# motherhood should RADICALIZE you. | the U.S. is so cruel to parents & kids 😰

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** tiffanyferg
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uyzhii-EmHY

## Содержание

### [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uyzhii-EmHY) Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00)

Hello my dudes. Today I want to talk about how motherhood has radicalized me. Spoiler, I don't actually think any of these ideas are radical, but some people do. So, let's chat. I gave birth to my first baby last September. I spent the summer trying to work as much as possible knowing that I would only be able to afford to take one month off as my unpaid leave. And even if I could afford more time off, I was well aware that the almighty algorithm here on YouTube would punish me for posting less. So, once my daughter was born, I was deep in the newborn trenches. If you know, you know. Deliriously googling questions about feeding and wake windows and all the scary noises that babies make. This is the time people say to cherish every minute. Soak it in. I so badly wanted to be present. Though I would have happily skipped forward about 12 weeks if I could. I was crying a lot. Some tears of joy, others of sadness and stress. But perhaps most frustratingly, thoughts of work started creeping in almost immediately. When exactly would I start working again? Should I just do a little work now while my husband's home, even 30 minutes here and there? But on the other hand, I was so out of the loop. I hadn't thought about internet things in weeks. What video could I possibly make anyway? My brain was swimming in baby and nothing else mattered as it should be. Finally, when my daughter was about 2 months old, I sent myself a video idea. Working title. I actually want to be a stay-at-home mom, but not in a tradife way. These were some of my notes to self. I thought I could work during her nap times, but she doesn't nap yet. Being a stay-at-home mom is a full-time job. Working from home and stay-at-home parenting is insane and impossible. Parenting requires full attention. So, here we are. I'm now basically nine months postpartum and finally ready to make this video. I'm glad that I waited because I have changed my mind and I don't actually want to be a stay-at-home mom. But what I want to discuss today is basically parental leave because in those early months, I was like viscerally offended and disturbed to experience the lack of paid parental leave. At that time, I thought I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom because I was happy to care for my child. I wanted to be with her. But what I didn't want was to be engulfed by the impending doom of work, thinking about when I'd get back to work and how I could possibly balance it. How would I figure out the child care? How could we afford it all? And that's not even including the hospital bills that started coming in right away. We'll save that for another video. United. It's a horrible feeling to essentially have to choose between bonding with your brand new baby and being able to pay the bills. But it's a reality that the vast majority of people in the United States experience. I'm trying not to cry so early in the video. Learning how to parent and especially being a new mother is so hard. But I thought at least it would be a little bit easier if this was all I had to focus on. If do every day was take care of this baby and make sure we're all safe and sound. If only I didn't have to think about work, too. So throughout this time, I've been thinking a lot about the bureaucratic trifecta of parenting stress, which to me has been insufficient parental leave, health care, and child care. Initially, I wanted to talk about all of them in this video, but it got way too long. So again, today I'm going to be focusing on parental leave. This language can obviously be very gendered. I'm trying to use more inclusive, neutral terminology when possible. But a lot of these specific policies refer to mothers, fathers, maternity, paternity leave. Some policies are specifically relevant to the birthing parents. So just know I do not want this to sound heteronormative. I of course support all parenting configurations and as this paper noted parental leave should be available to and is beneficial for parents of all genders. So in the US our nationwide policy is the family and medical leave act established in 1993 which provides up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave meaning if you qualify your job is protected. You can take 3 months off, but unpaid. FML is right. According to this brief by Child Trends, the United States is one of only seven countries in the world without any kind of national paid parental leave policy. Why do we insist on being different from the rest of the world? In the worst ways. So, it's basically left up to the states to decide if they want to create their own policies. And currently, 13 states and DC have comprehensive mandatory paid family leave systems. So, I was digging in trying to see, okay, what states are the best and what are they offering? Apparently, Oregon has the best policy. 12 weeks paid leave for a max of 1568 per week, and the birthing parent can take an extra 2 weeks. I live in New York, which has paid leave, but as a self-employed person, I did not qualify yet. I ended up signing up for the family leave and disability insurance, but there's a 2-year waiting period. So, I will get to use it if we have more kids in the future or any other qualifying life events, I guess. And then, of course, companies can choose to create their own paid leave benefits, but it's not very common and these tend to benefit the most privileged employees. From the child trends brief, again, the majority of working parents in the US do not have access to paid parental leave through their employers. Against this backdrop, one quarter of mothers have to return to work only 10 days after giving birth. 10 days. That

