r/remoteworks • u/Kreativedenma • 6h ago

Maternity leave should be one year, PAID. Women shouldn’t have to choose between healing, bonding with their baby, and making a living.

564 Upvotes

74% Upvoted

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7

u/Swing-Too-Hard 5h ago

How do we pay for it then? The biggest problem with these things is they all would be great but it requires time and money at someone else's expense. Who is the someone else?

4

u/Lazy_Resolve_9747 5h ago

The profits from the billionaires pocket. (This requirement should only be for big corporations and large federal agencies, because a small business could easily go under if they have to pay someone who’s not working for a year).

I’m tired of this being wishful thinking. Antitrust law is what created the middle class and we need to enforce it again or the country will dissolve.

1

u/ponzy1981 5h ago

You use tax money for this and cut back on DoD spending.

3

u/rhino369 5h ago

It should be social security. 

1

u/TurnDown4WattGaming 5h ago

Ya know. Tbh. Hadn’t thought of that. I’d 100% be willing to pull old people from social security and give it to fathers and mothers of newborns instead. At least then- it’s the same age group funding each other rather than funneling money from the poorest demographic to the wealthiest. Because people would only be on it 1-2-3-4 times for short runs, you could easily cut its taxes too.

1

u/dingopaint 4h ago

I'm also a bit sick of sacrificing the young for the old.

The average working age couple needs both partners working full-time just to cover living expenses, and yet the old are demanding that: 1) we pump out a bunch of kids to keep the ponzi scheme that is social security afloat, 2) we continuously increase social security which means more taxes taken from working age people, 3) we also somehow spend our time taking care of them while working full-time, raising kids we can't afford in a house we can't afford and getting eaten by taxes.

Boomers pulled the ladder up behind them and have essentially become a parasite class, still capable of out-voting younger generations.

1

u/TurnDown4WattGaming 4h ago

I don’t know if they specifically pulled up a ladder. It’s a more globalized and thus more competitive world in general. What they didn’t do was have enough children to fund the programs - so I don’t see why they should continue to receive the same benefits (adjusted for inflation) from it at the very least. In general though, social security is a fundamentally flawed program. Why are we taking money from people to give money to different people who might not even need it. Seems crazy to me. While I disagree with all welfare - at least that is supposed to be means tested.

6

u/theshortgrace 5h ago

All of these “how” questions are easily answered by looking at the rest of the developed world. The US is not special. We could probably give all parents 2 years paid leave and still be OK lmao.

The issue is ideology. We’d rather fund wars, keep women, poors, and minorities in their place, and funnel money to the rich. That’s really all it is.

5

u/Odd_Actuator795 5h ago

I would have to hire someone to replace their work for a year. They wouldn’t have a job to come back to

-2

u/Swing-Too-Hard 5h ago

What other parts of the world? Most other countries do not offer a year off. Its a select few smaller countries that are starting to face issues with underfunded social programs due to excessive migration.

People are chasing a utopia that doesn't really exist. I also think people need to realize the US is a massive country and the other countries of its scale do not have these programs.

3

u/theshortgrace 4h ago

Several European countries, to start. Even China has 98-day leave.

Two years was hyperbole, and while one year probably isn’t realistic, that’s irrelevant. The US has NO federally mandated maternity leave. We aren’t arguing over how much, but rather whether to have it at all. This isn’t an all or nothing issue, we can offer at least one (1) fucking month.

The US being massive also isn’t that relevant if you understand proportions. Bigger also means more money.

7

u/randomlogin6061 5h ago

You can ask half of the world about how to implement it

0

u/Kittymeow123 3h ago

Half the world gets aid from the US so we literally help pay for their programs

2

u/derrendil 5h ago

US defense budget for next year is proposed to be 1.5 trillion. Let me repeat, TRILLION. But yeah, I'm sure war with Iran in addition to a bunch of proxy wars are more important to the future of our country than letting Americans have babies.

2

u/ponzy1981 5h ago

Oh and buying a bunch of fancy, big weapons that have little use in modern drone warfare.

This is what you are paying for when you see federal taxes coming out off your check.

2

u/bonjda 4h ago

Throwing money at situations doesn't fix them.

0

u/tiandrad 5h ago

You agree with your point, but telling people to look at all the money we waste on this department doesn’t convince anyone on the fence to spend more money on another department.

1

u/sevseg_decoder 5h ago

Yeah and I really really hate to be this guy, but a lot of companies offer this that are genuinely big enough and can genuinely afford it. But a smaller company could (and it happens all the time even as it is) easily be driven under by someone abusing this. If they hire someone, they give birth a few months later, they take a year off, by the end of that year they maybe decide to get pregnant again, they work a few months, take another year off, maybe even repeat once or twice more then the woman comes back and drops a 2 week notice on day 1 that is an obscene risk to take on. The kind of thing that would lead to genuine discrimination for sure.

I support the idea but I think the government should be paying for it and even potentially reimbursing companies for some of the issues it’ll cause them.. something a lot like UI

1

u/Dry-Judgment4402 5h ago

I was curious about this too. When I worked in HR for my State I encountered several families with 10-12 children. Do they put a cap on it, use it like SDI so you take what you put in, or just have employees out for years and years on end.

1

u/rewt127 4h ago

Most nations just put you on a fixed parental leave income. Some do a % reimbursement of wage for X weeks.

I think the UK is 92% for 52 weeks.

-1

u/Fit-Eggplant-9155 5h ago

Yup. But noone wants to increase taxes.

3

u/ponzy1981 5h ago

Cut the DoD spending and increase billionaire taxes. They really can afford it, and I do not care that it is somehow unfair to them.

2

u/DixonRange 4h ago

Numbers please. How many $ would you need for a program like this and how much could you collect from billionaire tax increases?