Comments on: The Wall Street Journal tries to guilt women into giving up maternity leave

By: A blog worth your time. «

A blog worth your time. « — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:21:09 +0000

[...] and lists a few more posts you should read. A few posts I especially enjoyed were "The Wall Street Journal tries to guilt women into giving up maternity leave", "You only need $40,000 to be happy", "How to wait: Don't" and [...]

By: nitiac

nitiac — Tue, 05 May 2009 19:19:50 +0000

i work for a company that bends over backwards for people that selfishly pop babies out left and right. they not only get paid maternity AND paternity leave but then get to work from home with crazy flex schedules. or they just don't show up to work – or they waltz in at 10am and leave at 4pm. this is after months of paid leave off. and people that pop them out one year after the other get maternity leave for each one.

people without children are chained to desks and forced to pick up their slack. this is why i will disagree with any paid maternity leave ever again. i've seen it used and abused beyond imagination. take your own vacation time you've accrued or quit working and take care of your kids as you contribute to over-population.

By: Alison

Alison — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 21:54:15 +0000

What makes you think that Americans are an inherently different type of human than every other nation in the world? Canada/France/Sweden/Denmark/etc. all have entirely different cultures, too. If others can find a way, so can you.

By: TheRunningNurse

TheRunningNurse — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 11:25:18 +0000

Terrible article and even worse advice. I work in management and have watched these antics play out. Our employees who have quit after taking 12 weeks off, are NOT welcome back. Everyone is replaceable and on the three case I can think of, we got a better employee with the next hire ! This is very unfair to do to an employer and very hard on coworkers ( yes, those bridges burn as well ). For 12 weeks, they kick in and do YOUR job and then you give notice and they have to wait to hire someone. Not good for netoworking later on.

Sadly, paid maternity leave would NOT work in the United States. We have too many women in this country who cannot afford the children they have, and still keep reproducing. If we gave them supplemental maternity leave, it would never stop. Welfare laws have had to change because of such irresponsible behavior. So, while it may work in some countries, we have a certain element of people in this country who would abuse the system.

By: Norcross

Norcross — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:36:50 +0000

That article is complete garbage. Luckily, my wife was just finishing law school and taking the Florida Bar exam when we had our baby, so there was no "leave" to take. Although, some paternity leave would have been nice. I had my vacation and sick time…that's it.

By: Penelope Trunk

Penelope Trunk — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 03:45:35 +0000

Canada sets a good example for maternity leave policy. Not only is it national, but it's longer than the three-month leaves we get in the US.

I like to think that the WSJ is not reflecting the general conversation in either Canada OR the US…

By: Wendy

Wendy — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 15:12:30 +0000

Here in Canada politicans, right and left wing newspaper editorialists (especially the conservative side), and oridinary people are debating and discussing how to keep educated women in the workforce. Many parts of Canada are in a labour shortage, and with baby boomers retiring, this will get worse. One solution — besides more immigration — is to try to tap into skilled, educated women who are also dedicated mothers who without some concessions from the workplace tend to "opt out" for a few years.

Discussions about flexible hours for parents, generous maternity and paternity leave, and the idea of a national daycare program are in the news and on the street everyday.

Apparently this is similar around the world — but apparently not at the WSJ.

If Wall Street companies want to succeed in the future, and attract and retain high quality employees, they may need to offer both good maternity benefits and an culture that values work-life balance and families.

By: Penelope Trunk

Penelope Trunk — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 13:52:04 +0000

Benjamin, thank you for bringing up the issue of paternity leave – it's a key aspect of creating positive attitudes toward maternity leave.

In organizations where senior managers take paternity leave, family-friendly attitudes trickle down throughout the whole organization.

There is tons of information about this online, of course, but here's one company that found that when senior executives took leave, lower-level employees were more likely to take leave:
http://www.hreoc.gov.au/sex_discrimination/pml/report/sectionc.html

By: Benjamin Strong

Benjamin Strong — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 11:27:39 +0000

I cannot believe such an esteemed paper would allow such nonsense to be published. What horrible advice. As a boss that is directly responsible for hiring people I have converted a full time position into a part time position to tap into the market of working parents. Our office lost a position and I was able to negotiate getting a part time position instead. The market of working parents, both men and women, is growing and I want to tap that resource.

As a father you can bet that I even took my family leave! I believe I was the first man in my organization to do so. Our first son had complications and spent two weeks in the NICU. Fortunately my office never blinked when I took the time off.

What do we earn leave for anyway? Wouldn’t an employer want to encourage an employee, foster a good relationship to keep them coming back?

Maybe Mr. Sutaria should be reading this blog to learn what career minded people really want.