What do the US bishops have to say about child poverty in America?

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Paid leave is something many employers provide, and we do have the Family Medical Leave Act that covers a wide variety of needs. Extended leave time, whether paid or unpaid, is hard to accommodate for many employers, and the other employees often suffer the consequences of having a coworker out for weeks or more at a time.

It can be viewed as a negative to allow for so much time off. This is where we are allowed a variety of opinions and a good reason for bishops to stay out of political debates. Living the gospel, putting others before ourselves, and placing God front and center, would solve so many issues without having to create a policy for everything.
 
Catholic social teaching might allow benefits for the woman who just gave birth, who has rights to a position she plans to return to. But equal benefits to the woman who just gave birth, who is a full time homemaker not returning to the job market soon.

Those benefits would both be phased out above a certain level of family income.
 
Cecilia_Dympna said:
Without it, my family would have been in poverty,
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that doesn’t make any sense. You were ‘allowed’ to stay home for a year. At the end of that year you went back to work, right? So you could still have gone back to work after the baby was born. I assume your baby went into some form of day care after a year. So only having one year off doesn’t mean that you would have ended up in poverty. You would have ended up doing what a lot of women do which is use up their paid vacation and then go back to work.

So no, paid maternity leave will not prevent poverty.
 
Maybe it is cultural expectations.

Every breastfeeding mother I know has returned to work or school between 4 and 12 weeks. All have continued breastfeeding. And those of us who are moms are tired but do alright. Female soldiers are even eligible for overseas deployments when their babies are 6 months old. The only stay at home moms I know personally bottle feed.

Here 6 weeks is the minimum with a few exceptions, but a lot of people don’t use child care centers. They have family watch babies or they have opposite shifts so one parent is normally home. It works out fine for most of us, even when a lot of us would much prefer to be home. You just need to have a flexible plan in place. Thankfully babies take nine months on average to arrive.
Cecilia_Dympna said:
Putting a neonate in childcare is bordering on the ridiculous. I was healing for several months, I could not have functioned at work. Breastfeeding requires mother and baby be together. And if you suggest formula feeding to get mothers back to work sooner, well you need to think about what you are suggesting. (Not to mention the cost of formula).

A mother needs to be with her newborn child. If I’d had no income my family would have been in poverty. Makes perfect sense.

Aside from anything, no nurseries on childminders will take them here under six weeks.
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That isn’t what I suggested at all. I also don’t have family. Not sure why you are so concerned about the US paid leave practices when you don’t even live here. Online you will find many loud voices complainnng about it, but as a working mom raised by a working mom, it isn’t something any of us truly fret about. It is how we expected it to go. Literally none of my coworkers have ever felt cheated and many are ready to be back to work. That’s why I suggested maybe it is cultural expectations.

The women I know in a few other countries have told me they Can’t believe we wait a full 6 weeks or more to go back to work. Their employers would never hold their jobs that long for them, let alone pay them while they were off. So considering that, I don’t see us having it so bad. Culturally I think it would be hard to ask an American woman to not stay off a minimum of 6 weeks.
 
There are two groups that favor mandating maternal paid leave: those who love mothers, and those who love mandates.

The second group is the larger. By far.
 
commenter said:
We live in a time when childhood hunger is (rightly) very widely recognized as a problem in the US.
The bishops should add their voice and efforts to the many many other voices.

But their priority should be on whatever truths are currently forgotten, or even attacked. When people learn I volunteer at a food program for the poor - one of many locally - they all admire me. No opposition at all.
t
When they learn I am in the diocese prolife program -, the only local one - do you think I get the same response?
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I think the bishops would support your feeding of the poor and your defense of the pre-born. You illustrate the problem with our society. While no one complains about your feeding of the poor when you speak out again st that which causes people to be poor, ie: the distinct lack of the recognition of the dignity of all life, one experiences resistance. In a nation where 1 in 5 of it’s citizens end up aborted is it any wonder that 1 in 7 will be born into poverty? And, is it any wonder that that same nation would be the only one in the developed world that doesn’t recognize mandatory paid maternal leave as essential to the stability and future good of all?
 
13pollitos said:
Their employers would never hold their jobs that long for them, let alone pay them while they were off.
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Perhaps it is a cultural thing. I don’t know anyone who would expect an employer to pay someone to stay home for a year because they wanted to have a child. We planned for me to stay home. So saved for 4 years before having the first baby. This way we were financially able to let me quit working. I also researched what jobs could be done from the home and began a home business that also added to our income but we based everything off of my husband’s income.

I stayed home for 14 years with our two sons. We had very little but learned to live on less. We gave up a lot but I don’t regret it one bit. We even survived his job loss when I had a baby and one on the way. We did not end up in poverty and the only government aid we got was WIC (you got milk, eggs, cheese) and medical coverage for the birth along with is unemployment.

