An unusual new policy for working mothers

[chedifuen]

I realize its probably not popular or fair but I'm a fan. Anything that helps women who want to stay in the work force after having a baby gets a thumbs up from me.

[nsl]

It's times like these that the true sexism present in the American workplace really hits home. In what twisted version of the world would a company want a talented, otherwise excellent employee to leave the company rather than offering her the opportunity to take on a slightly lighter workload without a dramatic pay cut for short time after she has experienced a major medical and life event?

Flip the pronouns in my above paragraph and this would be SOP for every company in America.

[origami]

Why can't the dads get this? Yay for making it easier for moms but it just reinforces that women should bear the brunt of parenting responsibilities. 

[wawa]

Mar 7, 2015 23:42:19 GMT -5 origami said:

Why can't the dads get this? Yay for making it easier for moms but it just reinforces that women should bear the brunt of parenting responsibilities. 

I agree. I had a more involved response but my phone was going all tef on me and I gave up.

I would hate if I was the only one doing doc visits and such since I had the free time. That kind of thing should be shared.

[origami]

Mar 8, 2015 0:01:20 GMT -5 wawa said:

Mar 7, 2015 23:42:19 GMT -5 origami said:

Why can't the dads get this? Yay for making it easier for moms but it just reinforces that women should bear the brunt of parenting responsibilities. 

I agree. I had a more involved response but my phone was going all tef on me and I gave up.

I would hate if I was the only one doing doc visits and such since I had the free time. That kind of thing should be shared.

I'd be pretty pissed if I were a gay dad. Sorry sir. You may not have slept in 2 months, but you aren't officially in a period of transition until you get new chromosomes and start lactating.

[wawa]

Mar 8, 2015 0:36:40 GMT -5 origami said:

Mar 8, 2015 0:01:20 GMT -5 wawa said:

I agree. I had a more involved response but my phone was going all tef on me and I gave up.

I would hate if I was the only one doing doc visits and such since I had the free time. That kind of thing should be shared.

I'd be pretty pissed if I were a gay dad. Sorry sir. You may not have slept in 2 months, but you aren't officially in a period of transition until you get new chromosomes and start lactating.

That too.

I support medical leave for women obviously. And there needs to be specific protection/support for women whpho want to breastfeed so they can establish that and transition to pumping as needed. But beyond that? Shared shared shared. parents. Not moms. PARENTS.

Though I'll just say for thr record I only skimmed the op so maybe this policy is actually a ok. I dont actually know.

[origami]

Mar 8, 2015 0:42:00 GMT -5 wawa said:

Mar 8, 2015 0:36:40 GMT -5 origami said:

I'd be pretty pissed if I were a gay dad. Sorry sir. You may not have slept in 2 months, but you aren't officially in a period of transition until you get new chromosomes and start lactating.

That too.

I support medical leave for women obviously. And there needs to be specific protection/support for women whpho want to breastfeed so they can establish that and transition to pumping as needed. But beyond that? Shared shared shared. parents. Not moms. PARENTS.

Though I'll just say for thr record I only skimmed the op so maybe this policy is actually a ok. I dont actually know.

maybe.

"Although who qualifies for the benefit will vary somewhat by country, Pol said the reduced hours program for returning mothers and the 16 weeks of paid leave will apply to all full-time female employees in the United States."

But it could be inaccurate.

[Deleted]

Mar 7, 2015 23:42:19 GMT -5 origami said:

Why can't the dads get this? Yay for making it easier for moms but it just reinforces that women should bear the brunt of parenting responsibilities. 

My guess is they are not a rerention problem, so they have no motivation to offer this.

I'm all for equal opportunity leave though--or a split--eg a birthing mother could have 16 weeks considering part of it medical and dads or non-birthing parents could have 8 or 10 weeks.

