January 22, 2015

Why did Obama shift from saying "parental leave" (in the press release) to "maternity leave" (in the SOTU)?

 Asks Naomi Shavin in The New Republic. She notes that the press release says "There is a notable gap in federal benefits, and that is paid parental leave.... This can hamper federal agencies’ ability to recruit talented young people to join public service." And in the State of the Union address, Obama said: "we’re the only advanced country on Earth that doesn’t guarantee paid sick leave or paid maternity leave to our workers." Now, he also said "it’s time we stop treating childcare as a side issue, or a women’s issue," so why did he move away from the gender-neutral word "parental" and say "maternity"?

That's Shavin's question, but I think the answer is pretty obvious when you notice that there are 2 different issues: 1. The benefits package extended to federal workers, and 2. The requirements to be imposed on private employers. A really nice benefits package gives paid leave when a child is born that goes to either parent and that extends beyond the period of recovery from childbirth, which is a physical matter that is properly linked to sick leave.

It's not incoherent for the President: 1. to support that really nice benefits package for employees of the federal government but not to put such an immense burden on private employees, and 2. to want to require private employers to provide paid sick leave and the kind of maternity leave that has to do with the mother's recovery from childbirth (and is thus comparable to sick leave).

Now, I'm looking at the press release, and I see that my guess is right. Under the heading "Promoting Workplace Flexibility and Access to Paid Leave," there are 2 distinct categories: "Parental Leave for Federal Employees" and "Supporting Paid Sick Leave." Shavin is right that only the phrase "parental leave" appears in the document and not "maternity leave," but the parental leave in question is only for federal employees. Federal workers already have paid sick leave and the proposal is to give them something more, and this would extend to both fathers and mothers.

Under the heading "Supporting Paid Sick Leave," we see the proposal to be imposed on private-sector workers, 40% of whom don't get "sick pay for their own illness or injury." There's a reference to the Healthy Families Act, which would require private employers (of more than 15 workers) to give "1 hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked." This "sick time" then can be used to cover one's "own medical needs," and since that would include recovery from childbirth, but presumably not spending time bonding with a new baby, that's the reason to say "maternity leave" in the SOTU phrase "we’re the only advanced country on Earth that doesn’t guarantee paid sick leave or paid maternity leave to our workers."

I can see why Obama wouldn't want to get bogged down in these distinctions in the speech and also why listeners like Shavin are left to wondering why Obama sounded as though he'd fallen into old-style assumptions about childcare being women's work. Why isn't he more forward-thinking and feminist? The answer is that pregnancy and childbirth only happen to women, and there's no legislation or ideology to redistribute that burden. And that plain biological reality is why it makes sense to support imposing paid childbirth-recovery leave on private employers but making baby-bonding new-parent leave optional.

75 comments:

Hagar said...

1. to support that really nice benefits package for employees of the federal government but not to put such an immense burden on private employees, ...

So, who will pay for this "nice" benefits package? President Obama?

Ann Althouse said...

The last sentence does not mean that I am supporting putting that sick leave requirement on private businesses. I am only trying to explain why it "makes sense" and is not incoherent or confusing once you understand the distinction.

I don't have an opinion on the advisability of passing the Healthy Families Act, because I'm sensitive to the problems of burdening businesses with requirements like that but at the same time, I realize that women who devote their bodies to producing new human beings are doing something difficult and necessary for the continuation of civilization.

Brando said...

It's all fine for the government to offer increased benefits to federal workers--they are after all the employers of those workers, and can work within whatever their appropriations are. And it's true that the better the benefits, the more leverage you have to hire the best qualified workers. Doing this also indirectly pressures private businesses to offer similar benefits if they don't already--if they want to hire federal employees, the prospective hires may be more inclined to join the private firm if they're not giving up certain benefits they grew accustomed to in federal service.

But a new mandate on private employers is only going to get us further down the stretch of making it less desirable to hire and retain more workers, and more desirable to automate or get more labor out of the workers the employer already has. Particularly when many workers may have no use for the benefit (some may not plan to have kids, or already had them a while ago, or don't plan to take extra time off if they do have kids) and would rather be free to negotiate for a higher salary or some other benefit they DO want. Why not let workers and employers negotiate whatever benefits they'd like?

