That’s why a policy stating how many sick days are available anually, what short term medical leave covers, and that if you’re on short term medical leave and you don’t return to work when medically cleared to do so, you don’t get paid for being off and you risk losing your job, no matter what your reason for staying out longer.
ok.
I think we all agree on this point. Or am I missing the scads of mothers in here who are saying they should be allowed to stay out longer than maternity leave allows?
Or are you saying a woman should return to work the day after being released from the hospital?
I don’t think three months of leave is ‘medically necessary’.
I’m talking about what is actually necessary time to be off, which ends when the doctor says you’re medically fit enough to work again.
I think that’s a pretty extreme characterization. If we’re going to put it in those terms, I’d say Bush and his tax advisors decided that kids are about $600 of “important” and disabled adults are zilch.
I don’t see how $600 would be considered “all important!” in this day and age and I don’t see how not giving a credit for adults would be the same as saying “they suck.” Isn’t it true that sure that when it comes to deductions and SS payments, children and dependent adults are fairly equivalent?
So stop fucking doing it! What, are you incapable of saying, “No, I won’t do it?” Is your boss going to fire you? Are you that much of a fucking doormat? I doubt it-you seem like a very strong, outspoken individual (that’s NOT a bad thing), so why are you letting these people walk all over you?
Jesus, grow a backbone!
I think one reason why we don’t treat working mothers as well as we should in the US is BECAUSE of the whole “family values” crowd-it’s like, “Oh, well, you shouldn’t be working in the first place, you should be at home, so if you want to work, too bad. We’re not going to help you!” Not the only reason, but it’s part of it.
It has nothing to do with your coworkers being parents. It’s about them being assholes.
First and foremost, congratulations on your graduation from Medical school.
Secondly, most doctors WILL say that you can’t possibly leave a child before six weeks, and from the sounds of it, you’re not even pleased with that. Never mind if the child is premature, or ill, or has special needs.
I’m currently considered for a job where the benefits include six weeks off for just ADOPTING a child. That must really get in your craw.
Gee, Bruce_Daddy,
One of my coworkers went waterskiing. She fell and ended up in the hospital. She didn’t return to work for a number of weeks, which were covered by “short term disability.” If you waterski, you should be aware that you could fall and therefore be prepared for the risk.
Another coworker had a car accident. He was out for several months, long enough for long term disability to kick in. Guess if you drive a car, you should be aware of the consequences.
Short term disability insurance covers short term disabilities. Accidents, illness, and childbirth where you are out longer than two weeks, but shorter than (IIRC) generally three months. Sometimes this covers women who gave birth. Sometimes it covers guys who threw out their backs playing softball. One of my coworkers was covered for six weeks because of carpal tunnel surgery. Only women get covered for childbirth, but only men get testicular hernias.
Children also tend to not take well to planning. My husband and I planned and planned and did fertility treatments and failed and gave up.
A year later I got pregnant. I got preeclampsia and ended up on bedrest for 3 months. I was only allowed out of bed to pee and for 10 minutes a day to shower. Then the baby came by C section. I was in the hospital for a week due to complications and came home with a lovely case of pneumonia that went undiagnosed for another week. By my six week post partum checkup I was still unable to drive a car or carry anything heavier than 20 pounds or be on my feet for an extended period of time.
Child number two went better up until my 34 week checkup. I went in for an ultrasound and ended up with an emergency C section. recovery was better this time but abdominal surgery still sucks. If I had an office job I might have been fine returning to work but if I did any kind of manual labor 3 months would have been medically necessary.
From my understanding short term disability is a form of insurance that covers your absence when you are hurt or sick from something not job related. If the absence is job related that’s what workman’s comp is for.
Now, any employer who is unwilling to compensate employees who take on extra tasks or is unwilling to hire a temp for long term absences is taking advantage of their employees and should be called on that. If the employer doesn’t care and refuses to do anything about the situation then it is time to look for a new job!
Reading further would show you that while I do not spend more than forty hours a week at work, and I do not do other people’s work, I still consider them inconsiderate fucknuggets for expecting that me to or assuming I will.