Eventually I was able to go back into the work force and work full time. The company I work for is 90% women. Someone is always pregnant or taking time off for sick kids. It would be unreasonable to expect my employer to pay women to stay home for a year to have a baby and to have to pay someone to take their place while they are out. It would also put an extra burden on a coworker. Yes, I have been there. We are a team of 6 so when someone is gone for an extended period it does create a burden on the rest of the team.

I’m still not sure how you would have ended up in poverty. You may have had a temporary financial set back but with a medical degree you would easily have found another position and then caught up financially. I’m not trying to accuse you of anything or saying you did anything bad. I just can’t understand the connection between not working for a year and ending up in poverty. Perhaps where you are there are no safety nets for non-working mothers like welfare and government aid.
 
tad said:
And, is it any wonder that that same nation would be the only one in the developed world that doesn’t recognize mandatory paid maternal leave as essential to the stability and future good of all?
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how is mandatory paid maternal leave essential to the stability and future good of all? apparently this is a new concept and I don’t understand how it affects society for the better. I can see the benefit for the individual but then I see 6 weeks paid vacation as a benefit to an individual too. I just can’t see it as contributing to the stability and future good of all.
 
Just to clarify, I agree with you. I didn’t state I would be in poverty. That was another poster. I also think it is cultural.
 
In my old parish, every Sunday they would promote a different social issue. One week, we were told be concerned about abortion. The next week, it was to vote to restore funds for teaching German in the public school district. Next week, let’s tell the city to fix those broken sidewalks in poor neighborhoods. The following weeks parishioners were told to be outraged on lots of different issues, some trivial, some where neither side was really more Catholic than the other. Whoever got their opinion into the bulletin, won.

The result was that prolife was diluted, just one more opinion among others.
 
Starting in the 1970s the bishops conference was deluged by demands the bishops put their endorsement on whatever issues were pushed by the media that year. Many position papers written mostly by lobbyists were essentially rubber stamped, so the lobbyists could say “the Catholic Church supports this!”

The great majority of these proposals supported the Democratic Party. They nearly all required more government.
The bishops periodically added “oh yeah, abortion is important too” but this was drowned out in the media coverage. Years ago I wondered what issues the bishops were NOT addressing while spending so much time on foreign policy, defense, economic policy, and other matters they had no training in. What BISHOP job duties were they skimping on?

Now we know.
 
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Cecilia_Dympna said:
Here we get paid maternity (and paternal) and adoption leave as well as paid bank holidays and annual leave and sick leave. Overall, certainly in my industry, I don’t see it being abused.
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so it is a cultural thing. You don’t need to plan to financially support yourself if you decide to have a baby because your society is already set up to pay for it.

The only difference between our two cultures is that we put the responsibility on the individual and don’t expect anything from the government.

we get 6 paid national holidays, vacation based on length of work history, 1 week after the first year, 2 weeks after the third year, 3 weeks after the 5th year and 4 weeks after 10 years. It’s capped at 4 weeks. No paid sick leave. But I have insurance that covers short or long term illness.

Most of the women use their remaining vacation time and then use their ‘disability’ insurance if they took out a policy. We generally will hold their jobs, at least I’ve never heard of any woman losing her job because she took leave to stay home with her baby. Almost all come back to work within 4 weeks.

The only maternity that seems to lead to poverty here is unmarried pregnancy at a very young age. So even with maternity leave it wouldn’t necessarily eliminate poverty as witnessed by the number of unmarried women on welfare.
 
I don’t think that was being implied. At least on my end it wasn’t. Cultures vary and people adapt. It’s neither right nor wrong, just different.
 
Cecilia_Dympna said:
I find this a little insulting to “my culture”. We are not layabouts sponging off the state. It’s how we do it here. It works.
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nothing of the sort was implied. I clearly stated that your culture has a certain expectation, that there is a government supplied responsibility and mine has a different expectation, that the individual is responsible. At no time did I imply which was superior only that it was different.

I could just as easily say that you have presented your version as superior and others have actually stated that as some have posted how awful that a nation like ours doesn’t provide this benefit. Both versions have benefits and consequences.

But I still don’t see how it relates to reducing poverty.
 
Years ago, a bishop who had a doctorate in Canon Law but no course in Economics would arrive in Washington and try to skim a 300 page summary of a proposed, complex legislation supposed to “help the poor”, but economists themselves in disagreement. But the bishops were under pressure to “send a message” so they would end up recommending something few understood.

Guess what subject they DID have expertise on, that they SHOULD have discussed and acted on in confidential session, that they never got around to?

What worries me is that the bishops are still, today, under pressure to take a stand on whatever CNN is focusing on. What more relevant- to-bishops issues are they postponing now?
 
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