I'll tell you why not--it all comes down to the prevalent view on the Left that workers are all unsophisticated peons who are so desperate for work that they will take anything tossed their way and never be able to get anything better. Ironically, new mandates are one of the reasons jobs are scarce enough that so many employees are in such a situation.

Brando said...

"So, who will pay for this "nice" benefits package? President Obama?"

It'd have to come out of the agency's appropriations for worker pay, ultimately leaving less money for other agency activities (unless Congress appropriates extra money, which I don't see them doing).

Greg said...

In Canada, parental leave is administered through the federal (un)employment insurance program. Everyone can have 1 year of benefits, private or public. Some companies will top up the unemployment allowance, although I don't believe any will top it up to 100%. Mothers and fathers can split the year up any way they wish, and employers by law have to hold your job.

hawkeyedjb said...

Ultimately all benefits are paid for by the people who receive them. This is just another instance of the government deciding how workers should have their compensation allocated.

AustinRoth said...

"...but not to put such an immense burden on private employees..."

Since when has that been of the slightest concern to this President?

Michael K said...

This sounds like cis-normative propaganda. Who says men can't get pregnant ? Some of them have vaginas and uteri ! Just got to the LGTBQ meeting.

pdug said...

"pregnancy and childbirth only happen to women"

how transphobic of you.

Brando said...

"Since when has that been of the slightest concern to this President?"

Either he has no concern about the burdens of private employers, or is so mind-boggling ignorant that he can't fathom that this would have negative effects on them.

OR, and a likely possibility--this isn't about actually passing or accomplishing anything, but rather putting out a campaign issue to tee things off for 2016. Obama's always been a campaigner, not an accomplisher. This is one of those issues (like mandating "living wages" or "splitting up the big banks") which never have to pass, but work well with the hoi polloi the Democrats count on for votes. Now the GOP has to oppose it, and look like they don't care about worker benefits and only look out for the rich. Cynical, but that's what the Obamanauts are all about.

Ann Althouse said...

Wake me up when a male body is surgically reconfigured so as to be able to get pregnant and produce a child. Or even just menstruate.

Larry J said...

The article said that 40% of American employees don't get paid sick leave. I wonder if many of them fall into the same category as I do. We don't get a special category of sick leave at my company. Instead, those days are rolled into our paid time off (PTO) account to use as we see fit. It's up to the individual employees to manage their PTO balance to cover time off for illness. After a week off for illness, we can receive short term disability (STD). I've never had to use STD but know a bunch of people who had to due to complications with pregnancy, cancer treatment, serious illness, etc. Anyone who is offered STD and doesn't buy it isn't being very wise.

My previous employer provided 5 days of sick leave a year. I almost never miss a day of work due to illness, so that time would accrue. If you leave a company, you get reimbursed for unused PTO but not for unused sick days. When I saw that my time was running out at my last job (we lost our contract), I managed to burn through my sick leave and save my PTO. I personally prefer to have everything go into PTO and let me manage how much to keep in reserve for potential sick days.

Peter said...

A complaint I read about the Healthy Families Act is that since sick leave under the Act can't be cashed out when one leaves or carried over to the next year, and since the employer may not require a note from a physician, the assumption is that most employees would make sure to use all their allotted days every year.

Which I suppose unions would like, as non-union workplaces would take a labor productivity hit, and thus give them less of an advantage over workplaces that are burdened with union work rules.

Could it be that political things are not always what they seem, that perhaps a "Healthy Families Act" isn't really so much about families or health but more of (yet another) prop to make single motherhood a more economically viable choice?

BarrySanders20 said...

"[P]regnancy and childbirth only happen to women, and there's no legislation or ideology to redistribute that burden."

Stan: It's every man's right to have babies if he wants them.

Reg: But you can't have babies.

Stan: Don't you oppress me.

Reg: Where's the fetus going to gestate? You going to keep it in a box?

Judith: [on Stan's desire to be a mother] Here! I've got an idea: Suppose you agree that he can't actually have babies, not having a womb - which is nobody's fault, not even the Romans' - but that he can have the *right* to have babies.

