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The UK Telegraph reports that most women believe women should be allowed maternity leave — even if they don’t have children.
Sam Baker, the editor-in-chief of Red Magazine, which commissioned the survey of 2,000 women, said: “I think a lot of women who have worked for their employer for ten, or 15 years look around at their colleagues taking maternity leave and feel some element of envy and think, ‘What would I do with that time away from the workplace?’.
“This isn’t a working mum versus working non-mums argument. Nobody thinks maternity leave is a holiday. Employers, especially now, need to incentivise their staff in imaginative ways and that could involve offering leave. Some companies are already doing this.”
I must admit, I love this idea. I wouldn’t limit the leave to just women, though; I would say all employees should get equal leave time.
I understand that people need maternity leave. I do. But I need an electric mixer and a new set of dishes, and I won’t get those until I marry. What is my point? Our culture continually rewards certain lifestyle choices, and it’s just not fair. I’m 29. I have a master’s degree and I’m working on a law degree. Sure, I’ve celebrated my achievements. But people don’t celebrate these achievements in the way they do weddings and childbirth. My oldest friend did not spend months on end getting fitted for a dress and planning a pre-graduation shower in addition to the post-ceremony celebration. I certainly didn’t register for gifts anywhere. Why is one person’s milestone in life more important than another’s?
Which brings us back to maternity leave. I realize that, historically, this was something we fought for so that we could be superwomen, have jobs and husbands and children and all. And I don’t mean to make light of maternity leave, really. I just think we should consider whether one lifestyle choice really deserves more reward and credit than another. And I’m sorry, but time away from work is definitely a reward, even if it’s not a vacation. There are certainly more economic implications to the idea of employers giving more leave than I can get into for this particular story, but I just like the idea even without considering how practical it would be to enact.
We need to consider how we honor people’s choices in our culture, and make space for a broader spectrum of choices deserving celebration and reward.
Fiona Jennings, a senior employee with a high-street retailing chain, is 37 and does not have children, was one of the women who took part in the survey. “I made a conscious decision not to have children and that was the right decision for me. My career has always been as important as my home life. At 37, I knew that I would benefit hugely from taking a period of time away. My employers agreed to give me seven months off as an unpaid sabbatical. I leave for my round the world backpacking trip in three weeks.”
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Maternity leave is hardly a reward. How about this? You take maternity leave and I’ll come over on you and scream in your ear for 3 months and puke on you every twenty minutes or so.
yeah! XD
um…having a baby was your choice, not a reward.
Thank you Wendie. I COMPLETELY agree with you. Oh I get Maternity leave and you’re JEALOUS of that??? It’s not like I’m up all night having drinks with my girl friends and partying. Sure, there are bottles involved and LOTS of puke, but it’s hardly the same kind of all nighters I was used to. If these women get “maternity leave” for not having any children, I expect them to come back 3 months later with stretch marks and not having run brush through their hair once since they left the office.
Wait, and you think recoving from either major surgery (c-section) or minor surgery (having your f*king vagina stitched up) rewarding?!?! You think not sleeping for 2 months straight and trying to figure out why your child is bawling rewarding? Trust me, it’s better that our employers get time off than cmoing into the office smelling of vomit, breast milk/formula, sweat and pee.
What a steaming heap of total BS. Apart from anything else people in the UK get a ton of vacation leave as it is. When we finished college DH was offered a job in the UK with 6 weeks vacation starting but he took a job in the US with 2 weeks vacation; he now gets 3 weeks a year 8 years later.
Maternity leave is for the baby more than the mother. Recovering physically from birth generally doesn’t take that long: I couldn’t walk far to start with but I probably could have spent 8 hours sitting at a desk after a week or two of recovery. Babies on the other hand need their mothers for a long time after that, the typical 6-12 weeks maternity leave we have in the US is just horrible for babies.
Anyway, many companies offer sabbaticals already. My hubby could take a year off work. He probably never will since it’s unpaid but some of his older co-workers have done it and traveled the world or taken on major projects like building homes or cars that they can’t do while working full time.
As for gifts, what exactly did you need when you finished your masters degree? Maybe a new laptop bag or some fancy resume paper. When you get married you’re traditionally setting up a home and you need a lot of stuff. When you have a baby you need a lot of stuff too. There’s a social contract involved where everyone buys gifts for everyone else at those times. I buy gifts for 5 of my friends when they get married and spread out the expense then they all buy me gifts when I get married. Sure you lose out if you never get married or have a kid but that’s your choice. If you don’t intend to do those things you can always skip the showers.
