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Comment by cperciva | Hacker News Reader

Women taking 10x as much leave as men is great if you want to reinforce traditional gender roles about caregiving.

Personally, I'd be happier if the 40 weeks of "parental" leave was required to be split 20/20 (subject to obvious exemptions if there is no second parent who is eligible for EI). This would still leave women with 75% more leave than men -- but I think that's a reasonable compromise given that the maternity leave is intended to cover time when a birth mother is medically unable to work, recovering from birth, etc.

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Are you aware men can’t breast feed?

Fuck this idea that traditional gender roles are meaningless.

Sure, men can't breast feed. But they can bottle feed (including with pumped breast milk); they can change diapers; they can wash and hold and play with babies; and they can attend to myriad other domestic chores while babies are being breast fed.

Breast feeding is absolutely important, but if you think that's the only thing you need to do in order to take care of a newborn, you might be in for a shock.

> Breast feeding is absolutely important, but if you think that's the only thing you need to do in order to take care of a newborn, you might be in for a shock.

Breastfeeding is a necessary part of taking care of a newborn that men cannot do. Women can do all the parts that you listed, plus the vital component of breastfeed. Hence, it makes sense to encourage moms to stay home with babies. Dads should stay home too, because the ideal is for mom and dad to be at home playing with babies (isn't that everyone's dream??). However, most people are not independently wealthy, so compromises are made, and dad goes to work.

The parent comment believes they have that problem solved by suggesting breast pumps (and formula, one supposes), but those don't work well for some people. To be fair, breastfeeding doesn't work well for some people and is part of the reason wet nurses were more popular in the past.

My larger point is, we shouldn't throw the traditional gender role baby out with the breast milk bath water. People have different preferences / requirements, and they should be allowed to make the choice to conform to traditional gender roles if they so choose, rather than forcing a 50 / 50 split of parental leave where there is some clear biological differences. The obvious ones being men lack mammary glands and uterus / ovaries.

There is room to acknowledge that men and women are biologically differentiate, while also noting the spectrum of needs in each couple. Be it two fathers, two mothers, or a mother that goes back to work before a father.

The invariant need is a child that has a loving home environment and is well fed.

Living in Canada as an American citizen, I deeply appreciate the leave benefits we have here in Canada/Quebec.

Dear me.

I couldn’t agree more that the needs of the child is paramount.

What I mean to say is that there needs to be significant social welfare towards the wellbeing of children.

That typically means two people chosen by the mother could be delegated a minimum set of care hours for the life of the child, paid for by the state.

I couldn’t give a hoot who or what plays those roles.

The direction this conversation took is breaking my brain.

Breastfeeding is a not necessary part of taking care of a newborn.

We have only to look at the decades in the US where babies were often formula-fed instead of breast-fed.

While there are certainly advantages to breast feeding, it is not necessary.

Your "to be at home playing with babies" should be "taking care of".

My dream was to raise children, not just play with them. Dads also need to be involved in changing, and feeding, and washing, and yes, even bottle feeding because Mom is so tired that she just needs to collapse, or because I want to take the 4 month old out to a baby meet at the library and not plan around being back home for feeding - whenever that is.

Nor was I the only father of a 4 month there, with bottled milk so Mom could have a break at home.

> While there are certainly advantages to breast feeding, it is not necessary.

Sure, but it does have positive health benefits for mom and baby and is cheaper than formula. In order to continue to breast feed the baby to two years (as recommended by the WHO), the mother needs to actually breastfeed the baby. Using pumps can result in milk supply lowering, not because pumping is incapable of keeping up milk supply, but because without the hunger cues of a newborn, the mother doesn't typically pump as much and as long as a newborn would. Moreover, the oxytocin from holding the newborn and the hormones released when the newborn cries keep the mother's supply up. There is no way to replicate this in an office. It requires a baby.

My solution to this 'problem' is to create a society in which moms can stay home with their babies and simultaneously, for those women who choose to work, normalize bringing your child to work. Not only does this keep mom and baby together, but it also means there will be adorable babies in offices everywhere.

I'm glad I was able to change your mind and convince you that breastfeeding is not a necessary part of taking care of a newborn.

I never argued that it was. I said breastfeeding leads to the least stress for mom, dad, and baby, in the general case, which is still true.

Before boldly proclaiming winning in something that is not even a competition, I think it's worth it to understand the argument.

At https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20683397 you wrote: "Breastfeeding is a necessary part of taking care of a newborn ... plus the vital component of breastfeed"

Now you say you didn't write that?

It seems evident to me that @tathougies intended their statements to come with the 'when and where it makes sense to do so' aspect I mentioned earlier.

Of course there's going to be circumstances where, for whatever reason, breastfeeding isn't optimal or even an option.

