From this side of the pond your story is truly shocking. U.K. stat maternity pay is now as follows: “SMP for eligible employees can be paid for up to 39 weeks, usually as follows: the first 6 weeks: 90% of their average weekly earnings ( AWE ) before tax. the remaining 33 weeks: £184.03 or 90% of their AWE (whichever is lower)”. Neither of our main parties would dream of attacking it. There are also generous (though unpaid) parental leave entitlements.
I simply don’t understand how the Reps can describe themselves as “pro-life” when their policies are so anti family.
The UK is also the first country to support hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women through their health care system. Cuddos to the UK for progressive support through a woman’s life cycle.
'Like' isn't really an appropriate response to your post Jess but the story is well told. It would be even better if I thought that any of our politicians would pay attention.
To help do that, everyone who can afford it, even $10/mo, please donate to Emily’s List. They find pro choice, Progressive Democrat WOMEN to run for office & help them to win. If you go to their website you can see some of the candidates that they’ve helped & there will be names you’ve heard of; like Gretchen Whitmer, Gov of MI
You are a force. Thank you. I am learning a lot from reading you: from suburban Massachusetts. I worked with pregnant and parenting women in recovery from addiction- and did they get treated poorly in hospitals- in recovery! It is morally wrong that we have so few services during pregnancy and postpartum for women and families. And that so many poor women and women of color of all class backgrounds die during pregnancy and postpartum. Thank you for your courage and your voice.
I am so sorry, Jess, that you went through such a rough situation. I am in awe of your resilience. You were working for $4.75/hour to add to Sam Walton's bottom line. Investing in paid family leave, universal childcare, and universal pre-K could have an enormous return on investment to the economy. The Republicans of this country DO NOT CARE about women, children, or families because none of their policies reflect any support for families at any income level. My daughter in Florida worked for a large company that didn't have paid maternity leave until after her baby was born. She was in middle management, but no family leave. But the Republicans are the party that refuses to take combat weapons off the streets when 6 year olds are slaughtered at school. Pro-life, my ass. Pro death is more like it. Law of the jungle-everyone for themselves.
@AnthonyWilkins Maybe Democrats don't have a great record because they've too often had to work with Republicans to secure/preserve any kind of access to post-natal/family planning benefits. I know that's part of the reason--or at least it was until relatively recently, when it became nearly impossible to work with Republicans at all because most became extremist MAGA Christofascists. It's a gross oversimplification and a tired misrepresentation of the truth to say 'both sides are to blame' when one side bears much more responsibility than the other, and that's clear from most of what Jess writes. If nothing else the Republicans are hypocrites. They claim to be 'pro-life' while denying benefits to the folks they mandate give birth/be born (by taking away reproductive rights). I don't see Democrats doing that.
Don't be poor. Don't be homeless. Don't be sick. Don't be old. And, above all, don't be non-white or female. Those are the rules for living in this country. If you are any of those things, know your place.
What I just can’t understand is all the underpaid and family men and women voting for these policies, or not voting at all and condemning any effort by Democrats to pass policies that would help them.
Frustrating, isn't it? So important to teach critical thinking, beginning as early as possible. That this is not happening is not accidental. Keeping the population dumbed down is a long-practiced goal of people like the Koch brothers. They know how to do it perfectly: start with the school board elections....
America has rather a lot of temporarily embarrassed millionaires. They vote based on what they wish was in their bank account rather than what is actually there.
For Heaven's sake, Dont be a Democrat! Don't dare question the sanity of Trump and the Republicans.
You will surely be "put in your place" if you do. I know. I've been put there by Trump lovers surrounding me, many of whom were great neighbors and friends, and who now shy away from me because, as one said, "I'm misguided."
I never would have thought that someone like Donald Trump could have such a decisive effect on friendships.
I found out who my real friends are, so I credit him with that.
It’s called backlash, & it started building up in the conservative white mind in 2008 with the election of the first black man as President. There’s always a backlash whenever there’s progress in the black community.
The subprime mortgage crisis & collapse of housing prices, ushering in the Great Recession added to the anger & insecurity. Then we got the results of the 2010 census, confirming that that demographic is becoming the minority even sooner than expected & you get a whole bunch of aggrieved, angry, fearful white people.