Excellent point and shift of perspective: the maternity leave is for the child. The first few months of life are the most delicate for baby and mom is needed to help protect the baby through breastfeeding, constant monitoring of: temperature, elimination, diet, respiration, sleep, energy, etc.
Hahaha. Thanks for the laugh. I assume this was tongue in cheek. If not, then it’s just dumb. Seriously seriously dumb.
Are you kidding? You think maternity leave is some sort of vacation full of fun and relaxation? Please, please, please reassure me that you are not, in fact, that misinformed.
I watched my mom care for my three younger siblings when they were babies, and let me tell you–it’s not exactly a pleasure cruise.
I agree with all of the comments above. Maternity leave is in no way a reward. In fact I am willing to bet, not having children, that maternity leave is far more stressful that most jobs. It is not a reward for a life choice- it is a necessity to raise an infant.
Would you next complain that everyone should get sick leave when suffering from a debilitating disease, and not just those who are sick?
I agree with everything that’s been said so far, but I’d like to add this;
Not everybody who gets married gets a ton of free kitchenware. If you need an electric mixer and a new set of dishes you should get it your fucking self.
That too. We had a set of nice dinnerware on our registry but only got the dinner plates. Whatever, our cheap plates work just as well. I’ve been married for 8 years and my kitchen is pretty much where I want it now but that’s mostly because I don’t need insanely expensive dishes or a fancy appliances. My kettle was $24 (just replaced it last week after 8 years with the old one) and my coffee press was about $12 and the coffee tastes just as good as it does from the $400 contraption that my friends got for a wedding present.
i think people should get a certain amount of time off per year…say 8 weeks, to take anyway they wish. people with babies could take it as maternity, people with sick relatives could take it as personal, and people without either could take it as vacation. i am all for maternity leave, but i do think it sucks that if i have a family emergency (like when my father died) i can’t take 2 months paid leave with the assurance of keeping my job. why do i have to be a parent to get that amount of time off? but it isn’t just maternity leave that parents get…it’s an automatic out in some cases. in places i have worked it’s always “susie will be late today because of a parent teacher meeting, so can you cover for her?” or “mary is taking the day off because her kids have the flu, so i need you to stay late tonight,” or “bob is leaving early to pick up his kids from school, so can you answer his phone?” it works both ways, you know. i just think everyone is entitled to more time off than we get, especially here in the US, with our pitiful 7-14 days a year.
Most maternity leave isn’t paid. It’s only a guarantee that your job will be waiting for you when you come back, and even at that it usually only lasts about 6 weeks. If you want more time than that you risk losing your job.
And most employers do let you take time off when there’s a death in the family or if you need to care for a sick relative. It’s called a “leave of absence” and it’s basically an assurance that you won’t lose your job while attending to a family situation. It’s not paid, but like I said, neither is most maternity leave.
My husband took time off when our baby was born, but he used all his vacation time to do it. They called that maternity leave because he was allowed to take it all at once.
What sort of death in the family requires 2 MONTHS of leave from work? I know if college you can barely get out of class for a day if you say there was a death in the family, and they still want notes.
I was wondering that myself. I’ve had many deaths in my family and I’ve rarely taken more than a day off for any of them. The only time I took more time off was when my mother kept me out of school for about 3 months after my dad died because there was some trouble with kids finding the fact that my dad was dead very amusing and making up songs to sing in the playground. I have friends who have had to deal with entire estates single-handedly and they did it by taking a week or sometimes two of vacation and working on evenings or weekends as necessary.
When my father passed away, I sucked it up and went back to school the next day. The world isn’t going to stop turning just because of the death of one average person, and I recognized that. I could either sit at home feeling sad and fall behind in my schoolwork, or I could push on through–and that’s what I chose to do.
abbi, sydney and rhonda – what kind of death requires 4 weeks? why is that any of your business? if you guys can have your maternity leave why are you begruding me time to fly overseas to where my father was dying, attend the funeral, help my mother clean out the house, ship stuff back and come back to the US? i know it isn’t a baby but i think i am entitled to some family leave, too – is that ok with you guys? i don’t question your right to take maternity leave – why are you bashing me for taking some leave for myself? are you really that selfish?
