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This weekend at BlogHer in Chicago, I asked keynote speaker Elizabeth Edwards how she felt about childcare. My position, and that of many fellow BlogHers, is that childcare impacts everyone, as those who don’t have access to it can’t participate in the workforce.
Elizabeth responded that she thinks education should be a birth-to-death experience, and that she thinks all children should experience some form of childcare because it’s good not only for the kids but for their parents, both to get a break and to learn more about early childhood education. She went on to discuss the need for variety and quantity in the childcare field and the need to provide affordable education for those who want to go into that field. While I was impressed she had even that much of an answer for me, what I think she ignored was the cost of childcare.
A sister issue to childcare is parental leave. Childbirth is a life-changing experience, and for the women who go through it, a body-changing experience. Recovery time is needed. Adjustment time for everyone in the family, whether it’s the first child or the fourteenth, is needed. None of these things are easy to achieve when money is hanging in the balance. I know plenty of women who have gone back to work before their bodies had recovered because they didn’t have maternity leave, and these are women in white-collar jobs. The situation is even worse for the majority of working Americans.
The state of Washington should be applauded this month for working to provide five weeks of paid leave for parents with a newborn or adopted child. Here’s more from Progressive States:
"Another advantage of the law is that parents in employers with 25 or more employees would have their jobs protected while away, more job protection than under federal law which covers only employers with 50 or more employees.
While the scaled-down Washington House version is less ambitious, and finding funding for the program has been deferred to a study task force, it is still encouraging that Washington will likely become the second state with family leave, following California which a number of years ago began offering employees six weeks of paid leave (up to $822 per week) for a new child or to take care of a loved one. "
Obviously I’m in support of providing paid leave for parents, but I’m sure there is a dissenting view. Probably one from the people who would have to foot the bill. Apparently they don’t blog, or they’re afraid to say it, because as I looked for the other side of the story, all I found was this:
"It is time to follow the lead of the rest of the industrialized world."
- Timothy in Saugerties
And this:
"More generally, whether or not parental leave is costly, difficult for employers, and harmful to women’s employment hinges on the length of the leave. The current menu of family leave proposals in the US is unlikely to have these negative consequences. The California leave offers only six weeks of leave paid at 55% of wages – up to a maximum of $728/week—and is paid for by employees. This is unlikely to break the bank, sink the economy, or undermine the place of women in paid work."
And this:
"So how do we do maternity leave? Well, clearly, some new mothers in this country don't really get much. I personally know people who are back to work four or six weeks after birth. In my case, I have about two months of sick/vacation/holiday time saved up. I'm eligible for the twelve weeks because of FMLA, but my union has negotiated that I can take four months. I'll be taking the four months off and my employer (the state) will stretch my leave over that time but let me keep my full-time status."
The good news is that Washington State is taking up the issue of giving paid maternity leave and there is some movement on the federal level.
So, if everyone’s for it, who’s against it? And why don’t we have it?