Bingo! Accepting ones status as being expendable, unworthy is the curse of it all. The festering anger does not have a happy ending when so many are misinformed, uninformed while blindly accepting the ever increasing pressure of oppression from Mobligarchs and their lackeys.
Also don’t be Transgender. They don’t like that, it goes against their religious ‘beliefs’ and disrespects their god. Ah yes they like to disagree with a persons existence and right to identity. If you happen to be transgender they want you eradicated. Makes me feel so welcome that people like them want me “desisted”, closeted, or dead.
That's why I impress on my grandchildren the necessity of good money management, i.e., start investing for retirement in your 20s and keep it up, letting the magic of compounding do the rest. Happily, they are heeding that advice.
Let me be add to the comments expressing deep gratitude for this post. I knew the statistics, but it all becomes so much more real with your story. It made me feel nauseous and outraged. Yours is an important voice to hear, not only about parental support legislation, but about the GOP's war on women that is still very much with us.
From the Canadian Province of Ontario, your column is disturbing. I had my first child in 1969 and received paid maternity leave for several months. We also have basic health care coverage (OHIP - Ontario Health Insurance Plan) and get free medical care. I am 78 years old now and have in the past 12 years been diagnosed and recovered from Cancer (with appropriate care including 6 months of chemo), a heart attack, hospitalization for 1 week (insertion of stent) and 2 years ago diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Cancer. I continue to receive top notch health care. At zero cost to me. Yes, I occasionally have to wait a few weeks to see a Dr but I believe Canadians are blessed with universal health care, (each Province has its own plan.) We really do live in one of the best countries in the world (actually #3). I guess it's a dream but I can only wish that someone somehow could come up with a plan for universal health care for USA. Sounds so simple. You can put a man on the moon. You can send billions to countries for aid, but USA cannot provide basic health care for its own citizens.
First, wishing you good health, good care, and good support through your health journey.
Thank you for sharing your example with those of us in the US - the care you have received and the extent of care you have been able to receive throughout your life is extraordinary to us here. The costs of any one of the treatments you received here could literally endanger a person’s housing, utilities and or food. We had to fight to get rid of cancellation and denial of insurance due to “pre-existing conditions” - that only came about in 2010.
I remember growing in the 70s and 80s, and through college and young adulthood, my mother would counsel me to not report any health issue so I wouldn’t lose coverage and to always have absolutely continuous coverage no matter the cost so I wouldn’t risk being denied coverage. It became a process of avoid getting care, so you can be covered if you have such a serious issue that the hospital costs could bankrupt you without insurance. Basically, we used health insurance as a de facto emergency only policy, because disclosing any even minor issue could then get that issue denied if you changed plans or insurers - the new company could look at your previous doctor visits and say - you went to the doctor for allergies, you have a pre-existing condition - and deny you coverage for something later. That is not speculation - I have had these arguments about minor medical visits when it came to subsequent care that needed more diagnostics.
That's a great story. We are an international family: I was a Foreign Service Officer; my son was working overseas for the International Finance Corporation, an offshoot of the World Bank. When it came time for him to return, he asked me where I thought he should settle. I suggested Canada, and that's where he moved. His wife has Parkinson's, and she is getting good care. Americans misunderstand how the Canadian system works. It isn't perfect, and to pay for it, taxes are high, but it is head and shoulders better than our DIY system of health care.
While the other wealthy nations have had paid maternity and paternity leave, some of whom close to 12 months, the world’s and history’s wealthiest nation, somehow, cannot afford it?
Very valid observation!! There has been such huge amounts of money wasted on overweaponization of every single police & sheriff’s department all over the US after the 9/11 attack & the creation of the Dept of Homeland Security.
It is just ludicrous that the police depts in every podunk small to medium town needs the equipment to respond to a terrorist threat, especially when they are nowhere near a significant target such as a military base or a weapons manufacturing facility.
That money could be spent on improving the lives of so many citizens.
One reason, among several, is that this country spends so much on the military. Another reason is the Republican obsession with giving huge tax cuts, & loopholes in the tax code, to the wealthiest among us, even though those policies are so obviously bad for the common good.
These narratives of the harsh reality so many experience in America are really important. This is what "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" looks like in real life.
