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From: judyd%wizard.cna.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET ("Judy E. Drake")
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Child making and rearing ( Mild Soapbox )
Message-ID: <6108@tekred.CNA.TEK.COM>
Date: 8 Aug 90 22:42:49 GMT
Reply-To: "Judy E. Drake" <judyd%wizard.cna.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET>
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.
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In article <9584@goofy.Apple.COM> bdelan@apple.com (Brian Delaney) writes:
>
>In article <10848@cs.utexas.edu> turpin@cs.utexas.EDU (Russell Turpin)
>writes:
>> What has yet to be explained is why parenting requires more
>> subsidization in this society.
>
>This is a very important point.  I've heard the complaint that without
>parental leave et al, that many couples could not afford to have children.
>
>Well, so what?  The owner of the business, whether a man or a woman, is
>not in business to subsidize someone's desire to wiggle upstream and
>spawn...

There's something here that I think Russell and Brian are overlooking.
The subsidization of parenting in our society is desirable because
it's good business.  As a partner in a small business (~100
employees), I have had the chance to observe how benefits such as
health insurance and profit sharing encourage good employees to stay
with the company.  I don't see parental leave as any different.  When
our company can afford it (and I hope it can in the near future), I'd
like to see an onsite daycare made available to our employees.  I am
convinced that there is a high correlation between how well the
company does financially and the satisfaction of the employees with
their workplace and their management.  (It sounds simple and obvious,
but it's amazing how many employers just don't get it!)

>I understand the angle that this is no different from allowing vacation.
>It is a perk to encourage quality people to remain with a company.  I even
>agree with this, as long as the business is allowed to decide for
>themselves whether a particular employee is worth the cost...
>If the employee *is* worth this, then the business
>will provide it out of simple self-interest. If the employee is not this
>productive, why should the business have to foot the bill for someone
>wanting to be a parent?

You can't provide benefits on an employee-by-employee basis.  You have
to give them to everyone or no one.  Overall, I think it's more
profitable to the company to give these types of benefits to everyone.
And yes, business usually do everything out of self interest.
Fortunately for many employees, treating them well is usually in their
employers' self interest.

>What is really being said here is that having children is some sort of
>"right". And that it is the responsibility of the businesman or woman to
>finance this "right."

Having children is a right, but it's not necessarily the
responsibility of the business sector to finance their employees'
children.  Here in Oregon, companies who have fewer than 25 employees
have to grant a minimum of six weeks of maternity leave.  Companies
with more than 25 employees have to grant 12 weeks' maternity leave,
by state law.  This is not financing ANYONE'S children by a long shot.
These laws merely guarantee a woman's job when she returns from
maternity leave.

As an employer, I am in favor of parental leave and company-subsidized
daycare.  I am in favor of parental benefits because I think they
would help our bottom line, plain and simple.

I am NOT in favor of legislating that employers MUST provide these
benefits to their employees.  Our company would not be in business if
five years ago we had been required to provide health insurance.  We
do so now because we can afford it and it's good for business, but we
first had to grow the business to the point where we could afford it.
As a result, we're providing 100 jobs with health insurance today
because we were able to employ 25 people without insurance five years
ago.  Tomorrow, daycare!

>There is another angle here as well.  Suppose we have ten million dollars
>in the bank.  We could spend it on "quality of life" issues. Say, invest
>it in a day care center.  This is spending money on something that we want
>today. It makes our life more pleasant...
>
>Or, we could apply this money toward, say, replacing our out-moded steel
>mills with ones that are more efficient and pollute less.  This would
>improve our air, make our steel indistry more competitve on the
>international market, and thus help solve some of the unemployment problem
>in the Mid-West...

First of all, ten million dollars would go a long way in providing
daycare, but it probably wouldn't build a small corner of a new steel
mill.  However, perhaps giving the parents of those children in the
daycare a chance to go to work with some peace of mind would allow
those parents to be more productive workers.

>The question is not, "Wouldn't mandatory day care be nice?" The list of
>things that would be nice to have is nearly infinite.   The question is,
>"Is this the *best* allocation of limited resources amongst the many
>competing alternatives?"

I know it's trite, but children ARE our future.  I don't think we can
go wrong allocating (or REallocating) more government resources to
improving life for this country's children.  Putting more federal and
state funds into daycare programs, housing, and education would
ameliorate a number of related social problems, such as drug abuse and
unemployment.  When I think of how many kids could be fed and schooled
using the funds spend on the Stealth bomber program, it makes me sick.

>Our economy is already uncompetitive with many foreign nations.  This gap
>is getting wider, not narrower, as time goes on.  What will history say of
>us?  Will some future historian observe that while we had the world's
>largest budget defecit, a moribund steel industry, rampant unemployment, a
>deteriorating environment, and a slipping technological edge; that we
>decided to spend money assuring that those people with jobs could take 6
>months off to have children?

While I don't have the statistics at my fingertips, I do know that the
US lags far behind other industrialized nations in parental and
daycare benefits, those same nations to whom we are losing our
competitive edge.

Just another viewpoint.

Judy Drake