### [5:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uyzhii-EmHY&t=300s) Segment 2 (05:00 - 10:00)

is literally horrific. It is sickening. And I think this is an interesting moment politically because we've seen a conservative shift in culture or at least seemingly the promotion of tradives in terms of being further radicalized. Many of us have heard that as we get older or especially as we have kids, we have a family, you're going to become more conservative. It's just how things go. Yeah, young people are idealistic and liberal, but you grow up and you move. Right. And I think for many reasons, it is really easy for fear and anxiety to lead parents down that direction because having kids and being responsible for them is terrifying. But to suggest that the answers to all these problems lie in isolationism, individualism, and taking control over your family, too much control, that's propaganda I am not falling for. To me, everything I've witnessed and especially what I've experienced since becoming a parent again has only strengthened and magnified my beliefs. And those are based in leftist ideals, social programs and safety nets, dignity for everyone socially, environmentally, politically. We are all so much better off when we care about other people. We stand up for and with our neighbors. Again, there are so many worthy topics that I could dive into in a video each. Now, of course, you do not have to be a parent to care very deeply about all of these issues and understand them fully, but I am baffled to witness other parents who apparently do not feel more compassion and more empathy through the experience of parenthood. That genuinely does shock me. Fascinatingly, a lot of these issues seem bipartisan. Yes, it is a problem that people can't afford to take time off to bond with their babies or raise their kids. Yes, child care is insanely expensive. Wouldn't it be great if a family could survive off of one income? But because we're in a more conservative cultural swing right now, there's major disagreement on how to fix these problems and whose responsibility it is. Do we go for individualistic solutions, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, care about your nuclear family, or do we go for more collectivist social policies? Rising tides lift all boats. But before we continue, this portion of today's video is sponsored by Newly. It finally happened, y'all. I have been such a big fan of Newly and I've used them since 2019. So to finally be sponsored is an honor. Newly newly review newly is a clothing rental subscription service. You pick six items for $98. You can also pay for bonuses if you like. Basically you just enjoy your items, wear them all month long. Then you return them, send them back in your trusty newly bag, or you can choose to buy any of your favorite pieces at a discounted price. Newly is such an incredible option for so many occasions. wedding guest, vacation, special events, or you can just pick some fun interesting items for your daily wear. If you've ever liked something I wore in a video, it was most likely from Newly. Here's the thing. I am now 9 months postpartum and I've been living in leggings for 2 years, which is very unlike me. And Newly has been so great for my size fluctuating through pregnancy and after. When you don't want to buy an entirely new wardrobe cuz you don't even know what your size is going to be, boom, pick out some stuff that fits you today and don't worry about having to keep it forever. Newly is also a fantastic way to try new trends without all the commitment of buying. I tend to be a lot more experimental with my newly pics and that's so much of the fun. So, let me show you some stuff for my latest newly. I have been mixing and matching, creating a lot of great outfits together. My current themes are kind of food and foliage, comfy girl summer, and linen wherever, whenever. I absolutely adore a lightweight linen shirt in hot weather. H flawless. And by the way, I think Mave is my all-time favorite brand on Newly. I am just constantly going back to their pieces. I picked this Elton John top that I love. Fun fact, I once crashed my car while listening to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Not that it was his fault, but and this outfit. I've gotten so many compliments on this strawberry shirt. And who doesn't love a cute pair of overalls? Even though I've picked a lot of like pretty casual comfy things, I feel so much more like myself wearing fun items. And that's why I love Newly Baby. So, you can use my link in the description to check out Newly and you can peek at my closet list. I've saved a lot of good items. I could not recommend Newly more. They are my favorite. Highly recommend. So, let's get back into it. By the way, this shirt is also from Newly. Finally, let's do some leave comparisons, okay? Because again, the US is pretty much one of the only countries in the world that does it this way, as in gives us nothing. It can be hard to compare these policies directly because different countries can have other terms, percentages of pay, different time limits, maximums, but let's assume that the mom or birthing parent is taking the maximum amount that they can and their partner is also maxing out whatever they're eligible for. There are a lot of numbers here. I did so much math this week. Um, and feel free to double check my math because I probably got some things wrong. Richard Orange wrote that Iceland can boast being the first Scandinavian country to bring in paid maternity leave, giving women 14 weeks of paid leave in 1946. Good for you, Iceland. But what the hell were we doing in 1946? Also, what are we

