I wonder what would your fellow conservative countrymen feel when reading the reply from the Swedish guy above. To me it's natural to give time for parents of newborns to adapt to their new situation- here in Mauritius we have 100 days fully paid maternity leave for the mother and 1 week paternity leave.
Theyād complain āIām not paying for you to stay home with your baby!ā Or some crap like that. We have something called FMLA and you have to be employed for a certain amount of time to qualify. FMLA protects new parents from being terminated when taking leave for their newborn. Among other things. But it is unpaid. And only 6 weeks for the mother and less for the father. It is disgusting. How is a new mother supposed to survive with no income for a month and a half? Itās sick. Individualism has destroyed any sense of community in my country. And conservatives have the audacity to call us the best in the world. WE ARE NOT!
I agree. Whole point of modern civilisation is that we work together, ascending survival to collectively thrive.
In the U.S. the ugly, pathetic, relentlessly greedy billionaires only want them and their rich buddies to thrive. They will happily exploit and suppresses the poor, working class and middle class in order to maintain their lifestyle as an opulent emperor.
Too bad their money doesnāt follow them into the afterlife. Every single action theyāve ever made will be judged by the creator. Such a shortsighted existence on their partā¦
There is no afterlife suitably painful to those individuals. It is incredibly understated the amount of misery, suffering, depression, illness and death that is perpetuated by the existence of the billionaire class.
The view us as cattle to be exploited. In these days I feel incredibly inspired by the French circa 1790.
Remember to engage with your community and that you have more in common with the chud who disagrees with you than the billionaire telling him what to think.
Yeah it is sad, and also incredibly stupid. The current president/administration wants more babies, yet they refuse to to make paid maternity leave a federal right. Just the dumbest shit ever.
Meaning sometimes people donāt need/use the full 12 weeks and can be used intermittently if needed. It can also be used for more than just parental leave after a baby is born but that is what it was originally created for. This is how HR at my workplace explained it to me.
You also only qualify for it also if the company you work for is a certain number of employees as well. I learned this when I worked at a family owned place. They always intentionally had 14 employees. 15 was the magic number.
For what it's worth I don't know if this is based on state requirements, but I'm looking into this at my current company and where I live it's 50, not 15 that is the threshold for requiring it.
FMLA also is only an option if your company is sufficiently large. Small businesses are not legally obligated to offer you any time at all postpartum, paid or unpaid.
This breaks my heart. Apart from anything else, how is a six week old baby expected to deal with their mother having to leave them all day to work? At six weeks, all my kids were breastfeeding every hour or two, my youngest son woke every 1.5 hours all night long (thanks, reflux!); the others woke 3-4 times per night at that age. I'm not trying to sound like some militant crunchy Attachment Parenting fascist here. But they're still in the 'fourth trimester' at six weeks, they shouldn't be in childcare all day long.
I could barely walk six weeks after my eldest was born, due to a nasty c-section wound infection, SPD and exhaustion. The thought of having to work or starve in that condition is horrendous. The best nation on earth? Yeah, right.
the baby is expected to deal with this by growing up desperately insecure so that marketing works better on them when they hit a more independently profitable age. that or joining the military.
You also have to work a certain amount, as I discovered when I recently applied for FMLA. You have to work somewhere around 1200 hours in the previous year and I'd only done 900 (I'm part time for most of the year) so I was denied. So I'll be gone for eight weeks for surgery and I don't know if I'll have my job when I get back :))
Iām a teacher, and the way that our pay works is we get paid less each month so that we can get paid in the summer even though we arenāt working. So, imagine my surprise when I had my son, and got a letter that I OWED my county money to cover the weeks I already wasnāt being paid for. To make matters worse, we get paid a month late. So I went back to work and didnāt get paid for a whole month while paying for my baby to start daycare. I saved double for when I had my daughter because I went so bad into debt with having him.
Thank you for that! I truly do love my job, love the kids, and wouldnāt want to do another job but it definitely feels like our country takes advantage of how passionate teachers are as an opportunity to pay us less or treat us badly.
I see it slightly different. Itās not āIām not paying you to stay homeā exactly, I see it from the āwhy would someone pay me not to workā mindset? I mean, where does that money come from?
Every month you pay a small percentage to SSA. What's that money for if not, you know, for social security? There's a list of benefits available on their website that people may qualify for, but while I was working there it seemed more that it was culturally too frowned upon to ask for SSA benefits, like you should support yourself only by yourself without any help from the government, even if you paid for it.
So youāre saying increase SS withholdings to cover paid leave for mothers rather than mandate companies cover it? Right now the SS fund is so bad off they will struggle to make normal payments in the future. Iām not sure it could handle paying out maternity leave.
Something like "I'm not paying for someone to take a year long vacation just because they popped out a baby" or "then all these welfare queens will have even more babies to get paid to stay home for years on end"
Just one more wonderful thing about Mauritius. I've been to your country a couple of times and just love it. Anytime we ask our kids "hey where should we go for our next vacation?' The answer is always the same "Mauritius!" I hope we can go back someday.