When my father died, I was able to take FMLA time to stay with my Mom for over a month. After 46 years of marriage, it was quite an adjustment for her. I will forever remember this time with her. It has nothing to do with sitting at home feeling sorry for yourself, it has to do with sharing, giving of yourself, and loving your family and friends.
So no the world doesn’t stop turning, but one day everybody around you will. Then what are you left with, a job and school?
I actually agree with this point. I also feel like mat leave that Dharma is talking about isn’t the 3 months that you get in the US, but the year that you get in a lot of other countries with decent health care programs, like Canada and the UK. As much as I don’t think that everyone should get rearded for something that they choose not to do (namely procreate), I do agree that way more importance is placed in things like getting married and having babies than other life milestones.
For me personally, I graduated and got married around the same time, and my parents forgot about the graduation because of the wedding. I would have rathered the thing I spent 4 years working for be a little more important than the thing I spent 2 months planning. But both are important in their own right and both are a big part of my future, I didn’t actually expect to get showered with gifts, and I guess in the end, I just had the timing wrong. Thus is life.
But for all the comments from the parental martyrs above, YOU chose to have the baby, knowing full well that the baby needs you 100% of the time for the first 3,6,12 months. So wax poetic all you like about how hard it was to have a baby and how much pain it was and how babies puke and scream all you like, I don’t have kids and I already knew all these things, so what was your excuse? You can’t tell me that you thought it was going to be a grand time and now you feel cheated. Maternity leave is a reward, it’s something that is given to you so that you can have both worlds, be a working parent with the guarantee of a job to go back to. It’s not like a few billion women before you haved done the same thing, most without any leave at all, or if they left a job, they weren’t welcomed back, so please, own your life choices and stop acting like choosing to have kids makes you more entitled than those of us who don’t.
Nobody is being a “parental martyr” when they point out that maternity leave is not the same as a vacation. Because it’s not.
It is not the same as a vacation, but it is not really the hardest thing in the world. I had a year of paid leave and sure there were tough times, but there was plenty of chill time as babies sleep a lot of the time.
Maybe your baby did… Mine didn’t.
I hate it when people with easy babies act like the women who say it’s hard are exaggerating.
Kind of like women who never experienced morning sickness saying that women who didn’t enjoy their pregnancies had a bad attitude.
Most women where I live would not get a year of paid leave in their wildest dreams. I think six weeks is the standard.
Maternity leave is UNPAID.
The only good thing about it is that the law requires your employer to 0ne – give it to you (it wasn’t always so) two – hold your job open and three – keep your medical going.
Not everywhere. I know for a fact that maternity leave is paid at Rite Aid (for the first x amount of weeks and you can take an additional x amount unpaid)
Yes, but consider that it depends where you live. the US requires a basic standard. Some other places pay you for a year or two, and hold your job for even longer. While surely a bit of time off is needed for recovery, and getting the child started, some of the longer ones are a different story.
Even unpaid, your job is held. It’s not a requirement in the same way, but I think some people look at it in the sense that if you make a life choice to have a baby, and take a month of necessary time off, why can’t someone else have their job held while they take a month to help a parent get over the loss of their spouse? Or take a month to take some courses? Or to travel and broaden horizons? And be able to have their job waiting upon return. These, too are live choices, and the value placed on childbearing over other choices is what causes the frustration.
Personally, I can see the arguments on both sides. I’m not sure where I stand.
maternity leave varies from place to place, blurry. sometimes it is paid. all i know is when my family needed me i could not take 6-8 weeks off, paid or not, without losing my job. i took 4 weeks (scraped together my vacation and sick days and took the rest unpaid) to attend my father’s funeral and help clean out the house and get my mother into a condo, and i think that sucks, because if i had a baby i would have been entitled to it. i know a few women who have gotten 8-12 weeks of maternity leave, complained the entire time that it wasn’t paid, or enough wasn’t paid (lots of places give you a percentage of your salary), and then bitched about having to go back to work at the end of it. also, in some places you still get your vacation time/sick days on top of your materrnity leave, and still some women complain about it. i think that’s behaving like a martyr. again, maternity leave is fine, but what about the rest of us who work hard (and often have to pick up the slack when our coworkers have child-related emergencies) … why can’t we have 8 weeks off, too?
