12 thoughts on “SL 647”

  1. Hi, Laura — the link for the maternity leave system goes to the Brown v Board of Ed piece. Thanks for rounding these up!

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  2. Thanks, Abby. Fixed. That maternity leave article was a good one, because it doesn’t just spell out the problem. It gets into the politics.

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  3. I would depend on others to do those checks for me, which is what we do when we send our kids to school. It’s also a reason why I’ve always felt a bit more comfortable about care by non-family/non-friends in a group v individual setting.

    I’d also use camera surveillance without hesitation (especially if my kids were not yet verbal), though I’d tell the nanny that I sporadically view my home on camera (which, I do, now, since it’s become easy). The camera is visible, and I try to remember to tell people who visit my home that it’s there (I don’t record, though I could).

    I think these new invasions of privacy are something we are just going to have to learn to live with.

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    1. Are you happy to have your working time recorded? I’d certainly find it distasteful. I’d not want to go to someone’s house who was filming things, either.

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  4. Can someone please explain to me why women can’t use their medical leave after a child is born, at least by c-section, up to whatever limit on sick leave their workplace offers and assuming their doctor will write a note saying they need it? These articles seem to imply otherwise, which confuses me. Surely it would be discrimination to not allow this, as a c-section as major surgery would generally require weeks of leave, and sick leave is not half-pay at most institutions. (I am aware this does nothing to solve the larger problem; but I am genuinely curious as to why articles don’t seem to mention this).

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    1. The woman in the c-section story is a contract worker. The way the story is told, she only referred to “major surgery”, and was still asked to come back to work. Presumably, she did because she was worried she wouldn’t get another contract if she declined this one, for any reason, a c-section, but, for all we know, appendicitis either.

      That confusion is part of what I saw as the problem in the article — we have too many workers in too many different kinds of situations, free lance, contracts, just-in-time, part time, temporary, . . . . The examples of generous leave policies are all in models where companies hope to keep their workers for a long time (or are fighting for the workforce they want and are awash in cash, like at the tech giants).

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      1. Yes, but they also imply that workers who do get leave, at more reasonable institutions, take disability pay at half salary from the start. Why can’t they take however many weeks sick leave at full pay, then disability when they have either maxed out disability or no longer have medical excuse? I believe most doctors say you shouldn’t engage in strenuous activities for 6 weeks after a c-section, so those mothers should be covered in many workplaces up till then, unless there is something that I’m missing here.

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      2. Do women want to use all their sick leave on a pregnancy? Babies in daycare really get sick a bunch. New germs plus no uninterrupted sleep mean the grown-ups will be sick.

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  5. Buddy of mine went to Dunbar, and she got a splendid education. Dunbar was genuinely separate but equal – at least equal. HOWEVER, the black schools all around were crap, and the kids there were poorly served. I think it is clearly true that there were losses resulting from Brown versus Board. On balance, was the result better? The idea of segregation is pretty revolting. When there was housing segregation, WEB DuBois’ ‘talented tenth’ lived with everybody else in the District, and did a lot to maintain norms. When the ‘tenth’ moved off to PG County, the behavior of the folks left behind became a lot worse.

    Another buddy of mine was in rural North Carolina, and remembers gleefully sitting down in the front part of the bus and NOT HAVING TO YIELD HIS SEAT. This was good! And he went off to UNC in the first integrated year, and his then roommate is a cabinet secretary now. Also good. Crap, it’s complicated.

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  6. Lisa SG, I think it is how disability insurance works. It kicks in one week after the onset of the medical leave/event and goes through to the time the employee is supposed to return. I have seen in my company the option to get a payout of accrued PTO to supplement the disability pay. However the financial institution where I work has disability insurance that starts off at 100% coverage and the drops to 60% after a number of weeks. The number of weeks at 100% increases with seniority. It’s pretty nice. If you have been with the company at least 5 years the portion of the maternity leave considered disability is fully paid. Of course that is only the first 5 weeks if you take the FMLA 12 weeks off, which by European standards is stingy.

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    1. Thanks. I was assuming that there must be some explanation. I have a unionized job and can take up to a set number of days sick leave (i think limit is 90 days/year, either from my own stored hours, which are vast since I don’t take much leave, or from a sick bank) at full pay, and then I would have to go on disability beyond that. More than enough for a c-section. I would have to have a medical note for all the time I took, though–no paid parental leave at all without a medical excuse. It’s ridiculous. I hope it changes before/if my daughters decide to have children.

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