Francis: Good idea, Judith. We shall fight the oppressors for your right to have babies, brother... sister, sorry.

Reg: What's the *point*?

Francis: What?

Reg: What's the point of fighting for his right to have babies, when he can't have babies?

Francis: It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression.

Reg: It's symbolic of his struggle against reality.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

hawkeyedjb said...

This is just another instance of the government deciding how workers should have their compensation allocated.

This!

I'm a software engineer, and overall have good compensation. But I have no paid sick leave. If I need to stay home sick, I must take a vacation day ( of which I only have 10 a year ). While paid sick leave would be nice, there is no question that the cost of that would come out of my paycheck. Personally I would rather have the higher pay.

Larry J said...

Ann Althouse said...
Wake me up when a male body is surgically reconfigured so as to be able to get pregnant and produce a child. Or even just menstruate


So, no women have complications of childbirth that causes them to be unable to care for their new born children? No man ever has to take time off to care for his ill wife or their child?

Curious George said...

"There is a notable gap in federal benefits, and that is paid parental leave.... This can hamper federal agencies’ ability to recruit talented young people to join public service."

Do young people really see "parental leave" as any kind of benefit? The're waiting to have kids well into their 30's, if they are having them at all.

Anonymous said...

Ann Althouse said...
Wake me up when a male body is surgically reconfigured so as to be able to get pregnant and produce a child. Or even just menstruate.


Althouse, you are such a gender bigot :)

The Vagina Monologues are now non PC because "Not all women have vagina's", meaning all those XY chromosomed trans-females wearing dresses or in pre- or post operative mode.

If there are women without vagina's, that means there are men with vaginas

Anonymous said...

1 hour in 30?

who pays for that extra 3% labor cost on all work? 66 hours a year?

Expect Obama to use the DOL to impose these costs on Federal Contractors after he fails to get traction in Congress...

Ignorance is Bliss said...


pregnancy and childbirth only happen to women

Looks like we need another visit from the Genderbread person.

Todd said...

Ann Althouse said...
I don't have an opinion on the advisability of passing the Healthy Families Act, because I'm sensitive to the problems of burdening businesses with requirements like that but at the same time, I realize that women who devote their bodies to producing new human beings are doing something difficult and necessary for the continuation of civilization.

1/22/15, 7:59 AM


That may be the case but that is also their choice especially now in America where women have every choice in the reproductive process from the initial "yes means yes" until the final "give up for adaption" call. I do not recall seeing where women devote themselves to giving birth unless they are paid surrogates. So as far as making sense, that is only the case if one supports the government's power to interfere in private transactions by mandating what benefits must be available to employees. As others have noted, benefits are alternate forms of compensation so every government mandated benefit is less cash in my pocket. I would rather have the cash and make my own arrangements for benefits.

PB said...

Incoherent? Maybe not but certainly hypocritical. If you don't want to impose a burden on private employers, why would you assume to place the same burden on taxpayers? After all, WE are the employers of government and its employees.

Hagar said...

My point is that all government costs ultimately are paid for by taxes on private industry and so is a drag on the economy, and this is something that Obama - and the left in general - has no conception of.

Government should be kept to that which is absolutely necessary for government to do - also because even that, government will tend to do a poor job of - and salaries and benefits should be no more than that prevailing in private industry.

Todd said...

AustinRoth said...
"...but not to put such an immense burden on private employees..."

Since when has that been of the slightest concern to this President?

1/22/15, 8:18 AM


This! Many times this! One of our current President's many areas of ignorance is business, which he seems to go out of his way to demonstrate.

Laslo Spatula said...

This will all work a lot smoother when we all are federal employees.

I am Laslo.

Hagar said...

Maternity leave for women may be desirable, but it is a cost of employment that must be calculated by the employers and paid for somehow. Perhaps by lower pay for women, which spreads the cost over the affected class, or by lower pay for everybody, which spreads the cost over the entire work force.

Hagar said...

"There is a notable gap in federal benefits, and that is paid parental leave.... This can hamper federal agencies’ ability to recruit talented young people to join public service."