### [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uyzhii-EmHY&t=600s) Segment 3 (10:00 - 15:00)

doing in 2025? United States. Orange continues. Sweden was the first country to bring in shared parental leave, allowing both parents to split the then 24 weeks leave as they saw fit from 1974 with Denmark following a decade later in 1984 and Norway not catching up until 1987. If they thought Norway was lagging, truly look at us almost 40 years later. The US is so far behind it is not even funny. Another example, Canada. There's standard or extended leave. Standard birthing parent can take a combined 50 weeks at 55% of their salary up to a weekly max. Their partner can also take five weeks or they could choose to split the 40 standard weeks between parents, however they choose. Extended leave offers more time but at a lower rate of pay. The birthing parent can take almost a year and a half off at 33% of their salary and that still leaves 8 weeks for the other parent. Then we have Japan. Japan has maternity and paternity leave. And then beyond that, you can transition into child care leave and take time off until your child turns one year old. And even beyond that, if both parents are working and there are no spots for the child in a daycare, child care leave can be extended. Oh, take time off for your child. And then if you can't figure out your child's care situation, you can continue caring for your child. That's a crazy concept. I don't know. Next up, Estonia. Okay, Estonia. I had no idea. Estonia has one of the most generous policies in the world, and I actually lost my mind looking at all of these benefits. So, for context, their median wage is roughly €20,000, and they have a flat tax rate of 22%. Estonia offers 100 days maternity leave with guaranteed state health insurance for all mothers, by the way. Love that. plus 30 days paternity leave plus shared parental leave which lasts up to 475 days. So again, mothers can take a maximum of 575 days. How long is that? That's like a year and 7 monthsish plus paternity leave. But wait, there's more. And uh these family benefits are not means tested. They're for everyone. Just listen. onetime child birth allowance, a monthly allowance for each child. Extra supplements if you have triplets or more multiples and bonus allowances for large families and those are all stacking baby. Can you tell that maybe Estonia is trying to encourage its population to have more kids? Can you tell that their government seems invested in that and is willing to uh put the money where their mouth is? Is that the phrase? And of course, as this article noticed, money alone is not going to convince most people to have more kids, but some extra money absolutely does help. If you do want to have more kids, and it makes having a family more feasible. Everyone's worried about lowering birth rates. Okay, at least start with this. Offer some money. Help me see how I'm going to afford to live with my children, and then we'll see. So, I come from a family of four kids, and I wanted to crunch some nums. Again, do more math. Let's pretend I live in Estonia. Let's pretend all these policies existed since my oldest sibling was born. The amounts never changed. Disregard inflation. Whatever. If my parents, two working parents, received leave payments for every birth plus all the child allowances and bonuses, my family would have received a minimum of cause. I did in fact mess up the math. The minimum is actually €182,000 to a max of €446,000 after tax. Now, that's over a period of like 19 years, but still, that is a huge amount of extra money that would have been in my family's pocket. Imagine what all that money could have gone toward. If that seems extreme, though, here's another scenario. Let's say two working parents with one child. If you earn median wages, €40,82 after tax, imagine a government giving you anything. Imagine your tax dollars going back to the people. Now, you may be saying, "Okay, sure, but the United States can't do it. " Okay. Um, those places have smaller populations, right? Estonia has a population of like 1. 3 million. That's tiny. Canada has 40 million. Okay. But the United States has 340 million people. So, we're too big. Can't do it. Hey, guess what? We're also one of the richest countries in the world. How many billionaires do we have? Many countries that are smaller and poorer do in fact offer paid parental leave, health care, child care. It is possible and we absolutely have the money. Now, where are our tax dollars going? I want to speak to the military, please. We're just out here funding wars instead of taking care of our own people. Great. And do we get to choose? say, "Hey, no, I don't want to spend my money on that, actually. " Okay. Well, enjoy getting taxed at huge rates. Yeah, your taxes are going to go way up. I would very happily take Estonia's flat 22% tax rate if it meant that our tax dollars were actually going back to the people. And also, we spend so much money on things like health care. Hey, even just your insurance premiums every month, let alone your deductibles, your out-ofpocket expenses. Yeah, I would

