Raising a Child: Mission Impossible
- angryteacherishere
- Oct 31, 2015
- 4 min read
By Ralitsa Vatova
Every week I find out that one of my friends is going to have a baby. My friends live both in the US and Europe. What I find bewildering is the reaction and general attitude that people from Europe and the US have when it comes to maternity leave, and how they plan to raise their children. It is shocking to find out that one of the supposedly most-developed countries (US) considers maternity leave as unnecessary, and therefore does not pay for it, while all alleged third world countries, mine included, give families time and money to raise their children.
The US being one of the most-developed countries (as we are told) when creating its labor law in the 1920s (http://www.dol.gov/dol/aboutdol/history/), decided it will not have maternity leave defined in its legislation, due to the fact that many women did not work at the time. There has been only one update in the century to follow. As I recently found out the US ran a federal mandate in 1993 that guaranteed certain working women in the US the privilege of twelve weeks of UNPAID maternity leave (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIhKAQX5izw). That mandate guarantees those lucky mothers the right to keep their job after all the discomfort and inconvenience they caused to the company they work for, just because they decided to give birth to a child. Those lucky women who have enough money saved to be able to skip work for twelve weeks need to comply with a few minor setbacks, such as to be employed on a full-time position, to have been working with the company full time for at least 1 year, and to make sure the company they work for has at least 50 employees. Seriously?!?!?!
Well, let’s take a look at those mediocre countries in Eastern Europe (I shall not even discuss Western and Northern Europe as it is obvious people there are well taken care of in most aspects). In the countries of Eastern Europe all women are guaranteed between 1 and 3 years of paid maternity leave. Mothers get paid between 60 and 80 percent of their average monthly salary of the year prior to the start of their pregnancy. Even women who do not work, or have not worked in the past, get a minimum pay for the duration of their maternity leave.
Being or not being paid for the duration of a maternity leave is not the biggest issue and difference between the US and Eastern Europe. The humongous problem is the length of the leave allowed. It is true that in three months a mother’s body would have most likely recovered from the stress of giving birth and the stretch of the abdominal area by 3-5 times it regular size. The maternity leave should mostly serve the child, not the mother. A child needs the presence of their mother for the first six months to a year to be fed, taken care of, and given the warmth and love that only a mother can give, in order to become a non-sociopathic adult. The baby needs a mother’s uninterrupted presence until the age of two just to be monitored, to be taught basic habits and needs, such as how to walk, speak, eat, sleep alone, go to the bathroom, communicate properly without being hurt, and any other basic thing a human will need later in life. The concept of raising kids as if they were farm animals, is bizarre to say the least. On a farm, once cubs, chicks, pups, calves are born, they are separated from their mothers, and raised in a separate environment, so their mothers can continue doing the job they are kept there for. Yes, the human taking care of the baby animals will most likely ensure their good health and wellbeing, but that human will also break the connection between a mother and a newborn. With all day care centers, kindergartens, and nurseries offered to new moms, who must go back to work as soon as possible but no more than 12 weeks after giving birth, and the lack of protection and support of mothers’ rights to raise their own children, the US has turned motherhood and child raising into an absurd farm system, in which on top of all this, mothers must pay to be kept away from their babies.
I am far from believing that Eastern Europe is the best example on how things should be done. One thing is sure though, as far as raising the future generations of this planet, the US has some catching up to do. A mother’s presence, not burdened by work exhaustion and lack of free time, in the early years of a child’s life, is a key factor to the child’s future wellbeing, and its role in the future society. Social skills, level of education, good manners, and pure human kindness are first taught at home. If you cut that initial contact that parents have with their children, to make the extra buck, you will lose that extra buck multiplied by many more in the years to come, as you may end up not having enough humans of quality.
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