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In New York City, Kelsey Goss, a public-school teacher, is trying to build her tutoring business so she and her husband can stay afloat financially when she goes on unpaid maternity leave in October.
"When I tell people that as a teacher I get zero paid maternity leave, they're stunned," she says. "In a job like that, that's about taking care of kids, those are the benefits?"
How does she think her benefits compare with Europe?
My cousin in the Czech Republic received 2 years of maternity leave at 3/4 pay, and her job was held for her. Some countries understand the importance of family. Some, like ours, don't.
My cousin in the Czech Republic received 2 years of maternity leave at 3/4 pay, and her job was held for her. Some countries understand the importance of family. Some, like ours, don't.
Do they also provide leave at 3/4 for someone to take care of an elderly parent? To take a vacation?
Why does the definition of family have to include kids?
Why can't we understand that EVERYONE is important, whether you have kids or not.
We also stand apart from other nations in terms of our health care systems.
Having kids is a choice.
I don't mind companies providing maternity leave for their employees but what about those who choose not to have children?
Can I get time off to take a vacation or take care of an elderly family member?
1) All the children of our community are our children. We should all support at least partially paid maternity leave, with held job security, for a year. At least. I do think, however, that such leave should be limited to two children, maximum.
2) As far as I know, non-parents are entitled to the same vacation leave as parents. And people who are parents do not have special leave privileges to take care of an elderly family member any more than non-parents do.
1) All the children of our community are our children. We should all support at least partially paid maternity leave, with held job security, for a year. At least. I do think, however, that such leave should be limited to two children, maximum.
2) As far as I know, non-parents are entitled to the same vacation leave as parents. And people who are parents do not have special leave privileges to take care of an elderly family member any more than non-parents do.
JMO.
That's cool.
As long as everyone has access or the opportunity to take time off, I'm fine with it.
I see you adding not having kids is a choice too. Well...duh.
I just don't see why some people who are parents feel they deserve these special privileges for time off work but could care less about those who don't have kids.
In a perfect world everyone could take off for a certain amount of time and be paid a certain percentage of wages. If you have kids, it counts against your time. If you need to take care of an elderly family member or need to go out of town for a family function, it counts too. I just don't think ONLY PARENTS should have paid time off from work.
That's cool.
As long as everyone has access or the opportunity to take time off, I'm fine with it.
That's about how I feel.
As a society, family should come first. Ideally, if a person's elderly parents become ill and are in need of care, we should eventually have a health care system that allows for covered in-home health care for the elderly.
We should all put each other first, rather than the money-lenders and the insurance companies. Family and people first. That's the only way to build a stable society. A major reason for the disintegration of the American family is that the corporatization of our nation has been brutal. Workers treated like units of productivity, paid barely-living wages, a measly 2 weeks vacation from being chained to a desk, having to humiliate oneself when extra leave is needed (for illness or an unexpected event), being made to feel ungrateful or somehow "un-American" when protesting for better wages and working conditions, being expected to work out child care between 2 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. (most people's quitting time). People are exhausted, tired, guilty, anxious. One tragic anecdote among many: A lovely family in our city managed to buy a nice house in a decent middle-class neighborhood with good schools for their children. The mother worked at one job full-time; the father worked at one full-time job and one part-time job. One day, for whatever reason, the mother could not drop the youngest--an infant--off at day care, as she usually did. So she asked the father to do it, instead. At the end of his work day, he walked to the parking garage, and opened the door to his car to discover his dead infant, who has suffocated to death in the over 110 degree heat of the closed car. The father was so exhausted that he completely forgot that the child was in the back seat of the car. The reports said that he threw himself on the pavement and started screaming at the top of his lungs. It was horrible.
When are we going to start putting Americans and American families first? When are we REALLY going to "take back our country"? From the blood-sucking, boot-grinding Darth Vaders of Wall Street, buttressed by their little foot soldiers of hate? That's what I'd like to know.
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