<i>At this point, the male students would nod and go on about their days, and the female grad students would stick around in an increasingly panicked state to ask about that whole saving annual and sick leave thing, since their contracts don’t include leave.</i><p>I was 100% like the male students until fairly recently when my girlfriend and I started having serious conversations about having children. The conversation was something like this. her: "What does your employer offer for maternity leave?" me: "lol idk." And then I got a pretty stern look. In the US the only legal guarantee you get is that you can leave for 12 weeks unpaid and you'll probably still have a job when you get back. There is zero guaranteed paid leave. It's completely shameful and it's a stone age policy compared to the rest of the Western world [1]. It's also something I think the typical HN reader hasn't spent much time thinking about so I'm glad to see this on the front page.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave</a>
I find the whole notion of "sick days" and accruing them bizarre.<p>What happens if you're sick but don't have enough sick days saved? Are you fired? Stop getting payed?<p>For comparison, this is how sick leave works in the uk: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/taking-sick-leave" rel="nofollow">https://www.gov.uk/taking-sick-leave</a><p>And I don't want to even get in to how fucked up it is to have to save up years of vacation days to take some time off when you have a baby
Pretty much every country in the world, both 'first-world' and poor countries, has it better than USA in this regard.<p>Let this serve as a warning for young (age-with-a-potential-to-have-a-family) people who might be tempted to relocate to California - you have to ask for a significant premium in salary, since even in good companies (the OP lists multiple items where her job is considered 'above average') you're simply not getting as good conditions as the absolute minimum mandated elsewhere even for the cheapest entry level jobs.<p>Locally, a shelf-stacker in the most cost-cutting-oriented local supermarket gets far better maternity leave conditions than those described here.
Few things make my blood boil more than people that robotically say things like "It's the policy" with the kind of compassion and empathy that a robot would show, and then go about their business without a care in the world.
This makes my blood boil, too.<p>I'd also like to point out that skimpy <i>paternity</i> leave policy is also bad for mothers. Some mothers are fortunate to have friends and family willing to pause their lives to help with the transition and recovery, but some <i>really</i> need the father around to take over running the household, especially if there were complications during the birth.
Aside from police brutality, all the spying and erosion of privacy, corruption at high level (like regulatory capture), the medical and insurance situation points more to the fact that this country -- US, is not a civilized country.<p>It is a country with a high GDP, strong military, good natural resources, strong manufacturing. All those nice things. But it is still not a civilized country.
I am a graduate student, my wife is a post-doc, and we are expecting our first child in the next few weeks. I actually just found out that my school recently (this summer) made a policy allowing graduate students to take up to 60 days of paid leave, so I am fortunate here at BU. I didn't realize how bad the US policies are until we started talking with our (mostly foreign) coworkers who were all surprised that my wife is still at work even though she is expecting a baby in a few weeks. We both work in supportive labs that would probably give us the time off that we need regardless of the school policy, but it is scary to think what it would be like even working in another lab at the same school some times. We really need to do more to support the women working in the US especially when it comes to family friendly leave.
"You will be shocked to hear that the updated policy was developed in part by a man who does not have children."<p>You will be shocked to hear that even men without children can recognize the need to retain employees that they value, because you can be sure that your competitors in the employment market will offer less misogynistic polices.<p>Sadly, I had to argue this very point years ago with my Microsoft coworkers. "Wah, I don't have kids, it's unfair!" Hey, I don't have kids and never will, but that doesn't mean I can't recognize the value of offering company benefits that I will never use.
Mothers in the UK get a full year of maternity leave at 90% pay for the first 6 weeks and then about $200/week after. You can elect to return to work earlier (although you <i>have</i> to take at least 2 weeks). You can start the maternity leave up to 11 weeks before the due date.<p>And the UK isn't even particularly progressive about this sort of thing. Norwegians get 13 months at 80% pay followed by up to a year unpaid. In Spain you can take up to 3 years unpaid.
