10 ms·

There are a lot of women who would prefer to breastfeed but can't for a variety of physiological reasons, so this market would at least have the potential to ex

There are a lot of women who would prefer to breastfeed but can't for a variety of physiological reasons, so this market would at least have the potential to exist even if America's maternity leave laws weren't barbaric.

rustynails 12y ago
Can I ask why there is a need to exaggerate creeping into hacker news, particularly where it involves gender topics? Barbaric literally means: Savage, primitive, brutish. You don't help a cause with such inappropriate language. I switch off if people can't use non-political language and I'm a dad with young kids so the topic is relevant to my family.
- hf 12y ago
  The word seems entirely appropriate. As a European, I have not been able to convince family members or friends that aren't intimately acquainted with the US-American situation that there is no universal, legislative framework for paid or unpaid maternity leave. They usually respond with a variation of "this can't be right; you must be misinformed; it would be horrible if that were the case." And you (as a populace) aren't even fighting for it! Not visibly, at least. So, honestly, you seem to be the one hurting all sorts of causes with this misdirected attitude of apologism.
  - todd_whitehead 12y ago
    Why should someone be paid for adding nothing of value to a company (by being on maternity leave)?
    - littletimmy 12y ago
      Same reason someone should be taxed to fund the police even if said person can afford a private security guard. Social good.
      - todd_whitehead 12y ago
        I largely agree now -- in fact I think that women and men (since it's the 21st century and all types of people go on maternity leave) should be able to go on paid maternity leave. The leave will be funded by all corporations for social good -- no point in limiting it to the one the person worked for, since a person on maternity leave contributes equally to all of them. Paid maternity leave is a human right, like clean drinking water and fast internet, and I demand corporations provide us with it!
        littletimmy 12y ago
        I think you're being sarcastic but if not, I agree with you.
        geographomics 12y ago
        Most developed countries (the USA being the most notable exception) have some form of paid paternity leave as well, ranging from just a few days, to the same level as maternity leave: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave Where the state provides some or all of the financial assistance for parental leave, one could argue that it is already funded by all corporations, as it would be derived from tax income.
        Frondo 12y ago
        Agreed, everyone who decides to parent a child should get some time off to help raise that child. It would strengthen society. (And if every company were obligated to provide it, none would have a short-sighted competitive advantage over those who chose not to provide it.)
        aianus 12y ago
        Why should the company provide maternity benefits and not the state? I don't think it's fair for some three person startup to go bankrupt because employee #1 got pregnant and continues to draw down salary while staying home.
    - Frondo 12y ago
      At the simplest level, because we the people design laws that allow the company to exist. Without our consent, these invented human things called companies would have no legal standing. So, because we say it should be so.
    - needacig 12y ago
      If the person is adding value while not on maternity (or paternity) leave then it would be worthwhile to pay them while they are gone so they come back and continue working for you. If you don't do it, some other employer probably will, and they may choose to work for the employer with better benefits instead.
    - henrikschroder 12y ago
      It's the cost of participating in a job market where children are reared better.
  - refurb 12y ago