I was a federal employee for the first 5 years out of school, and the building was full of young people stuck in jobs they hated because they were married with children and did not dare let go of the premium pay and benefits offered by the federal government.

One thing I learned is that no money in the world is worth losing your self respect for, and I should never again be afraid to quit, regardless of cost.

chillblaine said...

My wife's business has fourteen employees, all women except for me. We should not hire another therapist because then we would need to start accruing paid leave for them?

President Obama should try running a small business and deal with all the parasitic entities that are trying to wet their beaks.

CStanley said...

The answer is that pregnancy and childbirth only happen to women, and there's no legislation or ideology to redistribute that burden.

Are you kidding?

The entire ideology of feminism is based on such redistribution. The entire rationale for "abortion rights" is that women should be able to have sex without the possible consequence of parentfhood, just as men do.

LYNNDH said...

I, like Larry above, did not have "sick days" but PTO. It was explained to me that sick days were an unfunded liability on the balance sheet so the company shifted to PTO. Also something to do with the way tax laws are written.

MayBee said...

Are we really having trouble luring talented young people into federal jobs?

Gahrie said...

And that plain biological reality is why it makes sense to support imposing paid childbirth-recovery leave on private employers

So...once again, women want to get treated exactly like men, unless they can get treated better than men instead.

MayBee said...

I've talked to many European small business owners who say they think twice before hiring women because of all the benefits they get.

exhelodrvr1 said...

Lengthy leaves like this have a significant impact on smaller companies/smaller groups within a large company. The government should not mandate them.

Laslo Spatula said...

I want paid time off to GET women pregnant. The world needs more Laslos.

I am Laslo.

Ann Althouse said...

"So, no women have complications of childbirth that causes them to be unable to care for their new born children? No man ever has to take time off to care for his ill wife or their child?"

Read the text of the Healthy Families Act. It says your sick time can be used to care for the medical needs of family members, so that would be available to men. Not as "parental leave" in the bonding-with-new-baby sense, but as sick leave.

Ann Althouse said...

I think a key question is whether we have yet reached the point in this country where we want to devote pooled resources to incentivizing the production of new citizens.

It's a big burden and expense to have children, and child-production is now disconnected from sexual desire. You can leave it to individual choice and hope that women remain so in love with having their own children that they perform this needed role, but over time, that might not happen.

The question is: When will you believe we need a better incentive structure?

Fernandinande said...

And that plain biological reality is why it makes sense to support imposing paid childbirth-recovery leave on private employers but making baby-bonding new-parent leave optional.

Hurrah for the Socialist State Imposing Its Enlightened Vision On The Primitive Peasantry! Down with personal responsibility! Let freedom not ring!

exhelodrvr1 said...

If you are going to view children as being a burden, then you shouldn't have children.

MayBee said...

I can't help but think of jobs like hair stylists and fitness instructors who work for small employers.

If you can't be there, you are not making money for your employer, and someone else has to be paid to make up for any slack in your absence.

Waitstaff for small restaurants?

Also thinking about Realtors (how do they get paid for maternity leave?

I just need to know more about these 40% of workers who supposedly get no paid sick leave, and what kind of jobs they have.

MayBee said...

The question is: When will you believe we need a better incentive structure?

Have the countries with incentive structures in place actually increased birth rates?

My informed guess says no.

Hagar said...

Take away the peer pressure and incentives to "have a career" - whether they want one or not - and that question will resolve itself.

Also provide a government where the women - and their husbands - have some confidence that their children will have a better future.

MayBee said...

It also comes down to "who are we incentivizing to have more children?" vs. "who in America isn't having children?"

CStanley said...

Maybee at 9:40:
Yeah, I think it has worked in the opposite direction. One might almost think that there is an inverse relationship because the monetization has promoted a utilitarian view of parenthood, but what do I know?

SteveBrooklineMA said...

Jon Gruber was right, of course.

President: I will require employers to provide their employees with $100 worth of bananas every month.
Public: Woo hoo! Free bananas!!

President: I will require employees to buy $100 of bananas every month.
Public: Outrageous! I've got much better things to do with my salary.

Hagar said...

