FMLA: Once again America is rather behind the times

[snake]

snake, I'm not saying anything about whether or not the report is wrong. It's not something you can assign a value to, like wrong or right. What I am saying is that maternity leave is not the only factor in making the decision to breastfeed or have a c-section, and I feel like the report was trying to say that it was.

Fair enough but I do disagree. I think that report was merely stating that having the option of maternity leave would cut down on the number of C-sections performed and allow more women to breast feed, which would be a good thing.

[denstorebog]

In which case, they should not be having children, because perhaps you are not aware of this, but children cost money to raise.

Also, should they not *eat* since that costs money too? Where do you draw the distinction between on one side, what they ought to have support for since that's a necessity - and on the other side what can be considered an unnecessary luxury reserved for the middle-to-upper class people, and for the rest, well, maybe next life if your roll of the dice comes up right?

Defining some things as charity because it provides necessities like clothes and food, but excluding government funded support for having children of your own because it's not strictly necessary for your survival - it sounds like what someone else called class darwinism or something like it. Sure, we can draw a line at government funded plasma TVs, but having a child?

I could respect this viewpoint more if it went hand in hand with a general dislike for people having children across the board and across the class divide because of overpopulation and the like, but I don't know if you're into that thing.

[Guest Raidne]

I want the freedom to give my money to whom I want. I want the freedom to provide for the people I want to provide for. If my neighbor needs assistance from me to take care of her child in a time of need, I will provide it. The fundamental difference is that I don't want the government to tell me I have to do this, and take my money. I've said this before, and I'll reiterate it. I want the choice to do what I want with the money I earn. Hoard it or spend it, whatever, but it's not the government's place to tell me what I should do with it. However, if I am taxed more than I am currently, I may not have the funds to give to the poor, or help needy mothers, or dying neighbors. This is the kind of society I am interested in - a humane one, one with a face. I am not interested in having society run through government.

Well, here's the thing - that's not cost-sharing. Since you seem to be against cost-sharing, you must be against insurance? I can see how a person might say that you can freely choose to get insurance - and participate in cost-sharing - or not, but in truth, you can't. Everybody needs insurance.

But why? Why pay for rental insurance or car insurance? Can't you just make sure you have enough savings to cover it? Or is it that you believe in cost-sharing after all, and just have a little cognitive dissonance about government-sponsored cost-sharing?

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

But why? Why pay for rental insurance or car insurance? Can't you just make sure you have enough savings to cover it? Or is it that you believe in cost-sharing after all, and just have a little cognitive dissonance about government-sponsored cost-sharing?

How disingenuous. You know perfectly well the difference between cost sharing you choose out of options (or don't) and cost sharing you are forced to use under penalty of law. Gimme a break.

[brook]

Sure, we can draw a line at government funded plasma TVs, but having a child?

I could not help but laugh at this. Here in Australia the government pays a $5000 'baby bonus' per child born which is widely known as the 'Plasma Screen TV Bonus' ;-)

[denstorebog]

I could not help but laugh at this. Here in Australia the government pays a $5000 'baby bonus' per child born which is widely known as the 'Plasma Screen TV Bonus' ;-)

Well, we all know that's a required part of sensible child rearing..

[Angalin]

Some women have multiples, and a C-section is necessary.

Not necessarily. Depends on position and urgency.

Again, whether or not you have maternity leave does not preclude you from breastfeeding. Women breastfeed their children exclusively and can still work thanks to breast pumps.

This sounds fine, until you find yourself pumping eight times a day to keep the milk supply going.

Then babies get the health benefits from breastmilk even when mom isn't there, though preferably mom will be there. As for C-sections, every time I say I want a natural birth with no drugs to a woman, she gasps in horror. I don't know why there is such a culture of fear around giving birth. Yes, it hurts. No, it's not scary. No, maternity leave is not going to impact my birth plan.

You may find that your baby pays no attention to the birth plan whatsoever. I'm just saying. ;)

Fair enough but I do disagree. I think that report was merely stating that having the option of maternity leave would cut down on the number of C-sections performed and allow more women to breast feed, which would be a good thing.

One reason for scheduling C-sections is for the mother's convenience, so she knows exactly when to book off. Another is for the doctor's convenience. Non-emergency C-sections are not necessarily best for the baby.

