Center-right nation, baby.

As a first-time father of a one-year-old, I just want to make a little nitpick. We need "parental leave" -- for both parents -- not just "maternity" leave.

So who pays for this? This is the question that is never asked.

I'm down with taxes paying for it. With help from the businesses that are able to afford it. What about you El Viajero?

Then there'll be only one developed nation so inescapably callous, so unconcerned with families, that they lack paid leave legislation.

If you correct that the "two-income families", you would be correct. Paid maternity leave is a DISADVANTAGE to traditional families, like mine.

Um it's the Australian Council of Trade Unions that says paid leave is non-negotiable, not Rudd.

"So who pays for this? This is the question that is never asked."

"As a first-time father of a one-year-old, I just want to make a little nitpick. We need "parental leave" -- for both parents -- not just "maternity" leave."

The Australian plan has 18 weeks paid maternity leave and two weeks paid paternity leave.

Because the answer is already there. A$1.3bn from the taxpayer, $70m from employers.

With an economy that depends on both men and women participating in the job market, there needs to be paid leave for both paternity and maternity. If we're serious about 'families' and parental responsibilities then this is a no-brainer.

Who's going to pay for this? The 75% of all corporations that don't currently pay taxes in the US.

El V: I know, it's a tragedy. That's why every other developed nation on earth, which foolishly rushed intot his policy without thinking of the consequences, has been a colossal failure.

I'm not overly concerned with "who pays for it." We are talking about lost time at work, or production, right? I mean, no additional money is necessary, unless you count overtime for those taking up the slack. I realize that there are indeed costs, but, certainly, with the invention of the internet, some of this could be mitigated by working from home. There are many jobs that could be done from home.

You mean people who decide to have babies have to pay for it through lost wages? How cruel. Does the US also make parents pay for their child's toys, food and daycare? It is a wonder why Americans have kids at all. Not like France where mothers get free first class tickets on trains and all sorts of other perks paid for by they miserable single peers.

Sam: It's not a "disadvantage" to you, any more than tax credits for children are a "disadvantage" to me as a guy with no kids.

Gordon, babies grow up to be workers. It always amazes me when people with no kids complain about their property taxes paying for public schools. An educated workforce benefits everyone.

I wonder what their population stats are - my understanding is that the more liberal (read: generous) parental leave policies are often from nations struggling with indigenous repopulation. In America that's not an issue, thus there's been less government drive.
I'd add my 2 cents that this shouldn't be strictly a maternal leave, but also a paternal leave issue.

"You mean people who decide to have babies have to pay for it through lost wages? How cruel. Does the US also make parents pay for their child's toys, food and daycare?"

Wow, I wish we could see more of this pooh-poohing of the importance of parenthood whenever, say, the issue of gay marriage comes up.

Hey, if you're going to be a parent then YOU BE THE PARENT and stop asking the government or the employer to be the parent.

With an economy that depends on both men and women participating in the job market, there needs to be paid leave for both paternity and maternity

The more expensive we make government, the more dependent we are on both parents working. I'd rather see a shift to make it easier for one parent to work and one parent to stay home.

Boy, conservatives here are good at parroting what the speakers at the Democratic National Convention accused them of. You want to be parents? Tough break, you're on your own. A winning message, judging by the results of a couple weeks ago, yeah?

Mack,
How is America concerned about having too few kids?

Anyways my real objection with these types of policies is that they destroy families. Maternity leave, free childcare, and pre-k education make a father obsolete and greatly reduce the incentive for two-parent households (gay or straight, don't care). If Europe wasn't such a mess (family wise) I suppose I wouldn't be so opposed. Show me a policy that allows women to work, helps children, and keeps families together and I (and I assume most conservatives) would support it. However, it is unfair (for the child and father) to make rich childless guys pay so women can have free children by themselves.

. You want to be parents? Tough break, you're on your own.
Exactly wrong.
I don't want it to be too expensive for one parent to stay home and be a parent. The more money we put into institutions making it easier for both parents to work, the more difficult it becomes to afford the choice to stay at home. It's a trade off.

