Times generation gap article

Scanned the article on Sunday morning and my blood pressure was raised by the kid saying that if you're not a transactivist, you're an idiot , so thought I'd leave it there 🧘‍♀️ breeeeeeaaaathe

Maternity leave is for child birth, and recovery from child birth and is necessary for the FEMALE body whether or not the baby actually survives, or is kept my the mother.

Parental leave is for child care

I promise that I am not Cadi but some terms are exclusionary. Paternity leave does not work when the partner not giving birth is another woman. Shared parental leave is irrelevant for women giving birth who do not have a partner.

Having said that, there is no inclusive language policy which is going to help realities like the woman who posted the other day asking if her employer could demand 'proof of pregnancy' before she could take time off to attend ante natal appointments. That's the real exclusion - between women who have access to good pregnancy and maternity rights and those who do not.

That's why I agree with allmywhat that some of these discussions act as a distractor. What really shocks me is that some of the worst NHS scandals in recent years have been in maternity services. That's where the NHS should be concentrating its efforts but that demands giving actual attention to the quality of the service, not the glossiness of the leaflets.

Otherwise it's just telling them they ave to live their lives in a way identical to the male model of employment.

Maternity leave has not made working life worse for women. It’s supported them to have babies and recover. Its mandated their right to return to their job after a suitable period as almost no woman can drop a baby one night and be back on shift a day later. Supporting women to have a job has in no way made the gender pay gap worse than when women were forced out of work for having a baby except that there are women earning salaries there to be measured in the pay gap.

But we have shared parental leave in the uk. Literally 2 weeks is reserved for the mother. In sweden 90 days are reserved for each parent.

LemonSwan - I don't have any children and I'm way over 30, but I've noticed the same thing with a friend's daughters. The elder, born in 1989 has a very different POV than the younger, born in 2001. She seems to have gone the blue-hair-and-gender-studies route, and it will be interesting to see if she matures out of it eventually.

Sorry X post

I don't think that answers my point (and the point made by several other posters) which is that, when it comes to pregnancy, childbirth and infant feeding, women do bear the heavier burden, and that changing language to obscure that fact helps no-one, least of all mothers.

The specific issues that stop men taking parental leave can be tackled without putting women at a further disadvantage, imo.

I don't see either how we can ever hope to make life better for mothers if we won't even use language that acknowledges that she's the one who's does the heavy and dangerous work.

Unfortunately “maternity leave” hasn’t made life better for mothers in terms of equality between the sexes. Instead, it has perpetuated the gender pay gap and pension gap which are mostly caused by motherhood and taking long maternity leaves. There is nothing wrong with a woman having the right to time off, but there’s is everything wrong with a society that systematically expects only mothers to take extended time off work...up to years and also systematically prevents the partners of mothers from doing a fair share of infant care. This results in only mothers losing careers and sacrificing long term financial health, while their partners suffer no such consequences.

I don't understand what's unfair about the mother - who's put her body and health on the line - having the right to her own time off work, or about giving a name to this time off.
I don't see either how we can ever hope to make life better for mothers if we won't even use language that acknowledges that she's the one who's does the heavy and dangerous work.

@timeisnotaline
we should recognise in law the significant physical difference between a woman having a baby and a man or woman being a partner to a woman having a baby, and ensure those laws allow women freedom to make choices about what they think is best for their baby within healthy norms.

This is overly prescriptive to me. The danger in this is then debate about how much leave for before birth? How much to recover from childbirth? Because this wildly varies depending mostly on luck of the draw, the law would tend towards prescribing the worst case scenario to cover the most unlucky (bed rest at 28weeks, near death experience, post partum infections/sepsis, broken tail bone, etc etc). That then forces the average to luckier than average woman to take or lose time they don’t need or want. They can’t transfer any of it to their partner if a law were to prescribe weeks/months that can only be taken by the birthing woman.

I say it should be simply 2yrs parental leave and the couple can divide it how they wish and as they go. Your main worry seems to be that woman’s partner would refuse her whatever leave she needs/wants. That would be highly unusual for a committed couple to not come to an agreement between themselves and would probably result in the woman breaking up with her partner. The partner would then lose all automatic entitlement to parental leave (in my ideal world) and would have to go through the courts to get any, and courts are not going to ignore the biological differences that result in women needing recovery time.

Anyway that’s my vision. Understand it’s not for everyone. I just am against laws boxing in our freedom of choice.

But it shouldn’t be exactly equal choice between the parents. What pregnancy related medical leave does a man require? Of course you can choose not to breastfeed but importantly women should also have the freedom to breastfeed if they want and we can’t all pump. ‘I did it this way so it will work for every woman’ is not how to go about it- instead we should recognise in law the significant physical difference between a woman having a baby and a man or woman being a partner to a woman having a baby, and ensure those laws allow women freedom to make choices about what they think is best for their baby within healthy norms. Breastfeeding exclusively (as milk source) for the first year is a healthy norm.