[Guest thebadlady]

Breastfeeding can be a huge issue with going back to work. For instance, my son wasn't able to latch on and I got all depressed that I was a bad mom because he didn't have titmilk. My daughter refused a bottle straightout and even had a fit if she saw another kid with a bottle. I couldn't go back to work until she slept 7 hours (then I worked at night and didn't sleep for 3 years, another story). At least I never had to pump.

[Guest Raidne]

How disingenuous. You know perfectly well the difference between cost sharing you choose out of options (or don't) and cost sharing you are forced to use under penalty of law. Gimme a break.

Clearly I do, or I wouldn't have mentioned it in my post. Give me a break.

And, in my old state of Michigan, you can choose to have health insurance, I suppose, but if you get run over by a driver and suffer injuries that are not seriously disabling or disfiguring, i.e. you don't lose a limb, you can't sue the driver in tort, or their insurance company. You are obligated to have your own insurance, or cover the cost out of your own pocket. So while the law might not mandate insurance coverage, laws are certainly written around the presupposition that people have it in the way that they might as well. Insurance is not as divorced from the law as you are pretending.

And I would have thought that you knew that already.

[Minaku]

I believe in all states it is illegal to drive without auto insurance. At any rate, I am not against cost sharing, but there is a breaking point. We are already heavily in debt in the US. The stimulus package is going to be taken out of our taxes and our childrens' taxes. And politicians are continuing to suggest large scale social programs. Who is going to pay for that? I am, and you are, and every other tax-paying citizen in this country. When does it stop? What is so wrong about reviewing the social programs we have now to see whether or not they are fulfilling their mission and whether or not they could be performed more efficiently? Take the money that's being wasted now, use that for something else.

But of course that won't happen, this is the US we're talking about, all politicians know how to do is tell us we need x and y, and then raise taxes to pay for it.

When is enough enough? My breaking point for cost sharing is a lot lower than the majority of people in this thread. I don't mind paying taxes for certain services, like infrastructure maintenance, policing, having an army, helping the poor. But they add up. I already pay 7% more taxes than people who are not self-employed, and it does not matter what income bracket I am in. In 2007 I qualified for the absolute lowest possible tax bracket, which is supposed to be taxed 10%. I was taxed 17% because of my employment status. Sorry guys, when I am already shouldering more than others making the same as I, it becomes that much harder to get me to part with my money.

In conclusion, I don't mind cost sharing. It's when the government hits me up for more money than I am willing to give that I get very upset, especially since as one of the people the government is supposed to help, I'm not getting any.

People keep thinking that I am some selfish, callous bitch who refuses to help mothers and fathers bond with their babies. That's not true. You all speak in absolutes when I have continually stated that I would support a national paid parental leave if only we could fund it. The bottom line is that I do not want every single mother and father to come to me for help out of the already meager money I earn. Nor do I want to place that undue burden upon other people.

[Lord O' Bones]

We are required to have relatively inexpensive liability insurance to drive. Not collision/theft etc.

[Swordfish]

Also, should they not *eat* since that costs money too? Where do you draw the distinction between on one side, what they ought to have support for since that's a necessity - and on the other side what can be considered an unnecessary luxury reserved for the middle-to-upper class people, and for the rest, well, maybe next life if your roll of the dice comes up right?

No idea what you are even arguing here. The point remains that people with zero room in their budgets cannot afford to have children. Do you disagree with that?

Defining some things as charity because it provides necessities like clothes and food, but excluding government funded support for having children of your own because it's not strictly necessary for your survival - it sounds like what someone else called class darwinism or something like it.

It may sound like social darwinism to you. it sounds like common sense to me.

It isn't even really class dependent. You don't have to be poor to have zero room in your budget for a child.

Sure, we can draw a line at government funded plasma TVs, but having a child?

I don't think the government should be funding procreation. Do you?

I could respect this viewpoint more if it went hand in hand with a general dislike for people having children across the board and across the class divide because of overpopulation and the like, but I don't know if you're into that thing.

I'm generally neutral on it, but I don't see what difference it makes.

[Mathis]

Yes. And, as Raidne ignored, above, you can "opt out" of car insurance legally by not driving a car. Lots of people take the bus, train, cab, bike to work, or pay their friends/co-workers gas money.

