Really? I’ve never met these doctors who think six weeks off is medically necessary.
Do you know anything about giving birth and what it does to the body?
Your episiotomy stitches usually haven’t even dissolved by 6 weeks!!
Yeah, I have, and she’s in agreement with me. See, she wasn’t an inconsiderate shit for brains bitch who expected other people to do her work while she still got paid for it.
She didn’t have a job for the first seven years of my life. Started working again when kindergarten and my grandmother kept my sister busy enough hours of the day for her to have a part time job.
In modern times, people have kids because they choose to. You act like I give a shit about the continuation of the species, or that people even consider that when they decide to have a baby. They make that decision for entirely self-centered reasons, not to ‘keep the species going.’
And I think that if you make a commitment that says you will be at work X days a year, it means X days a year. If you can’t live up to that, quit your job and quit inconveniencing your coworkers. Thing is, the person who chooses to have more than they can do is the one being inconsiderate. If you’re not going to be able to spend enough time with your kid because of a job, quit the job. If that means you can’t afford to have a kid, then don’t have the kid. When did ‘inconvenience everyone else so I can have what I want’ become so fucking vogue?
And I guess since my job involves walking around, I should demand six weeks of disability leave if I ever break a leg rather than show up, do what I can, and use crutches?
Give me a fucking break. This is so old and tiresome. Guess what? Almost every single person out on short term disability has the disability in some part do to his or her own choices. Heart attack? You could have eaten a more healthy diet. Broken leg? Don’t ski/play basketball/rollerskate/whatever. Every single person who doesn’t show up at work or leaves early at some point inconveniences someone. Do you show those people the same kind of contempt you show new parents?
Everywhere you have worked, you have seen something that nobody else has seen. Clearly it has nothing to do with you or your perceptions.
Excuse me. I have to go find a thread with someone complaining about how he or she can’t find a stable relationship because everyone he or she meets is completely fucked up and has some relationship-ending problem.
** Do you show those people the same kind of contempt you show new parents?**
I doubt it. I’m starting to think this is more about jealousy than inconveniences at work …
They were lucky then, weren’t they?
I am certain you are wrong. See how easy it is to claim authority on something?
Holy fucking shit, catsix! Was there any wood left in your town after you finished building the cross you apparently hang on at work every day?
I actually was with you for your first few posts. I’ve worked with people who have children and expect their co-workers to cover for every soccer game and ballet lesson that Dylan and Brittany have. I understand that it’s frustrating. And although we plan to start trying to conceive in a year or so, we’re trying to plan for every possible instance ahead of time - saving money, looking at my company’s maternity leave policy - fuck, I’m even starting prenatal vitamins soon to get my body as healthy as possible. I know that this is OUR choice and the consequences for this decision should fall to US. I agree with you there - I don’t want to inconvenience those I work with for MY choice. And nothing burns me up more than women who know that they plan on quitting as soon as their maternity leave is up and take the benefits anyway - THEY are the ones who make it harder for women in the workplace.
However, I get the feeling you think that the second a woman conceives, she should quit her job, stay home with the windows drawn, and not leave until the child turns eighteen and goes to college. What the fuck? My God, why not tar and feather every woman who dares to think she can have a child AND a career?
MANY women have children. Many men have children. I won’t say MOST because I don’t know what the latest statistics for child-free compared to childed are. It’s a fact of life AND biology. It’s inevitable for many people, and it’s sensible for employers to make some sort of provision for it.
And I plan on taking the full 12 weeks provided by the FMLA for the birth of our children. We can’t afford for me to be a SAHM, but as the first few weeks are the most important for mother-child bonding, I plan to take full advantage of the government-mandated leave.
Ava
Even if it’s an inconvenience for you now, you’ll necessarily have to rely on other people’s kids in the future. Even if you don’t ever benefit in your old days from, say, free healthcare paid for by these kids who will be, by this time, working adults, you’ll still have to rely on them. If you managed so well your money that you end up owning Microsoft, your investments will still be worth zilch if there isn’t a new generation working for Microsoft and producing new softwares in order that you can get some profit from your stocks.
Giving some (in this case, from what I read) minimal benefits to mothers is a necessity for a society (that would include you) to continue to exist.
Except if you expect that robots will take care of everything in your old days, as a poster wrote, of course…
They definitely have kids for selfish motives. It doesn’t change the fact that society will need these kids born for selfish reasons to still exist 30 years down from now. I you will need them to, if you don’t want to starve to death.
Guess what? Pretty much everything anybody does is done for selfish reasons. But if they stoped doing these things, society would collapse overnight.
Holy crap, is this thread spiralling out of control. I didn’t know that having this baby was going to automatically turn me into a raving bitch who makes everyone else do my work, but I guess I have no choice. I have never done that before, but I chose to have a child now and there must be some kind of personality transplant that occurs at the birth. I’ll let you all know what happens when I cross over to the other side.
I am at work for the days I made a commitment to work. If I need a day off I use my well time or vacation. When I go on maternity leave I am using time the company is giving me (even if they give it to me because the government says they have to).
