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Comment by lotsofpulp | Hacker News Reader

As an American, I find it hard to be patriotic about my country when my fellow citizens can’t muster up the political will to ensure any paid parental leave for most people.

Edit: changed parental leave to paid parental leave

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I get that you genuinely care about the issue, but please don't take a thread like this veering into generic political flamebait. Parenting and child-rearing are emotional topics to begin with, so this pretty much guarantees a toxic cocktail.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22247563.

I'm not opposed to paid parental leave, but it's not equitable at all. It benefits the rich the most, and may even punish the poor. For example, there's no reason a senior investment banker should be paid high 6 figures to take care of their kids. They should have more than enough money saved up themselves to take unpaid time off. Meanwhile, the most vulnerable will have are even harder time finding full time employment as companies will have less incentive to grant it to them. Something like a guaranteed $500 a week for 20 weeks from the government makes a lot more sense.

In European countries that do have paid parental leave, the system is funded by state and has attached a couple of constraints. One of those is that the payments to parents are capped. So, a person earning high salary won't get it in full during parental leave. Usually it's something like max. twice the average salary or something similar.

Another rule (in Sweden at least) is that a company when interviewing a new person is not allowed to ask about family planning. You can't ask if a woman is pregnant or planning to get kids soon. You are not allowed to fire someone that is pregnant and planning paid parental leave. This goes for both father and mother.

In general you as a father is expected to go on parental leave at minimum 3 months, if not 240 days. If you don't, people will look funny at you.

It’s the same in the US states with paid parental leave. If you want wealth redistribution, then use marginal tax rates, but don’t complicate the benefits by making people qualify for them.

Well, there is a big election coming up. You can find out who is on the ballot, where they stand on this issue and pass the info along to the people in your area.

If someone isn't planning on having kids, they might not think it affects them, so be prepared to convince them otherwise, too.

I do all of that, and will continue to do so. I can't even convince people that have been negatively impacted by the lack of parental leave to go out and vote. I also only live in states that mandate at least some parental leave.

when you say "increased parental leave", childfree people tend to hear "more money out of my pocket". I'm not sure how you would go about convincing them this is a good thing.

I think you vastly overestimate the power of the r/childfree subreddit as a voting bloc

why would you say that? I'm directly responding to a comment that suggests persuading childfree people that they should care about parental leave.

But... we are doing this. The President brought it up during the State of the Union.

> The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) requires large organizations to offer employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a new child, sick relative or their own illness. Although a growing number of states have passed or are considering paid family leave laws, there is no nationwide equivalent.

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/...

Yes, I mean paid parental leave, not just parental leave. FMLA doesn't even apply to employers with less than 50 people. There's a handful of states that offer paid parental leave, and even those have many caveats. It's 2020, I bet it will be at least another 4 to 6 years before we have a federal law, and even that will be a couple decades behind other progressive countries.

> under this bill, 2.1 million civilian federal workers also will be able to take paid leave to care for a new baby after birth, adoption or the start of foster care

Currently it's PAID leave for federal workers only, but it's a start.

Contact your senator and tell them it's important to you.

Yes, I have. But time and time again, my fellow voters (and non voters) have shown that they don't quite care as much about things like paid parental leave as much as they do taxes, gun rights, national "security" and military engagements, restricting abortion rights etc.

I care about all of those things and parental leave.

I doubt you can group all those people together, and remember, you don't know them.

You listed a lot of right issues to imply that the left is the only side fighting for it, which is not true.

I listed those things because those are the things I see being prominently debated. Also, all of the states with paid parental leave, and other laws good for the general public such as assisted suicide and marijuana legalization, are in Democrat states, for what it’s worth.

But at the end of the day, the root obstacle is voter non participation from those that would benefit the most, and voters who absolutely will not accept higher taxes, especially for any type of wealth redistribution such as paid parental leave, healthcare, education, etc.

To even use FMLA you must have worked for the employer for at least a year, at least one of the major restrictions. For example if you have your baby a couple days before your 1 year work anniversary and your employer does not offer parental leave, you are pretty much forced to quit just to be able to take care of your baby for 3 months. FMLA is not the solution for everyone.

That's a feature not a bug, otherwise you'd have people gaming the system.

I'd say if you haven't worked a year, you don't deserve a year off, pregnancy or not.

Plan your life accordingly and take responsibility.

Cool so if you get laid off but find a new job immediately, you still have to put off babymaking plans?

Is paid paternal leave viewed as a good thing by most voters (or voters represented by the larger part of the electoral college/senate seats)? That can be viewed as a factor that erodes the remains of traditional family.

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