Yes. I believe the quote I pulled says as much. As La Lubu says, this is obviously a gendered problem, but that doesn’t mean women are the only ones affected.

The issue being how small business cope with long paternal leaves that must be paid for/coped with and they dont really have a way to? How does one work around this without, as sailorman says, siginificantly increasing taxes to cover the cost of daycare?

That is an issue, but I see no reason why it should be the issue. Yup, it seriously sucks for small business owners. It also sucks for women, for families, for women who are stuck trying to plan their families, for women who have no plans to have kids but who may be discriminated against anyway out of fear they’ll pop one out like a jack-in-the-box vagina. Social problems are often sticky, that doesn’t excuse dealing with them. I haven’t done rigorous searching, but I haven’t seen anything indicating that FMLA in the states (which after all, provides no pay at all, just a guarantee that you won’t be fired for giving birth or taking leave for other medical reasons) is especially costly to employers. Sure, they may have to hire temps, but we all know what shit wages and benefits temps get–employers may save money using a temp for three months. The fact that some employers get so pissy about FMLA does make me suspicious of their every attempt to cry “oh woe is me” every time new job protections are mentioned by anyone anywhere. And why is the default not raising taxes? I mean, maybe that’s what it takes, maybe reallocation isn’t sufficient. So what. If 80% of the country is going to have a kid at some point in their lives, I’d say a program that ensures the family checkbook doesn’t go into the shitter in the aftermath is of substantial public benefit.

Is any parental leave at all other that medical recovery time for the mother a right? Who pays for it?
What do you mean by right? It’s not in the constitution, no. Few will die as a result. But I understand your question to mean “is leave beyond physical recovery from birth desirable enough to be subsidized.” One, I think it is. Two, that’s not really the issue, the issue is what is the social consequence of not subsidizing, and is it something we can live with. The frame you’re presenting reflects a bias. As for who pays for it, it’s a good question. There are a lot of different options–allocated taxes, specific taxes, some form of subsidized or unsubsidized short-term disability policies for employers. But your cart is keeping your horse from going anywhere, if you know what I mean.

I understand. I am a single tradeswoman. Those options are nonstarters for me, too. That’s why I support a variety of options, including neighborhood daycare centers (no more scrambling across hell’s half acre finding daycare that accommodates nonstandard working hours—like a 7:00AM start time, standard for construction and hospitals), and extended school hours (which would accommodate children who have “aged out” of daycare—most daycares do not accept children over 7).

In the United States, we still see having and raising children as an inherently individual decision. Why not instead see it as something that three-quarters of the population is going to do? As something that is going to impact society as a whole regardless of any one individual’s decision to have a child or not?

Because the fact is, all of us are subsiding married people. Married people recieve spousal benefits that unmarried persons do not (social security, pension or health-care benefits if your workplace has those, FMLA, etc.). All of us are subsidizing homeowners. Homeowners receive tax benefits that renters do not—and let’s face it, owning a home is the major wealth-builder for people in the United States. In fact, homeowners receive benefits for home equity loans; someone who is well-off enough to take out a home equity loan can do so, buy a new car with the proceeds, and use those home equity loan payments as a tax break. People who merely take out a car loan can’t do that.

‘Nother words, the United States has no problem subsidizing policies and practices that are seen as benefiting men and women equally. It is only when something is seen as benefiting women primarily that it is seen as financially risky or as poor social policy. Welfare, child care, health care—-all are seen as predominantly female issues—think about “nanny state”. Who, pray tell, is the beneficiary of a nanny, hm?

When construction projects are proposed, the headlines are about job creation. The impact on local economies as more money is pumped into them from well-paid construction workers and other professionals. Politicians and city council members leap at the chance to gain these added jobs. Why isn’t childcare thought of as a possible generator of jobs? Not only would more previously unemployed people find better paying work, but more previously unemployable people would be free to find and gain employment. I am especially mystified at the resistance to an extended school day that matches the workday, since the infrastructure is already there and would merely consist of hiring more staff.

its hard for me to tell the person down the road who doesnt want to/cant have children that they must subsidize those who do

Yes, that is a popular feeling, and it is especially voiced against public schools (“I don’t have any kids in school! Why should I pay for this shit? If parents can’t afford a private school for their kids, they shouldn’t have ‘em!”). Yet still, we have public police departments, rather than requiring people to fund their own investigative team if a crime is committed against them. We have public fire departments (many of which are volunteer!), rather than tell people to break out their own hose. We have crews to shovel snow off the roads, rather than tell people that they are responsible for clearing a particular section of road themselves. There are municipal (publically-owned) electric companies that maintain and repair high voltage lines for the benefit of the community; the people of those communities aren’t required to climb the poles and attempt the work themselves, nor do they have to contract for private companies to do that for them. We still have public libraries for the benefit of communities, rather than tell people that if they want to read, they should go to the bookstore. Larger cities have public transportation for which riders pay a nominal fee—we don’t tell folks in major metropolitan areas that if they want to ride a bus or subway, that they should seek a privately-owned company, perhaps buy a club membership to access the subway. We have public water and sewer services, rather than require folks desiring clean water to dig wells (or privately contract for the digging) themselves. We subsidizize hospitals, farmers, universities, research, communications…..

Why the exception for children?

Why are public works projects, public health efforts, public safety institutions, etc., all thought of as valuable investments, with the individuals hired for those projects thought to be social contributors with valuable careers….

….yet any contribution towards children is considered of low value, and as marginally—if at all—benefiting the public at large? Why are careers that involve the care and education of children considered so worthless?

Because for anyone who thinks this isn’t a gendered problem, I got this bridge down in Alton, Illinois for sale real cheap, and you could make a mint collecting tolls from all the people crossing back and forth to St. Louis to work…..