    there is no universal, legislative framework for paid or unpaid maternity leave. Yes there is, it's call the Family Medical Leave Act. It's a federal law that defines the minimum benefit offered.
    - ScottBurson 12y ago
      I see [0] that it mandates 12 weeks of unpaid leave total -- for pregnancy, childbirth, and the first few weeks of caring for the baby -- which is not hugely generous; but it is something. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_and_Medical_Leave_Act_of_1993 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_and_Medical_Leave_Act_of...
      - BadCookie 12y ago
        Note the requirements, which exclude a lot of people including employees of small businesses: "In order to be eligible for FMLA leave, an employee must have been at the business at least 12 months, and worked at least 1,250 hours over the past 12 months, and work at a location where the company employs 50 or more employees within 75 miles." When my sister developed health complications caused by her pregnancy, she had to quit her job. She had no other choice. But even if she hadn't quit, she would not have been eligible for FMLA. Now she is going through a divorce, and since she has no income, I am helping to pay her living expenses. My family is definitely feeling the ripple effects of our inadequate maternity leave laws in the U.S. right now.
  - xrange 12y ago
    It may be best to explain to your relatives that the federal US government was mostly intended to provide for a common defense and a few other common things, and the states were supposed to be the real movers and shakers. It appears that things may be similar in the EU, where the individual decisions are left up to the member nations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Europe ...(certainly someone can correct me if I'm wrong). If a state wants to mandate maternity leave it can: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_leave_in_the_United_States#State_legislation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_leave_in_the_United_... ...In recent times, the states have seemingly ceded a lot of their power to the federal government. Maybe someday there will be an Article V convention and some of that will be reversed.
bluedevil2k 12y ago
Aren't you projecting your European biases and beliefs on our American system. Who's to say your system is right, and our system is wrong? Europe takes a different approach to labor and economics than the United States. You may love large socialist structures in Europe, but you trade that off with a slow-growing economy. In the US, we have a smaller socialist structure with fewer safety nets, but we get a faster growing and robust economy. There's no right or wrong.
- DanBC 12y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them.
  - colmvp 12y ago
    The rebuttal wouldn't have had been posted if the original comment not been a histrionic observation.
- Iftheshoefits 12y ago
  I'm a US citizen by birth. I just happen to have traveled and lived abroad for a time, and I find the labor laws especially, but the social welfare laws in general in the US to be rather backward and uncivilized: barbaric is a word I chose deliberately because in my opinion it is accurate.
- pessimizer 12y ago
  > There's no right or wrong. If your argument ends in this conclusion, you should assume that there's a fallacy somewhere.
- vezzy-fnord 12y ago
  I'm unaware of many "socialist structures" in either Europe or North America, with the exception of Mondragon. That is unless you define socialism as purely meaning "state ownership of industry", which is rather naive, even if widely accepted by the American public.
dang 12y ago
> even if America's maternity leave laws weren't barbaric. Please don't throw drive-by explosives into Hacker News comments like that. All it does, predictably, is blow up the thread. Your comment had a fine substantive part, but that, of course, was the part that got ignored. I've detached this subthread from its parent and marked it off-topic.