But I don’t get it. After the maternity leave..that same person would have to scrape together time off/sick days if they needed tend to a family emergency too…just like you did.
Having a baby I’d not a family emergency. This is really apples and oranges IMO.
workin – you totally missed my point, which is having a baby is somehow viewed as a more important choice than other life situations, hence the time off and the job protection. if i have a life situation that requires my attention, why can’ i get time off as well? as one mother pointed out, maternity leave is not a vacation, but neither is dealing with a parent’s death …why do i have to use my vacation days for it when a new mother is given 8 weeks off?
But you’re assuming that women automatically get 8 weeks off (and paid at that) to have a baby. In most cases maternity leave dips into the woman’s vacation time too, if she wants it paid. Every work place is different. I’ve heard of women only getting two weeks off. Unpaid. It varies depending on the laws in your state and the rules of your workplace.
Most states have a “leave of absence” law. It allows you to leave your job (unpaid) for a family situation or illness without being penalized by losing your job.
It’s the same thing for maternity leave. It’s simply a way to not be penalized by giving birth.
This country has laws that protect families because the prorogation of the species is considered the point of humanity by most people.
alzaetia, i’m not assuming anything. if you actually read my posts i have said it varies…some women get great maternity leave, and others get nothing. some women get vacation as well, some don’t. all i suggested was that people with kids tend to get more time off, whether paid or not, than people without kids. in every office i have ever worked in it has been that way. maybe your office is different, but in mine people with kids get maternity leave (which i support, by the way) and then all the “my kid is sick” days that they take for the next 10-12 years. and by the way, your propogation of the species” argument is really offensive. so i suppose those of us without kids are not as important to humanity as those with kids? what about women who adopt kids – are they less important than women who give birth? using your logic i guess someone like the octo-mom (sorry i’ve forgotten her real name) has contributed more to humanity than einstein.
On a personal level, no, people without children are not less important than people with children. On a mass scale, this country is interested in people having children for a variety of reasons, most of them financial.
In general, humanity, like any other species, exists to propagate itself. Of course there will be laws to provide for and protect that.
And FYI, Einstein had kids too.
I thought you were assuming a certain period of maternity leave because you kept mentioning the fact that you couldn’t get 8 weeks off for the death of your father. But you did get 4 weeks off, which is more than some women get for maternity leave.
When my dad died, my mom got two weeks off. And it was her vacation time for the next year. She would’ve been very happy with your 4 weeks.
People in the workplace who take time off to attend to their sick children are either using their own sick time to do it or they’re pissing off the boss. Children need to be taken care of. Most working parents don’t mind pitching in for their childless counterparts when they have emergencies either, so I’m not sure where the anger is coming from.
I’m sorry if you feel that it’s unfair for people to take care of their sick children while you have to pick up the slack for them. I suppose you were never sick as a child? Your parents never had to put you before their jobs at the expense of other employees?
Maternity leave is crucial for new moms who work. You agree since you support it.
Leave for other reasons like family emergencies, illness, whatever, would also be a great thing.
Still apples. Still oranges.
alzaetia – i wasn’t handed 4 weeks off when my father died…i took all my vacation and sick days and the remaining 10 or so days i took without pay after working at a company for 5 years and rarely taking any time off. sorry you begrudge me that. i’ll bet when your father died your mother would have loved having the 3 months maternity leave other women get, no? yeah, no difference when it’s personal, right? and FYI i know einstein had kids – he had 3. by your reasoning, octomom is still more important to humanity because she had 14. it’s your logic, my dear, not mine.
I didn’t say anything about the number of children anybody has. I just said the point of humanity, like any other species, is to propagate itself.
I also said that a lot of women do not get maternity leave in addition to their vacation and sick time. I said that the sole purpose of maternity leave is to ensure that you don’t lose your job simply because you’re having a child. For some people that time is as little as 2 weeks. Where did you get the idea that women are getting 3 months of time off for babies?
When did I ever begrudge you time off for your father’s passing? You were complaining that you didn’t get as much time off for your family emergency as women get for maternity leave. I was pointing out that you got more time off than some women get for maternity leave, and more time than some people get for bereavement.