This is reminding me of my first intern job, when I'd gotten an email about "donating vacation days" to someone with an extended illness who'd used up theirs. I didn't have any vacation days anyway because I was hourly, but I was kind of confused why taking sick time when you're sick required having coworkers "donate" it, so I asked a coworker why donating vacation days was even a thing. Coworker seemed a little dismayed, thought I was saying that it didn't make sense for people to help out a sick coworker. I had just assumed that the company wouldn't give people a hard time about having cancer.
I think we should have paid maternity leave and I think the federal govt should pay for it. If you force employers to pay for it you discourage the hiring of young women.
It's really easy to get the wrong idea about post-childbirth from just watching your friends have kids on Facebook. I think it's commonplace to assume that the birth is the difficult part, because nobody posts about their trauma in the weeks that follow. Birthing a child ranks on the scale of sick-day-worthiness somewhere near a gunshot wound. This woman's treatment is deplorable. (And yes, the whole damn system is deplorable.)
It's completely insane that US doesn't have unlimited sick leave like EU does. It's just backwards and ridiculous - if someone is ill, then they are ill, what if they don't have any sick leave left? You fire them? I literally can't stomach this. When I was little I always thought I would emigrate to the States to work - now I would pay not to go.
In the UK our [pm]aternity leave allowance is not exactly enlightened, but even so this left me open-mouthed. Scandinavian readers or readers from other countries that actually bother to look after their workers properly must be utterly incredulous at your treatment.
I work for an employer with generous benefit policies and am male, but even still ran into enough HR nonsense that it felt as if I was the first human working for an organization with over 150k employees who had ever had a child.<p>In short, I was:<p>- Warned that I could potentially be charged with fraud for enrolling my wife in family health coverage before the baby's birth.<p>- Told that I would "void my FMLA rights" if I performed any work activity while off. (Although I had 10 weeks of paid accruals and supervisory approval to take off!) The overzealous HR person tried to have my accounts disabled as well. Stopping this required that I walk into the HR Director's office and complain -- not an option for people lower down in the hierarchy.<p>- Charged $750 because my son had the temerity to be born after the new year, and hospitalization pre-approvals expire with the calendar year.<p>My wife had a whole litany of wacky things happen. It is a nightmare.
I went through this last year with the birth of our second son. My wife was making sure that everything would be taking care for talking to HR multiple times and they all saying she would be fine. Come time for her to take time off we were presented with a whole other story. First she would't get all the weeks off because she went into labor a week early then expected and to top that she wouldn't be getting paid over the summer (She worked as a school RN at this time). So we were out 5 months of income. Luckily I gotten into a bad habit of placing all the money I will need for my taxes at years end into my account and just not touching it. Well that bad habit saved us for sure, but now the taxes are a pain in the ass. I guess that's life.
Sometimes I'm immensely proud to be part of this country (second-generation immigrant), but reading things like this make me feel like I live in the most backwards place in the world.<p>The richest country somehow can't provide a basic standard of living for so many of its citizens.
