Last updated on 2015.01.21
Speaking of family values, Jezebel's Erin Gloria Ryan points us toward a new report from the National Partnership for Women and Families that finds family-values voters tend not to put their preaching into policy practice.
Overall, we Americans don't stack up well compared to other countries in policies that help parents take care of their newest family members:
The United States distinguishes itself from much of the rest of the world by failing to provide adequate supports and protections for parents and children. The absence of paid leave protections for new parents is in striking contrast to the 178 nations that guarantee paid leave for new mothers and the 54 nations that guarantee paid leave for new fathers. The United States guarantees neither ["Expecting Better: A State-by-State Analysis of Laws That Help New Parents," National Partnership for Women and Families, May 2012, p. 5].
Paid leave saves money and saves lives:
Paid leave gives new parents time to establish and build a strong bond with a new child during the first months of life, which results in long-term health benefits for both children and parents. Parental leave can decrease maternal depression and infant mortality. And children whose mothers take leave longer after giving birth and before returning to work full time are more likely to be taken to pediatricians for regular checkups, with clear health benefits and likely cost savings down the road. In an international study of paid family leave, a 10-week extension in paid leave was predicted to decrease infant mortality by as much as four percent ["Expecting Better...," p. 13].
The report also cites a number of research-attested improvements in job security and decreased reliance on public assistance. Paid family leave sounds like it does a lot more to value families than Mitt Romney's family-value tropes at Liberty University Saturday.
So how does family-friendly South Dakota rank in the NPWF's scoring of family-friendly policies like paid leave for new moms and dads? We get an F, a big fat zero. We do the minimum of what federal law requires, and we go no further. Whacky liberal states like California, Illinois, and New York do much more to protect the rights of new parents with policies on parental leave and breastfeeding rights.
Please spare me your family-values bromides about marriage and abortion. If you really value families, you enact policies that help moms and dads take care of their kids and keep their jobs.
"The absence of paid leave protections for new parents is in striking contrast to the 178 nations that guarantee paid leave for new mothers and the 54 nations that guarantee paid leave for new fathers."
That fact that mothers have to work undermines the family in the first place. Your statistics assume that working mothers are good for the family. It clearly is not. Homeschooling proves that.
Cain slew Abel: agriculture is the Serpent.
South Dakota prides itself in being an employer friendly state. Apparently the family values are not as important as we sometimes hear tell. But others are so sure Republicans are always of God and right that they do not look very far past the end of their own driveway. This is an area that could improve. When both sides realize they are on the same side, the wall disappears.
"...the U.S. moved up six spots in the ranking of the best countries in which to be a mom, to 25th place from 31st last year." Time. RT @PPact.
Quote: the fact that mothers have to work undermines the family in the first place
What about mothers who worked on farms and simultaneously raised kids? My grandmothers worked hard on the farm even when they were raising children--they just didn't collect a paycheck from an employer outside the home while doing so.
Does raising kids while also working on the farm mean that mothers both support the family and undermine it? How does that work exactly?
"Does raising kids while also working on the farm mean that mothers both support the family and undermine it? How does that work exactly?"
The far family and mothers working ofr corporations while their chldren are in the hands of the government are two completely different situations Chris. Not only did my grandmothers work hard on the farm while raising their children, my mother did too. Perhaps this is where we learn how America is losing its work ethic. Now all of a sudden mothers expect a paycheck and stay at home at the same time. How many fathers get the same? Well 40% of the fathers are not even married to the mother of their children. Imagine...my one night stand just had a baby, don't I get two months off with pay? So much for the idea of equality. Right?
I grew up on a farm and both my parents worked the farm, plus mom did all the house chores as well.
On my childhood farm, we were all in or near the same place. We worked together, we sat down to dinner (at noon) together and supper after all was done. We did chores together, we played catch together, etc. When it was just too sizzling hot outdoors, and we didn't have some work that absolutely Had To Be Done Right Now!, we laid down in the coolness of the basement together. If we were in the field, mom brought lunch out to us. We never came home on the school bus to an empty house.
There is a big difference between that and a mother leaving home in the morning, possibly before the children get up, to go punch a time clock and return home at night.
(BTW, I yearn for a farm life again every single day. The positives outweigh the negatives for me.)
"So as Iowa Public Radio's Sarah McCammon reports, female conservationists are reaching out to this growing group..
Mary Ellen Miller says she has lots of ideas for her land: planting grapes for local wineries, finding a young farmer to grow fresh produce, even raising rabbits for meat." NPR.
"That fact that mothers have to work undermines the family in the first place. Your statistics assume that working mothers are good for the family. It clearly is not. Homeschooling proves that.:
So Steve a woman can't have a career and be a good mother? Maybe the father should stay home then?
Homeschooling proves nothing. If my wife, who is a teacher, could have 1 on 1 like the homeschoolers she'd due a hellava job.
Not to change the the subject Steve but I caught part of your debate with Mike Vehle. I got a big laugh when you called him a liberal. Nice try. Not to many believe that I would guess.
Red states generally have the most mothers at work. Their policies end up undecutting their goals. If you promote stupid ideas like no sex before marriage and cutting off contraceptive services to teens and young adults, you end up encouraging some people to marry young, and others inevitably have kids before marriage.
Marrying young and having kids young means educational levels attained are lower, and family income is lower. This leads to mothers having to work to pay the bills. Also, marrying young results in much higher divorce rates.
Of course, welfare reform in the 1990s meant single mothers were required to find work, rather than stay home with the children.
http://www.alternet.org/story/147712/why_do_red_states_have_the_worst_%22family_values%22/?page=2
How about strengthening labor unions so workers can reverse the wage stagnation of the last generation and get us back to 1950s-style wages and benefits that allow a family to support itself on a single income? Why can't capitalists value families enough to pay such wages?
How about not just unions, but co-ops! When workers own the businesses, they're more inclined to work hard, and they get to set a fair wage for themselves. If you have a board of half businessmen types and half workers (or somewhere thereabouts) things are more likely to end up fair. Plus, you don't have to worry about union busters.
Also, you don't have to worry about unions becoming ineffective. I still don't know what purpose a teacher's union serves. They can't strike or do anything negative, so what leverage do they have?
Carter, you hit a key point that I have to explain to folks as I circulate HB 1234 petitions. Unions, especially the teacher's union, don't have much clout in South Dakota, thanks to those "right-to-work" laws (which really means the opposite of the practical outcome of our statutes). The state GOP is working hard through legislation like HB 1234 to weaken what power SDEA has. At the point where we eliminate due process rights for teachers, one of the big benefits they get from union membership, legal assistance in appeals of non-renewals, disappears, and that means fewer people join the union, leaving it a weaker political entity.
And as long as the GOP can keep both parents running ragged working to make ends meet, they keep workers from having time to get involved in politics and make change in favor of real family values.