I know that there was a lot to do after your father’s death. But you weren’t taking care of a person who couldn’t care for themselves. That’s a major, and very pertinent, difference to be made when considering this subject. Like I said before, there is such a thing as a Leave of Absence. It’s federally protected and it’s not just for maternity leave. It covers people who need to care for sick relatives and people who need to recover from their own illnesses.
From what I’ve read your problem seems to be your perception that women get more time for maternity leave than for other family emergencies.
In some cases that’s true. But considering the variations from state to state and between different employers, that can’t be claimed with any consistency.
If you don’t have a problem with the concept of maternity leave, and if you can acknowledge that some people get a very small amount while others get more, then what is your problem here?
Alzaetia- If the propagation of the species is the only point to humanity then I have just wasted my entire life because I haven’t had a child. Very depressing.
And if that’s the case, the more children you have, the more valuable you are to the human race? That would mean Kate and Jon, the Duggars and Octomom are far more valuable human beings than most of us will ever be.
What about people who are born sterile or who are found to be so or who have their tubes tied? Should we just off them to conserve resources for those who can and will procreate?
Hmmm.
Yes, anybody who can’t have children should be put down. That’s exactly what I’m saying. And those horrible people who could have children but choose not to, they should be tortured first. *rolls eyes*
If you don’t understand that the point of any species, on a grand scale, is to propagate itself I have to wonder if you ever took a biology class. I have said, and will say again, on a personal level humans choose whether or not to procreate. As a SPECIES we are driven to spawn.
But you know, if you want to misconstrue what I’m saying, or pretend that every species on the face of the planet doesn’t try to reproduce, knock yourself out.
alzaetia – of course i don’t begrudge people time to take care of their sick kid, but get real – there are some mothers who milk the kid thing because there are alot of bosses who just look the other way when they call in sick or come in late 2-3 times a month, year after year. i’ve worked with them. sorry, but i think that is unfair. i said i thought people in this country should get more time off, period, to do with as they see fit. i also think it is obnoxious for women (like wendie’s post) to moan that their maternity leave wasn’t a vacation. no it isn’t, and it isn’t meant to be, but it is something extra you get if you have a baby, and you chose to do that. no one said parenthood was easy or fun. despite all the protestations that i didn’t know what i was talking about -”PAID maternity leave? where? that’s crazy! “- some women do get a nice chunk of time off, paid (see alli’s post) and sadly, some get nothing at all. i think women should get maternity leave, but i don’t think that a woman’s inherent worth is based on whether or not she procreates, as some on this board seem to think. isn’t that kind of the opposite of feminism? when i said that i got totally bashed. so that’s my problem. i’m curious though, what your problem is? your response to alli’s post about maternity leave being pretty good was totally out of left field – she wasn’t attacking you at all, so why so defensive?
Why bring up the rare person who uses their kid as an excuse at all? That person would use something else as an excuse if they didn’t have kids. Most people who have kids don’t do that.
Once again, I never said that people who have children have more worth. I said it’s in the best interest of humanity that most people procreate. You know, the big picture. Not on a personal level.
The reason that Wendie was moaning about maternity leave being hard is that Dharma compared maternity leave to vacation. It’s not a fucking vacation. It’s hard work, and you don’t even get bathroom breaks.
My problem with Alli’s post is that it annoys me when women who have easy babies suggest that it’s not that hard to care for a baby full time. It is hard.
It’s not something that should be complained about all the time, but to suggest that it’s the same as taking a vacation (which Dharma did) or that there’s a lot of “chill time” which Alli did, completely ignores the reality of the situation. There’s nothing relaxing or “chill” about not being able to pee or wash your hair without a baby screaming at you the whole time.
You keep talking about maternity leave being an “extra.” It isn’t. It falls under the category of “leave of absence.”
All employees have a federally protected right to leave their jobs for a period of time while retaining their benefits without fear of losing their jobs. It has to be to care for a family member, though. That’s why you had to use all of your vacation time to take care of things after your father died. If you’d needed to take the time off to care for him before he died, you would’ve had a right to do that.
In the United States – it is not LAW that maternity leave be paid.
If you need time off to care for a sick family member, or if you yourself are sick, and have exhausted your allotted sick leave – you may qualify for family medical leave. AGAIN – this is unpaid! I was recently given 180 days of leave to care for my Mom. I will take it intermittently as she needs me because there is no way I can take that kind of time off.