Your story hit me hard; thank you for sharing it since the personal impacts of policy are essential for people to understand. My daughter was born around the same time, 1994. I had two week’s vacation time that I used and then had to return to work since we only had my income to support us (my husband was in law school). I was recovering from a C-section and struggling with mastitis. However, I worked for a small business run by a woman who gave me some leeway in the hours I worked, which was some help. I thought this was just the way things are, until we moved to Australia two years later and I realized that the US is an outlier in its failure to support women and families. It’s shameful. Women are finally seeing the power we have when we work together and vote for policies that matter to us and our kids. We must use that power.
Thank you for story Dionne and a belated welcome to Australia. I would like to point out, that although we have, in my opinion, and generally speaking, a far superior workers’ pay and conditions than your former residential country, we still have a long way to go with supporting and encouraging women to fight for increase supports throughout our society. Also remember, it was the power of union action that bought about improved pay and conditions.
Sadly, like abortion, this has also been *left up to the states*. Here in Connecticut, we have paid family leave. 12 weeks maximum + an extra 2 weeks for pregnancy complication if they happen to arise. Payment is - minimum - 95% of CT minimum wage ($15.69/hr) x 40 per week to a maximum of 60x CT minimum wage. Companies can either choose to participate in the state plan or get their own and everyone contributes to a fund set aside to pay for this to the tune of .5% of wages. The scheme includes everyone, even the self employed.
Hopefully someday the South will get it together and start doing for those who live there instead of the special interests. The dichotomy between red and blue America grows ever more stark by the day.
BusyBsyBee,my that is a great start, but at 12 weeks babies are still not sleeping through the night. Try and wake up every 3-4:hours and spend an hour feeding, changing, burping, soothing, and then see if you are ready to go to work, find time and a place to pump breast milk. and see what this does to you. A minimum of 6 months and better for everyone, 12 months needs to be given if we want a healthy citizenry.
Agree completely that this is just a beginning, but it’s still something guaranteed as opposed to *well, everybody is technically allowed 12 weeks*. I think it will be a very, very, very long time before this is expanded beyond 12 weeks here in America. Maybe when the AI takes over we will all have enough time to properly care for ourselves and our children.
I breastfed for 2 years back in the mid-1990s and was fortunate to work for an employer that gave a shit about women and had a lounge where we could pump and a fridge in which to store our milk. There are laws, but they don’t go much beyond not discriminating against nursing mothers and where they chose to do said nursing (or pumping).
I’m wondering if more women are elected to office would this change? For too long, men (older congressmen) have not considered this their “problem” and have no incentive to change this.
Thanks again for an excellent essay. You raise important issues for our country.
Brenda, if the women elected to office in SC are any measure, the answer is not necessarily. The Christian nationalist women are often even more rabid than the men.
There's the rub. Those women are striving for power and status in a religified entity still run by white men. Women outside that realm have made great progress towards chopping down that big tree with the little white boys tree house club in it.
For decades, as a male human, I shake my head with utter frustration whenever I see world leaders gather for a chit-chat after which, the must-have photo line-up. These men seem oblivious that they do not represent or even respect those humans who constitute more than half of the world’s population and, what is more, they are the birthers and carers of the human species. Every time, I witness this predominantly male spectacle, my internal voice is screaming, WHERE ARE THE WOMEN!! No wonder our species prefer wars to ‘solve’ conflicts! I often think of this stunning revelation, if every adult female on earth simultaneously stopped what they are doing and decided they would all take a break for just 24 hours, what do you think would happen to all nations’ economies?
Absolutely agree with you 100%! That said, women still earn less than men in the same jobs, have disproportionately low numbers as CEO and congresswomen. Happy for your view
Point and wish more men had your mindset…..thankfully, my husband does.
Yes, true and the reason why women are not respected as they should be, is in my post. It is simply crazy! It there were superior aliens from other worlds who happen to drop in on us, I wonder what their impressions of us would be? 🤪
Maybe that’s why astrophysicists who study extraterrestrial science, claim ‘we are alone’! Perhaps they have done some preparatory study on us and decided to leave us to our own fate!
That is why JUNE 24, 2023 has been designated as a 24 hr period to do exactly what you suggested in the USA to show lawmakers the power of women prior to Election Day. Women are to do absolutely nothing that day; no going to outside jobs, no cooking, cleaning, chauffeuring the kids, etc.
I saw this on Twitter, I’m not certain how organized it actually is, but check it out.