### [15:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uyzhii-EmHY&t=900s) Segment 4 (15:00 - 20:00)

much prefer having a slightly higher tax rate and receiving all those benefits. And I would definitely be happier to know that everybody in the country received those benefits, that everyone was taken care of. Yeah, raise my taxes. Anyway, wow. It's just insane being in this country, being told that it's impossible. It's pie in the sky to do any of these things to take care of people, families, kids, education, healthcare, anything to be gaslit and told that it's impossible when literally the vast majority of the world does it. So many Americans have been brainwashed again by these conservative ideologies that tell us, "No, no, no. The solution to all these problems is focus on the nuclear family. Don't give a about anybody else. " The answer is actually pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Let's remove regulations. Let's actually lower taxes. And then uh just take care of yourself. Boom. Anyway, actually I'm in a great mood today because Zoran Mani won theing primary. New York City mayor. Bye, Cuomo. Bye. Obviously, we still have the general election. Still got to win. Still got to put in a lot of work. Still got to fight against the establishment and the and all the slandering and smears that they're going to throw his way. But we've got the people, baby. We've got volunteers. We've got oh oh oh oh oh oh oh policies that actually care about working people, about making people's lives more affordable, about taking care of people. And wow, that actually gets people fired up to not only vote, but to get out there and knock on some doors. I'm thinking that maybe, just maybe, maybe the Democratic strategy of leaning to the right, uh maybe that's not working. Maybe Democrats shouldn't go after this like mystical centrist voter. Maybe we should lean in and actually be a party for the working class again. Maybe we should just focus on issues that help people. It's as simple as that. But what about the donors? What about the lobbyists? What about the super PACs? Anyway, when I say like I'm radicalized, this is what I'm talking about. These are all again not radical. Most of the world is doing these things. Not radical. In this country, we smear people and we're like, "Ah, scary democratic socialist. " And guess what? The rest of the world, most of Europe is over there being like, "Oh, actually that's like standard. That's a centrist. Are Democrats? Oh, those are conservatives, right? I'm confused. " So, this whole video is just about democratic strategy. Now, I'm like, hold on. Now that I got you with that, let's get into what is the point of parental leave. What are the benefits and why does this matter? As I just mentioned, mothers having to go back to work after 10 days is sickening. It is beyond cruel. Physically, the recovery is huge. And that's even assuming that you had a very smooth birth, that you and the baby are healthy. If you had any complications, that recovery is even more difficult. We have a six week checkup after birth, which is first of all crazy that we don't have a checkup sooner than that. But that's why some people kind of believe, oh, after 6 weeks you must be all good. No, but that's just physically, mentally, emotionally, hormonally. Birthing parents experience so much. It is so crucial to be able to have time to bond with your newborn for both parents to learn your brand new baby's habits and how to parent, how to take care of them. If you're breastfeeding, that is literally a full-time job. and it is the most difficult thing. So physically, mentally, emotionally, it can be incredibly difficult to be forced to return to work and be separated from your child. All parents deserve to have quality time to bond with and care for their children. And a couple of days or even a couple of weeks does not cut it. But let's say a mother does take maternity leave. Taking parental leave is not easy. It is absolutely not a vacation. Yeah, you're away from work, but you are fully responsible for a whole baby 100% of the time. It's constant and challenging. If your leave is paid, of course, that really helps to reduce the financial burden and some stress, but it's still an incredibly demanding time. It is not chill. Emma Barnett wrote, "There should be no guilt in saying you find maternity leave hard, that you don't enjoy every single second with your child, that it's knackering in the truest sense, that you miss alone time with your partner and with yourself, and at times you find the experience boring. Negative feelings aren't personal against your baby. It is okay to say you love them, but that you don't love your new existence yet, and that you still mourn for aspects of your old one. This is really just bringing me back to the newborn trenches, and it is incredibly emotional. There is a huge, huge value and benefit of having both parents at home, at least for some amount of time. First, because we need all hands on deck. Newborns are being fed, changed, and going back to sleep. They're being rocked constantly. It's so easy for sleep deprivation to set in. You need two people at least. But again, what happens if you have little to no parental leave? Greg Rosowski wrote, "Only about a quarter of American workers, regardless of gender, have access to paid parental leave? " Most new parents in America have to cobble together other leave, like vacation or sick leave or simply take unpaid leave if they want to take time off to care for their newborn. Some parents don't even qualify for that unpaid leave, which is horrible. Others are forced to go back to work very soon because they