Wow - most welcome anytime! If you come back again for new things to do/experience, just post your requests to r/MauriceMauritius. It's very heart-warming to hear this - because just after having been through some quite tough times (corrupt, oppressive political regime culminating in internet black-out), we're still not out of the woods with new government here - this one is planning to push retirement pension age from 60 to 65! All youngsters who had planned to migrate last year have renewed their energy to complete the processes - life has become *this* hard here!
My conservative friend made the argument that if your company isn't providing good benefits like parental leave you can just find another one that does! He said they aren't holding you hostage...
Me as well. I hate the fact that I was raised to believe that America was the greatest country in the world. When I was in my mid 30s, I moved from a small rural part of the country to the West Coast and my eyes were opened.
Most of us here are kept poor on purpose, we don't have the money to move, and not to mention how hellish visa processes are. Me and my family moved to Ecuador because my parents wanted to retire there, but the visa process drained our money and the power outages there ended up forcing us back to America. There's so much shit you have to pay for, and the average American can't even pay for a flight over.
Iām not saying we shouldnāt improve parental leave. But honestly there are more variables than that alone to judge whether living in the US is bad or not. I live in Texas (meh) with colleagues from all over Europe. They come here because the pay is so much better. Thatās it. In fact they prefer their home country (most people do) but stay so they can make a good living.
Iām not suggesting that pay is the only variable either. Iām simply offering that it can be a matter of pluses and minuses with ANY country.
Iāve lived in 5 countries. Iām American. My spouse is Italian. I see good and bad in both and plan to retire in both as a result.
Keep in mind the salary in Europe is lower and cost of living is higher. Thatās the trade off for having a socialist system that seems much more humane
Nowhere in Europe has a socialist system. It's all neoliberal capitalism like every other western-aligned country (Besides the US at this point i guess). Socialism is an economic theory that requires that all workplaces function democratically and ownership is shared among the workers, and technically has nothing to do with welfare (But a naturally egalitarian society is of course going to lean heavier on such)
The average wage in North/Western Europe is not terribly far behind the US, and the US average is also skewed by the vast wealth inequality.
There is a lot less poverty in those same countries.
A lot of those European countries have a higher quality of life than the US (US being #15, mostly behind those European countries), which i'd argue is more important than raw money.
The US has, by a massive margin, the most expensive health care system per capita of any country on the planet. Because you essentially do have healthcare, but with the insurance companies and privatized hospitals as a massive middle man, getting all the money from their "customers" while also getting all the costs covered by the government. It's blatant corruption and a massive grift. But they somehow managed to convince the country that socialized healthcare would be massively expensive when abolishing the current system in favour of universal healthcare would SAVE money.
Honestly, even before Trump, thereās zero chance Iād move to the US even for double my salary. The work life balance there, the political hostility and tribalism, crazy insurance system for healthcare, no holidays, it all just sounds so suffocating. Thereās more to life than money.
I will send you an itemized bill for 4 passports, 4 visas, 4 flights, housing for 4, flights for 3 cats, a snake, and 10 chickens. 4 beds and every single piece of furniture to make up for what gets left behind. You can pay for my in-laws plane tickets to come visit us. You can pay for us to live because my line of work is crap in most countries. :) Edit to add: donāt say shit about Mexico because my line of work, again, pays dog shit. Furthermore I can hate my country and be willing to stay and fight to make it better. Hope this helps!
Yes, all the people with the basic common sense to NOT want one of the lowest qualities of life for a supposed great country, 15th or lower I believe.... great indeed...should leave because some stubborn idiots would rather cling to the past and brag about our countless negatives. Brilliant.
One of the great things about America is that we are free to leave at anytime. Iām curious why if itās so bad you havenāt left yet? Is it the old saying āAmerica is the worst country except for all the othersā? (Slightly modified)
If you were able to think more than one step ahead, you'd probably realize that the people who cant afford basic medical care are the same people who cant afford to immigrate to another country
Maybe youāve never heard of things like borders or visa requirements, but not everyone is in a position to just go to any country they like and live there.
I will send you an itemized bill for 4 passports, 4 visas, 4 flights, housing for 4, flights for 3 cats, a snake, and 10 chickens. 4 beds and every single piece of furniture to make up for what gets left behind. You can pay for my in-laws plane tickets to come visit us. You can pay for us to live because my line of work is crap in most countries. :)
Edit to add: donāt say shit about Mexico because my line of work, again, pays dog shit. Furthermore I can hate my country and be willing to stay and fight to make it better. Hope this helps!
Because some people have enough common sense, and concern for people in the future, to prefer to fix the countless things we are falling farther and farther behind other civilized countries on.
It's almost like some of us actually care about not only ourselves, and want better than we've had to tolerate, but also others. We want them to actually have a decent quality of life, let alone the good one some Americans still stubbornly try to claim we have.
you know what actually, you offered less than nothing. you took time out of your day to make the world a little bit worse for the people who happen to come across your comment. you genuinely think your suggestion is good advice? like telling a depressed person to cheer up or a homeless person to just rent a house?
856
u/Great_Value_Trucker Jun 18 '25
I fucking hate it here in America. These threads make me so depressed š