If you are fortunate enough to work somewhere that pays for maternity leave – consider yourself lucky. I work for a school district (considered to be local government) and they don’t.
Bah!
90, not 180!
This doesn’t seem to have anything to do with maternity leave. If you want to make the argument that employees should be offered some general leave time, fine, but it shouldn’t be compared to maternity leave.
but that’s the way it is already…you either get vacation, or if you have a baby you get vacation AND materrnity leave. leave is leave…it shouldn’t matter if someone wants 8 weeks off to adopt a baby, have a baby or take a cruise. why should some life decisions be more important than others?
What workplace are you talking about that gives women maternity leave AND vacation time? I’ve never heard of such a thing.
You are correct. Most employers requite you to use any remaining vacation, sick or personal days first.
I think you are glamorizing maternity leave to be some sort of vacation, when it certainly is not. A month caring for an infant cannot be compared to a month of vacation. Raising children is in no way comparable to taking a cruise. If you would like to suggest that everyone should receive a leave of absence in which they had to care for an infant, then fine, I’m totally with you. But a new mother is not being ‘rewarded’ for having a child. She is simply being given an appropriate amount of time to care for her infant and recover from her pregnancy (in Canada at least. It sounds like you get a lot less time in the US).
Now, you say that motherhood a choice, and indeed it is. But the fact of the matter is, any government wants their population to increase. It means more tax dollars, more economic activity, and more voters. And so it makes sense that maternity leave is something that is government sanctioned.
If we began denying women maternity leave, to be fair and all, we would have several potential results:
1. Less women have babies, the incoming generation is reduced, and the older generation is left in a deficit (which is already occurring, but on a much smaller level)
2. Less women enter/rejoin the workforce, and we take a big step backwards in creating equality in the workplace
Are either of those things something you want to see develop in your society?
I would hope not, so it sounds like you are just arguing that workers in general should receive more vacation time. For whatever they need it for- be it to take care of a parent, develop their professional skills, or rejuvenate themselves. And I completely agree to that. But maternity leave is a necessity, and although it is a shame, these other reasons are not.
ummm…..do you people actually read my posts, or do you just start in with your self-righteous “i’m propogating the species” bullshit? when did i say i was against maternity leave? never. i have said in at least 2 posts i am FOR maternity leave. i think women in the US should get more maternity leave, and obviously i don’t think it’s a vacation, but i am tired of the mothers who take their leave and whine about it – that’s called being a parent and it’s a choice you made. and then when they come back they come in late and leave early because of the kid and whine about that, too. yet i am supposed to pick up the slack due to said sick kid or whatever, and if i complain about it i am seen as anti-woman and anti-child. of course i am arguing that workers in general need more time off – 2 weeks is laughable. if you read my posts you would know that.
Actually, I’m totally in favour of option 1. I think the human race, as a whole, or in an individual country, is plenty big enough, and does not need to expand. I would be thrilled to see negative population growth in my country.
I think it’s completely insane that when businessmen get found out running a pyramid (or ponzi) scheme, they are imprisoned, while the government happily runs multiple.
Social Insurance and Pension plans are nothing but a pyramid scheme. They take your money, and instead of investing it to pay back to you when you retire, (or get sick or unemployed, depending on which one), they pay it out to the current retirees. They don’t make money for you, they just assume that the next generation will be bigger than this one, and will be able to pay in when current workers are retired.
If this is illegal for individuals to do, it should be illegal for the government to do.
I think it’s disgusting that governments are looking at ways to get women to have more babies to support social programs.
It’s time to fix social insurance, not encourage population growth. Make these things real investments instead of pyramid schemes, and you won’t have problems. Constant growth is not possible, and is a recipe for disaster.
Yay for no babies and population shrinkage!
Population shrinkage means an inverted earning scheme (as pointed ut by Wicked 7) that results in a small amount of young (working) people supporting the retirement/social services of a larger population of older people.
Not a desirable fiscal situation,I’d say.
Please read the full comment, as you must have missed most of it.
I agree, that that is a bad financial situation.
But the problem is not the lack of young workers. The problem is the SYSTEM that runs social programs as a pyramid scheme. Pensions should be based on paying in when you’re young, investing the money, and paying back out *your OWN money* when you are older. If this is to be done socially, then by a generation. It should NOT require a current working generation to support a currently retired generation in the hopes that a future working generation will support their retirement later.
