kid costs

Next Tuesday is Melbourne Cup day. The race that stops a nation will stop me from working, as well as pretty well every other employee of my company. My firm, who pride themselves on how well they treat their staff, will spend tens of thousands of dollars on a venue overlooking Sydney's Darling Harbour and an endless supply of booze that will, knowing the way some of our consultants get on it, not be served particularly responsibly. So the cost to the company is the actual expense, the lost productivity of the day and the inevitable drop in productivity on a very foggy next day.

But let's not take anything away from them, it is good to work for a company that does so much for its staff.

Hold on though. When Sal drops the bump in January I will have been with the company for twenty two months. As that is under two years I am entitled to one week of paternity leave.

...before I go on...although I am using my own circumstances as an example they are typical of the absolutely fucking outrageous lack of regard our western world has for new parents vis a vis screwing their pound of flesh from you...ahem...

One week. I can, of course, take my annual leave. And, had I been there for two years I would be entitled to up to 52 weeks of "extended paternity leave" with six of those weeks of, less any "normal" paternity leave already taken, at half pay. And that is very generous.

This is one of my favourite bits. Extended Paternity Leave is intended for those fathers who intend to be the primary care giver. It should not be taken when the mother is on maternity leave. Well thanks for that.

I wasn't intending to spend more than a week with my wife and new child anyway.

Yes I know my employer isn't a charity and they have an interest in me being at work blah blah blah. But come on, what sort of a world have we created for ourselves? Birth rates dropping in the western world...is it any wonder when we've pissed away all but the very bare bones of support for new families? And what sort of world are we creating where we force families into (in)effective one parent units for the first year, until mum goes back to work and we outsource the bringing up of our kids to hired strangers?

Go on then, "well you chose to have a kid..."