The countries providing incentives for having children are countries that are in trouble because their citizens are pessimistic about their countries' future.

Women (generally speaking) are programmed to want to have children, and guys are programmed to think that is a splendid idea, and they should cheerully go out and work their butts off to make it possible.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

When will you believe we need a better incentive structure?

Now. But no amount of government benefits will provide the proper incentive. In fact, government benefits are the problem.

Do you want a better incentive structure? Get rid of Social Security and Medicare. If you want security in your old age, raise your own children into productive citizens.

Lyssa said...

MayBee said: I can't help but think of jobs like hair stylists and fitness instructors who work for small employers.

If you can't be there, you are not making money for your employer, and someone else has to be paid to make up for any slack in your absence.


I'm facing this issue right now, actually, though from a more professional profession, I guess you could say. I bill hours, and the client pays. If I'm not billing, the firm makes no money on me. My firm is small, and has basically no policy on sick leave, PTO, or maternity leave (you can just kind of take a day off when you want it, but no one tracks leave banks or anything).

I have no idea what will happen when I have this baby.

mccullough said...

The US fertity rate is higher than the other countries that have these laws.

The fertity rate in these other countries was higher when they didn't have these laws.

If a society wants to encourage more children, have less government. If the government won't take care of you, especially when you're old, then having kids and raising them well so they can help you when you're old will be the incentive structure.

I'd advise Western European countries to cut off government benefits to childless seniors first. The message will be sent.


Hagar said...

For some 15-20 years I suffered from a disease that the doctors could not identify, but it would put me out for 3-4 weeks once or twice a year. My boss told me he was paying me less than he thought I was worth so that he could keep paying me through the time he estimated I would be out sick.
So, that would be comparable to the situation with women, except nobody will say so out loud.

damikesc said...

The reason is that Democrats don't give a shit about employed men.

The answer is that pregnancy and childbirth only happen to women, and there's no legislation or ideology to redistribute that burden.

So women should get perks men don't get --- and when men accrue time on the job while women use their perks, it is unfair to compensate men better for not missing the time?

Is that a massive double standard against men?

You realize how totally insane feminism has become, right?

MayBee said...

Take away the peer pressure and incentives to "have a career" - whether they want one or not - and that question will resolve itself.

Exactly, Hagar.

It seems policies are kind of putting people into a spiral of needing more money to pay for more government programs for people who work so more people have to work.

Obama's most recent proposal is to give two income earners a higher child tax credit. But not single income earners. The incentive there is to have both parents work. Why?
With both parents working, kids need more expensive care like
universal pre-school, all day kindergarten, 3 meals a day served at school, etc, all (while noble) incentivize people to work rather than stay home.
Parents who work can't be as involved in the schools, so the schools need to hire people rather than use parent volunteers.
So the schools cost more money.

There's a problem when you start developing a society around people who work full time and can't take care of their children without programs.

MayBee said...

Lyssa- good luck. You are due soon, no?

Are you kind of afraid to ask the firm what they plan to do?

MayBee said...

So women should get perks men don't get --- and when men accrue time on the job while women use their perks, it is unfair to compensate men better for not missing the time?

Another problem. And why Boehner didn't stand and clap when Obama said there needed to be a law so women get equal pay for the same jobs.

Yet all the pundits could talk about were the "optics".

ken in tx said...

When I was on active duty, I noticed there were several liberal/progressive lawmakers, who usually did not support the military, who would push for generous feel-good benefits for the military--like free childcare. Then they would use that to justify pushing for laws to force private employers to do the same.

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
n.n said...

First, Obama needs to speak out against abortion from conception. He needs to state firmly and plainly that human life is not a commodity. Second, he needs to state firmly and plainly that both the mother and father are responsible for raising their children from conception. Third, he needs to address high rates of immigration, legal and illegal, that displace and replace Americans.

He is making emotional appeals that are detached from political, social, and economic reality. He wants to secure taxable assets and reduce the problem set, while also negotiating democratic leverage. He will deny some people rights and suspend the law of supply and demand, thereby shifting the sacrifice somewhere else. In short, he wants to have his cake and eat it too.

