America The Beautiful?
There I was, settled on the couch with Tink breastfeeding while I watched The View. It's a daily ritual. To my surprise, one of their hot topics today was about breastfeeding! It turned into a debate about maternity leave - pros vs. cons of having the first six months off paid. What?? Are we on the same continent? I mean, I knew that they get a short amount of time but I didn't really. Elisabeth was saying if they want women to breastfeed for six months, they should be given six months off with their job still in place. Then Star, playing Devil's advocate, wondered aloud whether these women should be allowed to have the same position when they go back..
Are they kidding? I cannot believe they're even having this conversation. America clearly has not recognized the extreme importance of mothers AND fathers in society. I am amazed that people in the States are even still pro-creating with the lowly status they're given. Man, I thought Canada was behind the times with a one year maternity leave. Grumblings have started here (in Québec, who always her finger on the pulse) about discontent with one year - bring on the two years!
Anyway, I had a few more succinct and intelligent thoughts about this, but by the time Tink finished nursing I had lost steam. That's what nursing does, it calms you down. When the segment ended I felt two things: a) amusement that I was sitting there nursing my 7.5 month old baby while they debated whether women should be allowed to stay home for even a paltry 6 months; and b) sadness for American mothers and the lack of support they get from their government and fellow citizens.
Are they kidding? I cannot believe they're even having this conversation. America clearly has not recognized the extreme importance of mothers AND fathers in society. I am amazed that people in the States are even still pro-creating with the lowly status they're given. Man, I thought Canada was behind the times with a one year maternity leave. Grumblings have started here (in Québec, who always her finger on the pulse) about discontent with one year - bring on the two years!
Anyway, I had a few more succinct and intelligent thoughts about this, but by the time Tink finished nursing I had lost steam. That's what nursing does, it calms you down. When the segment ended I felt two things: a) amusement that I was sitting there nursing my 7.5 month old baby while they debated whether women should be allowed to stay home for even a paltry 6 months; and b) sadness for American mothers and the lack of support they get from their government and fellow citizens.
posted by Melbine @ 10:26 AM
6 Comments:
At 12:54 PM,
Mistress La Spliffe said…
Employers and the government can afford to overlook the importance of motherhood in terms of mat. leave in the States - they have a workforce that keeps growing from immigration and a big tradition of stay-at-home-permanently mums (many more than in Canada), so they don't have a big imperative to encourage women to a) enter the workforce b) have alot of babies, that will be costlier for the state to raise and educate than admitting an adult, fully educated immigrant.
Canada's in sort of the same situation - we get shit mat leave and benefits compared to countries with similar tax burdens, like France or Sweden, because our rate of immigration is so high.
It drives me crazy though - mat. leave and benefits should be a basic right!
At 1:08 PM,
Melbine said…
Yeah, that's why I was speaking about the disgruntlement over just one year as opposed to two. But you know, the mat. leave is pretty decent I think. Our social system will never catch up to France or Sweden or Switzerland etc. but I think we do alright?
America is messed up. Are you suurre you want to spend the next couple of years thinking more about them? :)
At 1:19 PM,
Mistress La Spliffe said…
I'm not thinking of them too too much in what I propose to think about . . . but you know, Mel, why the fuck shouldn't we ever catch up with France or whatever? What's so goddamn special about France? In Canada, all we've really got when it comes to our social system is being better than the United States. But that's just not good enough. We need to define ourselves more positively!
At 4:45 PM,
Melbine said…
Hmm, good question! I think we have more to our social system than just saying it's better than the States though. I would much rather live in Canada than a number of countries. Many, many.
I don't really have a response to needing to define ourselves more except to agree. How do we go about it?
At 5:44 AM,
Mistress La Spliffe said…
Oh, I would rather live in Canada than most countries - but our social system doesn't compare to countries with similar tax burdens, like France, the UK, Australia . . . well, it goes on and on.
I think we need to define our social needs better; instead of saying, 'universal health care is a right, and we're great because we have it and Americans don't' we should be concentrating on the sort of universal health care we want and hitting the streets like a bunch of French people if it doesn't come up to scratch. If the French government had stopped covering people's eyes in the health system, the population would be on the streets five minutes later.
The only way to do this is organizing into unions and voting aggressively for parties that illustrate in their platform the taxes we pay aren't a punishment, but an investment into our own country; that we push through our votes for more transparency about where are tax dollars are spent, and ask ourselves as an electorate if avoiding deficit spending is really the alpha and the omega of the federal government's purpose.
Blah, blah, blah.
At 8:11 AM,
Melbine said…
Not blah, blah, blah! You explained perfectly how to go about defining ourselves more - what are our social needs??
Well, I rest easy knowing that the party I vote for fights strongly for a social system that I feel is necessary..
Post a Comment
<< Home