Also I’ve seen some mentions of it being time to do another Women’s March on Washington to protest these abortion bans & other anti-woman, anti family policies.
I find myself thinking about those hideous comments you started with… I think those people are aware on some level that they’re being grossly unfair. What “plans” is a working class 19 yo supposed to have developed to prepare her for the financial and physical strains of pregnancy and childbirth? Especially when she’s making minimum wage and her husband is working a “respectable” job that also pays poverty wages. It’s completely unreasonable and they know it. But they’re too invested in their “pro life” identities to accept that that worldview has giant holes where “reality” pokes through and they’re exposed as not just wrong but monstrously so. When your sense of self is so fragile that any new or inconvenient information is a threat to the whole apparatus, it’s far easier to shoot the messenger. Sorry for your suffering. Grateful you’re turning it into something meaningful by testifying on behalf of red state women.
Same with me - only I was married just before I turned 18 and a month before I graduated from high school. I also worked and went to school part-time after that birth. My then-husband (thanks, now I know how to refer to him) worked full time until the railroad laid him off with benefits greater than the minimum wage. I know about no paid maternity leave. In fact, I was fired from a job in the infant's dept at Sears for being pregnant - so even before giving birth. There were no protections in 1973.
I also did have an abortion (not of the baby mentioned above but after that one, after a divorce), when Roe v Wade still protected that. That man made it clear he had no interest in being a father and that I was on my own. I rarely told anyone about it because you know - the stigma.
Yes, there are those today who want "women barefoot and pregnant."
Between the men who don't want to be a father and those that want to control their wives/girlfirends by getting them pregnant and keeping them dependent...
Thank you for telling your story. I too was 18, and had my first child at 21 because we were trained to be Stepford wives. I won’t go into my story regarding the lack of education and support women had and still have in this country especially around pregnancy, postpartum needs, and family needs, This country needs paid maternity/paternity leave not just for the mothers that need to heal, but for the child’s needs for bonding and brain development, and the fathers needs to grow into fatherhood, and for everyone’s needs to be home at least until the baby can sleep through the night, and so that we can raise healthy citizens. Other countries realize these basic needs, but not America, one of the richest countries in the world? “Pro-life” is just a slogan used to sound good but means they want to control women. If they were pro life then they would support good maternity care,,postpartum care, insist on healthy available food, paid leave, affordable childcare. Did you know that during WWII, because they needed women in the workforce that there was government paid childcare that included healthy meals and available nurses? When the men came back, women who enjoyed working and wanted to remain working were told that they had to go back home because they were taking away a job from a deserving man. This has been a JaneCrow country for my entire life and I am tired of the scapegoating, gaslighting, double standard. Women are more under attack now than they have been in a long time. Many of the gains made since the 70’s are being eroded. I hope the
democrats win and this time people come together to get the ERA is added to the Constitution, to make sure women have maternity care that is better than the third world country outcomes they now have,, to ensure equal pay, equal opportunity, equal research into medical drugs and procedures, paid maternity/paternity leave, paid childcare, required equal representation on boards, in government, as heads of companies, and finally seen as deserving equal respect, and acknowledgment that they are equally as intelligent and responsible. Jess, I hope your experiences help you to keep fighting for these things.
From this side of the pond your story is truly shocking. U.K. stat maternity pay is now as follows: “SMP for eligible employees can be paid for up to 39 weeks, usually as follows: the first 6 weeks: 90% of their average weekly earnings ( AWE ) before tax. the remaining 33 weeks: £184.03 or 90% of their AWE (whichever is lower)”. Neither of our main parties would dream of attacking it. There are also generous (though unpaid) parental leave entitlements.
I simply don’t understand how the Reps can describe themselves as “pro-life” when their policies are so anti family.
My guess is that the Republicans are more pro-wealth than pro-life. After all money = success = power, doesn’t it?
Your guess is spot on, and a harsh reality as to the corruption that plagues us.
The UK is also the first country to support hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women through their health care system. Cuddos to the UK for progressive support through a woman’s life cycle.
Sadly there are still some big gaps in provisión but recently some menopausal celebrities taking up the issue has helped enormously.
Maybe what we need here in the US is a repatriation movement to the UK, just for the humane human health policies.
Sometimes you have to wonder if we shouldn't have won the revolutionary war. Maybe we would be better off.
But there are a lot of downsides to the UK.
