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Comment by merinid | Hacker News Reader

Maternity leave is not remote working. Women should have the right to take lengthy maternity leaves without the fear of corporate ostracizing.

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The ban on remote working will hurt the moms and dads of Yahoo the most.

- The US is the only industrialized nation not to mandate paid leave for mothers of newborns

- The US is one of only three nations — the other two being Papua New Guinea and Swaziland - that doesn't guarantee job-protected time off with some amount of income after the birth of a child

- New parents in the U.S. are guaranteed their jobs for 12 weeks after the arrival of a new baby, thanks to the Family Medical Leave Act of 1993, but they do not have to be paid during that time and exemptions apply for small companies.

- Only two states in the country, California and New Jersey, offer six weeks of paid family leave to men and women who are caregivers. Unfortunately, the state leaves are not job-guaranteed

- Afghanistan provide new mothers with 12 weeks off with pay. The Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the poorest nations in the world, offers mothers 15 weeks off with full pay.

- UK provides 90% pay for 280 days, Russia 100% pay for 140 days, Spain & France & Netherlands 100% pay for 112 days, Germany 100% pay for 98 days, China 100% pay for 90 days

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/04/maternity-leave-pai...

[2] http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/12/why-paid-le...

[3] http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2012/05/23/3-re...

Having a nursery built next to your office is not maternity leave, it's a work-life balance perk that she's affording herself which isn't available to other Yahoos.

Well, no, but neither is her compensation. If the board thinks her compensation inappropriate, it can deal with it.

Unlike all those other perks that executives receive that other employees don't?

The context of the situation is important, in the wake of her recent decision about working from home.

"Women should have the right to take lengthy maternity leaves without the fear of corporate ostracizing."

They do in the US: http://fmlaonline.com/fmla-pregnancy/

Before you reply with potential handwaving theoretical issues with it, bear in mind I am answering your point as written: They do indeed have the right to take leave without fear. It may be infringed, but it does exist and redress is available if infringement can be proved to a judge's satisfaction.

> Women should have the right to take lengthy maternity leaves

And the cost should be borne by single men.

Yeah, dudes who intend to never reproduce should get some sort of tax credit as long as they submit to a sterilization procedure.

And promise never to collect Social Security...

Single men who never had a mother then.

Small price to pay for the continuation of the species.

Quit your whining. Maybe they should build a nursery for the single men, too.

Screw you, seriously. You want to remove childbearers from the workforce? You want to reduce everyone's employment experiences by diminishing the market of employees and ideas? You want your ten bucks a year so that you can say you don't support single mothers (note -- extensive public health research demonstrates that productivity and well-being of women of child-bearing age is the best indicator of the overall health of a society)?

Why should society give you anything at all? Why should my tax dollars go towards protecting you from crime, or paying your emergency room bills? And I mean you, specifically, not people in general -- if you don't want to contibute to make everyone's lot better, why should anyone give a crap about you, or for that matter your opinions?

I see I hit a sore spot. I don't really want to remove childbearers from the workforce, but I do want a frank discussion about who bears the costs. Actually, just an admission of the inherent injustice of the system would be nice. Ten bucks a year? Screw you. I pay roughly 70% of my income in taxes every year.

And holy thoughtcrime Batman! Despite paying tens of thousands of dollars every year in taxes, all government services should be denied to me just because of my opinions?

http://mises.org/daily/2485

The tax credits and possible cost of guaranteed time off with pay for having children is nothing compared to the immense cost of raising children that will pay future taxes to allow for the continuance of government and government services.

Comments like this make me think that the cost should indeed be borne by single men, exclusively.

I don't think you've thought that through. A straight-out bachelor tax would simply make bachelors work less. Tax revenue would fall, and there would be even less money for you leftists to redistribute to women.

No, but... just for a while... just to spite them...

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