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Want to spend time with your kids? That's fine, just don't expect to get paid for it. Here's my all American take on this: you made the choice to have kids. Do

Want to spend time with your kids? That's fine, just don't expect to get paid for it. Here's my all American take on this: you made the choice to have kids. Don't expect companies to subsidize your child-rearing efforts, we owe you nothing.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
runjake 10y ago
The tone and lack of compassion in this comment reminds of that line from The Big Lebowski: "You're not wrong Walter. You're just an asshole."
- martythemaniak 10y ago
  He's actually both wrong and an asshole. He might only appear right if you take a look at the world in a very narrow and short-term way. Ie, he can only think of children as children, rather than the adults who will sustain society once he is old and (even more) feeble-minded.
criddell 10y ago
Here's my American take on this: if enough people want this to happen, it should happen. This is a democracy after all. And why do you say "we owe you nothing". You aren't a company, you're an individual.
- 36bydesign 10y ago
  You must not have heard that corporations are individuals who pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps with only hard work and the power of the American Dream(tm).
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  We're a republic, and it's precisely to prevent unfair outcomes like the one you're proposing. It's not good policy just because most people want it. The thing is that in America, there is still a barrier between the private and public sectors. While we obviously like perks like this, we don't believe that it's the government's place to mandate it. As we can see by many companies in the United States willfully offering such perks without legal mandate, companies are willing to make these accommodations on their own if they feel it will benefit their position in the market by allowing them to attract better talent. Companies that can't afford this will be at a market disadvantage, but they won't have to be afraid to hire the workers they need when they're growing because the law would force them to pay out half of the employee's salary for up to a year without being able to derive any productive benefit from that outlay. The most American thing about America is "it's a free country". That means that unless there is a vast social cost with allowing a certain behavior, it should be legal and people should be allowed to prosper or fail on the basis of their own choices rather than governmental policy that states "we know what's best for you".
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    > The most American thing about America is "it's a free country". "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else." - Winston Churchill
  - criddell 10y ago
    > We're a republic That's true, but if the issue is important enough to lots of people, those people will elect representatives to enact the policy they want made. > As we can see by many companies in the United States willfully offering such perks without legal mandate If it were many companies, then this wouldn't be news.
    - cookiecaper 10y ago
      >That's true, but if the issue is important enough to lots of people, those people will elect representatives to enact the policy they want made. Yes, but it's more complicated than that. The federal government isn't legally allowed to mandate these types of things under the Constitution, except insofar as they can claim it relates to "regulating interstate commerce" (which they do for almost everything these days). Most employment law is state-level, where there is not necessarily a constitutional prohibition on this type of action (each state has its own constitution, YMMV) and where there's a reasonable possibility of jurisdictional competition to keep things healthy. For example, there is no federal minimum wage (the term "Federal Minimum Wage" refers to the lowest amount of money that the government pays its employees, not a legally-required minimum wage nationwide). Each state has its own minimum wage. >If it were many companies, then this wouldn't be news. It's news mostly because AMEX paid its PR people to put this out. It's good press and may cause talented job seekers to look at their openings. There are a lot of news reports about routine things every day, because much of the news is bought by PR firms. Secondarily, it's news because it comports with the political agenda of the news editors and gives them an opportunity to say things like "America is behind other developed nations in this area", when that's anything but an objective conclusion (because whether this policy is "ahead" or "behind" is a subjective evaluation).
      - 10y ago
mordocai 10y ago
You may take the stance that we need less children due to overpopulation problems. Either way though, people having kids is what continues America's and humanity's existence. This is the whole idea behind lower tax brackets for married couples and similar things. Making sure our population is at least being maintained and preferably growing. In addition, if you dislike the large amount of kids that grow up in orphanages/bad homes things like this should allow people to have more time to take care of their kids during their first several weeks of life as well as potentially encourage more people to keep their kids instead of putting them up for adoption.
- peterbonney 10y ago
  See my comment elsewhere in this thread about overpopulation - it's really not a legitimate issue to worry about (Malthus was wrong).
- RHSeeger 10y ago
  > This is the whole idea behind lower tax brackets for married couples and similar things. I'm confused by that statement. From my experience, married couples pay more in taxes (in the US) than they would if each were single (and making the same amount). Or am I misunderstanding, and you meant that there _should_ be lower taxes for married couples?
  - hawkice 10y ago
    This is a bizarrely complex question (it relates to US tax law, so no surprise there). Some households would pay more if married, some would pay more if filing separately. See: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-are-marriage-penalties-and-bonuses http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-are-marria...
  - mordocai 10y ago
    I was under the impression it was usually lower taxes (partially selection bias due to it being lower for myself). As the other commenter points it, it is complicated and sometimes lower/sometimes higher to file jointly. Interestingly, the current tax structure somewhat encourages single income families.
geofft 10y ago
I like how this comment portrays companies as a fixed part of nature, and children as a weird thing that some people choose to do. I say: you made the choice to have a company. Don't expect child-rearers to subsidize your corporate veil, we owe you nothing.
prbuckley 10y ago