[cookiemdough]

Eh I am fine with this being geared towards women. They recognized they had a retention problem in that space and attempted to address it. At least in my situation, I used all my leave for recovery from childbirth. Presumably men are not as negatively impacted in terms of leave and can still go to doctors appointments because they should still have sick leave that they didn't have to due to childbirth. Besides it is so hard to get change in terms of work life balance for all employees that I can't look down on small steps. I am more concerned about lack of options for adoptive families and gay couples. But men in general not being the focus of this policy? not really something that will keep me up at night.

[origami]

Mar 8, 2015 1:21:37 GMT -5 @kcpokergal said:

Mar 7, 2015 23:42:19 GMT -5 origami said:

Why can't the dads get this? Yay for making it easier for moms but it just reinforces that women should bear the brunt of parenting responsibilities. 

My guess is they are not a rerention problem, so they have no motivation to offer this.

I'm all for equal opportunity leave though--or a split--eg a birthing mother could have 16 weeks considering part of it medical and dads or non-birthing parents could have 8 or 10 weeks.

a split plan only makes sense at the macro level. Company to company it's not practical. I agree they probably didn't feel the need to offer it to dads because the dad's aren't dropping like flies from the workforce. I just wish instead of congratulating themselves on being so forward thinking they would have thought a little more about how they are reinforcing an underlying cultural or societal problem they are also trying to alleviate.

[ttt]

Mar 8, 2015 1:29:04 GMT -5 cookiemdough said:

Eh I am fine with this being geared towards women. They recognized they had a retention problem in that space and attempted to address it. At least in my situation, I used all my leave for recovery from childbirth. Presumably men are not as negatively impacted in terms of leave and can still go to doctors appointments because they should still have sick leave that they didn't have to due to childbirth. Besides it is so hard to get change in terms of work life balance for all employees that I can't look down on small steps. I am more concerned about lack of options for adoptive families and gay couples. But men in general not being the focus of this policy? not really something that will keep me up at night.

I'm here. I'm guessing that in general, men haven't really shown a problem with getting back into work after parental leave (part of which, I'm assuming, is because only a tiny fraction of men even take that leave in the first place, certainly in the US). 

Until you can show me that significant numbers of men are dropping out of the workforce because of the demands of fatherhood, I am fine with this. 

[heyjude]

...I mean... You have to start somewhere. Starting with the person who had the major medical event is not illogical. Public policy shifts start with something and grow. Yay for this company and here's to others following suit!

[curbsideprophet]

I have no issues with this being geared towards women. It is a retention tool. As others said, I assume they are not having issues retaining their male employees after they become parents, so at this point it is not needed. I also think you need to start somewhere.

I am sure there are people who will complain and say it is not fair to non mothers. I have heard people say having a baby is a choice. That offering paid maternity leave is not fair to those who don't have kids. Where is their paid time off.

We really have a long way to go.

[ringstrue]

I agree that both sexes should get more time off and more flex time, etc.

Maybe it's more about breastfeeding? Even if DH were better at doctors appointments, pickup/drop-offs, and generally remembering and preparing stuff for our kids, I'm still the one getting up 2+ times a night. I still need to be the one to ALWAYS stay home with a sick baby cause it's just easier to nurse a sick or teething baby vs. play the bottle game. So many issues can require a doc visit to both the pedi and my doc. We're a pair. And not for nothing, but I'm taking the time anyway, so if I can do it in a way where I don't feel like I'm burning PTO or disappointing the team or generally "failing" my work, I'm that much more apt to not pit my job against my baby and say that it's gotta be one or the other.

[msmerymac]

To play devil's advocate, we don't know that they don't have other leave policies in place that would apply to men. Most other countries also legally mandate parental leave with at least some of the time going to the non-birth parent. Also, 16 weeks is not as long as leave in most countries. That can still be considered medical leave. The reduced hours are a separate issue. Hell if I would want to split 16 weeks of leave with my husband, you know?

[origami]

Mar 8, 2015 9:16:25 GMT -5 asdfjkl said:

Mar 7, 2015 23:42:19 GMT -5 origami said:

Why can't the dads get this? Yay for making it easier for moms but it just reinforces that women should bear the brunt of parenting responsibilities. 