As for people who take off for stupid reasons and leave their work for others, * everyone agrees with you*. That is inconsiderate. If they are getting paid for hours not worked, or if you are working for hours not paid, then that is a problem you have with your employer. Obviously they are ok with it or they would have been fired. That is not what this thread was about - if it was about women who can’t or don’t fulfull their job requirements then there wouldn’t be a conflict. At my work it seems to be the men, particularly the sales people, who like to take off early and play golf, leaving no one to take calls.
I honestly don’t know what solution you would propose to maternity leave. Requiring every woman who has kids to stay at home until their kids are grown is not going to happen. Women are not going to stop having babies. They cannot return to work immediately after doing so. I’m sorry if my being gone for 12 weeks inconveniences anyone, but it is really up to my employer to make sure someone gets the work done. I made suggestions and am working to make it as easy as possible for everyone.
I don’t know what else to say. I hope your work situation gets better, I honestly do.
Congratulations. You have met a woman who couldn’t pump. I tried. I really tried. I was in pain a LOT of the time…I tried like you wouldn’t believe. No dice.
I know people leave very young children in day care all the time, but I can’t IMAGINE trying to both work and parent a newborn. I just can’t.
Didn’t catsix once say she has gone to work while feverish and puking? I think I recall her saying that when I made a thread about not being able to work because of severe periods.
Apparently, if SHE hasn’t experienced something, then it doesn’t exist. If SHE can do it, then everyone else should, because her experiences are the standard by which everyone should be judged.
Oh, poor catsix, poor widdle baby! :rolleyes: Quit being such a goddamn martyr all the time. Oh you poor oppressed tough gal, you’ve survived SUCH odds by sheer will.
As Siege would say, “You don’t have issues. You’ve got a lifetime subscription.”
Despite your positive experience, it does not hold true for all. I think your “certainty” is based on something other than fully accurate information and knowledge about pumping. Or about the milk supply and what keeps it up. This is where we need hedra.
The pump, for many women, is nowhere near as efficient at emptying the breasts. Some women have problems with let-down, and some just can’t pump enough out. And in fact, the nursing supply is based almost ENTIRELY on demand. Not solely on what happened during the first month you refer to. Thus, if the pump doesn’t really empty your breasts, your body will make less. Then it is even harder to pump milk, and the cycle begins.
I didn’t go back to work for nine weeks, so we had two months to establish our nursing relationship. I started with a hospital-grade pump when my son was in the NICU, and then I had the Medela pump in style, and an Avent Isis, and also used hand expression. I took the petals from the Isis and used them in the Medela horns as well. Didn’t matter what techniques I used, it just didn’t work as well. I could only get 2 ounces per session. I realize this is just one anecdote, but I consulted with my doctor, with la leche league leaders, and a professional lactation consultant. All of them assured me that my situation was not in fact atypical. Some women pump easily. Some women don’t.
Unless the baby is going to do complete reverse-cycle feeding, a mother with pumping problems and her child will not, in fact, fare anywhere near as well as you are “certain” she will.
I, for one, do not in fact agree with the people who claim new moms can’t go back to work in 6 weeks based on the mother’s medical condition alone. I think many women are sufficiently recovered, medically, before that time. Not all, of course (I wasn’t). But that leave time, whether or not it is paid, taken for STD, sick leave, or vacation, is still important for the sake of the infant, and especially critical if the mother does indeed nurse (which is what the APA and a heckofa lot of insurers consider optimal).
Please tell me that you know you are exaggerating and you don’t REALLY think that no one else has worked someplace where this type of stuff happens. Come on, seriously.
I’m not saying it happens in the frequency that Catsix claims, but I have seen it with my own eyes. Experienced it. Can you fight it? To a certain degree you can, but no workplace is “fair.” You have to learn to adapt. It just seems to me that Catsix hasn’t really learned to adapt yet.
Catsix, I can understand your frustration. As a woman who would never, ever want a child, I have noticed a lot of favortism given to people who need to leave early/come in late/not work today because of a child. I worked at a place while I was in college where if I were five minutes late because I was taking an exam, I was written up while two women in my office were CONSTANTLY out because their child had a cold/earache/hissy fit. Was it fair? Nope. Did I bitch? Yep, to my friends. I have also worked places where school schedules allow people special benefits. That’s the way the world works. It’s so cliche but you have to learn to go along to get along sometimes. IMHO, you’re going to have to develop a thicker skin as a person who doesn’t like children in a country where everyone thinks we have to do everything “for the children” or you’re going to end up with a bleeding ulcer. Take some yoga or take up kickboxing for shit’s sake.
Wow.
What an amazing thread. It’s been a real eye-opener.
I am truly perturbed by the vitriol that catsix has directed towards parents of young children. I suspect she has some real issues here that really have bugger-all to do with the subject at hand, and I have doubts that her coworkers are as evil as she makes out too.
She seems to have a mighty heavy log straddling both shoulders there.
Wow.
atsix
You know, catsix, you lost all creditability with me with those two blanket statements.
See, I’ve worked with primarily woman for almost 30 years now and I’ve never experienced the **all woman with children are lazy bitches phenomena ** that seems to dog you wherever you go.
When I first tended bar in Austin, none of my co-workers (who were all female by the way) had children.