My boss once told me "90% of the ridiculous policies are in place to prevent the 10% that abuse it". It's a sad shame, but there are people that really abuse sick leave and the rest of us have to pay for it.<p>In South Africa all employees are entitled to AT LEAST 4 consecutive months of maternity leave, up to 1 month prior to giving birth, or earlier if a doctor says so. You're also required by law not to return to work for at least 6 weeks post giving birth, unless a doctor okay's it.<p><a href="http://www.labour.gov.za/DOL/legislation/acts/basic-guides/basic-guide-to-maternity-leave" rel="nofollow">http://www.labour.gov.za/DOL/legislation/acts/basic-guides/b...</a>
I took a full month off of work after my last two children were born (couldn't do it for my first born, but that is a different story). Luckily my wife is a stay at home mom and we could pull it off with one income. I think most people underestimate the value to the family of having this time off.<p>As an employer though, I am conflicted about mandatory policies. Actually, let me rephrase that, I am conflicted about situations in which people take massive blocks off of work - for babies or otherwise. The reason is what you would expect: As an employer I probably cannot find someone who is a direct replacement for that employee during that period.<p>Depending on the stage, size and speed of an organization, having a key person out of the office could potentially break the company. I know for a fact that if our CTO took a month off of work we would probably go out of business. Now, we are a three man startup so that is clearly different than massive organizations like IBM etc..., but my guess is that the majority of companies fall into the category where losing a person for a month is crippling.<p>So the best thing I can come up with as a strategy for maternity/paternity leave is this: The person who will be taking the leave, upon knowledge that they are pregnant should work with their employer for the following months to identify a temporary hire who can do their work in their absence. Assuming the company could handle it, the company would absorb the new hire cost from hide, but if not a negotiation should be made about half-pay or some other compensation such that the company can afford the hire.<p>Without government or some other entity actually ponying up money that would compensate the company for the absence, I don't see any way to balance those books for up and coming businesses.<p>I should just add that at the end of the day, customers don't care that your employee just had a baby, they just want their product to work. Except in rare cases customers do not seem to be at a place where they are willing to absorb a cost like this so inevitably the cost is either born by the employer or is forced to be socialized (not a bad word here) through regulation.
It seems crazy to me to have children in this country, you're always a broken limb or car accident away from absolute catastrophe. And by comparison I'm doing a <i>lot</i> better than most of my fellow countrymen, so if anyone should want to reproduce it should be people like me. But we have made the prospect rather unappealing.
I understand why Karen feels she must redact the name of her employer, but it would be so very helpful if she named names. It would educate the rest of us to avoid working there.
That stinks. For others looking to have children you may want to research short term disability options.<p><a href="http://www.babycenter.com/0_maternity-leave-the-basics_449.bc" rel="nofollow">http://www.babycenter.com/0_maternity-leave-the-basics_449.b...</a>
Canada gets this so right with {p|m}aternity leave for either parent, which levels the playing field for both sexes.<p>Disclaimer: I am an American who is a product of the military health care system, and thinks it is a real solution for civilian healthcare. Also, I intend to move to Canada in the next <10y. There is no free health care, but I'm happy to pay the tax that supports it if it means I won't lose everything due to catastrophic illness.
In China, maternity leave is 5 months paid at the salary of the average of all employees of the company, and is taken at a flexible time before or after birth. This can mean a rise of a cut in income.<p>Paternity leave yet has to make such bounds.
Is this the difference between working in academia and working at a large corporation?<p>Most of the large companies I worked for had 12 weeks paid vacation and then you could do an additional 12 weeks which wasn't paid for the primary care giver. Otherwise, as a non-primary, you still got 2 weeks paid.<p>Also, I remember several female sales people abusing the system pretty well. They'd get within a month or so of their due date, then go to the doctor and get mandatory bed rest. Company would send them home and keep paying them 80% of their commission plus their salary based on the last three months of their commission rates.<p>I also saw a lot of guys claiming they were the primary so then both parents could get their 12 weeks of paid time off to spend time with the newborn together.
Just want to point out that (while rare outside of government jobs I imagine). Some employers offer very low cost insurance you can take out that guarantees you pay, for up to a certain number of months off, if you pay into it. My wife and I are in the age range where most people procreate so she will put money into this until we decide we will no longer be considering child birth. Unfortunately, I cannot recall exactly what the term for this is, but I do know it's about 9 USD a month for us and guarantees us that she will receive full pay throughout the 12 weeks for FMLA. We are located in MN and this is a government job. My main point is always make sure to be aware of what options are available. Things at most places make just having a child incredibly difficult for families (as if it's not inherently difficult enough) so do as much research as possible, until we have a better, mandated system for protecting women who are giving birth (and nursing which is a whole other subject where we need to make some serious changes for women's/families' rights).
To put a positive spin on this terrible story, offering generous leave and other benefits is one way startups can punch above their weight when hiring. With regards to maternity & paternity leave it's also just the right thing to do.<p>I think my single favorite part about being a founder is that I get to create the kind of company that I want to work at.