I wonder why it is that none of my coworkers who don’t have kids make these assumptions and have these expectations?
Really? I’ve never met these doctors who think six weeks off is medically necessary. Usually it’s just that day care won’t take a kid younger than six weeks, which is not my problem.
[quote]
I’m currently considered for a job where the benefits include six weeks off for just ADOPTING a child. That must really get in your craw.
[quote]
No medical reason for that, therefore, I find it highly unfair to the other employees that a person can take six weeks off and still have a job waiting for them, let alone get paid for it.
cat, I know you know everything about everything, but how about child development and breast feeding?
Like the OP said, a six week old baby can’t even HOLD ITS OWN HEAD UP, and a breast feeding mother needs to be around their kid just about every two hours of a twenty four hour day…for months. If they aren’t, they physically HURT. Not to mention that this is the first six weeks of a developing FAMILY, not just baby. Bonding is absolutely necessary. Lack of physical contact, neglect and for lack of a better word…cuddling is what a leads a lot of “crack babies” (hate that term) to be cold, emotionless, emotionally and sometimes mentally disabled children and adults.
MY doctor did…both times. One son born in 1996. One in 2002. Both times I was told I needed to stay out at least 6 weeks.
And daycare had nothing to do with it. My kids stayed with my mother and various childless friends until they both were almost 3 months old.
So, to repeat what’s been said over and over and over again in this thread,** you work with a group of selfish and lazy women who took advantage of you until you went to to your boss and established boundaries.**
See above.
However, it is remiss of you to assume that because the women that you work with who also happen to be the women that have children, are selfish twits that all women with children behave in this manner.
Here’s what I perceive as your problem, catsix-you’ve allowed yourself to be taken advantage of for so long that you’re not rational on the issue.
Whenever the subject comes up for discussion, you froth and fume about how you’ve been abused by the evil breeders.
I’m sorry that it took you so long to establish your boundaries, really I am.
However, having worked with all sorts of people, male, female, married, with children and without, I feel pretty safe in saying that these same women that jack you around using the excuse that they have families and you don’t, would find another reason for foisting their work on you if they didn’t have kids.
Or to be more succinct - lazy assholes are lazy assholes regardless of whether they’ve also given birth.
catsix–your story is starting to get pretty ripe. You start out in this thread whining and complaining about how you **always ** have to work over, and you **always ** put in 50 hour weeks and you **always ** get stuck doing extra unpaid work for all those selfish breeders and then when everyone and their brother points out that it’s your own fault for letting yourself be taken advantage of you turn around and change your story. Now you’re the brave, outspoken crusader who’s set her limits and won’t cover for anyone but maintains her indignation because people dare to ask her for help.
So which is it?
Perhaps you should ask your ob/gyn when he/she recommends that new mothers are medically able to return to work. The six weeks isn’t medically necessary for the baby, it’s for the mother. That’s why it generally takes a couple of extra weeks for a C-section- my ob said 6 weeks after birth minimum for a vaginal delivery and 8 for a C-section. And daycare wasn’t an issue- I had family members care for my children.
And that entitles someone to inconvenience the rest of the world? They chose to take on something so demanding, perhaps they should realize that they can’t have it all and quit their jobs which they don’t show up at anyway.
Who did your job while you were on vacation?
I’ve never worked anywhere that the mommy-types didn’t overrun everything with their constant ‘I have to take tomorrow off because my kid…’
Everywhere I have worked (no, this is not my first job), the women with kids are absolute bitches about actually being at their jobs. They take way more than their share of time off, more than the allowed sick and personal days, and they pretty much dare the employer to fire them because then they’ll scream discrimination.
You’ve got a reading comprehension problem. I said that people have expected me to do it, assumed I will do it, asked me to do it, and damn near ordered me to do it no matter how many times I have refused. They have acted as rational as the people in this thread who started bleating about the evil people who begrudge parents time with their kids as soon as one mention of the unfair imposition upon people without kids is brought up.
