Posted on 12. Nov, 2003 by Brian Reid in General
There are very few single-issue voters on the subject of parenthood, but you have to wonder if being a good dad (or mom) is a good proxy for public office. Last week, most of the dems with presidential aspirations sat down at a Planned Parenthood forum that covered a number of women’s-rights issues. But among the usual questions, there were a couple of interesting zingers in there. Wesley Clark and Carol Moseley Braun were asked about the prospect of paid family leave (and yes, they all used the term “family.” Not “maternity,” thank goodness).
For those keeping score, Clark is in favor (“Paid family leave, absolutely.“) Braun is more circumspect because of the potential burden to business. This opens an interesting question: is coming out in favor of paid leave a radical stand? Have politicians had to answer that question before?
The second fun part is when each candidate is asked to grade themself as a parent. Everyone talks about how great their kids are, but there’s no actual grading (other than Clark: “I don’t give myself that good a grade, but I had an A+ wife.“). Another interesting snippet: Dean does diapers (“I did not nurse my children, but I did everything else, the diapers and all that other stuff.“) Though, Dean admits to doing less than 50 percent of the share, his courageous stand in favor of dads doing diapers should be recognized.
Of course, the record on presidential/presidential candidate kids of late is a little spotty. The George W. Bush twins have been busted for alcohol, Dean’s son has been arrested on burglary charges, Gore’s son was cited for DUI and George H.W. Bush gets credit for Neil (though Neil, it should be noted, was never charged in the S&L debaucle). Reagan’s daughter, Patti, posed for Playboy and Amy Carter was somewhat famous for getting arrested at political demonstrations. That’s pretty impressive for rich white kids.
Hogan Hilling
13. Nov, 2003
I’m not in favor of paid family leave for the following reasons:
1) it would hurt businesses financially and the costs would be passed on to the consumers and tax payers.
2) Paid leave would just provide another excuse for parents to get paid for not working. Which means a small population of parents would abuse this policy and ruin it for the others.
3) Many of the working dads I’ve talked with (in my discussion groups over the last 10 years) said that the issue isn’t so much about the money but job security. These dads would rather know that their jobs and/or promotions will not be in jeopardy if they publically admit that family comes before work. Many dads also noted that they were afraid to ask or tell their employer that they had or wanted to leave work early to either care for their child, meet him/her at school, or just go home early to spend time with their families. Instead they make up a different excuse. Pretty sad.
4) I don’t know about other stay-at-home parents but I didn’t spend time with my kids for the money. And wouldn’t want my kids to feel that I spent time with them because of the money. Money, money, money…… I hope I live to see the day when the number one priority IS family, family, family……..
5)MY NUMBER ONE REASON: You can’t put a price on wanting to spend time with your child. Because spending time with your child is priceless!
KOD,
Hogan
Rebel Dad
14. Nov, 2003
As hesistant as I am to disagree with Hogan, here’s my point-by-point argument:
1. Family-friendly policies have such a positive effect on recruiting/retaining that to assume paid family would be a net negative is not necessarily true. Any idea how much it costs to acquire and train a new employee nowadays?
2. Family leave “another excuse for parents to get paid for not working”? I find it hard to believe that enough people will claim family leave and then hit the links (or the bar or whatever) to make this point stick. There are plenty of employers that now offer paid leave (though primarily maternity leave) and I’ve never heard a story about people taking leave and then NOT taking care of the kid.
3. Job security is an issue because taking leave (especially men taking leave) is so rare. It’s a catch-22: men don’t take leave because of the stigma, but the stigma exists because men don’t take the lead. Throwing money into the equation won’t fix the problem, but it’ll help.
4. In most families, one (or both) parents are compelled to limit time with their kids because of money. It’s a sad reality. The least companies can do is to to give employees a few weeks (or months) to be with their children, no strings attached, without worrying about financial disaster. I can’t wait to see the day when the priority is family, family, family. But let’s face it, very few families scraping to get by are going to take the 12 weeks of unpaid leave the government guarentees. Very few families can afford to chuck three months of pay. There is a way to fix that: paid leave. Isn’t that putting families first by getting rid of the money problem temporarily?
5. Yes, spending time with kids is priceless. But rent, food, diapers, etc. are not. If companies/society really wants to encourage the priceless stuff, they have to make it economically viable.
** Here is my disclosure: I received three months of paid leave (followed by three more weeks of vacation). If not for that policy, I would not have taken more than a month off. It is very unlikely that, after that month, I would have elected to make the very frightening decision to quit my job to be an at-home father. To be clear: I would not have become an at-home parent without the experience that paid leave made possible. I owe my Rebel Dadhood to that single, forward-thinking policy.
Michael Weber
15. Nov, 2003
I only had about 7 days of paid vacation on the books when our second daughter was born. So, my wife and I figured that’d be good enough to get everyone settled.
Unfortunately, my second daughter had to spend a week in the NICU at the hospital. So, the whole paid leave period time was spend at the hospital. I decided that I would need to take an extra week to help get everyone settled, so I called my boss and asked for another week, unpaid.
“Uh..Mike..Uh…Uh…we need you back. Some other people will be gone and we need someone there. You need to come back.”
Me, being the sucker, agreed. I went back to work, but I was pissed. That was the beginning of my trip to At-home fatherhood.
Okay, now to my point, I think one of the reason’s that paid paternity leave won’t become prevelent anytime soon is that employers have cut back to the bare minimum. In my case, they have no back-ups in case someone’s out. They hire freelancers to cover. So, they had made an agreement with the freelancer to cover the week I was out. But, the freelancer had another gig the week I was supposed to come back…so, they couldn’t afford to have me gone.