El V,

Are you a hypocrite who attended public schools on our grandparents dime, or an effete elitist who won the lottery of birth and had mommy and daddy to thank for your priveledged life?

As well kaybeel, the price of government has nothing to do with the dependence on both parents working. In case you haven't heard, gender pay equity isn't the result of lifting women's wages, its the result of bringing down men's wages. Who benefits? Well, look at the executives eating your lunch and you tell me.

I also have to wonder, if you won't pay to educate children and enable a better upbringing, then will I get to choose not to pay for the police from keeping those selfsame kids from breaking into your house?

El V. writes, So who pays for this? This is the question that is never asked.

Some investments have such high returns that they pay for themselves and them some. This is a point that is never raised.

Gordon, dear: There is a old-age "pension" system called Social Security which largely gets its current funding from the labor of the children of those who may or may not have taken parental leave while their children were young. These children's children will be paying for your Social Security. How about that! And, hey, how about thanking parents for having kids who will not only support their parents, but you too, you childless dolt. Maybe this is a form of slavery for these children! Maybe they should not have to pay for your Social Security! They should only make sure their own parents are OK, right?

Pea brain.

"However, it is unfair (for the child and father) to make rich childless guys pay so women can have free children by themselves."

Hey, a**hole, you do know that the reason many women become single mothers is because the fathers bail, right? "Free children"? Go f**ck yourself, you self-satisfied bastard.

Shorter gordon gekko:

Public programs give women -freedom- uppity ideas and threaten -my privilege and power- families.

And yeah, thats's coming from one of the "free children" who was raised by a single mom who worked two jobs.

Not to work out my daddy issues here or anything, but gordon gekko, El Viajero, shut up. Relly. I mean that in a nice way.

I think we should incent some US state to take on the El Viagras of the rest of the country and give them a place to experience their libertarian heaven.

They only pay for what they use (cash/carry). Need the police or firemen? Negotiate when they arrive. Need a street to drive to the grocery? Put your quarters in the slot. Need to sanction your neighbor for building a firetrap add-on to their house without a permit? Hire a lawyer.

In return for this "I've got mine" heaven, the El Viagras get no federal funds, no federal taxes, no Representatives, no Senators, No presidential ballot, and no protection from invasion, polluted water, deadly food, toxic toys, and no clean water from outside their state.

Let's make a deal!

Forget *paid* maternity leave, for a moment. The US, AFAIK, has barely any maternity leave. Doesn't your federal law provide 6 (!) weeks of (unpaid) leave? That's barely enough for many women to heal, let alone provide maternal care for a newborn.

In Canada, we pay for maternity leave through unemployment benefits. In essence, you take the year off and get a year worth of benefits. Many employers top these up.

Someone tell me exactly how "Europe is a mess (family wise)"

I mean, the times I've been there the families seemed to be closer than the ones in America. And wouldn't paid maternity leave help families here?

"The more expensive we make government, the more dependent we are on both parents working. I'd rather see a shift to make it easier for one parent to work and one parent to stay home."

What happens to families with only one parent, then? I guess you would say, screw them, right? Who told you to have kids when you are on your own?

Does it ever occur to people like you that people become single mother or single father for a variety of reasons? Death, abandoment, relationship breakup. If people like you are not so busy demonizing feminism as the root cause of all evil, you might actually be the party of family values that can fight for these issues.

As well kaybeel, the price of government has nothing to do with the dependence on both parents working.

Really? Where does the money for government and government programs come from, if not from taxes?
Who here is saying they won't pay to educate children?
We have to apply judgment to what we can afford and what we can't, and what the effects of additional spending are.
That shouldn't be controversial.

What happens to families with only one parent, then? I guess you would say, screw them, right? Who told you to have kids when you are on your own?

I'm not up for screwing anybody. Is it really that controversial to say we need to think before we spend?
How we spend government money affects everybody. Rules we put on companies to make them spend more affect everybody.
There is nothing that comes without consequences, and I am merely lamenting pro-parenting spending that seems to only focus on working parents, and not stay-at-home parents. I think stay at home parenting is important, and I'd like to not make it a job only affordable to a privileged few.