Let me put it this way: my boss is an asshole if he thinks I’m going to spend my day off covering for someone who was supposed to be there but decided to take her ‘boo bear’ to the fucking zoo. My coworker is either an idiot or an asshole for not knowing or refusing to admit that shirking her duty on her scheduled work day will result in someone else being put out. Whether that person who is put out is me or someone else, it’s still fucking wrong. And the boss is not the only asshole because the boss wouldn’t be asking me for shit if the bitch with the kid hadn’t created the shortage of workers in the first place.
Isn’t that what a breast pump is for? Most workplaces are required by law to let mothers pump their breasts at work. I am a legislative analyst, and you wouldn’t believe how many bills from many different states I see all the time about this issue. Just the other day, I saw a “breatsfeeding-friendly workplace” bill. I will try to find the link for you.
As for the baby not being able to hold its head up, well can’t its caretaker help out with that? It’s not like the baby is just going to be left all alone, laying there. If you are having a baby and plan to work, you will probably have some sort of childcare lined up, who can support the baby’s head and feed it your breast milk which you pumped at work. If this is so objectionable, then quit your job and be a stay-at-home mom.
Okay then. So you’ve never actually had to *do * any of this extra work, you’re just bitching about the fact that it exists?
Wow, that pretty much sounds like what every other fucking person in this thread has already said. Unfortunately for you, you’ve chosen to make a big issue out of the unfairness of maternity leave, not just coworkers ditching shifts. My impressions haven’t changed. It seems like you just enjoy being bitter about this, so I’ll leave you to it. Seethe away–I’m taking my kids to the park, hope that doesn’t inconvienence you.
nyctea scandiaca–if you don’t allow a newborn to regularly nurse (as in every 2-3 hours for up to an hour at a time) for the first 5-6 weeks the milk supply will not be adequately established. A new mother can expect to spend as many as **8-9 hours a day ** nursing in the first month or two. Once the supply is established pumping can take over for some women, but it almost always means a diminished supply and many woman aren’t ever able to produce much–if any–milk that way.
Good GOD, catsix, do you ever tell your mother this? I’m sure she took you places and stayed with you when you were sick. Or maybe not, but you always talk about your family like you’re close, so I’m just guessing.
Guess what? People need to fucking BREED in order to keep the species going. What the HELL do you fucking WANT these people to do-hide themselves in their homes, so you never are “inconvenienced?”
I have a feeling you’re exaggerating, but don’t realize it.
And how would you know what doctors recomend for women giving birth-you’ve made it quite clear that you don’t ever want kids. Which is FINE.
You don’t like kids. We get it. But kids still exist. YOu were a kid once. We all were. Get over it, already.
If that’s the worst fucking thing in life that ever happens to you, then you’re goddamn lucky.
Some people have kids, and still need to work. It’s called putting food on the table. And yeah, their kids need them. You don’t like it? Too damn bad.
Where are these people who expect to be paid anything more than disabilty while they are medically unable to work and for accumulated leave time afterwards? The slackers in your office? If they didn’t have kids, they would turn into my childless coworkers who have cars breaking down and pipes bursting every week. Nobody likes those people, but they get away with it because mangement lets them. Those of us with children who don’t slack hate them even more than you do- they try to use their kids to get out of work and then someone wants me to give up my time off with my kids to cover. And they never returned the favor. After I refused to do it a few times, management stopped asking.
And why would you want to get rid of the FMLA?- Everyone benefits fron that, even the childless and those with no family at all.
I took about three and a half months off when each of my children was born. I went back to work when the paychecks from my accumulated vacation time ran out. Even if you don’t think giving birth is a more important reason for taking three months off than a trip to Europe is, it surely isn’t a less important reason, and my employer’s leave policy was that I could accumulate that much vacation time and then take it off, whether for a trip to Europe or to stay home with my child or even just because I felt like it.
Well I have been around many newborns, and none of my friends who had babies and none of the women in my family who had babies have had any problem with breast pumping. If you nurse for a month, then go back to work after a month, and spend 8 hours away from the suckling baby, and pump while at work, but still continue to nurse while at home, I am certain that is not going to damage or diminish your milk supply, or damage your kid.