### [20:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uyzhii-EmHY&t=1200s) Segment 5 (20:00 - 25:00)

can't afford to stay away. They need that paycheck. And honestly, especially during these economic times, that's pretty much everyone. From the child trends brief, access to paid parental leave is also distributed inequitably. Black and Hispanic workers are less likely to have access to it than white workers. Low-wage workers are also less likely to have it than higher wage workers. Because paid parental leave is strongly linked to family health and economic well-being, disparities in access to parental leave may contribute to the large racial and ethnic disparities in maternal health, infant health, and poverty. The real catch22 of having insufficient paid parental leave is that you end up needing to go back to work for your income, but then you'll be spending a huge chunk of your paycheck on child care so that you can work. So, do you earn enough for that to be worth it? It is a horrible complicated decision that so many parents are forced to make. Parents, often mothers, are forced to either quit their jobs or try to juggle working full-time with parenting. That idea that moms can have it all, girl boss, it is a myth. So, if both parents do return to work, what do you do about child care? If you're lucky, you may be able to get free child care from family members. But first of all, that's a lot of pressure for those family members. And often this still relies on the unpaid domestic labor from women. There's been a lot of discussions about grandparents being like the assumed babysitters. I don't think you can assume that grandparents are willing or able to babysit, especially not full-time. If my mother-in-law were nearby, she would absolutely love to babysit, but she's in England. But also, many parents are within this sandwich generation where they're already caring for their kids and their own aging parents. So, it's not even an option for everyone. Well, can't you just work from home while taking care of the kids? Many parents were forced to do this during COVID lockdowns, but it's nearly impossible for most to sustain. According to Reddit, there are some jobs where this is doable. I guess if you can kind of work in little pockets throughout the day or if your role requires a lot of waiting around for other people and maybe it's doable with older kids, but if you've got a newborn at home, that's probably impossible. This is kind of my situation because I am basically working from home part-time now and my hours are pretty flexible. But still, when I work, I need dedicated time to focus. I need a couple hours at a time to write and research, film, edit. Like I said, my initial plan, naive, of being like, "Oh, I can just work when the baby naps. " That was not possible for a long time. Now, my baby is napping maybe 2 and 1 half hours a day total. But that's still almost nothing. And often I have to do other chores around the house or I have to like eat when she's asleep. Our situation is extra rough because we really have no village. Neither of our families live nearby. They're actually both basically a 6-hour flight away. So realizing that this was impossible, I started to look for a part-time babysitter so that I could get some hours of work done during the week and then add a bit more at nights and on weekends. Try to do as much as I could. Our child care situation ended up being a lot more complicated than I thought. For the past 6 months or so, we've been paying about $1,000 to $1,500 a month just for me to be able to work about 15 hours a week while the babysitter's there. and relying on babysitters has been very difficult compared to like a daycare because when my one babysitter is sick or they have an emergency or they have to call out. That's the one person I was counting on. I have a couple of backups but reaching out last minute often they're not available. So that disrupts my work schedule and it tends to happen at the worst times like when I need to film a video or I have a deadline. So that's been really tough to adjust to. It is so wild how many curveballs get thrown your way when you're just trying to work as a parent. just for this video. My daughter just caught her first ever cold. So, she was sick and then I got sick and you just never really catch a break. Anyway, as we all know, child care, especially in the US, is insanely expensive and it's very difficult to find. You want quality, reliable child care. You're looking for great daycarees in your area. They have long wait lists. Some people get their kid on the wait list while they're still pregnant, months before they're even born. And the actual costs tend to be close to an extra rent or mortgage payment per child. How do people afford this? I don't know. According to Pew, in 2018, the median annual cost of child care for one child in 2022 ranged from $5,300 to $17,000 depending on the age of the child, the younger, the more expensive it is, uh, and your location. In a given county, the median cost per child was anywhere from 8% to 19% of the median household income in that county. 10 to 20% of your income to child care per child. Losing my mind. Many families would love to have kids or love to have more kids if they didn't have to worry about affording the child care. Of all things in the world and all the complications of making that decision, child care should not be the deciding factor. It's so unfair that people have been put in this position. Meanwhile, Trump's like, "What about a onetime payment of five grand? Is that enough to raise a child? How much is a banana? $10? " And this is again another reason that paid family leave is so beneficial because if you as a parent are able to take 6, 12, 18 months of paid leave, you can care for