I think it reflects the fact that women DO bear the brunt of parenting responsibilities. I'd be perfectly happy to see the policy revised to include "primary care taker" rather than "mother." But this is a policy that helps women. I don't think it "reinforces" anything. It just addresses an existent problem.

it doesn't promote equal care taking; it incentivizes unequal care taking. That's why it reinforces the problem. How could a female employee at this company ask her male partner to do daycare pickups or take a kid to the doctor, knowing she's the only 1 of the 2 on a reduced, flexible schedule?

[nursewife]

I loved having a year of mat leave (Canada). Since H broke his femur, he was home with me most of that year as well. If that hadn't happened, I had wanted to go back to work, and give H part of the leave (men can take paternity leave here) so he could have time bonding with the kids like I had. I like that it's equal here. I don't see why this is a bad option in the article. As long as the company isn't forcing it, I think it's great.

[aprilsails]

I think they are creating a policy that addresses the issue they are trying to resolve: retention of young, trained, female employees in the year following childbirth.

I don't think it is the responsibility of every company to be held up against some gold standard for male/female/gay/adoption friendly practices. That can easily come later when employees within the company push for changes.

I can definitely see the benefits in this. One of the reasons I will be taking the full 1 yr mat leave I have in Canada is that my company expects minimum 40 hour weeks and I regularly run up to 50 - 55 with overtime. I am the first-ever woman to give birth in the 40 year history of the company and it will be telling if I actually go back to work there. It's not a family friendly work environment and if I went back early and DH took over parental leave for the last three months (for instance) I would probably be wiped out by trying to breastfeed at night, etc. We considered it since I'll be taking the major pay cut while I'm on EI (30% of my salary for the year I'm off) but we have savings and DH just received a major raise so it's worth it for us.

[eddy]

If you are a nursing mom parenting isn't equal. Even the most involved dad can't match being the food source.

So I like the idea. Even if all mom's don't BF, it is a good parenting support starting point.

[rugbywife]

To be fair, even in Canada the government differentiates between time that is 'dedicated' to the birth parent (17 weeks is maternity leave) and the rest can be taken by either parent (35 weeks parenting leave)

…and at work we are only topped up (the government subsidy does not = 100% of our pay, so our employer 'tops it up') for 8 weeks as the birth parent, which means that when DH went on leave, he didn't get topped up as I had. They do make an exception to this for adoptive parents however.

[heyjude]

Sweden wasn't built in a day people.

[heyjude]

Mar 8, 2015 20:52:15 GMT -5 asdfjkl said:

Mar 8, 2015 19:32:36 GMT -5 heyjude said:

Sweden wasn't built in a day people.

But we sacked England about that fast, didn't we?

Man your understanding of Sweden is so much better than mine. I don't even deserve to call myself a sorta swede. Where was your family from BTW? Mine was from the Åland Islands. Which is now technically Finland.

[5thofjuly]

This is one of those policies I don't want to pick to death initially in order not to let the perfect get in the way of the good. Should it be changed to incorporate "primary caregivers?" Yes. Let's do that next week. This week, though, let's celebrate the kind of work/family balance women have been begging for finally being achieved at this workplace.

[maddysmum]

Maybe it's because we already have long mat/parental leave options here (a year, basically) but I think that these policies can, in some ways, create sexism in the workplace in new ways. There's a depressingly common issue (often covert, sometimes blatant) with the hiring of women of a certain demographic. Given the option of hiring a 30 year old man for a big job or a 30 year old woman, do you choose the one more likely to take a year off resulting in the need to hire a mat leave replacement or do you hire the one biologically less like to carry a baby in the foreseeable future? It's an issue.

