The working force's 'third' group- what's in it for us?

With my employer (government), you’re not “given” time off. You take your own sick time and vacation time. It’s paid, yes, but it’s your time. You have a baby, you’re saving up your sick time and vacation time. You’re not taking a vacation that year, or if you do, it’s less paid time off after the baby. There is a plan where you get half pay for a certain amount of time, based upon your length of employment.

When I had my daughter, end of May a few years ago, I took off the week before she was born, then stayed home till the end of the year (7 months). 3 months were with full pay – vacation and sick time. Two months were at half pay, based upon the plan my employer has that I just described above. Two months were without any pay at all. Fortunately I could afford to do that. I would not have minded staying out longer at no pay, but with the employer, once the new year came, I’d be using up my own vacation again, and the option to go without pay was no longer.

As far as burdening my coworkers with my work, I don’t think people should go their whole lives without having children just due to wanting to shoulder their work load at work. My coworkers who have children all say “Family first.”

You could say kids are important. Someone has to pay into the Social Security fund when you are 80 and wearing diapers.

And it is all a bit frustrating. People bitch about all those union workers with their cushy lifestyles. And instead of trying to do actual work to unionize and get similar benefits they try and bring others down to their level instead of bringing them-self up.

You get the benefit of getting to live your own life on your own terms with significantly more income as a single/DINK than people with a family.

You are treating these allowances like perks, but these things are critical to help people’s family units become/remain functional. If the employees are valuable then the company would want to make sure they are able to be secure so they can keep doing their jobs.

Since you’re single, you have no need for this kind of support.

I can understand why people without children feel put upon by missing out on paid leave, but believe me, people with kids today NEED every break they can get. I fear ours is becoming a country where the smart people are deciding not to have kids, and so many women are putting off the decision til their late 30s & early 40s that the fertility clinics are cleaning up. The truth is that the expenses involved with rearing children have increased exponentially since my youth. And though no one talks much about it, to my mind there are few other decisions these days so likely to result in decades of struggling.

The paid time off I think is not the biggest gripe childless people have; it’s if things feel unfair at work with the work load, or the obligation to be present at work. Not just childless people, but people who have children, but don’t take as much time off either because they feel a stronger commitment or obligation to their work, or they have other family members who take on the burden of caring for the children.

It really depends on the job. I’m all for more flexibility in work hours for all employees if it can be done. That’s possible for people who sit at a computer all day, but not possible for someone who is responsible to cover a shift in a hospital ICU. Someone might die, or a law might be broken if the nurse doesn’t show up. Although, the ICU nurse can schedule odd hours to work, which is a flexibility in work schedule in another way. Even an employee selling dresses in a department store can’t easily call in sick, because then the department might have very little, or zero coverage for part of the day. How happy are you to be a customer who needs help and you can’t get service, or have to wait in a long line to buy something? Jobs that put you in front of the public are really difficult to call in sick. The company can lose business, and the other employees have to pick up the slack, the work can’t wait until later or tomorrow.

Someone needs to have babies to prevent a society from dying out.
These babies are also the ones who are going to pay for your retirement when you are old and decrepit.
One of them will very probably also be one of the people changing your grandpa diapers after you shat yourself the 3rd time that week.
One of the biggest problems of 1st world nations is that the population is getting too old. There are too many old people, and too few young people to take care of them physically and financially. And that problem will only get worse as effective wages decrease and people have to work more and more to make ends meet.
So having babies is extremely important, and there have to be incentives for that.
Stop being a selfish egoist.

In our country with paid leave, they hire in a person for the year to cover. Workmates aren’t inconvenienced.

I was an employer/manager. It was in a country that didn’t offer leave. I lost employees because of it. I trained them. They got pregnant. They left. There wasn’t an option for them to come back. It was a bigger loss than just losing them for a year and then getting them back. Allowing parental leave allows a higher retention rate for employees. Much better for my client (who would build up a report with their accounting managers, who were mostly women) and they would see and talk to them much more than the male accounting partners.