rustynails 12y ago

Can I ask why there is a need to exaggerate creeping into hacker news, particularly where it involves gender topics? Barbaric literally means: Savage, primitive, brutish. You don't help a cause with such inappropriate language. I switch off if people can't use non-political language and I'm a dad with young kids so the topic is relevant to my family.

hf 12y ago
The word seems entirely appropriate. As a European, I have not been able to convince family members or friends that aren't intimately acquainted with the US-American situation that there is no universal, legislative framework for paid or unpaid maternity leave. They usually respond with a variation of "this can't be right; you must be misinformed; it would be horrible if that were the case." And you (as a populace) aren't even fighting for it! Not visibly, at least. So, honestly, you seem to be the one hurting all sorts of causes with this misdirected attitude of apologism.
- todd_whitehead 12y ago
  Why should someone be paid for adding nothing of value to a company (by being on maternity leave)?
  - littletimmy 12y ago
    Same reason someone should be taxed to fund the police even if said person can afford a private security guard. Social good.
    - todd_whitehead 12y ago
      I largely agree now -- in fact I think that women and men (since it's the 21st century and all types of people go on maternity leave) should be able to go on paid maternity leave. The leave will be funded by all corporations for social good -- no point in limiting it to the one the person worked for, since a person on maternity leave contributes equally to all of them. Paid maternity leave is a human right, like clean drinking water and fast internet, and I demand corporations provide us with it!
      - littletimmy 12y ago
        I think you're being sarcastic but if not, I agree with you.
      - geographomics 12y ago
        Most developed countries (the USA being the most notable exception) have some form of paid paternity leave as well, ranging from just a few days, to the same level as maternity leave: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave Where the state provides some or all of the financial assistance for parental leave, one could argue that it is already funded by all corporations, as it would be derived from tax income.
      - Frondo 12y ago
        Agreed, everyone who decides to parent a child should get some time off to help raise that child. It would strengthen society. (And if every company were obligated to provide it, none would have a short-sighted competitive advantage over those who chose not to provide it.)
        aianus 12y ago
        Why should the company provide maternity benefits and not the state? I don't think it's fair for some three person startup to go bankrupt because employee #1 got pregnant and continues to draw down salary while staying home.
  - Frondo 12y ago
    At the simplest level, because we the people design laws that allow the company to exist. Without our consent, these invented human things called companies would have no legal standing. So, because we say it should be so.
  - needacig 12y ago
    If the person is adding value while not on maternity (or paternity) leave then it would be worthwhile to pay them while they are gone so they come back and continue working for you. If you don't do it, some other employer probably will, and they may choose to work for the employer with better benefits instead.
  - henrikschroder 12y ago
    It's the cost of participating in a job market where children are reared better.
- refurb 12y ago
  there is no universal, legislative framework for paid or unpaid maternity leave. Yes there is, it's call the Family Medical Leave Act. It's a federal law that defines the minimum benefit offered.
  - ScottBurson 12y ago
    I see [0] that it mandates 12 weeks of unpaid leave total -- for pregnancy, childbirth, and the first few weeks of caring for the baby -- which is not hugely generous; but it is something. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_and_Medical_Leave_Act_of_1993 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_and_Medical_Leave_Act_of...
    - BadCookie 12y ago
      Note the requirements, which exclude a lot of people including employees of small businesses: "In order to be eligible for FMLA leave, an employee must have been at the business at least 12 months, and worked at least 1,250 hours over the past 12 months, and work at a location where the company employs 50 or more employees within 75 miles." When my sister developed health complications caused by her pregnancy, she had to quit her job. She had no other choice. But even if she hadn't quit, she would not have been eligible for FMLA. Now she is going through a divorce, and since she has no income, I am helping to pay her living expenses. My family is definitely feeling the ripple effects of our inadequate maternity leave laws in the U.S. right now.
- xrange 12y ago
  It may be best to explain to your relatives that the federal US government was mostly intended to provide for a common defense and a few other common things, and the states were supposed to be the real movers and shakers. It appears that things may be similar in the EU, where the individual decisions are left up to the member nations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Europe ...(certainly someone can correct me if I'm wrong). If a state wants to mandate maternity leave it can: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_leave_in_the_United_States#State_legislation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_leave_in_the_United_... ...In recent times, the states have seemingly ceded a lot of their power to the federal government. Maybe someday there will be an Article V convention and some of that will be reversed.

bluedevil2k 12y ago

Aren't you projecting your European biases and beliefs on our American system. Who's to say your system is right, and our system is wrong? Europe takes a different approach to labor and economics than the United States. You may love large socialist structures in Europe, but you trade that off with a slow-growing economy. In the US, we have a smaller socialist structure with fewer safety nets, but we get a faster growing and robust economy. There's no right or wrong.

DanBC 12y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them.
- colmvp 12y ago
  The rebuttal wouldn't have had been posted if the original comment not been a histrionic observation.
Iftheshoefits 12y ago
I'm a US citizen by birth. I just happen to have traveled and lived abroad for a time, and I find the labor laws especially, but the social welfare laws in general in the US to be rather backward and uncivilized: barbaric is a word I chose deliberately because in my opinion it is accurate.
pessimizer 12y ago
> There's no right or wrong. If your argument ends in this conclusion, you should assume that there's a fallacy somewhere.
vezzy-fnord 12y ago
I'm unaware of many "socialist structures" in either Europe or North America, with the exception of Mondragon. That is unless you define socialism as purely meaning "state ownership of industry", which is rather naive, even if widely accepted by the American public.

dang 12y ago

> even if America's maternity leave laws weren't barbaric. Please don't throw drive-by explosives into Hacker News comments like that. All it does, predictably, is blow up the thread. Your comment had a fine substantive part, but that, of course, was the part that got ignored. I've detached this subthread from its parent and marked it off-topic.