Sexism vs. Reality

I received an e-mail regarding a petition to exhort a company to provide equal paid paternity leave for all of their employees.

The e-mail stated that birth moms were eligible for up to 12 weeks PAID leave but that fathers were only eligible for 3 weeks PAID leave...

The e-mail suggested that this was unfair & anti-family & EVERYONE should receive 12 weeks PAID leave for the birth or adoption of a child.

That sounds reasonable right?

In fact it sounds fabulous.

3 full months of paid vacation to enjoy your new child.

But here's the thing...

While you are off having 3 months paid vacation WHO is doing your job?

And how is your employer supposed to pay & train them & you at the same time?

And just about the time they get trained & are competently doing the job -guess what?

You want it back!

This type of entitlement thinking is a big part of what is dragging our country down.

The thought process that any business owner obviously is wealthy & undeserving & they obviously can afford to pay you- while you don't work- and someone else who is working- at the same time & that it is the governments JOB to force them to do so is why companies bail out of this country lock, stock & barrel.

It's why Detroit is a ghost town instead of the hotbed of American manufacturing it once was.

It's why companies hire 2 employees to work PART-TIME instead of one employee full time because the government forces them to provide pie-in-the-sky unaffordable benefits & mandated leave.

This is what happens when a people & a workforce get so far removed from what it takes to run a business & are only willing to see how something effects THEM.

It's sad.

And it has taken years of brain washing to reach this point.

But we are there.

It goes hand in hand with the 'feminism' movement & the fallacies of women being paid less & the so-called "glass ceiling".

Today's world wants there to be no difference between men & women. They, in fact, are attempting to do away with gender in any form.

But the truth is women have babies. Men do not.

Women of certain ages are very likely to be pregnant one or more time is the course of their career.

They are very likely to take maternity leave. I believe the norm is still 6 weeks. Not anywhere near enough time to recover from creating & birthing a human being & learning how to care for them but the standard amount none the less.

And a lengthy amount of time for an employer to hold the bag waiting for that employee to come back.

Which leads to my next point; that women are very likely to NOT come back after 6 weeks because they have fallen in love with the little human they have created & they don't want to leave them.

Rightly so.

But this means it's very common for there to be gaps of anywhere from 1 to 20 years in many women's careers.

Is it possible that these gaps are responsible for the so called "Gender Gap"?

That maybe it isn't pure sexism but the fact that gaps exist in many women's careers? Gaps which stall their careers by a certain number & correlate with however much 'less' they are making than the man on the same track who did not take time off to have babies?

Now many folks would have flames coming out of their ears about now screeching how unfair this is & it's just plain sexist inequality.

How about: it's just the way it is?

Men are different from women.

Women are different from men.

And from the beginning of time it has been the mothers role to care for the children.

We birth them, we nurse them, we care for them.

I find it kind of silly that because in the last 50 years or less people have decided to abandon these traditional roles that they expect biology to comply with their whims.

How about instead of expecting to be treated "the same" (when we clearly are not) we revel in being different (which we clearly are).

I, for one, thinking being able to create humans is a way better deal than getting paid more.

I, for one, think staying home caring for my children is a way better deal than being sent off to war (although, in the name of "fairness" women are being sent off to do that too. Talk about biting off your nose to spite your face).

I am not a man.

I do not want to be treated like a man.

I don't really care if I'm paid the same as a man because honestly most men couldn't do what I do so there isn't a pay scale for that anyway...

So lets not freak out here.

If you get a job & some guy gets a job & you have the EXACT same experience & credentials then of course you should - and most likely will - get paid exactly the same.

But, if some guy in your office has been there 15 years & you've been there 15 years EXCEPT for the combined year or so you had off to have your babies & he has never left & he's making more than you? Rightly so.

Get over it.

Stop expecting employers to pay for our life choices.

Let them pay for some of their OWN life choices which is most likely why they started a business in the first place...

It just seems to me that the world would be a kinder, gentler & fairer place if people would stop expecting others to pay their way & provide for their choices.

If we all provided for ourselves where we can & the kindness of others was there to help us out rather than a government mandate.

Something to think about...

Blessings.