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by komali2 1264 days ago
Nice, same, I think the "cultural problem" comment is not saying that the problem is that "women are going to work" but rather that "the parents have to be away from the child for the majority of the time, or they will all be homeless and hungry."

I'm not sure which country the OP is discussing, likely one without good maternity/paternity laws and whatnot, which is really sad to hear about, I hope more citizens demand this of their governments and more employees demand this of their companies, it seems crazy to me that you should have to sacrifice formative time with your newborn so you can go do a capitalism every day.

2 comments

I'm posting from a German perspective and have to admit, that we still have major problems with gender imbalances on income (for more complex reasons) and the ability for women having careers, but every parent has the right to parental leave for up to 3 years (take fulltime off, or part time!) and one of those is paid (by the state, so by the taxpayer in the end) with up to 1800€/month.

Actually taking 3 years off is depending on the job still a bump in the career road, but I'm optimistic that we are getting there.

Plenty of women need and want something to do besides 24/7 baby and house care stuff. And they won't starve to death if they don't do it.
Right, I'm countering the accusations of misogyny with "no, we're talking about the flaws of capitalism." Consider that many families in the USA have two parents, both working multiple jobs, to make ends meet. To me, one of the most important things in my hopefully 80 years is family, and so I get sad when I see people forced to trade that little time we get already, for work.
Having kids and raising a family is work too - really, really hard work.

And sometimes work that doesn’t ever pay off, for reasons well outside of anyone’s control.

There is a reason that spousal and child abuse was so much higher then.

There is no perfect option here.

The way you right makes me think you're trying to say we disagree about something lol but for the life of me I can't figure out what.

> so much higher then

When?

When it wasn’t two parents working full time to support everyone (aka the post WW2 years until what, about the 90’s).

I’m disagreeing with what seems to be nostalgia, or a call to a different type of circumstance. I’m just noting, it had major drawbacks then too. Lots of stay at home moms drinking themselves into a stupor being one.

Right, back then cost of living were a much lower percentage of average wages. The "Homer Simpson" era when one father could work one job and own a nice a home while feeding a family of 3. Recall that minimum wage used to be a living wage in the USA.

There are definitely issues around gender, wage, and job opportunities in the USA, but right now I'm talking about the total economic downside of out of control detachment of wage against cost of living.

> Lots of stay at home moms drinking themselves into a stupor being one.

Could this have had more to do with an openly misogynistic society and lack of hiring and academic protections for women?