### [25:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uyzhii-EmHY&t=1500s) Segment 6 (25:00 - 30:00)

your own child. And that's time that you don't have to pay for child care, especially during that infant window because infant child care is the most expensive. It really is a win-win for people. Come on. Let's talk about the motherhood penalty. Okay, we have these deeply ingrained cultural ideals and gender norms that affect how mothers, fathers, and child-free folks are perceived differently in the workforce and family leave can actually play a big role in shifting these expectations. Women are absolutely discriminated against, especially if they're of childbearing age. Don't risk hiring or promoting a woman because she's just going to end up having kids. And obviously, this assumption can impact child-free women as well, because some employers will always assume, "Nah, you're going to change your mind. You're a woman. you're going to have kids. So, the motherhood penalty is all of these trends that harm women and their trajectory in the workforce, their pay. Fun fact, many moms incomes drop after they have children, and it gets lower with each successive child. And dads actually win more respect, more opportunities, and often are given a raise. Great going, Dad. Good job, buddy. So, this is one uh big contributor to the gender wage gap. Clare Kane Miller wrote, "Employers read fathers as more stable and committed to their work. They have a family to provide for, so they're less likely to be flaky. That is the opposite of how parenthood by women is interpreted by employers. The conventional story is they work less and they're more distractable when on the job. These differences persist even after controlling for factors like the hours people work, the types of jobs they choose, and the salaries of their spouses. So the disparity is not because mothers actually become less productive and fathers work harder when they become parents, but because employers expect them to. Long-term, again, moms who leave the workforce to do child care, take care of their kids, they lose years of experience, earnings, potential promotions, social security contributions, retirement contributions. Those have rippling impacts through the rest of their lives. So, there's an economic disadvantage, plus an even tougher time if and when they end up trying to get back into the workforce years later. Miller continues, "This bias is most extreme for the parents who can least afford it. High-income men get the biggest pay bump for having children, and low-income women pay the biggest price. This is a big reason why offering and encouraging paid parental leave for both mothers and fathers is so important. " Miller wrote, "In Miss Buddock's previous work, she has found that two policies shrink the motherhood penalty. publicly funded highquality child care for babies and toddlers and moderate length paid parental leave. It helps to cut down on the discrimination against women and mothers and also of course dads should be involved in parenting. Bring on the paternity leave baby. When it comes to dads taking parental leave, it's so important for them to first of all get to know their own child, get to experience this side of parenting that they otherwise would miss. It's hard for many dads to truly understand how hard it is staying home with a baby. And many dads end up appreciating their partner more. Thanks. When you share the domestic labor load, you get it. On a larger societal level, paid parental leave helps to promote gender equality, especially in heteronormative couples. It's never going to be a perfect 50/50, but at least you're working toward a more fair division of domestic labor. So, what's the sitch with paternity leave? Pew wrote, "In most cases, the amount of paid leave specifically for fathers is about 2 weeks or less. There are some dads that have to go to work immediately after their child is born or like the next day, which is absolutely insane. But 2 weeks even is so short. It's barely enough time to get into the newborn rhythm. And again, having two parents at home is very helpful. And even if mom is on leave, it is really hard to be with a newborn on your own. I literally sobbed when Nathan went back to work after 2 weeks and I was saying it's cruel. I was in the trenches. I was trying to figure out breastfeeding and failing and feeling so hurt about that. I was trying to pump more frequently to increase my supply, but I literally could not do it alone. Like I would have to be changed to my pump, plugged into the wall, but my baby wanted me to hold her and I just couldn't do it at the same time. And then I just kept feeling more and more guilty that breastfeeding wasn't working out for me. Now, thank God formula is amazing. I didn't have a stigma against it in my mind, but I had wanted to breastfeed and so I was really upset that it wasn't happening. And then everything else, you know, even with Nathan around, it was hard. It was hard for both of us. It was a lot, but it didn't have to be that hard. 2 weeks after the birth of the baby was way too soon for me, and I know for him as well, he didn't want to be leaving the baby. going back to work so soon, but that was just how it shook out. But again, there's a cultural problem when it comes to paternity leave. if it's offered. Many dads are very hesitant to take it. They worry about how that's going to impact their job. Are their co-workers going to judge them? Are their bosses going to think that they're not serious and not committed? Rosski wrote, "This is especially the case in Japan and South Korea, where despite government policies, workplace cultures often strongly discourage taking leave.