I’ve heard there nhs is horrible there, under staffed I believe and waiting lists are years long in some cases. People die waiting.
'Like' isn't really an appropriate response to your post Jess but the story is well told. It would be even better if I thought that any of our politicians would pay attention.
Another reason to elect SMART female representatives and senators.
To help do that, everyone who can afford it, even $10/mo, please donate to Emily’s List. They find pro choice, Progressive Democrat WOMEN to run for office & help them to win. If you go to their website you can see some of the candidates that they’ve helped & there will be names you’ve heard of; like Gretchen Whitmer, Gov of MI
But it seems that female GOP’ers are just as cruel, if not more so.
NOT female GOPs, only smart Orogressive Democrat women…who are pro choice.
You are a force. Thank you. I am learning a lot from reading you: from suburban Massachusetts. I worked with pregnant and parenting women in recovery from addiction- and did they get treated poorly in hospitals- in recovery! It is morally wrong that we have so few services during pregnancy and postpartum for women and families. And that so many poor women and women of color of all class backgrounds die during pregnancy and postpartum. Thank you for your courage and your voice.
I am so sorry, Jess, that you went through such a rough situation. I am in awe of your resilience. You were working for $4.75/hour to add to Sam Walton's bottom line. Investing in paid family leave, universal childcare, and universal pre-K could have an enormous return on investment to the economy. The Republicans of this country DO NOT CARE about women, children, or families because none of their policies reflect any support for families at any income level. My daughter in Florida worked for a large company that didn't have paid maternity leave until after her baby was born. She was in middle management, but no family leave. But the Republicans are the party that refuses to take combat weapons off the streets when 6 year olds are slaughtered at school. Pro-life, my ass. Pro death is more like it. Law of the jungle-everyone for themselves.
@AnthonyWilkins Maybe Democrats don't have a great record because they've too often had to work with Republicans to secure/preserve any kind of access to post-natal/family planning benefits. I know that's part of the reason--or at least it was until relatively recently, when it became nearly impossible to work with Republicans at all because most became extremist MAGA Christofascists. It's a gross oversimplification and a tired misrepresentation of the truth to say 'both sides are to blame' when one side bears much more responsibility than the other, and that's clear from most of what Jess writes. If nothing else the Republicans are hypocrites. They claim to be 'pro-life' while denying benefits to the folks they mandate give birth/be born (by taking away reproductive rights). I don't see Democrats doing that.
The term should be pro birth. As Sister Jean pointed out, when you are against healthcare, education, housing and food security you are not pro life.
How about pro FORCED birth? That is the term used by Jennifer Rubin, a Washington Post opinion columnist.
Yes, most of the time I will refer to them as forced birthers, or anti-abortion, because they damned sure are not pro life.
I agree with you! The MAGA/Trump doctrine undermines the welfare of everyone, especially women!
They want women home, not working. And if you’re poor that’s a failing of yours.
Taking us back over 100 years in reality! Shameful!
Don't be poor. Don't be homeless. Don't be sick. Don't be old. And, above all, don't be non-white or female. Those are the rules for living in this country. If you are any of those things, know your place.
What I just can’t understand is all the underpaid and family men and women voting for these policies, or not voting at all and condemning any effort by Democrats to pass policies that would help them.
Frustrating, isn't it? So important to teach critical thinking, beginning as early as possible. That this is not happening is not accidental. Keeping the population dumbed down is a long-practiced goal of people like the Koch brothers. They know how to do it perfectly: start with the school board elections....
That's why the Republicans only focus on culture war issues. It distracts from the grim realities faced by the majority of our citizens.
America has rather a lot of temporarily embarrassed millionaires. They vote based on what they wish was in their bank account rather than what is actually there.
For Heaven's sake, Dont be a Democrat! Don't dare question the sanity of Trump and the Republicans.
You will surely be "put in your place" if you do. I know. I've been put there by Trump lovers surrounding me, many of whom were great neighbors and friends, and who now shy away from me because, as one said, "I'm misguided."
I never would have thought that someone like Donald Trump could have such a decisive effect on friendships.
I found out who my real friends are, so I credit him with that.
It's what we get for allowing a criminal psychopath to take over what was once a major political party.
It’s called backlash, & it started building up in the conservative white mind in 2008 with the election of the first black man as President. There’s always a backlash whenever there’s progress in the black community.