You keep saying things like this, as though people are completely in control of their circumstances. They are not. Opting out of car insurance or always having a reserve of 8 months savings aren't realistic for many people.

And its not because they are lazy, or reckless or whatever, its because shit happens.

[litechick]

If you had the option available not to, why would you choose that life? If you had the ability to aid someone else so they didn't have to live like that, why would you brush them off?

Bill I would answer your question but it confuses me. I was trying to describe the comfort I find in knowing that many people past and present have it much worse than me and for every one who has things worse but perseveres and finds a way, it encourages me to know that there is a solution to my problems and I can come through whatever difficulties I face.

I know so many people who have had one chance after another to improve their lot in life and inexplicably fail to do so that I take a dim view of the idea that with one more social program, one more means of assistance, all their troubles will go away.

I'm not against maternity/paternity leave but I think it should be a tool companies use to attract and retain good employees. I don't think the government should have anything to do with it.

[Galactus]

Galactacus - well, since they did it for me, I have the obligation to do the same for my child. Not just "to the best of my ability", not just "as much as I can". I have the obligation to pay for college and whatever graduate program he chooses, end of story.

ETA - I don't know why you seem to imply that I should be ashamed because I don't have a compellingly difficult background. I am very grateful for the education that I obtained from my parents' dime, and just because they had to make different sacrifices (never going out to eat, vacation = a week at a rental cabin at the lake, the house was an older house that they renovated rather than buying a new, very expensive house, no boat/jetski, etc) didn't mean that they didn't make sacrifices. There were other doctors asking my dad how he did it, sending four kids to college; and they were the ones with two mortgages, a lake house, a boat, all the techno-toys, wife going shopping in Chicago. They didn't quite get that there were choices involved. And that's the reason a lot of middle-class families "have to" borrow for college - because they have all the consumer crap piled high, and they don't have any capacity left to fund an education.

Because, to be blunt, your entire story is predicated on being middle-class in the first place. It's really noticeable and really, really jarring. I mean, I'm middle-class, my mom's an elementary school teacher and dad works at the local paper plant, I've gone to university... But it's as if you don't even realize that not everyone is as lucky as we are. And that's frightening.

Yes, people should not have children they cannot support, obviously, but if that happens, and if the mother chooses to keep the child, it is our duty to support it. Not for the sake of the mother really, but for the sake of the child. Because children don't choose their parents. (It would be very interesting if they did)

We are given so much by our fellow man, not just real support like healthcare and so on, but love from our families and courtesy from strangers and all these little things that make up society. I think we have a duty to pay that back somehow, we should help others and expect others to help us, because I think that's a plain better way to love than to live in a cold, heartless world of looking after only your own.

And the thing is, by acting that way, we created expectations that the world works a certain way: In a sense society is a story (how postmodern...) and how that story plays out depends on how we tell it, if people are given things, not because they are "deserving" (to be honest, this constant attempt to find the "deserving" poor that you can help is sickening and arrogant and reminds me of 19th century paternalism in all it's wrongness, help the poor, the clean ones who know how to take their caps off properly at least...) but because that is what we expect that people should do, people will also come to consider it natural. If people are given they will feel inclined to return the favour, in what ways they can, and if they can't fully return it? Well, then they can't. And that's too bad, but nothing to get outraged over. It's not a matter of payments and lists "If you claim X benefit you must contribute in Y ways" but a more basic thought that one should contribute.

It's really actually one of the reasons I'd prefer a welfare state to a liberal one even if the latter is probably more efficient in a lot of ways: It breeds a very inhumane kind of attitude towards our fellow human beings.

[Galactus]

Bill I would answer your question but it confuses me. I was trying to describe the comfort I find in knowing that many people past and present have it much worse than me and for every one who has things worse but perseveres and finds a way, it encourages me to know that there is a solution to my problems and I can come through whatever difficulties I face.

I know so many people who have had one chance after another to improve their lot in life and inexplicably fail to do so that I take a dim view of the idea that with one more social program, one more means of assistance, all their troubles will go away.

I'm not against maternity/paternity leave but I think it should be a tool companies use to attract and retain good employees. I don't think the government should have anything to do with it.