The system that requires population growth is wrong. Negative population growth is not wrong.
Common sense?
Employers obviously don’t think ‘leave is leave’. But I’d totally get behind collectively bargaining for ‘cruise leave’
I wasn’t really suggesting that you were against maternity leave- just that you were for equal time off for all women in the work place, pregnant or not. And so I was using the example of removing maternity leave from the equation as an example of said equality in the workplace, to show how it did not work.
Sex and the City has already had this discussion.
so i guess because a TV show talked about maternity leave people in the real world shouldn’t? ok, everyone! no more comments because this topic has been covered…by a TV show.
Aww… I thought we were really getting somewhere. I guess it’s Sex and the City reruns for us…
alzaetia, for a discussion of gay rights, just watch “will & grace.” no need for actual talking/debating.
hehe. that should save a lot of typing! thanks for the heads up!
“House: the Complete Series” DVDs for all would definitely be cheaper than medical leave for some.
Especially if you netflix it…
*headdesk* I don’t have kids, I never want kids, and guess what? I DON’T GET A MATERNITY LEAVE EVER. Vacation? Yes. But there are reasons people have maternity leaves….and there are reasons my mom made her maternity leave as short as possible. It’s much more tolerable dealing with 10 year old students who stay quiet sometimes, can be told to stop if they are being loud, and can coherently tell you what they want. They also don’t poop themselves and throw up every time they eat, and when they do eat, they aren’t gnawing on your boobs. At a job that doesn’t involve kids, even better.
Women in the workplace are fighting for equality, yet want to get fucking perks that they don’t deserve? Maternity leave is a chance for a new mother to recover and spend time with her new child, a child she may not get to see all the time over the years because of work. What does a woman with no children need maternity leave for? Are they saying everyone should get maternity leave? SO there should be maternity leave and paternity leave, even for those who don’t have kids? Basically what these women are saying is that they don’t want to work and just want free money. When you make the decision to not have kids and not be.. you know… a MOTHER, you give up the right to maternity leave too. If it’s just a long unpaid vacation, it’s not maternity leave and there’s no correlation between the two. This just makes me so fucking annoyed.
Maternity leave was nonexistent for me. I used my 8 sick days when I had my son in the middle of the semester (I’m a professor), and then I returned back to work. You do not need a mixer as much as you need maternity leave, trust me. And for the very small minority in America that get a real maternity leave, as your first commenter said, it is a far cry from a break. When you don’t have kids, your whole life you get to decide when to take breaks. People don’t have kids so they can get the maternity leave; that’s total bullshit.
This is a ridiculous topic and frankly absurd. I’ve unsubscribed from this blog.
Anyone ever hear of FMLA. Family Medical and Leave Act. In the United States all companies with more than 50 employees must offer up to 12 months per for this leave. I don’t have all of the specifics off the top of my head, but this is unpaid leave. For example, my father died and I had to fly cross country and help my mother, 3 months off. Had breast cancer, 3 months off…etc…The only stipulation is that it forms must be filled out by your doctor and filed with your company.
Thanks for pointing out the FMLA. Just to clarify,though, it’s 12 weeks per 12 months of work, and you have to have worked for 1250 hours in the past 12 months to qualify.
I used FMLA to care for my mom as she was dying. I also used maternity leave twice (once for each kid). None of these leaves was a vacation. Far from it. And I am grateful to have an employer who understands both the law and the needs of its employees.
HeeHee, yeah, 12 weeks…God 12 months would be great. That’s what I was able to do. Used it twice in my life so far.
Sorry, saw where this was mentioned above. It can also be used for your own “mental health” time. Just depends on what your doctor feels you need in your life :)
This is CRAP.
Maternity leave is so that a mother can take her child that she spent NINE MONTHS carrying around in her womb, and how-ever-much-time BIRTHING the child, and THEN gets BOMBED with a RIVER of BLOOD that has been pent up, to sit up ALL NIGHT and ALL DAY catering to the needs of ANOTHER LIVING BEING on THEIR schedule and you get NO SAY in how he/she acts.
Thats the point of maternity leave you, you didn’t go through the nine months, you aren’t being selfless you are being SELFISH.
The point of having children is that “It’s no longer your life.” That’s true, you are a MOTHER now. A GIFT to be a mother, its a PRIVILIGE not a fucking right or some inconvenience.