The subprime mortgage crisis & collapse of housing prices, ushering in the Great Recession added to the anger & insecurity. Then we got the results of the 2010 census, confirming that that demographic is becoming the minority even sooner than expected & you get a whole bunch of aggrieved, angry, fearful white people.
I like the red hats. They let me know who they are so I know not to waste energy engaging.
Bingo! Accepting ones status as being expendable, unworthy is the curse of it all. The festering anger does not have a happy ending when so many are misinformed, uninformed while blindly accepting the ever increasing pressure of oppression from Mobligarchs and their lackeys.
True
Also don’t be Transgender. They don’t like that, it goes against their religious ‘beliefs’ and disrespects their god. Ah yes they like to disagree with a persons existence and right to identity. If you happen to be transgender they want you eradicated. Makes me feel so welcome that people like them want me “desisted”, closeted, or dead.
That's why I impress on my grandchildren the necessity of good money management, i.e., start investing for retirement in your 20s and keep it up, letting the magic of compounding do the rest. Happily, they are heeding that advice.
Let me be add to the comments expressing deep gratitude for this post. I knew the statistics, but it all becomes so much more real with your story. It made me feel nauseous and outraged. Yours is an important voice to hear, not only about parental support legislation, but about the GOP's war on women that is still very much with us.
From the Canadian Province of Ontario, your column is disturbing. I had my first child in 1969 and received paid maternity leave for several months. We also have basic health care coverage (OHIP - Ontario Health Insurance Plan) and get free medical care. I am 78 years old now and have in the past 12 years been diagnosed and recovered from Cancer (with appropriate care including 6 months of chemo), a heart attack, hospitalization for 1 week (insertion of stent) and 2 years ago diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Cancer. I continue to receive top notch health care. At zero cost to me. Yes, I occasionally have to wait a few weeks to see a Dr but I believe Canadians are blessed with universal health care, (each Province has its own plan.) We really do live in one of the best countries in the world (actually #3). I guess it's a dream but I can only wish that someone somehow could come up with a plan for universal health care for USA. Sounds so simple. You can put a man on the moon. You can send billions to countries for aid, but USA cannot provide basic health care for its own citizens.
Solidarity, and I am thinking of you through your treatments, Bonnie.
First, wishing you good health, good care, and good support through your health journey.
Thank you for sharing your example with those of us in the US - the care you have received and the extent of care you have been able to receive throughout your life is extraordinary to us here. The costs of any one of the treatments you received here could literally endanger a person’s housing, utilities and or food. We had to fight to get rid of cancellation and denial of insurance due to “pre-existing conditions” - that only came about in 2010.
I remember growing in the 70s and 80s, and through college and young adulthood, my mother would counsel me to not report any health issue so I wouldn’t lose coverage and to always have absolutely continuous coverage no matter the cost so I wouldn’t risk being denied coverage. It became a process of avoid getting care, so you can be covered if you have such a serious issue that the hospital costs could bankrupt you without insurance. Basically, we used health insurance as a de facto emergency only policy, because disclosing any even minor issue could then get that issue denied if you changed plans or insurers - the new company could look at your previous doctor visits and say - you went to the doctor for allergies, you have a pre-existing condition - and deny you coverage for something later. That is not speculation - I have had these arguments about minor medical visits when it came to subsequent care that needed more diagnostics.
That's a great story. We are an international family: I was a Foreign Service Officer; my son was working overseas for the International Finance Corporation, an offshoot of the World Bank. When it came time for him to return, he asked me where I thought he should settle. I suggested Canada, and that's where he moved. His wife has Parkinson's, and she is getting good care. Americans misunderstand how the Canadian system works. It isn't perfect, and to pay for it, taxes are high, but it is head and shoulders better than our DIY system of health care.
While the other wealthy nations have had paid maternity and paternity leave, some of whom close to 12 months, the world’s and history’s wealthiest nation, somehow, cannot afford it?
Just examine the things we “can afford!” It’s disgraceful!
But thank god the inept folks we employ as police officers will have the latest in combat gear to swagger around in while bullying and killing POC.
Very valid observation!! There has been such huge amounts of money wasted on overweaponization of every single police & sheriff’s department all over the US after the 9/11 attack & the creation of the Dept of Homeland Security.