If you think in longer time frames everyone was a child once and there is immense value to society for children to spend time with their parents. Maybe companies should not be the mechanism to pay for it but we as a society should find ways to help people have strong and healthy families. It makes moral and economic sense.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
cgvgffyv 10y ago
Here's my single and childless (most likely forever) take on it, more like.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
kylepdm 10y ago
I think you've completely over looked the benefits to the individual, and society, as a whole when you allow parents to spend more time with their new born kids. It's really easy to say "hey you decided to have a kid, so that's on you". But you do need children to sustain society in the future. It does them a lot of good if their parents can spend more time with them during their infant stage. Also that attitude is really detrimental to women. Are future mothers supposed to choose over one day raising a kid or their careers? Doesn't society lose out on a lot of potential if we just say "sorry, if you want a kid then you're going to find a new job" ?
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  Im all for societal level support of parents, I just don't think the obligation should be on corporations. I dont think a corporation should be required to do anything but hold your position open for up to 3-6 months as a sabbatical. (I do think we should have a parental unemployment benefit, to make up the pay.) But it seems fundamentally unfair to impose on the business's ability to function (or other people's ability to get hired/promoted) because you want to have a kid. So if you want to incentivize parents, do it through social benefits, rather than unreasonable demands and distortions of the labor market.
  - ska 10y ago
    The Canadian 55% mentioned above is an unemployment benefit, so there is some confusion in this thread. The obligation to the corporation is that they maintain your job (or equivalent) for some period, I forget the details. Corporations are free to offer top up benefit, and many do as a competitive incentive.
    - twblalock 10y ago
      That's way better than the way people expect it to work in the US.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
ChrisClark 10y ago
And this is an example of everything that's wrong with America right now. There is no human compassion left. The rich get to live, the poor deserve to die. Trump appointed a guy that wants to not only get rid of the ACA, but also wants to get rid of Medicare and Medicaid. "You should have thought about that before you became poor!"
- praneshp 10y ago
  Non-American here, but the replies to this comment (including yours!) is enough proof that there is human compassion left in pretty good amounts.
- plandis 10y ago
  To be clear we are talking about maternity leave and pay. That's a far cry from your hyperbolic statement of "the poor deserve to die".
run4yourlives2 10y ago
This seems to be a common misunderstanding in the US. Companies don't subsidize these types of plans (well, other than being forced to allow the leave). The government does via something (in Canada) called "Employment Insurance". It's a basic payroll tax. We pay taxes into a program specifically designed to provide benefits if you lose your job. That's been extended to pay for things like leaves for having children or caring for your dying parents, kid with cancer, etc, etc. Considering that it's in all our best interests to have healthy, well adjusted children in our society, it's a trade-off well worth the "owing". I'd take a look at your crime rates compared to ours and think about your ideology a little. I'm no socialist, but it's silly to not take the very real advantages of living in a society. You wouldn't tell someone to pay for their own roads, or fire service, would you? And if you would, what happens to our society overall when everyone thinks like this? How does that move us forward? How does that move YOU forward?
untog 10y ago
People are replying to this remarking on the lack of compassion. I agree, but you don't even need to agree with that to find the statement objectionable. It seems pretty indisputable that children who are raised with more parental involvement are more successful in life. Those that are less successful don't just disappear, they become a financial drain on society, be it through social security, imprisonment, etc. etc. So no matter how little you care for other people having kids, two things are true: 1) they're going to have them whether you like it or not (and really, society depends on this) 2) if they don't have support, they're going to cost you more than if they do. There's really no way in which increased parental involvement doesn't make sense for society.
bluthru 10y ago
>you made the choice to have kids Civilization literally depends on having children. It's not optional. It's amazing how bad the me-first, consumerist, anti-heritage, anti-community sentiments have gotten.
- gaius 10y ago
  Civilization literally depends on having children. It's not optional It doesn't depend on high-consuming Westerners having children tho'. The human race will survive regardless of whether Western civilization does.
  - run4yourlives2 10y ago
    Western Civilization depends on western children. I'm pretty sure we're all in favour of either keeping, or improving the civilization we have.
  - daxorid 10y ago
    s/high-consuming/high IQ/ Yes it does. Idiocracy is a far-future documentary, not a comedy. We absolutely need to encourage the highly intelligent to breed.
  - bluthru 10y ago
    >It doesn't depend on high-consuming Westerners having children tho'. Right, because everyone else wasn't going to burn oil and coal? It takes an advanced society to produce energy responsibly. Also if we never leave earth we will die, so yes you do need humans to continue getting more intelligent. People with below-average IQ's breeding are just contributing to the problem.
ska 10y ago
In the US governments (and corporations) already subsidize child-rearing in lots of other indirect ways, so it at least makes sense to discuss one of the many ways in which the US is notably different from most developed economies. I do agree the OP could have said "different" rather than "behind" After all, with something like this they often stem from a least theoretically similar policy goals, so it seems crazy not to evaluate implementation cost & benefits against peer systems.
philfrasty 10y ago
„we owe you nothing“ You should print that on your shirt so I'll never do business with you. Disgusting attitude.
losteverything 10y ago
<we owe you nothing. That may be true, but not everybody is special and selected enough to keep the species going. All of humanity supports those that have children. Amex should be proud to help species continuers.
st3v3r 10y ago
Tell us what company you run. So that way all of us know to avoid it like the plague, for the extremely anti-employee mindset you have.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