What needs to happen is that women need to get out of the workforce all together and just stay home, have babies and take care of the family on the domestic front.
In addition to freeing up all those jobs so that the unemployed males can work it will reduce the workforce substantially thereby increasing the individual workers worth and therefore raising salaries worldwide.
It will also help corral all them wild latch-key kids who need more adult supervision, give them more free time to prepare nutritious meals for their family thus reducing obesity levels, reduce allergies world wide by keeping the domiciles cleaner, ensure domestic tranquility by reducing both the work related female stress levels and associated supermom syndromes thus increasing their libido which will in turn reduce sexually induced male stress levels, .
Men provide, women nurture; that’s just nature.

and @rojo is surely kidding.

It wouldn’t hurt if employers didn’t stretch employees so thin that when one has to arrive late or call in sick business isn’t so extremely affected. It depends on the business and industry how realistic my statement is, but I think in many cases employees are being pushed too hard.

@cazzie Do you think a lot of women would prefer to be able to work on a part time basis to maintain rapport with their key clients?

@ragingloli You don’t live in a country where we are bombarded with statistics about how children born into poverty will most likely live in poverty their whole life. It creates a feeling among many that the babies will just create a bigger burden. Especially since it also seems like the people with the least amount of money have the most amount of kids. I’m not arguing your point about how the social security system works, I wrote in my previous answer the countries that provide long maternity leaves do it at least partly, because the government worries about negative population growth.

America is so huge, 330,000,000 people, that the feeling among many people is we have to worry about growing too much. That’s aside from whether it makes economic sense as we age, I’m just explaining the feeling in the country.

@cazzie many wanted to come back and a few of them managed by working partly at the office and partly at home, but most needed to be replaced, outright. They were just expected to write off their career because they had a baby.

@rojo: Even though you are surely kidding, I would definitely remove myself voluntarily from the work force if my salary were paid in full, along with benefits and money toward pension and Social Security, and I were guaranteed my exact same position and location upon my re-entry into the work force.

Most of the workers who don’t breed and get to take time off to have a baby do get sick and their absence at work requires others to pick up their slack.

Plus if you play your cards right there should be no extra burden on the company or fellow workers. We provide a short term disability benefit for all employees which covers maternity leave. So my new secretary was able to get a portion of her income while off for 3 months and I used her wages to hire a temp for that period of time and everyone was happy.

The sad part of this debate is that we actually have to have Federal Legislation to protect the mother and father workers when the blessed time arrives.

Yep. So we’re headed toward a society in which the poor, the rich and recent immigrants will provide our replacements. I guess it’s inevitable anyway since the middle class appears destined to melt away.

“It takes a village to raise a child” – until we as a society start thinking and acting communally we will never solve our problems. However, I can understand why if individual parents are exhibiting an entitled attitude it can be aggravating.

Shit. I would love to have paid time off when my partner and I are trying to keep our familial bond. (And we’re gay). I want to get a puppy. Someone should stay home with it for awhile. No paid time off. Mostly, why can’t I get paid leave when my depression gets bad? I dare not even being up mental health issues to my bosses.

All of these are choices, like having kids. I already pay taxes for education. Now I have to just STFU when parents get extra perks? Yes, a perk. No one tells me to stay home when my cat is sick.

@tinyfaery: Not sure about others, but again, in my case (government job), it’s my time. My sick time, my vacation time. When I exhausted that, it was unpaid. No freebies here.

@tinyfaery we have sick leave for depression, too. My ex had an entire year off of paid leave a year or so ago when his young chicky dumped him.

Right, @tinyfaery. Medical leave is for anything from “baby” to “depression” to “broken leg” to “disease.” You just need doctor to fill out forms. I understand the stigma around mental health issues (or perceived stigma), but it still qualifies. Now, again, if you have no time, you have no time to use. Whether someone can afford to go without pay, like I did, is up to the individual and the need.