It is just ludicrous that the police depts in every podunk small to medium town needs the equipment to respond to a terrorist threat, especially when they are nowhere near a significant target such as a military base or a weapons manufacturing facility.
That money could be spent on improving the lives of so many citizens.
Now is a good time to talk about injustices, wealth disparity and the political trajectory we are on.
One reason, among several, is that this country spends so much on the military. Another reason is the Republican obsession with giving huge tax cuts, & loopholes in the tax code, to the wealthiest among us, even though those policies are so obviously bad for the common good.
These narratives of the harsh reality so many experience in America are really important. This is what "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" looks like in real life.
Your story hit me hard; thank you for sharing it since the personal impacts of policy are essential for people to understand. My daughter was born around the same time, 1994. I had two week’s vacation time that I used and then had to return to work since we only had my income to support us (my husband was in law school). I was recovering from a C-section and struggling with mastitis. However, I worked for a small business run by a woman who gave me some leeway in the hours I worked, which was some help. I thought this was just the way things are, until we moved to Australia two years later and I realized that the US is an outlier in its failure to support women and families. It’s shameful. Women are finally seeing the power we have when we work together and vote for policies that matter to us and our kids. We must use that power.
Thank you for story Dionne and a belated welcome to Australia. I would like to point out, that although we have, in my opinion, and generally speaking, a far superior workers’ pay and conditions than your former residential country, we still have a long way to go with supporting and encouraging women to fight for increase supports throughout our society. Also remember, it was the power of union action that bought about improved pay and conditions.
Sadly, like abortion, this has also been *left up to the states*. Here in Connecticut, we have paid family leave. 12 weeks maximum + an extra 2 weeks for pregnancy complication if they happen to arise. Payment is - minimum - 95% of CT minimum wage ($15.69/hr) x 40 per week to a maximum of 60x CT minimum wage. Companies can either choose to participate in the state plan or get their own and everyone contributes to a fund set aside to pay for this to the tune of .5% of wages. The scheme includes everyone, even the self employed.
Hopefully someday the South will get it together and start doing for those who live there instead of the special interests. The dichotomy between red and blue America grows ever more stark by the day.
BusyBsyBee,my that is a great start, but at 12 weeks babies are still not sleeping through the night. Try and wake up every 3-4:hours and spend an hour feeding, changing, burping, soothing, and then see if you are ready to go to work, find time and a place to pump breast milk. and see what this does to you. A minimum of 6 months and better for everyone, 12 months needs to be given if we want a healthy citizenry.
Agree completely that this is just a beginning, but it’s still something guaranteed as opposed to *well, everybody is technically allowed 12 weeks*. I think it will be a very, very, very long time before this is expanded beyond 12 weeks here in America. Maybe when the AI takes over we will all have enough time to properly care for ourselves and our children.
I breastfed for 2 years back in the mid-1990s and was fortunate to work for an employer that gave a shit about women and had a lounge where we could pump and a fridge in which to store our milk. There are laws, but they don’t go much beyond not discriminating against nursing mothers and where they chose to do said nursing (or pumping).
I’m wondering if more women are elected to office would this change? For too long, men (older congressmen) have not considered this their “problem” and have no incentive to change this.
Thanks again for an excellent essay. You raise important issues for our country.
Brenda, if the women elected to office in SC are any measure, the answer is not necessarily. The Christian nationalist women are often even more rabid than the men.
Unfortunately, I must agree with you…….
Sigh…
They have been brain washed from birth, sadly.
There's the rub. Those women are striving for power and status in a religified entity still run by white men. Women outside that realm have made great progress towards chopping down that big tree with the little white boys tree house club in it.
For decades, as a male human, I shake my head with utter frustration whenever I see world leaders gather for a chit-chat after which, the must-have photo line-up. These men seem oblivious that they do not represent or even respect those humans who constitute more than half of the world’s population and, what is more, they are the birthers and carers of the human species. Every time, I witness this predominantly male spectacle, my internal voice is screaming, WHERE ARE THE WOMEN!! No wonder our species prefer wars to ‘solve’ conflicts! I often think of this stunning revelation, if every adult female on earth simultaneously stopped what they are doing and decided they would all take a break for just 24 hours, what do you think would happen to all nations’ economies?