runjake 10y ago

The tone and lack of compassion in this comment reminds of that line from The Big Lebowski: "You're not wrong Walter. You're just an asshole."

martythemaniak 10y ago
He's actually both wrong and an asshole. He might only appear right if you take a look at the world in a very narrow and short-term way. Ie, he can only think of children as children, rather than the adults who will sustain society once he is old and (even more) feeble-minded.

criddell 10y ago

Here's my American take on this: if enough people want this to happen, it should happen. This is a democracy after all. And why do you say "we owe you nothing". You aren't a company, you're an individual.

36bydesign 10y ago
You must not have heard that corporations are individuals who pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps with only hard work and the power of the American Dream(tm).
cookiecaper 10y ago
We're a republic, and it's precisely to prevent unfair outcomes like the one you're proposing. It's not good policy just because most people want it. The thing is that in America, there is still a barrier between the private and public sectors. While we obviously like perks like this, we don't believe that it's the government's place to mandate it. As we can see by many companies in the United States willfully offering such perks without legal mandate, companies are willing to make these accommodations on their own if they feel it will benefit their position in the market by allowing them to attract better talent. Companies that can't afford this will be at a market disadvantage, but they won't have to be afraid to hire the workers they need when they're growing because the law would force them to pay out half of the employee's salary for up to a year without being able to derive any productive benefit from that outlay. The most American thing about America is "it's a free country". That means that unless there is a vast social cost with allowing a certain behavior, it should be legal and people should be allowed to prosper or fail on the basis of their own choices rather than governmental policy that states "we know what's best for you".
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  > The most American thing about America is "it's a free country". "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else." - Winston Churchill
- criddell 10y ago
  > We're a republic That's true, but if the issue is important enough to lots of people, those people will elect representatives to enact the policy they want made. > As we can see by many companies in the United States willfully offering such perks without legal mandate If it were many companies, then this wouldn't be news.
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    >That's true, but if the issue is important enough to lots of people, those people will elect representatives to enact the policy they want made. Yes, but it's more complicated than that. The federal government isn't legally allowed to mandate these types of things under the Constitution, except insofar as they can claim it relates to "regulating interstate commerce" (which they do for almost everything these days). Most employment law is state-level, where there is not necessarily a constitutional prohibition on this type of action (each state has its own constitution, YMMV) and where there's a reasonable possibility of jurisdictional competition to keep things healthy. For example, there is no federal minimum wage (the term "Federal Minimum Wage" refers to the lowest amount of money that the government pays its employees, not a legally-required minimum wage nationwide). Each state has its own minimum wage. >If it were many companies, then this wouldn't be news. It's news mostly because AMEX paid its PR people to put this out. It's good press and may cause talented job seekers to look at their openings. There are a lot of news reports about routine things every day, because much of the news is bought by PR firms. Secondarily, it's news because it comports with the political agenda of the news editors and gives them an opportunity to say things like "America is behind other developed nations in this area", when that's anything but an objective conclusion (because whether this policy is "ahead" or "behind" is a subjective evaluation).
    - 10y ago