@Cruiser Maternity leave is different than calling in sick, because a child is sick, or because there is a snow day, or leaving early to pick up your child unexpectedly. I agree that everyone might have reasons outside of being sick themselves to leave early or call out sick. As long as the workplace values it all equally and each employee has an equal chance to use their time equally it’s all good. If Gina gets to leave at 4:30, because she needs to pick up her kid’s at 5:00, then Joe should be able to leave at 4:30 to make his cycling class if he wants, and Chris can do it also to catch the 4:50 train so he doesn’t have to wait another hour until 5:50. It just needs to feel fair. I think in many circumstances coworkers want to work as a team. Often there is someone who prefers to come in early, another better off wirking a little later. One who doesn’t travel far or cook on Thanksgiving who will work the Wednesday before so others can take it off. But, it can’t be the same people all the time always getting exceptions because they have a child.

It’s really not the emiyees business in my opinion why someone takes a day off or needs some flex time in their hours. We are forced to give a reason in extreme circumstances to get understanding and exceptions, but really, what if I want to keep my cancer a private issue? I don’t have cancer really, but let’s just say. If I give my employee notice if time off I need and I’ve worked there as a good employee for 5 years, why isn’t good enough that say I need the time? Why do I have to disclose the hard time or hard ship I’m going through?

@JLeslie I realize all that…I was just counterpointing the OP who intoned a maternity leave unfairly burdens those that are childless at work and that does not have to be the case at all. Having babies can and should be planned with HR and or the Boss.

As a business owner of a small company what sucks is when one or two people call in sick and worse get the flu. Then we all have to multitask and get ‘r done and even then it is not a big deal and if it was that would mean I have not done my job to prepare for most curve balls we may face here.

TINY FAERY!!!!
You get it !!!!!!!!!!
I was beginning to wonder. Wow!
Hang in and take care.
Do what you need to do to take care of you. And the cat.
:)

I don’t have the data but I think a number of places are now offering family or compassionate leave for anyone who needs to be a caregiver for a partner or family member for any reason.

Here you go; New Jersey’s Family Leave Act.

@Cruiser Yes, the curve balls as you say are the hardest in business I think.

I had a few typos I see in the response. Where I wrote employee should be employer. I was saying why should we have to disclose everything to our employer. I think you understood what I meant.

@janbb The federal family and medical leave act (FMLA) covers taking care of sick loved ones. Maybe NJ adds some benefits, but there is a federal minimum requirement.

I’m more interested in every day flexibility in a company and I think it should have nothing to do with illness or children. I think a lot of companies are going in that direction.

@JLeslie After 8+ years here I almost know what your answers will be before you write them and always appreciate to see you articulate them as you see and feel them.

The way I figure it, if a woman gets pregnant, you’ve got months to plan and hire a temp replacement for them. If someone goes off the deep end after a break up or gets sick and needs months off, I can’t plan for that, but of course it happens and we have to. The sick people’s absence creates a more inconvenient situation for co-workers because we may not get a substitute in as quickly, but everyone has sympathy for that situation. It is on the mild scale of double standards. It is easier for me to organise the pregnant woman’s leave and create a plan for her rejoining the firm.

@cazzie Exactly. It has to be one person having multiple instances of last minutes and special allowances for coworkers to feel things are unfair.

The OP seems to think maternity leave is unfair because they aren’t a breeder. My point is anyone can get sick and need leave, so be nice.

@cazzie Yeah – that was how I read the OP and what I was reacting to.

I don’t understand @Cruiser‘s post about scheduling having a baby with the boss or HR. “Having babies can and should be planned with HR and or the Boss.”

@jca I think what he is saying is that you have time with a pregnancy to schedule your maternity leave with the boss and HR because you know (roughly) when the birth is coming up.

@janbb: Oh, then if that’s what he was saying I agree with that. I thought he meant scheduling the conception and pregnancy, which seems intrusive for an employer to think they have that power.