Pages

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Well That Was Interesting...

So more people read the post about maternity leave in one day than has read any other post over the entire existence of the blog. (A whole two and half months, ya know.) I got to have a lot of interesting discussions on FB and had wild assumptions made about me. I certainly don't intend to poke the hornets' nest frequently but that was kind of fun.

4 comments:

bearing said...

I'm glad you maintained good spirits. Sheesh! I completely get the fiscally and socially conservative idea that "the more you subsidize, the more you get," and so -- if you want to actually discourage people from being working mothers of newborns -- it does, sort of, make sense to keep maternity leave minimal. Problem is

(a) there will be some, whether we discourage more at the margins or not, and I don't see why they have to be made miserable for the sake of the marginal cases, and

(b) you're at least as likely to discourage the "mother" part as the "working" part.

Jenny said...

From my view at work, you are much more likely to discourage the "mother" part rather than the "working" part.

What I find amusing is that when you mention maternity leave at work, the assumption is that women are going to game the system and go run out and have half a dozen babies in order to amass as much leave as possible. When you mention maternity leave in other crowds, the assumption is that women are going to game the system and go run out and get jobs they never would have considered otherwise. But both sides are sure women are going to game the system. Mothers are viewed with deep suspicion in our society which is why the mommy wars run so hot. Mothers feel the wary eyes cast in their direction and then fire on each other.

Dorian Speed said...

I really enjoy your blog, and this comment, and all writing done by you. Please continue, as long as you're not too busy gaming the system.

Jenny said...

Thanks for the encouragement! I definitely spend a lot of time gaming the system, but I try to squeeze other activities into my schedule as well.