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And to me, that's barbaric. We're punishing women for following every animal's instinct to procreate. Men don't get equivalently "punished" when they have a chi

And to me, that's barbaric. We're punishing women for following every animal's instinct to procreate. Men don't get equivalently "punished" when they have a child, women have to shoulder that burden. As a society, we need women to bear children. Why do we force her to choose between work and family? In Canada, we provide 17-52 weeks of maternity leave for new mothers, depending on a few factors. Moreover, we allow for 15 weeks of paid leave for pregnant employees or new mothers, with another 35 weeks of 55% paid parental leave. [1] In the US, up to 12 weeks of leave is allowed, but there are conditions and exemptions, one of which is that if you're a company of less than 50 employees, you don't have to allow leave. From [1]: "If a mother has to rush back to work after giving birth because she cannot afford the lack of a paycheck, she may not be as effective at her job compared to if she was rested and had her family life settled." I would rather have a kickass employee, male or female, be happy to come back to work after their home and family has settled. If we hire in the US, I'd like to provide equivalent benefits to them as if they were in Canada. Hopefully I can make that happen, but that's an issue for future me to deal with since it's a long ways out. [1] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/career-advice/maternity-leave-basics-canada-vs-the-us/article4197679/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/ca...

curun1r 12y ago
> As a society, we need women to bear children. Why do we force her to choose between work and family? That's not strictly true. We need some women to bear children, but we don't need nearly as many as currently do it. We have a shortage of many things on this earth, but human beings aren't one of them. Why should society be encouraging women to have children when it's objectively better for society if most of them don't? Strict population controls, like China's one-child policy, are probably a step too far, but not encouraging parenthood seems like a reasonable middle ground.
- prawn 12y ago
  I suspect the argument there is that not offering maternity leave discourages working women from procreating while there is no such disincentive for those not working. And so those often without the means of supporting a child will be the ones having the children.
- e12e 12y ago
  Eh... while I agree that overpopulation (on a global scale) is a real problem, it is also true that most highly educated/industrial societies have problems with too few children being born. I seem to recall that the average needs to be around 2.4 children/family for population to not decrease. The US overall might not exhibit the typical traits of an educated society (family planning) -- I've not looked up the numbers. But with poor social mobility, there would still be a problem. As for looking at the issues from a global perspective: do we really think importing children from third world countries is a viable, moral and/or sensible approach? If not, the sane plan for the future, is to encourage sustainable family planning everywhere: more children in the rich/highly educated part of the world, better access to contraceptives etc in the poor/less educated parts.
mkal_tsr 12y ago
> Men don't get equivalently "punished" when they have a child How long is the average paternity leave for new fathers? Or are you suggesting that fathers don't have a right to paternity leave and thus raise their children?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

curun1r 12y ago

> As a society, we need women to bear children. Why do we force her to choose between work and family? That's not strictly true. We need some women to bear children, but we don't need nearly as many as currently do it. We have a shortage of many things on this earth, but human beings aren't one of them. Why should society be encouraging women to have children when it's objectively better for society if most of them don't? Strict population controls, like China's one-child policy, are probably a step too far, but not encouraging parenthood seems like a reasonable middle ground.

prawn 12y ago
I suspect the argument there is that not offering maternity leave discourages working women from procreating while there is no such disincentive for those not working. And so those often without the means of supporting a child will be the ones having the children.
e12e 12y ago
Eh... while I agree that overpopulation (on a global scale) is a real problem, it is also true that most highly educated/industrial societies have problems with too few children being born. I seem to recall that the average needs to be around 2.4 children/family for population to not decrease. The US overall might not exhibit the typical traits of an educated society (family planning) -- I've not looked up the numbers. But with poor social mobility, there would still be a problem. As for looking at the issues from a global perspective: do we really think importing children from third world countries is a viable, moral and/or sensible approach? If not, the sane plan for the future, is to encourage sustainable family planning everywhere: more children in the rich/highly educated part of the world, better access to contraceptives etc in the poor/less educated parts.

mkal_tsr 12y ago

> Men don't get equivalently "punished" when they have a child How long is the average paternity leave for new fathers? Or are you suggesting that fathers don't have a right to paternity leave and thus raise their children?

deleted 12y ago
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