Most companies already offer paid maternity leave. The ones that don't probably can't afford it. The small business I work for didn't offer it initially. Once they started to make more money and expand and wanted to recruit better employees, they did offer it, along with better salaries. Just because government doesn't mandate it doesn't mean it isn't being done.

Who here is saying they won't pay to educate children?

Exactly no one.

It's a bullshit argument ad absurdium. The issue was not, and is not paying for public education.

The issue is giving paid time off for having children and it's worth discussing before we spend.

You can't just try to shut down opposition by saying "It's for the children" when no one has demonstrated a benefit that is worth the cost as yet.

Shorter El V-style rightwing nut: "Unlimited government protection for children in the womb! What, you're already born? Fuck you, then."

Paid maternity leave is a state-by-state issue, though there is a federal protection for unpaid leave where your employer must retain your job and benefits for a certain period of time without penalty to you. Some states, like California, supplement the allowable days, and you are paid at 55% of your salary for half that time (the rest is unpaid). This also applies to fathers. The problem is that this is developmentally insufficient for children's attachment to parents.

So the question remains: Do we want to be a pro-family country or a pro-business country, because we can't always be both. Investment in early childhood, like preschool, early intervention, and subsidized child care not only save money down the line, they often make returns on investment in the 150-200% range. If that were a long-term business strategy, it'd be trumpeted from the rooftops. But since it's a "public policy" strategy, all of a sudden its verboten by the likes of El V? That's stupid.

So the question remains: Do we want to be a pro-family country or a pro-business country, because we can't always be both.

What a false choice!

So, in the mind of Billy Elliott, you're not pro-family unless you wish to pay for the parents to take off their job!!

Who knew??!

"Paid maternity leave is a DISADVANTAGE to traditional families, like mine."

Speak for yourself. As a member of the privileged minority of mothers who are able to stay home, I don't need to have my lifestyle subsidized by making matters harder for other mothers. I'm sure you'd be shocked to learn how few stay at home moms agree with your "tradition" of women not having choices, still less with the idea that women who work are worthless hags whose punishment should be no time with their children at all. Here in the reality-based community, working moms and stay at home moms are the SAME PEOPLE, at different times. If it was really about the mother-child relationship, you'd be all over paid maternity leave. But it isn't about that, is it? The barefoot-and-pregnant "tradition" is dead. Suck it up.

I think stay at home parenting is important, and I'd like to not make it a job only affordable to a privileged few.
But it already is affordable only to a privileged few: the privileged few who have stable relationships in which both partners are still alive and not disabled.

Ok, maybe that's more of a privileged many, but still, you can't just assume that every family has two parents and one of them is available to do unpaid work. (Or wants to even if they are available - a two working parent family can probably afford to hire childcare, outside the first few weeks, but the first few weeks are precisely what this thread is about.)

That being said, I *am* a bit uncomfortable with how much we subsidize childbearing on an already overpopulated planet. But it's hard to change that without catching the children in the crossfire (which is why we have those subsidies in the first place).

It's really weird to me how the issue of providing paid maternity leave can become so contentious. Isn't it just common sense? The notion that some people are so so adamantly arguing against it is incomprehensible to me.

I guess we have to wait until we become like Japan where the birth rates are so low that it is becoming a country of old people for people like El Viajero, gordon gekko, kaybeel and SamChevre to change their minds. Or maybe not. When that time comes, they'll probably just resort to blaming those selfish feminists who doesn't want to have kids.

I would have thought that people who believe in "family values" would be all over paid maternity leave. That sacred bond between mother and child and all that. But maybe in their opinion, that bond is only sacred if the mother is married and choose to stay at home. Otherwise, not so sacred.

Tim
It's easy to understand. Greed. They don't want to pay taxes. That's it. The rest is just mental gymnastics so they can act like they have a coherent political philosophy. It's just anti-tax greed. Nothing more.

Everyone should be in consensus that paid leave for a parent is a good thing as far as families go. It's a no brainer.

