make sure I work harder so that they have it easier and they need to be prepared to attend to the responsibilities and sacrifices that come with the choices they made. No, I’m not going to willingly do without so they can have more but I do not take issue with them doing what they need to do to turn out responsible members of society. Because really, contributing to the population is nowhere near the same thing as contributing to society and it takes a while to figure out which one a kid turns out to be.
"Many, many mothers who have successfully breastfed their children in public places take issue with the minority of breastfeeding mothers who feel it is necessary to sit somewhere in public completely or partially topless..." (etc)
No one, male or female, childed or childless, should be trying to shame mothers into hiding every time Junior wants a drink. It's not a "well it's okay as long as I don't have to see anything" deal, and it doesn't matter if you're another mom who "takes issue." It's her baby and she's not hurting you (not referring to you as in you personally) by doing it. Not everyone in the world is going to do things in the prim way you want them to, so you'll just need to look somewhere else, and possibly ask yourself why it bothers you so much.
Also, I did not suggest "Childless Rights" advocates were the main group that work against public breastfeeding. I said SOMETIMES the two coexist. This is my experience.
You are right that "lazy jackass" was not intended to be taken literally (though I can be both lazy and a jackass). I have a multitude of reasons why I do not want children, but better to express solidarity with those that do work hard to raise their families than to spend an essay on my own childless meanderings.
You'd think people who comment here wouldn't use scare quotes, but oh well. And philosophy should stay in philosophy class why? Because you arbitrarily decided that your perspective is the rational one?
Why would progress be pointless? Are you saying that if humanity were to lose its reproductive capacities, we shouldn't bother trying to make life better for the people who are alive today? Bringing new people who didn't ask to be born into an imperfect world and then using them as a rationale to make it better (even though they wouldn't have cared had they not been born) doesn't exactly strike me as a rational route. If you don't think you deserve progress within your own lifetime, you don't have to make it happen.
My partner often complains about the fact that dads are second-class parents. He thinks it's unfair that, although many men feel just as deeply invested in their children as mothers do, men are routinely expected to leave all the work and decisions regarding the children to their mothers. Of course, this does privilege men in the workplace (it's a major factor in the tenure gap, for instance), but in other ways it privileges women, who get to have a closer relationship with their kids. He also gets kind of pissy when people refer to him as "babysitting" the kids when I'm not home and rave over how well he cares for the kids.
I respect how he feels. I also cringe whenever I hear anyone, even a mom, refer to the father of a child as 'babysitting' as though it is a novelty act or some huge favor for a man to be parenting his own child. You babysit other peoples' kids, not your own. It is also patronizing for someone to act like a man is some kind of genetic freak because he is actually good at taking care of his kids and disrespectful to mothers to act like a man deserves the Nobel Prize for knowing how to change a diaper or for doing any of the countless other things that are just taken for granted when women do it.
Crumpet - you more or less hit the nail on the head. "You babysit other peoples' kids, not your own." - when someone refers to the father of a child babysitting the child it is because they implicitly assume the kid is not his, the kid is the mother's (and the mother's alone).
It is not really the same as overpraising fathers for not being terrible parents. (It may not be unconnected, though)
I completely agree with you. and i love that more and more fathers are standing up for their right to be involved in their children's lives without being considered an "exception".
I am bothered by all the privileges conferred on people who reproduce, but one thing I find annoying is when people say they are not willing to provide financial support to other people's children. The octomom incident brought out a lot of comments like that. Why should the children suffer just because their parents can't afford to take proper care of them? I don't think I have a right to deny a child health care or education, or a healthy breast milk diet at convenient times, for that matter. But the main problem is that it is assumed that there is such a thing as an inherent moral right to reproduce, when in fact there is not. All the privileges biological parents get stem from that perceived right.
If the focus shifted to children's rights instead of adult parents vs. non-parents or breeders vs. child-free, I believe we'd be having a whole different discussion here. But as long as children continue to be seen as property, it's not likely to happen.
People absolutely have a moral right to reproduce. It's a scary, scary place when you start limiting that right.
I do agree, though, that the way children are treated-- as property-- is vile. If a kid runs away from home, the police have an obligation to return him/her... unless there's evidence of abuse, which I can safely say (as a once-abused child) is incredibly hard to provide. Combine that with infringement on children's basic rights (such as government-imposed curfews) and kids really ARE the equivalent to property.
People absolutely have a moral right to reproduce. It's a scary, scary place when you start limiting that right.
I've heard that one a lot, but you are really not giving any justification. People have a history of being scared of ideas that suggest they have no right to exploit others. For example, there was a point in time (and in some places it's the present) when people found the idea that a man doesn't have the right to rape his wife scary.