mordocai 10y ago

You may take the stance that we need less children due to overpopulation problems. Either way though, people having kids is what continues America's and humanity's existence. This is the whole idea behind lower tax brackets for married couples and similar things. Making sure our population is at least being maintained and preferably growing. In addition, if you dislike the large amount of kids that grow up in orphanages/bad homes things like this should allow people to have more time to take care of their kids during their first several weeks of life as well as potentially encourage more people to keep their kids instead of putting them up for adoption.

peterbonney 10y ago
See my comment elsewhere in this thread about overpopulation - it's really not a legitimate issue to worry about (Malthus was wrong).
RHSeeger 10y ago
> This is the whole idea behind lower tax brackets for married couples and similar things. I'm confused by that statement. From my experience, married couples pay more in taxes (in the US) than they would if each were single (and making the same amount). Or am I misunderstanding, and you meant that there _should_ be lower taxes for married couples?
- hawkice 10y ago
  This is a bizarrely complex question (it relates to US tax law, so no surprise there). Some households would pay more if married, some would pay more if filing separately. See: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-are-marriage-penalties-and-bonuses http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-are-marria...
- mordocai 10y ago
  I was under the impression it was usually lower taxes (partially selection bias due to it being lower for myself). As the other commenter points it, it is complicated and sometimes lower/sometimes higher to file jointly. Interestingly, the current tax structure somewhat encourages single income families.

geofft 10y ago

I like how this comment portrays companies as a fixed part of nature, and children as a weird thing that some people choose to do. I say: you made the choice to have a company. Don't expect child-rearers to subsidize your corporate veil, we owe you nothing.

prbuckley 10y ago

If you think in longer time frames everyone was a child once and there is immense value to society for children to spend time with their parents. Maybe companies should not be the mechanism to pay for it but we as a society should find ways to help people have strong and healthy families. It makes moral and economic sense.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

cgvgffyv 10y ago

Here's my single and childless (most likely forever) take on it, more like.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

kylepdm 10y ago

I think you've completely over looked the benefits to the individual, and society, as a whole when you allow parents to spend more time with their new born kids. It's really easy to say "hey you decided to have a kid, so that's on you". But you do need children to sustain society in the future. It does them a lot of good if their parents can spend more time with them during their infant stage. Also that attitude is really detrimental to women. Are future mothers supposed to choose over one day raising a kid or their careers? Doesn't society lose out on a lot of potential if we just say "sorry, if you want a kid then you're going to find a new job" ?

SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
Im all for societal level support of parents, I just don't think the obligation should be on corporations. I dont think a corporation should be required to do anything but hold your position open for up to 3-6 months as a sabbatical. (I do think we should have a parental unemployment benefit, to make up the pay.) But it seems fundamentally unfair to impose on the business's ability to function (or other people's ability to get hired/promoted) because you want to have a kid. So if you want to incentivize parents, do it through social benefits, rather than unreasonable demands and distortions of the labor market.
- ska 10y ago
  The Canadian 55% mentioned above is an unemployment benefit, so there is some confusion in this thread. The obligation to the corporation is that they maintain your job (or equivalent) for some period, I forget the details. Corporations are free to offer top up benefit, and many do as a competitive incentive.
  - twblalock 10y ago
    That's way better than the way people expect it to work in the US.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

ChrisClark 10y ago

And this is an example of everything that's wrong with America right now. There is no human compassion left. The rich get to live, the poor deserve to die. Trump appointed a guy that wants to not only get rid of the ACA, but also wants to get rid of Medicare and Medicaid. "You should have thought about that before you became poor!"

praneshp 10y ago
Non-American here, but the replies to this comment (including yours!) is enough proof that there is human compassion left in pretty good amounts.
plandis 10y ago
To be clear we are talking about maternity leave and pay. That's a far cry from your hyperbolic statement of "the poor deserve to die".

run4yourlives2 10y ago

This seems to be a common misunderstanding in the US. Companies don't subsidize these types of plans (well, other than being forced to allow the leave). The government does via something (in Canada) called "Employment Insurance". It's a basic payroll tax. We pay taxes into a program specifically designed to provide benefits if you lose your job. That's been extended to pay for things like leaves for having children or caring for your dying parents, kid with cancer, etc, etc. Considering that it's in all our best interests to have healthy, well adjusted children in our society, it's a trade-off well worth the "owing". I'd take a look at your crime rates compared to ours and think about your ideology a little. I'm no socialist, but it's silly to not take the very real advantages of living in a society. You wouldn't tell someone to pay for their own roads, or fire service, would you? And if you would, what happens to our society overall when everyone thinks like this? How does that move us forward? How does that move YOU forward?

untog 10y ago

People are replying to this remarking on the lack of compassion. I agree, but you don't even need to agree with that to find the statement objectionable. It seems pretty indisputable that children who are raised with more parental involvement are more successful in life. Those that are less successful don't just disappear, they become a financial drain on society, be it through social security, imprisonment, etc. etc. So no matter how little you care for other people having kids, two things are true: 1) they're going to have them whether you like it or not (and really, society depends on this) 2) if they don't have support, they're going to cost you more than if they do. There's really no way in which increased parental involvement doesn't make sense for society.

bluthru 10y ago

>you made the choice to have kids Civilization literally depends on having children. It's not optional. It's amazing how bad the me-first, consumerist, anti-heritage, anti-community sentiments have gotten.

gaius 10y ago
Civilization literally depends on having children. It's not optional It doesn't depend on high-consuming Westerners having children tho'. The human race will survive regardless of whether Western civilization does.
- run4yourlives2 10y ago
  Western Civilization depends on western children. I'm pretty sure we're all in favour of either keeping, or improving the civilization we have.
- daxorid 10y ago
  s/high-consuming/high IQ/ Yes it does. Idiocracy is a far-future documentary, not a comedy. We absolutely need to encourage the highly intelligent to breed.
- bluthru 10y ago
  >It doesn't depend on high-consuming Westerners having children tho'. Right, because everyone else wasn't going to burn oil and coal? It takes an advanced society to produce energy responsibly. Also if we never leave earth we will die, so yes you do need humans to continue getting more intelligent. People with below-average IQ's breeding are just contributing to the problem.

ska 10y ago

In the US governments (and corporations) already subsidize child-rearing in lots of other indirect ways, so it at least makes sense to discuss one of the many ways in which the US is notably different from most developed economies. I do agree the OP could have said "different" rather than "behind" After all, with something like this they often stem from a least theoretically similar policy goals, so it seems crazy not to evaluate implementation cost & benefits against peer systems.

philfrasty 10y ago

„we owe you nothing“ You should print that on your shirt so I'll never do business with you. Disgusting attitude.

losteverything 10y ago

<we owe you nothing. That may be true, but not everybody is special and selected enough to keep the species going. All of humanity supports those that have children. Amex should be proud to help species continuers.

st3v3r 10y ago

Tell us what company you run. So that way all of us know to avoid it like the plague, for the extremely anti-employee mindset you have.