That said, he could make maternal/parental leave contributory, but since he raised the poverty level through Obamacare, that probably would ensure a progressive tax. There is also the question of disrupting businesses to accommodate women for extended periods.

Perhaps women should be sacrificed for their profits of power, money, sex, ego, and convenience; and be replaced by less entitled versions from second and third-world nations. With a diversity policy, women are interchangeable by color, height, etc. There is also the womb-bank approach, or professional breeders, that have aided infertile couples and male homosexuals alike. They already receive compensation for pregnancy as part of their employment expense.

I remember when people said "it's over". Not by a long shot. They distorted political, social, economic, and biological reality for their personal benefit, then deferred reconciliation to an indefinite future time. Now, they offer to treat symptoms at progressive expense and with diminishing returns. It's quite the scheme.

Bruce Hayden said...

The answer is that pregnancy and childbirth only happen to women, and there's no legislation or ideology to redistribute that burden.

Well, yeh, but doesn't pregnancy leave pretty much start when you have the kid, unless you have complications? And, a lot of women around the world have their kids, then go directly back to work, not even missing one full day of work. Which gets us to bonding, which is what much of the six week, six months, etc. is really for. But, that is something that the fathers probably need too...

Part of it involves age - the younger they are, at least if the women are adults, and not adolescents, the faster they usually seem to bounce back. The mother of my kid was in her early 30s at the time, and was a bit envious of the women a decade younger who were running up and down the halls with their medicine stands hours after making delivery. And, my partner claims to have gone home a couple hours after her second. She looks completely recovered in a holiday picture with her sisters a couple hours after giving birth. My point there is that a lot of women don't physically need that much time to recover.

The thing about the feds is that they do get sick leave, and when I was a fed, you could carry that until retirement (and a lot of people got themselves declared disabled a year out, and just used it up then, getting their normal raises, etc. while effectively retired). Still, the amount of sick time you get is fixed, while the amount of time that most really need varies greatly, year to year, and at the age when women typically have kids, even today, they are at a point where they probably need less. So, why not have women use their sick leave for actual maternity needs, and give everyone equivalent time for bonding with the newborns, regardless of sex, gender, or sexual orientation?

Of course, this gets into the problem that women tend to need more sick days than men throughout their careers, at least until older. And, if sick days, plus maternity, are not fixed, then the cost of hiring women is higher than for hiring men. So, why not pay them less, since they are at work less over the decades? Which gets us to probably the real reason for this initiative - the Dems pandering to women, and esp. single women, like Julia, in their War on Women that failed so dramatically last election. This is payback for electing, and esp. reelecting, Uncle Sugar, Barack Obama.

MayBee said...

The thing about jobs that don't offer paid sick leave is they are often the jobs that offer another important commodity for a parent- flexibility.

I had planned to work part time for my company after my first baby was born, but they told me they didn't have the infrastructure for that, but I could work full time.
A woman I barely knew contacted me, knowing I had recently had a baby, and offered to train me to take on her fitness clients, because she needed to take a leave.
So a new career was born for me, that led to other careers. They were all part time, and none paid me if I didn't work (fitness instructor, acting, modeling) but I could take jobs or get replacements or refuse jobs as they worked for my schedule.

As a result of my flexibility, I was able to not only take time for my kids, but I was able to travel as my husband was offered better jobs in other locations.


My story isn't everyone's, but there are benefits to some jobs that Obama isn't considering as he tries to create some sort of equality. Equality means some people are going to lose something valuable.

Anonymous said...

The question is: When will you believe we need a better incentive structure?

The incentive structure we had in 1946 seemed to do the trick. Shall we go back to it?

Lyssa said...

Lyssa- good luck. You are due soon, no?
Are you kind of afraid to ask the firm what they plan to do?


Thanks, MayBee! It's not really soon - June, actually, so there's still time. So far, I'm getting told that they will have to figure it out. I'm afraid to push it harder than that right now, but I suspect that I'll have to once it gets closer (it's a nice place to work, but not the most communicative).

Worst case scenario is that I'll have to dip into the emergency fund and take some time unpaid, which is painful, but we won't starve. I can also cut leave shorter to work part time and/or from home some - the fact that my husband stays home gives me a lot of flexibility there, and I recovered from the first very quickly.