Your reading is more along the lines: "Breastfeeding - when and where it makes sense to do so - is a necessary part of taking care of a newborn that men cannot do."?

Isn't that like "Wearing a bicycle helmet - when and where it makes sense to do so - is a necessary part of riding a bicycle."

That is, your addition negates the seemingly firm statement of "necessary", while the later use of "vital" seems to support the firm intent of "necessary".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_lactation

Another reason I fully agree with you is that mandatory paternal leave would help reducing discrimination against women of child bearing age. Right now, employers are worried that women would take maternity leave and so are less likely to hire women than men, having men with a substantial paternity leave would level the playing field somewhat.

Going to get downvoted for this, but whatever.

It is cruel to mother, father, and child to force a father to take care of a newborn or < 1 yr old without the mother. The newborn is used to the mother's body. A newborn gets stressed being away from its mother and source of food, even when with the dad. Breastfeeding from the breast is not just a source of nutrition but also a source of comfort for the baby, and healthy for the mom (both physically and mentally). Men do not have this need or ability.

Putting a man at home with his newborn, without the mother, is a recipe for disaster. Not because a man cannot do the actions required to take care of a baby in this circumstance, but because, if the woman wants to do the recommended thing for her child (breastfeed him or her), then she would have to pump (which is a lot of work) and store her milk (a lot of work). Oh also, she'd have to do this at work, which again makes her unequal to her male colleagues. The man would have to disinfect and clean bottles, and be unable to soothe a child if he runs out of milk (unless he has formula on hand). The child doesn't get the human touch of breastfeeding.

So to recap... the mother loses because, despite going to work for the sake of 'equality', she's stuck every few hours pumping milk, losing work time her male colleagues can use to further their career. The baby loses because it doesn't get the psychological security of suckling at the breast. The father loses because he is simply less able to calm the baby down and feed it than the mother.

By all means, help men to stay home with their older children. This is great, but a father with a newborn is simply a bad idea, IMO. Formula is possible, but from a public health perspective, it should be discouraged unless necessary.

I will never understand why people make parenting harder on themselves. Newborns are hard enough, but the human body has an easy way to fix it. Whenever my daughter is fussy, she goes straight back to her mom for comfort nursing, and then when she's done, she's back to me for fun times. This is easier for everyone involved, and fosters a positive father-child relationship.

Both my wife and brother-in-law were breastfed whenever they were fussy, and it always calmed them down, according to MIL and FIL. Not being breastfed myself, I didn't believe it at first. But sure enough, with my daughter, literally all problems can be solved by suckling for a minute at her mother's breast. Why make this harder on ourselves? By the time she's back with me, she's happy, laughing, and ready for tickles and fun, and mom can get a well-deserved break.

I won't down vote you, but I hope you are wrong :-) I'd be very interested to see if you can come up with studies that back up your anecdotal evidence. I mean, what you say makes a certain amount of sense, but there are lots of things in the world that makes sense and are wrong ;-)

What evidence are you looking for? The positive health effects of breastfeeding are well-known, well studied, and well replicated. The positive psychological effects (lower cortisol, etc in infants) are also well known, as are the positive effects in mom (lower incidence of PPD).

Breast milk is not a fixed product. Rather, the suckling action as well as pathogens present in the baby cause it to change its composition. It contains antibodies for the baby if the child is sick, and its fat/sugar ratios change depending on the age of the baby (via suckling). Pumping removes this feedback loop from the mother. There is little research here, but preliminary research (https://psmag.com/economics/unseen-consequences-pumping-brea...) demonstrates several negative effects of pumping. Pumping often produces too much foremilk (high in sugar), rather than hind milk (high in fat), because pumping doesn't work in the way baby's mouths do.

As for comfort. I think most babies are comforted by feeding. However, with formula, you have to be careful not to overfeed. You can't really overfeed with breastfeeding. The maximal amount of calories the child can get is whatever amount his mother is eating, so if mom is eating the right amount, the baby will get it.

I think you might be misunderstanding my intentions. I was looking for some scientific references to learn more and thought you might be able to point me to them.

Pumping isn't great, but compared to being woken up two or three times a night, every night, for months on end? I think judged relative to that alternative pumping is not as difficult as you make it sound.

And a man who can't disinfect and clean bottles is going to hate it when he finds out about diapers :)

> compared to being woken up two or three times a night, every night, for months on end

You still need to wake up to pump, and whether pumping or breastfeeding it does not change how many times you (the baby) wake up at night in general.

> And a man who can't disinfect and clean bottles is going to hate it when he finds out about diapers :)

Where in my post did I say men can't do this? I just said it is many times more inconvenient for a man to do this, than for a woman to breast feed. Inconvenience experienced over time is another way of saying stress.