A mother has to go through a lot, she has the rest of her life to have that child and go through the trails and tribulations of being a mother, or at least she SHOULD.
THATS why mothers get maternity leave. And THATS why single, unwed, no children, women and men DON’T.
And MARRIAGE is a special bond between two people, the reason they get microwaves and silverware is because someone cared enough to give that to them. Some people get these gifts just for moving out. So if you didn’t get them, someone didn’t give them to you for a reason. Go. Buy. Your. Own. Have too many bills? Then I guess you’ll have to figure it out, but I say you won’t get that new silverware by complaining and trying to get time handed to you where you can SIT ON YOUR ASS and do whatever it is you THINK you would do with “Maternity leave.”
Good Lord you people confound me.
While this is apparently an excellent topic for discussion…
I would just like to comment that this was a very poorly written article not anywhere near the standard of quality (intelligent writing and insightful comments on the new feminist perspective) I thought Zelda Lily stood for.
In the future I would hesitate to waste a minute of my time reading another whiny post by Dharma.
?
i don’t have kids. I don’t know that I will ever have kids. But I do know that birthing a BRAND NEW HUMAN and adjusting to his/her round-the-clock needs is more than a full-time job. It is 24 hours a day, slee-depriving, body-wrecking, and mentally and emotionally draining beyond anything a person has to do at work.
Maternity leave hardly seems like simple time-off, comperable to any other type of vacation.
Not to be harsh, but theidea that everyone should get a parallel vacation just because is beyond stupid.
Just a poor, weak, brainless argument. I cannot even wrap my head around it.
Yes, well, it was written by a woman who can’t figure out how to get kitchenware without getting married first, so…
On an unrelated note, there’s a big, scary spider that lives by my front door. I don’t like passing by it everyday to go to work. I think I’ll take leave until it dies. After all, sick people take time off all the time. MY REASON IS AS VALID AS ANYONE’S BECAUSE I WANT IT TO BE!
BTW, this “mat leave is just leave” argument really threatens all the work actual thinking feminists did to get maternity leave legally established in the first place.
“Our culture continually rewards certain lifestyle choices, and it’s just not fair. ”
If you think that there is anything remotely fair about life then you have yet to tap your laudable education (celebrated or no). Also, our “culture” does celebrate graduations with parties that often rival wedding receptions. Each spring I receive graduation invitations that look very like wedding invitations, and carry with them the concomitant obligation to purchase a gift.
“My oldest friend did not spend months on end getting fitted for a dress and planning a pre-graduation shower in addition to the post-ceremony celebration. I certainly didn’t register for gifts anywhere. Why is one person’s milestone in life more important than another’s?”
Your argument does not support your point: the honoree’s wardrobe choices do not reflect society’s value of the accomplishment; rather, they reflect the honoree’s resources and the application thereof. My best friend wore a $2000 dress to our law school graduation and I wore an $800 dress to my wedding. Does that make her/our graduation more important than my wedding? Neither of us believes so. How much your family and friends give you for your accomplishments reflect the value they, as individuals, place on your accomplishment. And I am disturbed that you perceive getting married and having a child as “accomplishments.” Joyful occassions, certainly, but also the beginning of a very long haul, hence the support of loved ones through gifts. Staying married and raising a healthy child–accomplishments, to be certain–are not celebrated other than the occasional Golden Anniversary party.
“Which brings us back to maternity leave…I just think we should consider whether one lifestyle choice really deserves more reward and credit than another. And I’m sorry, but time away from work is definitely a reward, even if it’s not a vacation.”
No, it is not a reward. Maternity leave is a necessary component of providing women the same opportunity as men to both work and have children. Please do not make the tiresome mistake of assuming that being home with children is not work. Uncompensated, yes, but work all the same.
“We need to consider how we honor people’s choices in our culture, and make space for a broader spectrum of choices deserving celebration and reward.”
Tell you what: find ten women who have actually taken maternity leave and see whether any of them felt celebrated and rewarded at work for their choice (if it even WAS a choice) to have a child. My guess is that you’ll find they were regularly marginalized in the workplace, not celebrated.
Maternity leave is not celebration or reward; it is the result of multifaceted legislative action taken to correct discrimination against women.
Word!
Boom! Thanks Embee!
Awesome post.
10 points for you.
finally! :)