Why do modern societies not wish to halt their ageing population issues and increase their tax base? Children are an INVESTMENT. Over the life of the child (assuming they remain in their country of birth of course) the taxation earned should more than offset the cost of funding parental leave. This is insanity...
As a hopefully future dad, the entire [pm]aternity discussion is totally disheartening. I simply will not be able to be at home and have any kind of paid paternity leave. Since my wife is not full-time employed, we'll have zero income. It's really frustrating & a bummer.
Looking at this from a country outside of the US, it's almost as if US employment laws were created with lots of help from large corporations who wanted to treat their employees like workhorses rather than people.
> employers in the U.S. do not care about mothers of young children at all, unless we’re consumers of their products. It might be more accurate to say that they view us as horrible useless burdens who need to be ushered back to full-time work as swiftly as possible. They will do anything in their power to keep employees from exercising their federally guaranteed rights<p>This opinion would not be out of place on this site where some users complain about other workers not working hard enough simply because they had the gall to leave at their contractually appointed time.
WHAT A NIGHTMARE!<p>In your case I'd speak with the highest ranked staff I could find in the UNI and let them know the situation... not even in the army are that cruel.<p>If that person couldn't help, I'd quit that awful environment and I'd also try to publish it through the News or something. Get some bad publicity going on for them!<p>This is not a place for human to work in... Time flies and the birth of a child is not something you'l see everyday!
There's no reason for an employer to offer special paid maternity leave for not working. It doesn't make sense, and it's not fair to others who do work during that time.<p>On the other hand, not offering sick leave for recovery from childbirth is just plain stupid. Recovery from surgery, recovery from C-section, recovery from vaginal delivery...that sounds like sick leave to me.
This is absolutely terrifying and ridiculous.<p>This basically feels like a cultural whiplash towards women for even thinking of not succumbing to the will of the patriarchy, the only option being the stay-at-home wife, as in: women need to remember their place.<p>Sure, you're not required to be married to have kids, but we are going to punish you for not putting yourself into that very specific lifestyle.
Pretty disgusting all around. I guess I'll never understand the mindset of people who would perpetrate things like this on innocents in the sake of short-term profits. Long-term profits are probably harder to make the case for when they're based on treating your employees like garbage.
"S... O... C-I-A... L-I-S-M is the only way" (Sam Roberts, The Canadian Dream)
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tutTzTYuU1Y" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tutTzTYuU1Y</a>
In my experience, it is more common for a company to make you burn all of your accrued vacation and sick leave before you can get your 12 weeks unpaid FMLA leave.
<i>The takeaway from all of this: employers in the U.S. do not care about mothers of young children at all, unless we’re consumers of their products. It might be more accurate to say that they view us as horrible useless burdens who need to be ushered back to full-time work as swiftly as possible. They will do anything in their power to keep employees from exercising their federally guaranteed rights to twelve weeks of MOTHERFUCKING UNPAID LEAVE, up to and including forcing employees to give up paid sick leave.</i><p>Wow. She is a hero for writing this.<p>Here's what's terrifying, and it's why our society is doomed to fail in the next 30 years if it keeps acting up this way: we <i>need</i> people like her to reproduce, and we're punishing them when they do.<p>Extreme economic inequality, a bad health insurance system, an expensive education mess that puts a huge burden on parents, declining social mobility, and a corporate structure that punishes childbirth and the raising of children (especially for women) have had an anti-eugenic effect. The thoughtless, ignorant people who live in the present are having lots of children-- just as many as ever. The thoughtful, well-educated ones are having fewer kids, because they're more attuned to the cues of society and the obvious signal that they're not wanted by this world. We're seeing an adverse differential in reproduction.<p>If something kills the U.S., it's not going to be China or the EU and it's certainly not going to be immigration, which is a good thing. It's going to be the adverse reproductive differential caused by a society that penalizes intelligent, thoughtful parents. (It also penalizes less intelligent parents, but they don't give a shit and breed anyway.) That issue is the one serious existential threat to us as a society.