So, I think that if you could start instituting these new policies on a more even playing field from the get go, maybe you can establish more equality in parenting in the workforce? Here, there is an option for dads to take parental leave, but the policies were designed specifically for women and didn't grow to include fathers until, oh, the 90's? So, it was established that parenting duties fall to mothers (which is reinforced left, right and center elsewhere in our world, as we all know!) and the end result is a similar level of sexism in the workplace. Women can be seen as a liability - it costs money to train some one and to invest that time and money into someone who reasonably might leave for a year...well, it can have the effect of making women of a certain age less desirable in the workplace. Men don't face that same expectation.

We're both coming from behind here, just in different ways - but if you could start establishing more reasonable leave policies without pigeonholing mothers are primary parents by making the policies for PARENTS, not women, I think the end result would even the workplace playing field significantly. It also goes a long way to making policies people friendly, not traditional mother, father, 2.1 kid family. It's all encompassing, while still achieving the goal of supporting women in the workplace. The result is the same - offering better options for employment to women, but without making women a liability in the workforce.

[cookiemdough]

I guess I don't see much risk here because it is company specific. Unless both members of the couple work for this particular company, I don't see how this causes a significant amount of unfairness. A woman getting this benefit doesn't negatively impact her husband if he works for another company that doesn't offer these benefits.

[derp]

Can somebody explain to me how this benefits, or doesn't disadvantage, from a feminism perspective, women who will never have children? This is the sort of thing that makes me feel excluded and disenfranchised from what is supposedly the current feminist movement. The one that says woman = mother.

We are also women, and should therefore be covered under feminism. But this weird bastardization that assumes woman = mother is alienating a large and growing percentage of women. I'm not sure why this is deemed ok.

[heyjude]

Mar 8, 2015 22:47:05 GMT -5 derp said:

Can somebody explain to me how this benefits, or doesn't disadvantage, from a feminism perspective, women who will never have children? This is the sort of thing that makes me feel excluded and disenfranchised from what is supposedly the current feminist movement. The one that says woman = mother.

We are also women, and should therefore be covered under feminism. But this weird bastardization that assumes woman = mother is alienating a large and growing percentage of women. I'm not sure why this is deemed ok.

I am assuming, though I can't be sure, you were once born of a woman, yes?

[derp]

Mar 8, 2015 22:51:59 GMT -5 heyjude said:

Mar 8, 2015 22:47:05 GMT -5 derp said:

Can somebody explain to me how this benefits, or doesn't disadvantage, from a feminism perspective, women who will never have children? This is the sort of thing that makes me feel excluded and disenfranchised from what is supposedly the current feminist movement. The one that says woman = mother.

We are also women, and should therefore be covered under feminism. But this weird bastardization that assumes woman = mother is alienating a large and growing percentage of women. I'm not sure why this is deemed ok.

I am assuming, though I can't be sure, you were once born of a woman, yes?

I feel like you are somehow referring to Patricia Arquette's Oscar speech, which I hated. But yes, my mother is a woman. Explain please the relevance and what you know about my mother's work history and how it's relevant to my comment. Because I guarantee that if you really want to go there, you will wish that you didn't.

What I am talking about is women who will never have kids. Not women who did.

[josieposy]

I think it goes right back to the basic society and future generations argument. We as a generation will benefit from companies advancing these benefits for women/parents and the future generations who will be running the globe.

It doesn't benefit me either, as I am done procreating. Doesn't mean we shouldn't still push for it.

[heyjude]

Mar 8, 2015 22:57:22 GMT -5 derp said:

Mar 8, 2015 22:51:59 GMT -5 heyjude said:

I am assuming, though I can't be sure, you were once born of a woman, yes?

I feel like you are somehow referring to Patricia Arquette's Oscar speech, which I hated. But yes, my mother was a woman. Explain please the relevance and what you know about my mother's work history and how it's relevant to my comment. Because I guarantee that if you really want to go there, you will wish that you didn't.

What I am talking about is women who will never have kids. Not women who did.

If you believe in a social construct that only allocates benefits based on how you personally benefit then rest assured if a childless woman was once a child, then she too would benefit from maternity leave. Because maternity leave benefits mom and child.

I don't understand the Patricia Arquette reference.