Super annoyed with parental leave... Shouldn't we all have equal access to paid time off? Why are we rewarding people for burdening our society with more people?
Yeah - I’m in agreement with you here. ‘Parent privilege’ is an interesting area of discussion.
My pregnant friend at work is sick maybe two days out of five now. I made the mistake of mentioning it in casual conversation one morning, and one of the cleaners leapt down my throat, saying I wouldn’t know anything about how hard it is being pregnant.
Which is true - but then, I’m pretty sure people are dealing with equally difficult personal stuff all the time. They still haul themselves into work.
Pregnancy (and children) can be a golden ticket to special treatment, if you want them to be.
Some parents abuse it - but to be honest, even people who don’t ‘play the parent card’ will still receive preferential time off over the holidays, or have employers think twice about firing them because of the little ones, or (in the UK) get paid child allowance by the government.
In some quarters, parenthood is seen as the only worthy achievement. I don’t think that’s fair, or right.
It baffles me that having a baby is often touted as ‘the only real achievement’, because it’s something that any stupid, lazy person could manage. (Noting that not all parents are stupid, lazy people.) Simply put, you don’t have to work hard or put in effort to get pregnant. The only thing you have to figure out is how to have unprotected sex, which even drunk teenagers manage behind my bins most Saturday nights.
When the time comes, your body will even provide you with the instinctive urge to push - in case you didn’t manage to figure that part out yourself.
And after a baby is born, it doesn’t matter what a mess people might make of raising their child. The world will still defend them and call them ‘brave’, and say things like, “Nobody understands how hard it is.” My parents know someone whose three kids were all taken into care. “Poor Tina,” people still say. “It’s a shame for the kids, but it is hard though.”
What a different world it would be, if governments also handed out grants and tax breaks to those who take time off work to study, or broaden their minds through travel, or volunteer with charities - rather than solely to those who choose to have a family.
Family is one choice out of many. Sometimes it’s taken as the easy choice; and very often, it’s by far the most rewarded choice.
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