Of course I forgot to mention that they will never complain about the fact that America has a tremendously bloated military budget.

It isn't as simple as greed. The more mandates and taxes you place on businesses, the more difficult it becomes to hire workers. Not all business owners are evil fatcats who want to treat workers like slaves. But not every business can afford payroll taxes, health insurance and now family leave mandates. There is a tradeoff involved. If it makes sense to mandate family leave, you have to prove it with numbers, not by accusing the other side of being evil. Don't European economies have a higher unemployment rate in part because of the high cost of hiring additional workers? Don't ignore these tradeoffs.

I would have thought that people who believe in "family values" would be all over paid maternity leave. That sacred bond between mother and child and all that.

It's not really about the relationship between mothers and children at all. It's about the relationship between men and women. If you make it easy for women to support themselves while having children (which, given human nature, most women will do anyway), you decrease their their dependency on men. This is considered unacceptable.

"But not every business can afford payroll taxes, health insurance and now family leave mandates."

Well, the health insurance part could have been solved if certain party had not been so adamantly against universal health care.

Payroll tax could have been lower if certain party is not more concerned about lowering capital gain tax.

Seeing a pattern here? The same people who are claiming that they are trying to save businesses by opposing paid maternity leave are supporting other policies that are burdening businesses. But what the heck, they are the defender of business, unlike the evil socialists who are trying to take away your hard-earned money to give to those single women to raise their "free children".

First off, it's James, schmuck. "Billy Elliott" is a movie from England. I do public policy and social welfare for families of children with disabilities for a living, so let's just stipulate that I actually know something of which I speak. Hopefully you're holding an MPA or work in child development or something similar, otherwise you'll just be without a frame of reference from here out.

First off, on the rhetorical point, it's not a false choice, because there's an all-important and quite deliberate qualifier (that's "always" for the reading comprehension-impaired) in there.

Let's take social welfare reform for example. While reform was wildly successful in lowering enrollment in welfare programs, one of the chief barriers to successful vocational training and job placement has always been lack of affordable child care for the single parents so targeted by those programs. They can't afford to work and get off welfare and pay for their child's day care. Want to make sure they don't need public assistance in the future? Invest some on the front end to give them a running start.

In Santa Clara County, one of the wealthiest in the nation and where I work, business-subsidized child care (in-office day care, for example, like at Google) accounts for 1.5% of all day care/preschool expenditures. The average cost of low-quality day care for an infant is $1,200 a month. In such expensive counties, single-earner families are not the norm, and it's impossible for lower, middle, and upper-middle class families to meet expenditures in those counties without two earners. Without family leave time, that family starts off $3,600 in the hole, minimum, for the first three months of a baby's life. And that's not even factoring in other costs I discuss below.

Now, one could move out of that county. But then you get into increased transportation costs, pressure on degrading public infrastructure like the roads, decreased family time from the working parent(s), pollution, etc. That also creates a real problem for public and private service industries, which are paid less: One of San Francisco's (as just one example) biggest problems is that most of its public employees like police, fire, and medical services, can't actually afford to live in the city's environs due to child care and cost of living expenses. As a result, in the event of a man-made or natural disaster emergency, the city will be incredibly short-handed as off-shift people are unable to arrive in a timely fashion, if at all. In this case, child care costs, such as maternity leave viability, create an actual public health and national security concern.

Developmentally-speaking, the last 12 weeks of pregnancy and the first 12-16 weeks are crucial to the mother and infant's health and recovery. Children and mothers who are able to take this time to rest, bond and heal from the stresses of pregnancy and birth require less health care down the road, form healthier attachments (decreasing maladaptive behaviors, incidence of criminal activity, and social and learning difficulties in school later in life), and are generally more resilient to stressors (such as the incidence of mothers suffering post-partum depression). Fathers who are able to spend some of that time solely with the child and mother generally report higher levels of attachment and decreased depression and resentment.

Just as with public education (including, yes, preschool), it is absolutely in the long-term public interest to encourage healthy mothers, children, and families. Family leave time for pre- and neo-natal care is a minimal expense to take on given its long term benefits to each family and society as a whole.