The lack of progeny didn’t stop Vicki from assuming that I would always cover for her whenever she was too hungover to do her job because she was a selfish git with no work ethic.
When I managed an office at one point, it was Kim the childless who whined if she had to work 5 minutes late and Valerie the mother who was always ready to go the extra mile.
I find it remarkable that **no matter where you work, the evil breeders are all conspiring to keep you down, man **.
Or, conversely, you could learn to set your own boundaries and limits rather than resenting the hell out of anyone that has elected to make child rearing a part of their life. Sometimes the mothers in the office took time off to deal with their children and sometimes I took time off to deal with my life. If anyone childwith or childless consistently expected me to cover their ass, I refused. It was that simple.
The evil mommy conspiracy never effected me because I established my boundaries instead of crying about how abused I was on a public message board.
Try it-it could work for you too.
Well, until hedra, with her well researched knowledge about breastfeeding shows up, Dangerosa with her personal breastfeeding hell may do.
My milk did not come in for a week.
My daughter did not latch at all during the first week
I pumped to try and establish the milk supply, but never got more than a few ounces A DAY.
Once my milk came in, we nursed for about a week.
Then a got a screaming case of mastitis.
Then we were back to nursing again.
We caught hang on it when she was about a month old. We were never very good at it (I have girlfriends who could nurse while reading, sleeping, walking, doing dishes. We had to sit in a certain type of chair in a certain way in a quiet room).
At six weeks I returned to work - that, by the way, is shorter than three months. The first two weeks were “sick” or “vacation” time as short term disability doesn’t kick in for two weeks (I used vacation time). The next four weeks were covered under short term disability. At 60% of my salary. Capped. As I said, I got something like 48% of my normal check. Its a good thing we live below our means and I’m not the only breadwinner. For the first four of those six weeks I could not walk from the car into Target. This was a regular vaginal birth, but I had torn and was very sore and very tired. When I did return to work, I can’t say it was the most productive period of my life - up for half an hour to feed several time during the night, I’d go to bed at 7:00 and get up at 6:00 exhausted. (I think the real reason for liberal leave policies is that the countries having them have decided employing zombies is counterproductive).
When I went to work, the stubborn girl (she is still stubborn at 4 1/2) refused a bottle at daycare. Took a full day of trying every nipple available to find one she would take (or maybe she just got hungry enough to no longer care)
I pumped at work. I was never a good pumper. It took about half an hour three times a day to pump enough to feed my daughter. This was with a hospital grade Medelia pump and I was taking fenugeek. If I could squeeze in an extra pumping, I could stockpile a little milk so grandma or dad could feed her on occation.
We’d also nurse several times at home. Within two days of my daughter deciding to no longer nurse, I could not pump and manage to get anything at all. Gone. Dried up completely.
Nursing is not easy for everyone.
I’ve covered for people at work under a lot of circumstances, maternity leave, paternity leave, vacation, sabbaticals, surgery, illness, sick relatives, funeral leave, jury leave, temporary work reassignments. I covered for a childless woman for three months while she had surgery. I covered for a childless guy while he took leave to go to Europe for three months on his honeymoon. One of the guys at work has been out for nearly a year from an injury. The favor has been returned. I took a month when my son came into the family and six weeks to recover from my daughters birth. I was also out for several months while a sexual harrassment investigation was undertaken, been out for two weeks on jury duty, took a week off while my grandfather was dying and for his funeral following Its part of being part of a team.
I know that in 20 years when I am bitching about how disrespectful people are and that they seem to be raised by wild dogs, I’ll be secure in my assumptions because parents dropped their 6 week old kids off with perfect strangers who may, or may not, give a rat’s ass as to how the kid in question turns out. It might as well be wild dogs raising them in that case.
It seems to me if the case is made that leave is granted for societies benefit, isn’t it even more beneficial that one parent stay at home to raise the little beggars properly? There are, of course, cases where it isn’t possible for a parent to stay home with the child, but where possible shouldn’t it be done? Or is it as this thread reads to me, “I want a child…I want a career…I’m not williing to sacrifice either…I, I, I…” That sounds like the perfect parent to me :rolleyes:
Some people start out with that fairy tale life where mom stays home and takes care of the kids and dad goes off to work each day…
Then life happens and dad ends up leaving mom for a coworker of his and so here is a woman with two young children and no work history for the last 5 years.
So she’s worked very hard to get a degree and keep her children and herself fed, clothed and housed. 3 jobs actually and school full time. I know no one who has worked as hard or as selflessly as she.
Not everyone who has both children and a career is a selfish person. Sometimes they just need to pay the bills!
No kidding. They could also find the time to teach their kids how to comprehend what they read. I pretty sure I said there are exceptions. Nor did I say Mom had to be the one to stay home, or even had to stay home at all. I said it would be more beneficial if someone did stay at home with the kids to raise them. Don’t you think so?
Oh, and as to your little scenario, I know that woman. Except she has 3 kids and I married her last month (no foolin). She runs her own appraisal business after getting her degree working in bars and raising her kids on her own. It doesn’t change my mind as to it being better for one parent being at home, though.