Honestly, I'm going to bow out of the conversation now. I realize that my wife and I make several choices to maximize our convenience that would seem odd to other couples. My basic idea is to just go with the way natural selection made your bodies act and don't add pressure to do anything different. It's much much much easier that way.

I ask you to not confuse "newborn" with "<1 yr old".

I know several men who have taken parental leave to be the primary caregiver for their >newborn but <1 year olds, while their wives return to work. It was cruel for neither the father, mother, nor child.

Your argument, I believe, is that if the mother dies in childbirth, then it is cruel for the father to take care of the child. In that case, what do we do? Or does that follow under the "necessary" exception which allows cruelty?

It might just be that it isn't actually cruel.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding for 1 year, and the World Health Organization for two.

> I know several men who have taken parental leave to be the primary caregiver for their >newborn but <1 year olds, while their wives return to work. It was cruel for neither the father, mother, nor child.

I hate the term 'primary caregiver'. Mom and Dad are primary caregiver, independent of whether they are working, staying at home, etc.

> Your argument, I believe, is that if the mother dies in childbirth, then it is cruel for the father to take care of the child. In that case, what do we do? Or does that follow under the "necessary" exception which allows cruelty?

Well no. This is a strawman. Above, in my previous comment, I said it is cruel to mom, dad, and child. I even mentioned the inconvenience of mom pumping milk. If mom is dead, then this arrangement cannot be cruel to her, and she cannot be inconvenienced by pumping milk. A straightforward and benevolent reading of my comment would have you believe that it does not apply to cases in which mom has died.

This is a rare enough occurrence that policies that seek to work well with the norm can't really be criticized for not addressing it.

> It might just be that it isn't actually cruel.

Or it might be that we as a society are used to being cruel to both women and children.

Using $TERM of your choice, the father was the one spending full-time at home, taking care of the <1 yr old child, while the mother was not.

Is this cruel? Not "is it inconvenient", but is it - your term - "cruel"?

(I double-checked, and "primary caregiver" is the correct term for that situation. It is not exclusionary as both parents may be primary caregivers at the same time. Also, the primary caregiver may be another relative or friend, and not always the mother or father.)

Also, what does "cruel" mean to you? Babies aren't acculturated, so societal expectations don't really apply to judging the responses of a 4 month old. Do you mean they cry more? Do they have lower levels of oxycotin? Or how else do you figure out that a society has been making a mistake in how it deals with babies?

(The comforting aspects of) Breastfeeding has many perks but I think you are blowing it out of proportion. Not every baby calms easily to breastfeeding (neither of mine did). Cleaning bottles is a quick and simple task. And I (father) have in general not had issues calming either of my children when they were fussy (they generally favor me for comfort, but my wife is just as capable). I never planned nor expected to be good with the kids in the newborn stage, but I am. I"ve seen this tendency in a few other (friends) couples as well, where the father seems to have a knack for it so I think it would be great if there were more paternal support.

That's great! My daughter also calms down when I comfort her. However, many parents mistake fussiness for hunger (I have seen this in so many couples who are friends with us... their child gets hungry every 30 minutes or so, and dad is trying to bounce him/her and sing to it, as if that's going to work). It is actually cruel to sing to a child when they are hungry and want food. I would not be surprised if the deep-seated food insecurity this instills on children is the source of a lot of our obesity problems

Male here in the US who received paternity leave twice for my two kids; my spouse and I prescribe to traditional gender roles, we’re both happy with it, and I would forgo mandatory paternity leave if I had to split leave offered. I’d rather be earning a large dollar amount (doing something I enjoy) than child rearing, even if I had to hire a nanny. Just not something I’m interested in doing full time, and life is too short to do things you don’t want to do if you have the means.

I fully support leave, but leave it up to parents how they want to split it.

>I’d rather be earning a large dollar amount (doing something I enjoy) than child-rearing, even if I had to hire a nanny. Just not something I’m interested in doing full time, and life is too short to do things you don’t want to do if you have the means.

I apologise if this infers offence but the way that this reads is that you're not interested in child-rearing so one must ask the question that begs: "Is there a point in having children if you've no interest in their upbringing?"

Same reason men serving in the military or working abroad or on oil rigs or in long-haul trucking have children?

>Same reason men serving in the military or working abroad or on oil rigs or in long-haul trucking have children?

I don't see how those two situations equate. One is an impossibility, due to circumstance (e.g.: on the battlefield), and other is the willful knowledge that you want nothing to do with their upbringing because, using the OC's words, "I’d rather be earning a large dollar amount (doing something I enjoy) than child-rearing...".