“Flexible hours, onsite daycare, neighborhood daycare centers, job sharing, extended school hours, parental leave, etc.” These exist in a scattered fashion in this country but in other countries. particularly scandinavian ones, they exist on a much larger level but those countries still have the problems we do. I get what youre saying but are you saying we add the costs for all those things on top of what we already spend or we cut out a lot of our current spending to do it? Also those things don’t exist for a lot of people, for the folks in my life who are sales people who work on commission, farmhands, and others, flexible hours, onsite daycare, job sharing, parental leave are pretty much nonstarters. Are you proposing that we take the millions of seasonal works with kids, tens of millions of part time workers with kids and other groups outside of the working for a mid-size companies and up set and set up a system which id imagine conservatively at the very least as much as we spend on defense on this issue? I see this in one way as an economic issue, just like big pharma, one of the reasons other countries are able to get drugs for so much less than us is because we subsidize the entire industry. Who is going to subsidize this new system of childcare for us? What if this system is so costly and cumbersome it lessens our productivity and output and we can no longer pay for it, as again a lot of those other western countries can only do what they do due to the economic boosts we’ve given them over the last 50 years. On the flip side doing this might increase productivity and output, I do not know either way but can see merits in both arguments.

Your last paragraph makes a lot of sense but i also see a lot of things that hurt men that get a lot of spending, prisons come to mind, that whole fucked up system, very few people seem to have a problem with that and are much more inclined to lock up a 3 strike guy for life then give half the cost of that to a single parent. I guess it comes down to seeing the children as a resource or not and while i dont know what the % is, a lot of people choose to have children and demand those benefits, not the same to me as police/fire/military as no one chooses to have their house burn down or to be assaulted/robbed.

As far as the “helping people who ought to be doing this for themselves”. It does get down to the kind of society we want to have, as you mentioned. One of the main reasons for all the wealth and resources we do have is the blending of private and public entities, private business intermingling with gov’t policy and mandate. Tinkering with this can have positive or negative results. I can see the merit and do support as an idea providing every kind of assistance a parent would need to raise their child but as mentioned in the previous paragraph, its hard for me to tell the person down the road who doesnt want to/cant have children that they must subsidize those who do and that the children are a resource and all that can be done must be done for children and parents paradigm is the only way to go.

So, references to “Bob” notwithstanding, realistically if “Bob” really were taking care of the children as often as “Bobbi”, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Flexible hours, onsite daycare, neighborhood daycare centers, job sharing, extended school hours, parental leave, etc. would already be the norm (as earlier posters alluded to—the necessity for men also to buck the current system, as we women already do. Not the relative handful of men who are doing so now, but a critical mass).

If you’re waiting for people to forego having children until they reach some magical yearly income—well hell, might as well expect people to forego pair-bonding with one another. Being a parent is an inherently enjoyable, pleasurable, rewarding activity for those who desire parenthood. Far more rewarding than any job can be (again—for those who want to be parents, not for everyone). It all comes down to what kind of society you want to have. We’re still subsidizing paved roads, cars, utility and communication infrastructure, etc. Why do we have no problem subsidizing these efforts, yet resist subsidizing social infrastructure, that is no less important than any of the above?

And I think you’ll see that a common thread is that whenever areas of the social infrastructure are seen as predominantly benefitting women (childcare, parental leave, elder care, etc.), it is deemed “too expensive” or “helping people who ought to be doing this for themselves”. Any time the social infrastructure is seen as benefitting men and women equally (police departments, fire departments, public libraries, etc.)—only then is it seen as a worthwhile expense.

I can see what youre saying about the disparity being the issue but is not the larger issue all parents, not just women? The issue being how small business cope with long paternal leaves that must be paid for/coped with and they dont really have a way to? How does one work around this without, as sailorman says, siginificantly increasing taxes to cover the cost of daycare? Is any parental leave at all other that medical recovery time for the mother a right? Who pays for it? I’m all for it but I cant wrap my head around how to pay for it and if the article is flawed, I can still see people in that situation, bosses of a small business, who would get killed if they had to pay for a replacement for up to a year. How to solve that?

I know how brutal it is. My wife works at a lower paying job and for 40 hours a week takes home very little once you subtract daycare costs. It’s not as if I get a discount, even as an ex-board-member. I would freakin’ LOVE to find quality day care, full time, for $3,000/year. But i can tell you from the other side that there’s no money to spare.

Incidentally, my costs reflect a nursery school, where 2 teachers can collectively supervise 18 or so kids. For infants and toddlers, that would legally require 3 teachers, I think, and it might even need 4. So costs go up dramatically for young ‘uns.

So it seems that the only way it’s going to happen is with significantly higher taxes.

An interesting economic issue is whether it makes sense for people to work at all. Say that Bob is qualified to either 1) parent his kids, or 2) work as a landscaper at $11/hour. It’s quite possible that we should NOT provide Bob with subsidized daycare, and should NOT encourage Bob to work outside the home, as he’s “worth more” as a parent than as a worker. When you add in commuting time (where Bob needs care for his kids) and subtract commuting costs, it probably costs more to care for Bob’s kids than Bob can ear, given Bob’s skill level and knowledge and ability.

So if Bob knows that and doesn’t want to stay home, Bob should probably consider not having kids for a while.

My favorite quote from this [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/textbased/news/article-1035191/Equality-lobby-calls-extended-paternity-leave-let-womens-careers-prosper.html] article: “Has policy on maternity leave made too many assumptions about the choices families will make and as a result entrenched the stereotype that it is women who do the caring and men who do the earning? We talk about the penalty for taking time out of work to raise children and the cost of motherhood, but are we forgetting about the other side of the coin? What cost are men paying by missing out on raising children?”