El V, if you want to live in a healthier, more secure society, encouraging good parenting by recognizing and promoting simple biological and mental processes at the beginning of a child's life are a really, really good investment.

...if you want to live in a healthier, more secure society, encouraging good parenting by recognizing and promoting simple biological and mental processes at the beginning of a child's life are a really, really good investment.

I certainly wish to do just that....encourage good parenting, but that doesn't mean the taxpayer or employer has to foot the bill, does it?

How in the world did people get along without all this socialism before?

It's amazing!!

Hopefully you're holding an MPA or work in child development or something similar, otherwise you'll just be without a frame of reference from here out.

Shorter Billy Elliott: No one can understand this but me.

I guess you are lost when it comes to the bailout since you don't understand business and as such, your opinion about it is just crap.

That about it?

"How in the world did people get along without all this socialism before?

It's amazing!!"

Actually, no! It was patriarchy! Or rather, women being regarded as property owned by a husband and who took care of him and the kids (and lots else besides) or else starved to death if she couldn't find anyone to take care of her. When you've got a whole indentured class to watch the kiddies, who needs childcare?

But now the uppity women want the freedom to BOTH reproduce AND find fulfilling ways to earn a living, and all the work they used to do in exchange for food and shelter suddenly has to be provided in another way.

If women had always had equality, childcare would be as common a part of tax spending as defense. Because you have to raise, feed, and care for new people to keep society going, and expecting women to do it for free/crap wages is no longer an option. So, you know...deal.

James, excellent comment. (And I hope you learned your lesson about serious engagement with EV).

An added bonus of promoting legislation in this vein is that it would force Republicans to explain why they oppose it, which (if this thread is any indicator) should help keep the Republican brand in the toilet for a while longer.

The thing about paid parental leave in Australia is that it was inconsistent and left to employers- many of whom had several years of minimum service before one qualified. Furthermore, in a nation with quite an extensive Welfare system, and outrageous childcare costs, for many women it was hard to justify returning to work... Particularly for single mothers, who are relatively well-supported by the government.

By providing paid parental leave, and guaranteeing it, the government effectively lifts restrictions on women changing jobs.

The hidden perk, though, is that the government plan operates in addition to any company-sponsored maternity leave. The beauty of this is that companies can restructure their leave programs to encourage women to return to work after they have their child... rather than providing, say, 12 weeks paid leave up front, they can offer 4 weeks of paid leave per year for the child's first three years. My company has a similar policy at the moment- a two-step paid parental leave structure- but with the government now guaranteeing that first 18 weeks, companies have more room in which to move- with similar costs- to encourage women to stay in the workforce and provide more family-friendly options for their employees.

Shorter Billy Elliott

I assume this means I can just ignore this guy? I was actually just hoping you wouldn't be confused by words like "developmentally" and "maladaptive." You certainly don't seem to understand how public policy or child development actually work.

See, here's the thing El V, things change. The economy is different. Women are no longer relegated to second-class work roles. Father's are expected to take care of children too. And the realities of cost of living and regional economies mean that if we want to promote certain values and goods within our society, they need to be placed within economic reach of others. It's bad for children and society when parents have to choose between paying the rent and spending time with their newborn. This is no different in philosophy from when extended generations of families or neighbors lived together to pool resources (like child care). Similarly, it is a bedrock governmental procedure, in both conservative and liberal circles, to encourage certain sociological results via economic incentive: low-cost loans for college, the Child Tax Credit, Ronald Reagan's expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, etc. Or are all of these things "socialism?" Tell me, El V, was Ronald Reagan a socialist?

I submit, El V, that you don't actually know much about the intricacies of the subjects you opine about. You certainly don't seem to have more than "government bad, you like socialism" to offer to this conversation, and that's without a real working knowledge of what socialism actually is.

Oh, and while Australia is only getting paid parental leave next year, we have had the Baby Bonus since 2004- a policy I'm not entirely fond of, but that does act as a sort of defacto parental leave. Currently, parents receive $5000 from the government upon the birth of their child.