Gahrie said...

When will you believe we need a better incentive structure?

So now we need to pay women to have children?

Gahrie said...

The incentive structure we had in 1946 seemed to do the trick. Shall we go back to it?

1946 was pre-birth control pill and pre-abortion.

If the pill or abortion had been widely available in the 1940's, the baby boom would probably have never happened.

n.n said...

Ideally, pregnancy happens early in a woman and man's life, so that it is minimally disruptive. Two children would delay a woman's career until at most her mid-twenties and would increase the likelihood of producing healthy children, as well as reduce the mother's risk of suffering complications. Our society does not need incentives for pregnancy, but to set proper priorities for women and men in context. This would minimize disruption for couples, as well as other men and women.

damikesc said...

I agree with Mary. The Baby Boom did not, in my opinion, consist largely of unwanted kids. Their parents wanted them.

...and society seemed to truly cherish life. Now? Not so much.

dreams said...

Its easy and fun to be generous to your employees when you can be generous with other people's money, the taxpayers.

Bruce Hayden said...

The incentive structure we had in 1946 seemed to do the trick. Shall we go back to it?

The real incentive there was winning a world war, with millions of American men serving in the military, and hundreds of thousands of them dying.

The interesting thing though about the Baby Boom was that it didn't involve having more kids, per household, but rather, having more households. The number of children per family with children has been declining at a fairly steady rate since the Revolution. In the generation of the parents of the Greatest Generation (the one that fought WW II), there were a lot of maiden aunts and uncles. They mostly disappeared in the Greatest Generation, and that was likely the cause of the Baby Boom - more families with children, and not bigger families. Some of this has suggested that this was because the government, as well as the elite media (e.g. Life, Time, etc.) pushed Rosie the Riveter, and her sisters, who had taken so many jobs to let the men go overseas to fight, to give up those jobs, so that the returning men could be employed. And, they way that that was done was to push them into marriage.

dreams said...

"Wake me up when a male body is surgically reconfigured so as to be able to get pregnant and produce a child. Or even just menstruate."

Don't wake me, I don't want to know about it.

Bruce Hayden said...

nn - Not sure how that would work though. The problem is that it takes quite a bit of education to be successful in today's economy. That means that, at a minimum, middle class women wouldn't be marrying until their early to mid twenties.

If the women did start having kids at 18 or so, they would likely not be in college, or even married. And, women tend to prefer older men (and men tend to prefer younger women). Women going to college after their kids would be dealing with significantly younger men on campus, who are just out of high school. Making this dynamic worse, a lot of women go to college at least partially to meet potential mates - which is why colleges these days often discriminate on admissions in favor of males, since schools with too many women (and, thus, too much competition) discourage a lot of women from attending (my understanding is that the magic figure is somewhere around 55% female). A college with a significantly younger male than female population would likely have a similar effect.

n.n said...

Bruce Hayden:

That's where the partnership comes into play. A woman defers her career, marginally, and her husband supports her during and after pregnancy. The dynamic between men and women has been severely skewed to produce unnatural and increasingly dysfunctional outcomes. Our modern culture has promoted an odd set of priorities for men, but especially for women.

n.n said...

dreams:

Exactly. Everyone is fiscally conservative. This is why it's easier to support redistribution schemes at the national level, where the consequences and responsibility are diluted. The problem is that while the symptoms are treated -- sort of, kind of, selectively, the causes are ignored, the problems fester, and the schemes are sustained.

Anonymous said...

1946 was pre-birth control pill and pre-abortion.

That's where the "go back to" part comes in. I'm curious about whether raising the birth rate would go on being an imperative if it led to something other than giving more free stuff to women.

Crunchy Frog said...

I'm guessing that one of Dear Leader's corporate masters (Buffett, Steyer, Zuckerberg, etc) called Valerie Jarrett asking if they were out of their effing minds.

Crony Capitalism at its best.

Fritz said...

We can pool the women, we can pool the wine
We can can pool what we got of yours 'cause we done pooled all of mine.

RecChief said...

because the Democrats strategy is to pander to single mothers. next question