Absolutely agree with you 100%! That said, women still earn less than men in the same jobs, have disproportionately low numbers as CEO and congresswomen. Happy for your view
Point and wish more men had your mindset…..thankfully, my husband does.
Yes, true and the reason why women are not respected as they should be, is in my post. It is simply crazy! It there were superior aliens from other worlds who happen to drop in on us, I wonder what their impressions of us would be? 🤪
Not good…….they would leave as fast as they could.
Maybe that’s why astrophysicists who study extraterrestrial science, claim ‘we are alone’! Perhaps they have done some preparatory study on us and decided to leave us to our own fate!
Sounds likely
That is why JUNE 24, 2023 has been designated as a 24 hr period to do exactly what you suggested in the USA to show lawmakers the power of women prior to Election Day. Women are to do absolutely nothing that day; no going to outside jobs, no cooking, cleaning, chauffeuring the kids, etc.
I saw this on Twitter, I’m not certain how organized it actually is, but check it out.
Also I’ve seen some mentions of it being time to do another Women’s March on Washington to protest these abortion bans & other anti-woman, anti family policies.
Keep an eye out for any announcements on sm.
I find myself thinking about those hideous comments you started with… I think those people are aware on some level that they’re being grossly unfair. What “plans” is a working class 19 yo supposed to have developed to prepare her for the financial and physical strains of pregnancy and childbirth? Especially when she’s making minimum wage and her husband is working a “respectable” job that also pays poverty wages. It’s completely unreasonable and they know it. But they’re too invested in their “pro life” identities to accept that that worldview has giant holes where “reality” pokes through and they’re exposed as not just wrong but monstrously so. When your sense of self is so fragile that any new or inconvenient information is a threat to the whole apparatus, it’s far easier to shoot the messenger. Sorry for your suffering. Grateful you’re turning it into something meaningful by testifying on behalf of red state women.
Thank you for sharing your story so openly.
Same with me - only I was married just before I turned 18 and a month before I graduated from high school. I also worked and went to school part-time after that birth. My then-husband (thanks, now I know how to refer to him) worked full time until the railroad laid him off with benefits greater than the minimum wage. I know about no paid maternity leave. In fact, I was fired from a job in the infant's dept at Sears for being pregnant - so even before giving birth. There were no protections in 1973.
I also did have an abortion (not of the baby mentioned above but after that one, after a divorce), when Roe v Wade still protected that. That man made it clear he had no interest in being a father and that I was on my own. I rarely told anyone about it because you know - the stigma.
Yes, there are those today who want "women barefoot and pregnant."
So sad that so many had your experiences then and I am beyond angry it continues today. We have to care for each other and vote for a better future.
Between the men who don't want to be a father and those that want to control their wives/girlfirends by getting them pregnant and keeping them dependent...
Thank you for telling your story. I too was 18, and had my first child at 21 because we were trained to be Stepford wives. I won’t go into my story regarding the lack of education and support women had and still have in this country especially around pregnancy, postpartum needs, and family needs, This country needs paid maternity/paternity leave not just for the mothers that need to heal, but for the child’s needs for bonding and brain development, and the fathers needs to grow into fatherhood, and for everyone’s needs to be home at least until the baby can sleep through the night, and so that we can raise healthy citizens. Other countries realize these basic needs, but not America, one of the richest countries in the world? “Pro-life” is just a slogan used to sound good but means they want to control women. If they were pro life then they would support good maternity care,,postpartum care, insist on healthy available food, paid leave, affordable childcare. Did you know that during WWII, because they needed women in the workforce that there was government paid childcare that included healthy meals and available nurses? When the men came back, women who enjoyed working and wanted to remain working were told that they had to go back home because they were taking away a job from a deserving man. This has been a JaneCrow country for my entire life and I am tired of the scapegoating, gaslighting, double standard. Women are more under attack now than they have been in a long time. Many of the gains made since the 70’s are being eroded. I hope the
democrats win and this time people come together to get the ERA is added to the Constitution, to make sure women have maternity care that is better than the third world country outcomes they now have,, to ensure equal pay, equal opportunity, equal research into medical drugs and procedures, paid maternity/paternity leave, paid childcare, required equal representation on boards, in government, as heads of companies, and finally seen as deserving equal respect, and acknowledgment that they are equally as intelligent and responsible. Jess, I hope your experiences help you to keep fighting for these things.