Vajima's resentment relies upon a continuing supply of people who he thinks are stealing his piece of the pie. How else can he get that warm internal glow when sneering at the poor and non-white?

James F. Elliott: Vajima's 'business' acumen extends to vulturing foreclosed homes in Texas for the tax deductions.

He's a poor man's Carleton Sheets, who has contributed nothing positive to society in his pathetic life, and never will. He's a dumpster-diving parasite.

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This is bizarre. I'm all for socialism. I'm part of the "wacky fringe", but the government paying for you to go on vacation for having a child? Really?

That isn't the government's job nor is it the job of your fellow citizens to pay for you to sit at home after having a kid.

Universal health care, welfare, etc. is great as long as it is applied to everyone equally. Kid subsidy money isn't for everyone.

Having a child is choice, and if you want to take 6 months off to stay with your kid, save your money to do so.

"Having a child is choice, and if you want to take 6 months off to stay with your kid, save your money to do so."

Was anybody here asking for 6 months paid maternity leave? Have I missed something?

Tim- Well, how much are you asking for.

When our daughter was born 17 years ago in Slovenia, my husband and I were entitled to a year's paid parental leave to be shared between us as we saw fit. Of course it goes without saying that the costs of all of my prenatal and postnatal care as well as the delivery itself and all of my child's health care needs were (and still are) completely covered under the national single-payer universal health insurance model. I've never had to pay a dime out of pocket for any of it. Covers most prescription drugs, too. In addition, in my sixth month of pregnancy I was given a box of goodies--baby blankets, diapers, infant clothing, bottles, teething rings etc.--courtesy of the state. When she was old enough and we needed to go back to work, she attended a lovely preschool run by qualified caregivers not far from our home at a very reasonable (subsidized) rate. And this was at a time when Slovenia's GDP per capita was barely a quarter of that of the United States.

I find it absolutely mind-boggling that a country as wealthy and profligate as the United States cannot manage to provide decent public services to its taxpaying citizens. Or rather that its citizens so meekly acquiesce to the inequities and injustices of the system instead of DEMANDING their money's worth. Not only do you not have federally mandated and government-provided paid family leave, you are also the only advanced economy that does not guarantee workers any paid vacation or holidays. Nearly 50 million of you have no health insurance and most of the rest are grievously underinsured. And the price of your health care is astronomical, far greater than anywhere else in the world. Why do you tolerate such a sorry state of affairs? Dozens of other nations do a far better job, why not simply adopt their more successful and efficient models?

"Why do you tolerate such a sorry state of affairs? Dozens of other nations do a far better job, why not simply adopt their more successful and efficient models?"

Well, because there are a lot of people like El Viajero in America, who think that those other nations are socialists. And socialists are eeevil, you know.

Praise the Lord for socialism! ;)

Oops, I can't say that, not only am I an evil socialist, I'm also an evil atheist. Guess I could never get elected to political office in America. Except maybe in Vermont.

But these people who oppose looking after a population's basic needs and rights on the grounds that it's too socialist--they don't have similar objections to socialism for the rich? They don't want to give subsidies to make sure little American babies get a good healthy start in life and families have time to spend together, but the taxpayer-funded government bailout of Wall Street is just peachy? And when they laud the economic efficiency of capitalism and the market--they don't have a problem with the literally trillions of taxpayer dollars that go towards funding the murder of foreigners and lining the pockets of private contractors or simply go missing and unaccounted for in the mess and waste that is the Pentagon budget?

Anyways my real objection with these types of policies is that they destroy families. Maternity leave, free childcare, and pre-k education make a father obsolete

HAHAHAHA! What a douche!

Anyway, maternity leaves needs to be mandatory due health issues of the mother considering that birthing is not easy process. After that, I'm inclined to believe that "parental leave" should be instituted in that, it could be one parent of the couples choosing (regardless of salary differences.) Its also worth mentioning that many companies already provide leave it so its not like the costs for the taxpayers needs to cover every working family.

To each according to his need

I *that* is the core issue, isn't it?