@timeisnotaline
The advantage to parental leave is that it gives couples complete freedom to chose who takes the time and how much of it they take. Yes obviously, the mother will be taking time for appointment and may have to stop work before her due date due to complications. The same with recovery, you don’t know before childbirth whether you will have easy birth and recovery or a hard birth and long recovery. Couples can adapt as things happen instead of having to commit to a scenario up front.

Then when it comes to breastfeeding
I would never return to work before 7-8 months as it would be challenging for breastfeeding.. This is your choice, my choice was to return to work FT at 10-11 weeks and pump breastmilk. My DCs were still exclusively breastfed the first 6mos of their life and self weaned (except for DC#1 who was weaned at 15mos because my milk dried up due to being pregnant with DC#2). My DH would have liked to stay home with them longer than the 2 weeks he got. I would have liked that too, but that choice wasn’t allowed/supported. The only choice allowed/supported would have been for me to stay off work longer. That hardly seems fair.

So, my ideal parental leave is leave that would support your choice, my choice and all the other choices women and their partners might like to make. I think too supporting all choices equally would go a long way to men taking time off to be with their babies. And this then would narrow the gender gap/eliminate the motherhood penalty.

I don’t think equal leave is the answer unless it enshrines in law a minimum period specifically to allow for breastfeeding. I would never return to work before 7-8 months as it would be challenging for breastfeeding. And how does equal leave ie one parental leave policy allow for medical leave during pregnancy for related illness and appts that only the mother needs? You just have to find new words to refer to the one who is a mother to distinguish them.

The only thing we have found that holds any weight as a theory is that they are the only generation who had social media on mobile from a young age.

Universities are also full of queer theory and gender ideology.

PlanDeRaccordement
Oh yes absolutely agree that its stupid.

But the phenomenon between the under and over 25s is fascinating isn't it. How and why are they so different. I really hope the younger group do somehow 'grow out of it'.

I listened to an interview with Yeonmi Park & Joe Rogan, she survived and escaped North Korea. She said the disinformation, denial of truths and cognitive dissonance here (US & West) was no different to there. And it terrifies her. Thats quite extreme but her words not mine.

I think its a serious problem.

@LemonSwan
And weirdly on this point. It is actually a phenomenon that under 25s atm are wildly different from 25-35yos. I am in the upper group but many peers have younger siblings in the former and we have had many discussions about what on earth is going on.

Yes agree, there are definitely marked differences as my DC are in both groups. However, to me, and I’m in group of 45-55yr olds, the under 25 and 25-35yr olds have more in common with each other than with my group?

I would have liked to have seen the study directly compare under 25 to 25-35yr olds because as you say there are drastic differences. But by comparing under 25 to everyone else those differences were lost/overshadowed by differences of older generations being mixed in.

It is more likely that a 25-35yr old is closer in view to an under 25yr old than a 75-85yr old.

And weirdly on this point. It is actually a phenomenon that under 25s atm are wildly different from 25-35yos. I am in the upper group but many peers have younger siblings in the former and we have had many discussions about what on earth is going on.

Its not just this topic. Overall they have very little autonomous thinking; instead more group think with bouts of cognitive dissonance. And its not a 'need to grow up thing'. Many are mid 20s and they haven't changed. They grew up in the same families, had the same parental influences, cultural conditions. It is inexplicable.

The only thing we have found that holds any weight as a theory is that they are the only generation who had social media on mobile from a young age.

Wait...I thought only non binary people used they/them pronouns. So Cady's just excluded everyone else.

@timeisnotaline

Congratulations!

It is crazy isn't it. In my naivety I thought pregnancy was not having a period for 9 months. When it seems its turning out to be all the symptoms of a period (without the actual period) plus a thousand other health ailments ranging from a permanent state of norovirus to chronic fatigue syndrome.

This is my first lap round the circuit and I wouldnt wish this on my worst enemy; and apart from my very unstable diaphragm which is definitely worst than most for 1st Tri - I think most of my symptoms are average or not really at full swing yet; so I cannot imagine the hell that some women go through in pregnancy. Even reading about others with HG makes me break out in a cold gagging sweat.

So I find this whole subject very irritating atm. And its not really anything to do with trans people as much as some TRAs would like to make it so. Its to do with women born women not having an independent name to refer to their very existence.

Every single person in this world was born from a woman. It is so risky that in most cases life insurance will not cover maternal death during birth. And yet everyone wants to conflate sex with gender identify - thats fine there are crazy people everywhere. But the doctors, the media, the government, the law! How fucking dare they! Absolutely no respect.

Who does the spadework when it comes to growing a baby, giving birth and breastfeeding?

Who gains when you use language to obfuscate that fact? Certainly not women.