On the other hand, I have seen people do everything they can, struggle as hard as possible, spend their entire days working and striving and sacrificing everything... And get nothing in return. Yes, there are people who do not even try, there are people who try, but perhaps not as hard as they can (for various reasons) there are people who try and try and try and fail anyway.

Failure is not a sign of deficient moral character; It is simply the product of a certain set of events.

[Lyanna Stark]

Swordfish:

No idea what you are even arguing here. The point remains that people with zero room in their budgets cannot afford to have children. Do you disagree with that?

Because the way you are arguing it, poorer people will not get any financial support during childbirth, just because according to you, they shouldn't have any. Hence having children will be a privilige and something poorer people can't aspire to.

Of course, we all know that it happens anyway, and that trying to force poor people to not have kids is both inhumane and totally retarded. Hence your solution is not practically enforcable and you need to think up an alternative that is.

On the other hand, I have seen people do everything they can, struggle as hard as possible, spend their entire days working and striving and sacrificing everything... And get nothing in return. Yes, there are people who do not even try, there are people who try, but perhaps not as hard as they can (for various reasons) there are people who try and try and try and fail anyway.

Failure is not a sign of deficient moral character; It is simply the product of a certain set of events.

Galactus,

110% utterly correct.

As I said before, people have middle class problems. They may have to sacrifice a nicer house so their kids can go to college, while other people are trying to figure out how to put a roof over their heads. Completely different problems of different magnitude.

Chataya,

And if anyone else cares, I'm completely with Minaku on that last paragraph. I have obligations to fulfill with the money I earn. I don't need to be fulfilling every one else's obligations so that they can get their paid 12 weeks of maternity leave + their plasma screen TV that they really want. I'm not callous or heartless, I just have my own to feed, and no interest in supporting an octomom.

Uhm, nobody I know can afford a plasma TV on normal income, without having a baby. So this is total bullshit. Going without salary for 12 weeks = no food, no heating, no rent paid.

Entertainment does not enter into it. Can I say it again? Middle class thinking. Spend a month on the same income as sombody on benefits and come back again and tell me about how many plasma TVs you could afford. Or check to see how many plasma TVs you can buy after paying rent, food and utilities on £117 a week.

[Minaku]

Will you guys shut up about "middle class thinking"? People from all financial strata think that they should take care of themselves first and foremost rather than give up more in taxes to help their fellow man. Likewise, people from all financial strata think there should be more social programs to help the needy. It is based on one's life experiences and what was taught by parents and community, and not based on how much money you have.

[denstorebog]

No idea what you are even arguing here. The point remains that people with zero room in their budgets cannot afford to have children. Do you disagree with that?

Of course not. I don't even think that's debatable. But to get you up to date, we're debating what should be *done* about the fact that some people cannot afford children.

It isn't even really class dependent. You don't have to be poor to have zero room in your budget for a child.

And again, we're not debating people who can't afford children for various reasons such as prioritizing plasma TVs, we're debating people who don't have the maneuverability in their budget to make room for a child. I don't think anyone *wants* to hand out checks to people who, with a little rearrangement and cutting a few expenses, could fit a child within their budget. Why would we even want to debate that?

This whole discussion all hinges on whether or not you believe that there are actually people out there who, without financial aid, *cannot* have children of their own in this lifetime, given certain standards for raising healthy children and actually living decently. Whoever's going on about 'everyone can make it if they want' are just willingly wearing blinders.

[Lyanna Stark]

Will you guys shut up about "middle class thinking"? People from all financial strata think that they should take care of themselves first and foremost rather than give up more in taxes to help their fellow man. Likewise, people from all financial strata think there should be more social programs to help the needy. It is based on one's life experiences and what was taught by parents and community, and not based on how much money you have.

Uhm, why should I shut up about something I think is politically obvious? I am completely open with approaching this from a social liberal/social democratic perspective. Since I do, it is also obvious that this IS Middle class thinking.

Even people who are poorer seem to sometimes not grasp what class does, but that doesn't mean that those of us who do should be silent about it. Class and background, to me, are extremely important. The older I get, the more concious I get about how important it is. Plus it is not about helping the needy, it is about justice and social stability. Helping the needy is charity, social safety nets and justice are social democracy.

So yes, to me it is impossible to separate the political from the personal, just like with feminism. :) The personal IS the political.