### [30:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uyzhii-EmHY&t=1800s) Segment 7 (30:00 - 35:00)

Fathers often quite rationally fear that their careers will be damaged if they take time off. After all, as the research shows, the careers of many mothers have long taken a major hit. When one dad chooses not to take it or only to take a couple of days, that then discourages other dads in the future and it keeps reinforcing the problem. We have this culture, this expectation that dads, they shouldn't really take time off. They don't need to, right? So, how can we encourage more dads to take their paternity leave? How can we change the culture and make it more acceptable, more normalized? The Nordic countries have been working on this for decades. Rosowski wrote, "Sweden created the first extensive genderneutral paid parental leave, but by the mid1 1990s, it became clear that despite this genderneutral policy, fathers were opting out and mothers were still taking the vast majority of the family's allotted leave. So in 1993, Norway led the charge and introduced what's known as a daddy quota. We don't have to call it that. The government gave fathers four weeks of paid leave that only they could use. They could not transfer it to their spouse. if they didn't use it, their family would lose it. This proved to be a powerful incentive. Before the introduction of the daddy quota, only about 2. 4% of Norwegian fathers took paternity leave, and more than 70% of Norwegian fathers are now taking their full 15-week paternity leave benefit or more. Obviously, it takes a lot more than a policy to change these huge cultural norms, but these use it or lose it policies have been pretty effective and they can shift those expectations over time. The more dads take it, the more normalized it will become and eventually hopefully a non-issue or actually something that's encouraged. Hey, imagine that. Go dad. Go be a parent. Take your time off. Final thoughts quickly. Some may say, you know, all this talk of paid parental leave is unfair to child-free people. Why should parents and families get so many benefits? And you know what? It sucks being the co-workers of people on leave because we get stuck with all the extra work. I have heard a lot of stories of people saying that where you know so and so's gone on parental leave and now all their workload is transferred to their co-workers and that sucks definitely but this is not your co-workers's fault. It's not your co-worker's fault to take their rightful full time off. It is your boss's fault. It is the company's fault. They should not be passing the work along to you. They should be hiring temps to cover. And I think this is again why it's better to have this kind of leave covered by, you know, social tax than solely being funded by employers because then it frees up the money for companies to hire temps to hire people to cover that work. Another element of this, like I know child-free people can be bothered when parents assume that they deserve to like have holidays off or they deserve more time or flexibility because they have kids. And child-free people are like, "Hey, well, we have families and lives, too. we want to enjoy holidays. Why should you get time off just because you're a parent? My answer is everyone should get time off. I know that's a more complicated um issue. But like again, I think it's always good to focus your animosity toward the company. They are the ones who are underst staffing and making this difficult versus taking it out on your coworker who's just trying to live. But ultimately, the