Why isn't guaranteed maternity leave a "pro-life" imperative?

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Pup7 said:
Lol. So when someone requests aid, you’re saying policy should dictate that we refuse.
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Barring some overriding concern, absolutely.

One of the opening lessons in economics is that wants are nearly infinite and means are extremely finite.

Particularly where we’re balancing a third of our annual budget with IOUs? Oh yes. We should refuse as a general, but not absolute, rule.
 
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Like I said, the DOD cannot win. No matter what, it’s invariably wrong.

You do get we don’t foot the whole bill, correct? I’m always amazed that people don’t understand that. Plenty of things go on financially that the general public isn’t privy to, and often doesn’t need to be.

You act as though the military is the only black hole. A chunk of that budget is support of the personnel. If we can’t compete with the private sector, we will be in serious trouble.

Sort of like the nearly 3000 pilots we’re short at the moment just in the USAF - because we can’t compete with the airlines.

It’s really easy to sit on the sidelines and talk about military spending when you don’t have a knowledge of what the inside is like. Yeah, it annoys me. Because it’s half the story and a third of the knowledge - and that’s not meant offensive. It would be like me telling you how your company should do your job when you get massive tax breaks in my city. I can’t, because I don’t know.

Wanted to add it’s not the contrary opinion that annoys me. It’s the lack of knowledge and its dismissal that grates people - and not just me.
 
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Monica83 said:
Of course. I don’t earn PTO. I currently work in private pay home health. A lot of reliable home health workers prefer it because they earn more than going through an agency that pays you a fraction of what you earn through private pay and yes, my employers pay taxes and I pay taxes on my income. Paid long-term maternity leave would simply not work with my current employer. I think mandating such a thing through employers would gravely affect home care. Luckily though one of my coworkers has been pregnant and was even allowed to bring the baby to work. 😊
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But that isn’t what everyone can do. That’s not how most of the world operates.
 
I care about the mother, i do not, however, support forcing someone to employ someone they do not want to employ (or for that matter force someone to be employed by someone they do not consent to work for) i’m all for helping and supporting mothers, i’ also all against government coercion

I would however support boycotting such companies that are known to fire employees when they get pregnant
 
KathleenT said:
This is a catholic site, don’t be surprised when you run into Catholics.
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Perhaps I was too abrupt in my post. The point I was trying to make is that for people who are pro-life, they seem very content with quantity of life versus quality of life for innocent people. The children are the ones that matter. And I guess my issue is that unwanted pregnancies should never occur because every child should be wanted. And it is so easy to prevent pregnancy yet the church digs its heels in on this issue. In retrospect I can see how you may have found my post offencive, but it is reality. It is the way non-catholics see this issue often times.

I don’t equate having children with misery. I do equate living in poverty with misery for the innocent children. And watching your children live miserable lives in poverty is misery for the parents as well.
 
KathleenT said:
If you really want to help women, push for it outside of employment. After all, why should only the women with jobs get this benefit? Why shouldn’t it exist for all families whether the mom works or not?
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Pup7 said:
Why would a woman already living under one income get more money for having a child?
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Pup7 said:
Work benefits aren’t for someone who chooses not to work.
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So it’s ok for a family who chooses to have a parent stay home with the kids to have to pay more in taxes so working moms can get paid maternity leave, but it’s not ok for the government to help out those single income families with some kind of benefits for the stay-at-home parent? How is that fair?

The increased taxes would also force more parents into the workforce who would like to be the ones to raise their own children. Even less parents than now would have the stay-at-home option if they had to not only try to make a go of it on a single income but also had to have more of that single income lost to taxes instead of using it to support their own family.
 
Elizabeth3 said:
So it’s ok for a family who chooses to have a parent stay home with the kids to have to pay more in taxes so working moms can get paid maternity leave, but it’s not ok for the government to help out those single income families with some kind of benefits for the stay-at-home parent? How is that fair?
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I’m paying taxes for my mother’s social security benefits. I will likely never see social security.

You pay taxes that pay my military salary and that of my fellow military members. (For that matter, my taxes pay my salary as well. I pay a chunk in Federal taxes every month for stuff I don’t use.)

I support unemployment I will never be using. I still pay FERS and FICA.

I pay for Medicaid I don’t use, Medicare I don’t use…and when I retire I won’t put a dent in Medicare thanks to Tricare for Life that kicks in when I’m 65, and Tricare for retirees before then.

Welcome to life. Yeah, it’s fair. Again, the rest of the world manages this.
 
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Sorry. When it comes to having the choice to raise your own children, or having them basically be wards of the government from 2 years of age onward, because mom or dad HAVE to work all their young lives in order for mothers to have the “privilege” of staying home for a year (gee, thanks for that “time” with my own children) doesn’t seem like a good trade-off. I’d like to retain the option of raising my own children, if at all possible.
 
How is the government raising children again if the parents work? What does THAT have to do with mandated maternity leave? I don’t get a year off if I have a kiddo. I get 12 weeks. Mandated maternity leave doesn’t mean a year off.

And yeah, they do work for that over there - and it IS a privilege of working, extended to those who choose to work. It’s not an entitlement. It’s a benefit. There’s a difference.

It’s so odd how so many Americans seem to equate working and being a parent with being poor. The lieutenant colonels and colonels I know who are women and moms (some with little kids!) and earn a base pay of five figures a month would be surprised they’re thought of as poor and working class.
 
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Would you please point me to the documentation wrt countries who consider children “wards of the state” from 2 years of age onward? Thanks.
 
If a private employer wants to offer maternity leave to their employees, that’s their business. But there should be no government subsidies, period.
 
Thats true, or women who were part time would have to up their hours and pay for daycare. Yikes-daycare is a huge chunk out of the salary of many occupations.
 
Do you balk when your taxes go up because a big business that’s just HQ’d itself in your state got a massive tax break to do so? Whom do you believe pays for that?
 
Monica83 said:
Thats true, or women who were part time would have to up their hours and pay for daycare. Yikes-daycare is a huge chunk out of the salary of many occupations.
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The day care deal - THAT I’m on board with you on. The cost of childcare in this country is disgusting.

Is that a tax deduction? Because that’s the least we should do.

Even on base the cost is disgraceful.
 
Seeing as many people are discussing the correlation between women not “ready” for children and abortion, I’d like to suggest another cultural change needs to take place.

The men of this world need to begin to step up. Raising a child is not a woman’s job; it is a couple’s job. Of course leave for physically berthing/recovering/spending-time with a newborn is necessary, but the man must also have access to a shortened work schedule to help out back home. This needs to continue throughout the family’s life; Mom should not be expected to cook dinner, take kids to practice; anymore than Dad is expected to do odd jobs around the house (of course, I recognize that some of these stereotypes exist simply because men/women tend to be more apt to certain tasks)

Getting back on track, we need to recognize that the argument “I’m not ready for a child” shouldn’t be a valid one; because it should be “we.” The power of the couple working together for the sanctity of life is striking.
 
And again, how did all those people manage to successfully raise children without government subsidized maternity leave in the past?
Perhaps they were just a lot tougher. I think they certainly must have felt a lot less entitled.
 
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Women didn’t work in the years preceding this at the rates we do now. It’s 2018. Not 1918.
 
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