Speaking of which, there was a pretty interesting thread on Feministing a while ago about a comatose woman who was raped by her husband. The cops videotaped it and tried to charge him, but the court ruled that the police had violated the law, and basically said that since she had no ability to consent or make her opinion known one way or the other, it was all fair game. Most commenters (rightfully, IMO) were disgusted and called bullshit. For all we know, if she were ever to wake up, she might not mind it at all and maybe even be happy that he did it, and I don't think it's a stretch to assume that most people in this situation wouldn't really mind, especially if the coma was unexpected and they had been getting along well. But it doesn't change the fact that her consent was not obtained, and the fact that it was in no way possible to obtain consent from her doesn't change the fact that he had no right to use her as a masturbation aide. Now explain to me how imposing a life on a person who is unable to consent to it is any different. It's way beyond the right to control your own body. I don't have the right to control my body in a way that allows me to exploit another human being (and I think we can agree that children are separate human beings as soon as they are born, so we can retroactively say that their conception and birth occurred without their consent, they did not consent to be raised by these particular people, etc, even though all of it had a huge impact on their life). I can't control my body to make it do something to another person that they have not consented to, unless I'm trying to prevent their being harmed (by doing CPR, for instance). It is simply impossible to reproduce in the interest of your child since they didn't exist when the decision to reproduce was made (if it was made at all).
And in a way it is like inflicting a disability on your relative, come to think of it. Children go through a period of time when their judgment is not enough to protect their best interests, and so adults have to significantly limit their freedom for their own protection (which, of course, usually turns into violating their basic rights, like you mentioned). Children, of course, find it distressing regardless of parental motivations (which are based on anything but the child's interests half the time). Yes, most of them will live long enough to eventually be permitted by society to make a few decisions for themselves, but it doesn't change the fact that they didn't have any say in being brought into existence or the way they were treated as children. So reproducing is like giving your relative a temporary intellectual disability that lasts for years just so you can satisfy your (or someone else's) desire to guard and protect someone who is genetically similar to you. Doesn't really seem ethically justified in any way.
I'm not sure how reproducing freely is exploiting others. I'm even less sure how the idea of it is tantamount to the idea that raping a comatose woman is okay. Are you seriously suggesting that being 'forcibly born' is equally as traumatizing as being raped? Besides being ridiculously offensive for just that reason, your logic is baffling: how would life even exist in your model of the universe? Do you realize how laughably absurd this is?
Getting back to reality: we've seen what happens when limits are put on reproduction. You have white people forcibly sterilizing black women because they aren't 'responsible' or 'desirable' enough to reproduce. You have Chinese and Indian women selectively aborting girls or abandoning female infants because they aren't allowed to decide how many children they want to have. What I'm arguing for is that we do NOT exploit others by interfering with their reproduction. If you want to stop existing because you feel your rights were violated by being born (even though you admit you didn't exist to HAVE rights), then that's your business. Don't impose it on other people.
In the United States at least, people have a constitutional right to reproduce. I'm pretty sure Canada's highest court has also held that people have a fundamental right to reproduce.
And I definitely agree that the focus should shift to children's rights.
As far as childrens’ rights go in regards to being the main focus, how long do you think it will take for some self-centered parents to begin demanding things/privileges that they want, all because “my child has a right to have me home with them until they start school, so the government should pay me a salary to be home with them” or “my child has a right to take as many soccer/ballet/violin classes as the other kids in her school, and if I can’t afford it the government should help me pay”?
As far as financially supporting Octomom goes, I’d say if she deliberately has children that she knows she cannot even begin to provide for, that is the basis for a charge of neglect. If she can’t take care of them, maybe her kids should be adopted out to responsible people who can instead of expecting the tax payers to enable and fund her self-indulgent Angelina wannabe fantasies.
But the argument that a few people will try to exploit it doesn't make the policy in itself a bad policy, especially if the reasoning that supports it is sound. People abuse unemployment benefits too, but the economic stability that the unemployment system provides still outweighs the potential for abuse.
And I feel pretty wary about any suggestion in favor of increasing government intervention in the lives of families. If your concern about children's rights is that some people will abuse the system, then this kind of policy regarding who's allowed to raise their own children should make you react in a very cautious manner. This system is designed for abuse. Once you institutionalize mandated adoption placements for those who are classified as unfit parents due to economic concerns, you unleash a shitstorm of broken families, displaced kids, and disenfranchised parents. We tried this with Native Americans, Aboriginal children, etc. and it never ever led to positive results. This is why they're now referred to as the lost generation. So increasing this kind of policy to include the economically underprivileged as well as the racially unfit parents would revive an old problematic policy that had fortunately been discontinued (in theory, if not in practice).
My philosophy is that if you want people to stay out of your business, mind your business yourself. It's silly to stand there with your hand out and expect people to give you money and then tell them it's none of their business what you do with it.
As if any of us don't benefit from the safety net and the infrastructure in place that was built by all of us. Increasing government intervention in the lives of families is a slippery slope that I prefer to avoid, but acting as if only those poor icky brown people over there receive government help is a sign of privilege and denial.