issue of paid family leave is actually not just relevant to parents. Yes, often we're talking about maternity paternity leave, but in the US it's family and medical leave, which includes caring for babies or kids, but also to care for a family member if they have a serious medical condition or to take leave yourself if you're unable to work, plus all kinds of military family leave. Ultimately, this should not devolve into a battle of child-free folks versus parents. This is about giving everyone the ability and the dignity to take care of themselves, be cared for, or care for others. Let's focus. Okay. the person next to you is not the enemy. Again, as I've repeated throughout this video, I just want people to have the freedom to choose what is right for themselves and their family. Like the idea of wages for housework, which has been a long time, you know, feminist idea, there's all this domestic labor, it's all unpaid. Most of it lands on the shoulders of women in situations like parental leave or child care leave. We are paying people, parents, for that domestic labor. I think that's a great thing. Some would argue that it's kind of a dangerous precedent because it could encourage many women to leave the workforce. There's a concern that rather than this being an issue of choice or freedom, it's actually a trap for women. It's a trap that's going to force women out of the workforce and encourage tradery and it's a dangerous conservative slope. And I disagree with that. I think as long as there is a feasible, truly sustainable route on either side, I think both parents should have the choice, mothers, fathers, anyone, they should have the choice to either continue working, put the kids in child care, or potentially be a stay-at-home parent and be paid for that domestic labor. We pay childare workers to do the job of child care. And as I believe we should have the government pay for or subsidize childare. On that same note, why not direct those funds toward parents who would prefer to just care for their children directly? I love it. I also think there's a great need

### [35:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uyzhii-EmHY&t=2100s) Segment 8 (35:00 - 36:00)

for more flexible work. Whether you prefer to work remote or hybrid or if you need part-time hours, I think those opportunities should be available to people. Let people live the life they want. Come on. Anyway, ultimately, paid family leave is not a magic bullet that's going to immediately turn the world into a feminist utopia. But it's certainly a step in the right direction. Literally anything would be better than what the US currently has. So I feel for all of you who are also parents, especially in this country, because uh it's hard. I feel for anyone who was forced back to work before they were ready, before their kids were ready. I feel for anyone who has lost their job or lost opportunities because of this, because of these impossible choices. I feel for anyone who hasn't been able to have kids and they want to because it's just not possible. And also, shouts out to the child-free folks. Love you guys as well. Of course. Thank you so much for watching today's video. I hope it made sense. And once again, thank you so much to Newly. If you are interested in checking them out, please use the link. Let them know I sent you. I love you, Newly. Please work with me again. All right. Stay tuned for future internet analysis videos. Okay. Thanks. Bye.

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*Источник: https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/44378*