Getting all riled up

A few days ago, Frema announced to the internet that she'd announced to her HR department that she'd be taking 12 weeks of maternity leave in December.  This has nothing to do with me whatsoever, but the whole issue of FMLA/maternity leave, for some reason, gets me all fired up.

The company that I work for has what is considered a fairly good maternity leave policy.  You can take up to 12 weeks at 40% of your salary and be guaranteed that your job will be there for you when you come back.  I guess that's not a bad deal, right? 

Except for two things:  First, you have to use up all of your vacation and sick days (for which you're paid full salary) before your "maternity" leave can start (at 40% of salary).  The total still can't be more than 12 weeks.  This completely violates the spirit of the FLMA Act.  Vacation is for vacations.  Sick time is for when you're sick.  Forcing a new mother into a situation where she's coming back from maternity leave with 0 time off accrued is just asking for trouble.  Babies get sick.  Babies have doctor appointments.  Mothers get sick.  Mothers have doctors appointments.  How are they expected to deal with that when all their sick and vacation time has been spirited away?

Secondly, in order to qualify for paid maternity leave, you have to have Short Term Disability insurance, which costs $166 a year.   I find this to be nothing short of discrimination.   Men aren't required to have a separate insurance that covers them for prostate cancer, so why should women need to shell out extra money for "pregnancy insurance"?  And while we're at it, since when did pregnancy become a short-term disability?   Since when is having a baby a disease? 

Of course, I should count my blessings, since some companies don't offer any pay while you're on maternity leave.  40% is pretty decent. But I still think the whole situation is completely unfair an discrimination against women. 

Also, I am not pregnant, nor am I planning on becoming pregnant.  Just to be clear.  I'm just ranting on about something that has nothing to do with me at all.  You want to hear what I think about the fact that gay marriage isn't legal in all 50 states?   No?  How about what I think of insurance companies, or the lack of emphasis on preventative medicine in our health system?  Maybe next time. 

In less controversial news, I made lasagna last night for dinner.  It was quite good, which is a bona-fide miracle, considering: I used a recipe for a mushroom, spinach and onion lasagna, which called for mushrooms, spinach and an onion (surprise!), as well as a package of "cholesterol free egg product" and a 14-oz jar of pasta sauce.  Since Joel doesn't like mushrooms or onions, I omitted those two ingredients.  Since I didn't have any spinach, I left that out too.  Instead, I substituted ground beef.  Fair trade, right?

I also just used regular egg.  I used 4 because that seemed like a good number.

Oh, and also, one time (like... 5 years ago?) my aunt told me that you could get away without boiling the lasagna noodles if you just added twice the amount of pasta sauce.  I thought that would be no problem, since I had a big Sam's Club sized jar of pasta sauce that was easily twice the size of a regular normal-person jar (we are not normal people, we have enough food in the house to survive a nuclear holocaust).  The problem?  The recipe said to add 1/2 cup of sauce to the bottom of the pan, and then "the remainder" on top of the last layer of (non-boiled) noodles.  It's very difficult to measure out (and then double) the "remainder" of a non-existent jar.  So I just estimated.  And then added a little extra for good luck.

Lastly, the pan I used was the wrong size, because our medium-sized baking dish died during the catfish disaster of last year.  And I didn't start cooking until 8:30pm. 

And after all that, it turned out to be delicious.  Or maybe I was just hungry, since after the 50 minutes of covered baking, 10 minutes of uncovered baking and 10 minutes of "resting", I was STARVING.

Perhaps my cooking karma is changing.  Maybe next I'll tackle baking!  Maybe not.

Happy weekend, internet.  They seem to be getting further apart, don't they?

Comments

[Laurel]

Very interesting!! I totally agree that the maternity leave situation in the US is, in a word, CRAP.

I think that part of the solution has got to be paternity leave. Women will always be seen as more "expensive" than men to employ when employers have to shell out time or money for maternity leave. Why not make all people who start a family equal? (Not to mention that men would love the opportunity to hang out with their new babies, too!)

I feel similarly about my current health insurance plan. The copay for your primary care doctor is $25, but you have to pay $40 for a specialist. Fair, right? Guess what. The gynecologist is considered a specialist. Frankly, the gynecologist is a primary care provider. All women in their child bearing (working) years must see the gynecologist once a year. I suspect that many young women are more diligent about their gyno than their regular check up!! It should be the PCP price!

[Alyndabear]

I don't know much about maternity leave, but I do know that the teaching system here in Sydney is PRETTY decent with leave without pay. I'm not sure of the specific though.

OMG am I craving lasagne now or what? Jase and I are gonna make ham and pineapple pizzas tonight because we're lazy.

[janet]

can I just say hallelujah on the whole FMLA stuff. America is ridiculous. That is all. We need democrats in office if we are ever going to make any progress on this issue. End of rant. :)

[Jemima]

Oh my God, I know. Isn't it awful? It took insurance companies DECADES to even declare a simple PAP test as a covered procedure, and they've only recently gotten around to mammograms. It's totally unfair. And considering that women still only make 75c to the dollar that men makes, this country still has a LONG way to go to make it a fair and equal job market. HATE!

Nice work on the lasagna. I'll send you my godmother's "lasagna" recipe, it's so delish, you'll freaking die.

[motherofbun]

I'm droollin over that meal you made. Yum.

Also went to Frema's and saw the post you mentioned.

Yes, it DOES suck and its NOT fair. It gets me all riled up too!

[Joke]

Oh Laurel I AGREE WITH YOU!!! Paternity leave should be equally granted, required, and okay'ed, and then women won't be the ticking timebomb that some employers consider them to be. Plus babies can be at home with their dads, just as likely as they would be with their mom's. I am actually all for paternity leave (12 weeks!) starting as soon as the mom's 12 are up. 24 weeks of at home babycare!

[Stephanie]

I am not currently aware of the maternity deal at my job. My sister works for a school and so she plans her pregnancy's so that she has three months left of school and then the summer with the baby for a total of almost 6 months. She's a smart cookie that one.

On the lasagna, I have found that it is very difficult to mess it up by just making up the recipe as you go. The only downside to that is that if you just add random amounts of stuff and it really tastes good, the next time you have no idea what you added or how much...

[Isabel]

Yeah, FMLA is not what you think it is. It sounds good-ish on paper...but in reality it sucks ass.

And I love how you were all "but I didn't have that, so I used this instead". You are AWESOME. Hooray that it all turned out super yummy!

[Erika]

Yeah that's not paid maternity leave, that's short term disability! I hate it when companies pat themselves on the back for that. Although the government doesn't offer short term disability insurance so I got screwed there. If you're mad about it now, don't do any reading about what they do in Europe...it pretty much put me in tears when I was pregnant!

[Carolyn J.]

Canada has a very good policy toward maternity leave, but employers will always be prejudiced against women of childbearing age. One of the owners of the business I work at will start giving out poor performance reports the second he hears about a bun in the oven. It's his little way of telling you your time at our company is finished until you're done with the brat. It's disgusting behaviour, but how do you prevent it?

[Erika]

Oh and one more thing! The LWOP time I took for FMLA pushed back my anniversary date for automatic raises/promotions. Kick you when you're down.