Spoken like a true elitist!
Maybe one day, when you're older, and perhaps disabled, and YOU need government aid, you'll feel a little different about that!
I sure as hell hope so - because you have a very ugly and anti-poor...and - let's say it - racist attitude, (since the whole welfare question in this country is so racialized and Nadya Suleman is in fact a person of color) about people less fortunate than yourself.
As for me, I'm mad that Wall Street parasites are getting $ 1 million dollar bonuses from my tax dollars!
But poor moms getting a few bucks for groceries and rent?
It's just fine with me!
Crumpet - so you're in favor of restricting the reproductive rights of low income people.
That's what you're whole argument boils down to - if you don't make enough money to support your kids, you're kids should be taken away by the government and funneled into the hell on earth known as the foster care system.
Eugenics much?
Beyond that, why shouldn't the government pay for "soccer/ballet/violin classes"?
So, you believe that only rich people deserve to be able to provide cultural enrichment for their children?
That's a truly horrible position to take!
I really don't have a problem with providing the means of sustenance for Nadya Suleman's kids - hey, she's a disabled worker (a former psychiatric nurse injured in a mental hospital riot) who paid her taxes when she had a job, why shouldn't she be able to get benefits now?
Hell, even if Suleman had never worked a day, I'd still support her getting public aid!
I don't know about you, but I'd rather have my tax dollars paying for similac and diapers than Predator drones or Tomahawk missiles!
The phrase "inherent moral right" is confusing in this context. All rights are conferred by a government or some sort of social construct, so it's odd to refer to any rights as "inherent," no matter how fervently you support them.
I thought family leave was supposed to benefit the children. If it ends up benefiting parents more than childfree people, as a side effect, do we have a workable alternative?
I look at it like this.
This is not about the parent's rights. At all. In any way.
This is about the BABY'S rights. The baby has a right to have their parents home (provided the parents want to, obviously. The baby's right's don't fully trump the parent's, naturally, but they 100% trump the employer's). They have a right to not be forced into childcare until at LEAST 5 months-- it's not safe before then, really. I worked in childcare and we had a 5 month cutoff for a reason, and longer if the baby was premature or sickly. A childcare center is simply not equipped to deal with very small infants. They are, however, perfectly capable of caring for older infants and children.
What's more, if the mother is alone for 5 months she will never have a break. Parenting CANNOT be done alone and ESPECIALLY not with newborns. That's why community, family and mom's groups are so important for single parents-- because a mother who has not slept in three weeks and spends 24/7 with a newborn when she should be recovering from the delivery is never as safe or as good as the same mother who has her significant other, or at least her mother/sister/friends, taking about 50% of the work.
What's more, a parent of a newborn is USELESS even if they aren't primary caregiver. I don't want the guy running the nuclear plant up the street to have been up all night with a newborn. I don't want my doctor to have a baby requiring constant attention back home. I want my police officers, lawyers, clinicians, etc to have children who are sleeping through the night-- something which only regularly happens MUCH later than most Americans have to go back to work. As a consumer, I want to be protected from new parents.
Ultimately, giving them parental leave should not be about childless vs. parent, or about parent's rights at all. I want children to have the safest possible upbringing, not in a daycare, with as many parents as they can have caring for them. I want parents to be at HOME, taking care of their children, instead of staying up all night with a colicky baby then coming in and operating on me. And even in academia, I'd rather the people using the very very expensive equipment I helped pay for, or the explosive chemicals that cause the campus to evacuate, were not the parents of newborns. If they like it, great! Everyone wins. If they don't, well, they can make arrangements for their kids, and that's their problem to deal with, and I reserve the right to sue them if they put my liver in backwards.
Paid parental leave for 6 months for both parents should be a bare minimum. And if you think that's unfair, you're probably one of those people who sees no problem with your doctor being required to work 100 hours a week. Think about what you really are asking for.
why is this even being discussed as a childless/employer issue? and why is the whole "career suicide" thing-which is generally true, being used as a problem here, and a reason a father shouldn't take time off, but not a mother? Is this the best a feminist site can do? to imply that career suicide is okay for mothers but not fathers? I'm stunned. The simple answer is yes, whichever parent wants to be with the child at first should be able to.
I think the simple answer is not "whichever" but to have BOTH be there.
Thank you :p
Personally, I love kids but I simply could NOT spend months of my life home alone with them. You'd be seeing me on the news, running up and down the streets shrieking. I'm just not stay at home mom material. Not even as a short term thing.
If I ever did get up the guts to reproduce (as of right now it kinda grosses me out... the whole giving birth part.. :p ) I would want (and for the sake of mental health probably NEED) a partner who would at least be at home with me for that first few months. I've never understood why dad's aren't given that time off but I'm "supposed to" take it. What if he's the one with the parenting inclination?
You'd think it would be a no brainer for society..... I hate that people assume that only women can care for a newborn.