Edit: In other words, there's no direct implication that everyone in the military, working abroad, or long-haul trucking wants nothing to do with child-raising. I'd imagine the situation is actually the inverse but the economic necessity for that work to be done (to provide a living) is what prevents that.

The equivocation I'm making is although it's unusual, it's far from unprecedented for a parent to make career choices that don't maximise time spent raising their children.

If you don't like those examples, consider a family with two busy working parents sending their child to boarding school. If they can afford a boarding school, they've got plenty of income. One or both of them could simply switch to a normal 9-5 job.

toomuchtodo would not be the first person to hand their child off for others to deal with, even if the decision to do so is hard for most people to understand :)

> "Is there a point in having children if you've no interest in their upbringing?"

It makes my partner happy, and as I said, I don't want to do it full time. I still make an active effort raising them when I'm not working my day job (mornings, nights, weekends).

There is a large gap between not wanting to do it full time and not wanting to do it at all. I"m certainly in the former camp, and as opposed to OP my wife makes more money than me, so it would make even more sense. But I know I would be unhappy doing it _full_ time. To the point, I would not take a job that did not afford me morning, evening, weekend, and occasional PT time to spend with my kids. I enjoy being heavily involved in their day to day rearing. I just don't want to abandon my (enjoyable) career if its not necessary.

I don’t think the main objective of women when they decide to take that leave is to reinforce traditional gender roles about caregiving.

But if your objective is to fight traditional roles about caregiving it makes sense that you’d prefer that other people didn’t have choices.

Women taking 10x as much leave as men is great if you want to reinforce traditional gender roles about caregiving.

That's a reasonable concern, but I think requiring the parental leave to be split isn't a reasonable solution.

In a lot of families, that will just create serious problems without any real upside.

I don't have a good solution to suggest, but there has to be some leeway for families to work those details out themselves without having to justify their choices so as to be granted an exception.

It really isn't as simple as this, from a gender equality perspective.

First, many women will take on more the childcare burden regardless of the financial incentives that exist. That domestic labor ought to be recognized as real labor, and as such, be paid.

There's also a class angle: Many low income women would rather be doing childcare than crappy low wage work, because the oppression of a boss is worse than the oppression of their domestic arrangements.

Where do you live? Define oppression. Let's see a survey of your claims.

The general interpretation is along the lines of:

https://globalnews.ca/news/3230205/women-work-more-than-men-... - "Women work more than men and it’s impacting their health, study says"

"According to a recent study by the Australian National University, women (on average) work fewer hours at the office. But when taking unpaid domestic labour and care-giving into account, they’re going above and beyond their “workhour-health limits.”" ...

"Men, the researchers say, are able to dedicate more time at work because they spend less time on housework, which gives them an edge in their career, co-author Lyndall Strazdins tells Broadly.

In fact, men get 100 extra hours a year to advance their careers, she says."

and https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/mar/10/housework-ge... - "Forty years of feminism – but women still do most of the housework?"

"Nick Pearce, director of IPPR. "Women still shoulder the overwhelming burden of household tasks, particularly after they have had children. When they earn more, their bargaining power with their partners increases, so closing the gender pay gap would help. Universal childcare, rather than tax relief for nannies or cleaners, is also the best way forward for a family-friendly, more equal Britain."

And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wages_for_housework :

"The International Wages for Housework Campaign was a feminist global social movement, which grew out of the International Feminist Collective in Italy in 1972 and organized resistance and public debate on the social formations produced by gendered labor and reproductive labor, for example domestic work such as housework, childcare, gender discrimination, and the socially reinforced performance of gender roles, gendered desire, and leisure inequality. The Campaign's platform included the women's right to work outside of the home, unemployment benefits, parental leave, and equal pay."

The history section includes the term 'oppression' directly:

"A number of early feminists focused women's economic independence along with the role of housewife in relation to women's oppression. In 1898 Charlotte Perkins Gilman published Women and Economics. This book argued for paid housework 74 years before the International Wages for Housework Campaign was founded as well as arguing to expand the definition of women in the home."

>That domestic labour ought to be recognized as real labour, and as such, be paid.

Who would do the paying in this scenario? The children? Aren't they (the children) ultimately the beneficiaries of the aforementioned labour - in the same regard as an employer is the beneficiary of an employee's labour?

I don't understand how that premise would work-out - unless you had a system, like the social security system in the states, where the current generations are paying for the prior; however, even as that system demonstrates, it would eventually become insolvent as the population growth continues unabated.

I am talking about subsidized child care no matter the venue: parents can choose between subsidized child care centres or instead keep the money and do the care themselves.

I think the idea right now is to give flexibility to both parents to make their decisions instead of forcing a perceived cultural choice on them.

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