Alan Sugar's picked another one - Apprentice up the duff....
Discussion
HundredthIdiot said:
DJC said:
Actually I think you will find that back out there in the real world, raising children correctly has an entirely acceptable social status. At least it certainly does in the world I live in.
For men and women? That's good to hear. I don't think it's that common though. I know one man who took 4 or 5 years out to raise his kids (his wife had better career prospects) and it was tough going, socially.DJC said:
I dont know anybody who takes more pride in their position at work or in their career than they do in their children.
Yes, but many people want both.And how was it tough going socially? Did you all pick on him like 5yo or something?
And many people may want both. I want an F40, I dont have one, tough luck, deal with it. Such is life, now get on with paying next month's mortgage.
Good grief, stop making such a drama out of normal everyday life.
DJC said:
You dont think its common for folk to be proud of being a mum or dad? Are you nuts? Only last night we had the PM beeming away telling the world how proud he was to be a dad again.
The PM isn't minding his children, he's working as PM, so that's irrelevant to the point I was making which was in relation to raising children full time rather than working.HundredthIdiot said:
Mr. Potato Head said:
One of my best mates earned 25k in a job he hated. His wife earned 50k+ in a job she loved. He was right up for being oppressed into looking after the house.
She wouldn't let him.
Why?She wouldn't let him.
Engineer1 said:
Ribol said:
If you think by stopping things like maternity/paternity payments society will die you are being naive, how do you think we got to where scoiety did before these payments started?.
Before the payments started the cost of living was lower my parents could afford to buy a family house on a single wage, now for an equivalent house you need 2 wages. If society moved back towards not paying maternity etc. then it would have to gear towards families living on one wage.What people seem to forget is that all this PC, H&S, sexual or race equality stuff costs US. A complete industry has grown around this nonsense from people dreaming it up to people defending it in our courts.
Tesco (eg) don't give a toss how many people are off having kids or dads holding their hands etc or getting fined for writing special offers on a BLACKboard, they just add it to the prices at the till - we all pay for it. With predictable effects on to the cost of living.
What started off as a good/fair idea has got out of control and is now doing more harm than good.
HundredthIdiot said:
DJC said:
You dont think its common for folk to be proud of being a mum or dad? Are you nuts? Only last night we had the PM beeming away telling the world how proud he was to be a dad again.
The PM isn't minding his children, he's working as PM, so that's irrelevant to the point I was making which was in relation to raising children full time rather than working.Mr. Potato Head said:
HundredthIdiot said:
Mr. Potato Head said:
One of my best mates earned 25k in a job he hated. His wife earned 50k+ in a job she loved. He was right up for being oppressed into looking after the house.
She wouldn't let him.
Why?She wouldn't let him.
JagLover said:
Mr. Potato Head said:
HundredthIdiot said:
Mr. Potato Head said:
One of my best mates earned 25k in a job he hated. His wife earned 50k+ in a job she loved. He was right up for being oppressed into looking after the house.
She wouldn't let him.
Why?She wouldn't let him.
bga said:
g3org3y said:
Didn't the last one get pregnant as well?
I think small businesses are especially vulnerable if they hire women and they get pregnant.
It is an inconvenience but nothing that can't be planned for. If a small business can't cater for a pregnancy then they aren't going to be able to respond to an adverse market. I think small businesses are especially vulnerable if they hire women and they get pregnant.
This is my experience of owning a small business, your mileage may vary.
shamrock said:
JagLover said:
Mr. Potato Head said:
HundredthIdiot said:
Mr. Potato Head said:
One of my best mates earned 25k in a job he hated. His wife earned 50k+ in a job she loved. He was right up for being oppressed into looking after the house.
She wouldn't let him.
Why?She wouldn't let him.
HundredthIdiot said:
cymtriks said:
Women had babies for umm, let me see, about 2 million years before maternity pay was invented. Since maternity pay and leave was invented family life hasn't exactly improved. I'm not claiming a connection, only that it obviously hasn't delivered any overall benefit whatsoever.
There are two seperate issues here. Maternity leave is designed to let a working woman recover from childbirth and bond with the baby.HundredthIdiot said:
That has no negative impact on family life. Returning to work also has no negative impact, if the father stays at home to raise the child(ren).
The negative impact comes from the decision of both parents to continue working full time and outsource the raising of the children. That's nothing to do with maternity leave.
How people organise their own lives is their business, why should another business pay for it?The negative impact comes from the decision of both parents to continue working full time and outsource the raising of the children. That's nothing to do with maternity leave.
HundredthIdiot said:
The problem is now largely the same for both men and women - the perception is that you can't take 10-15 years off to raise your kids without completely screwing your career. Hoping for some sort of reversion to a social position where women always raise the kids is neither realistic or fair.
Biologically it is entirely fair and realistic. Once again why should employers pay for the domestic arrangements of their employees?HundredthIdiot said:
Raising children does not have the same social status as working, regardless of which gender does it. Women are either slagged off as "chavs" or "yummy mummies", and "househusbands" are so far off the radar they're almost beneath commentary (except in the Guardian, I imagine).
The last time I heard someone refer to "yummy mummies" to was most definitely a compliment.Actually I've never heard of a woman "slagged off" over this except when they are visibly doing a bad job or using the kids to abuse the benefit system. Men are far more likely to get "slagged off" for the jobs they do; only a bin man, only a cleaner, only a shelf stacker, only a lorry driver....
HundredthIdiot said:
I don't know what the solution is. It seems like we're on a path towards some sort of Brave New World situation where the raising of children is completely socialised, at least for the portion of the population which is career-obsessed.
The solution is obvious.Stop paying people for perfectly normal activities that haven't been a problem for millions of years.
Stop forcing totally unrelated people and organisations to shoulder the burden of paying.
The current system encourages sex discrimination and isn't free money, we all pay in the end, just in a very unfair way.
If we must keep paying then at least make the payments part of the regular benefits system (so that employers aren't pushed into discrimination or made to pay for something that they have no moral reason to) and make the payments related to contributions or be given as a transferable tax reduction. This would immediately remove any incentive to discriminate, be fairer, prevent payment to those who contribute very little and give a bit more encouragement to those who do contribute.
cymtriks, I agree with your preference for state-funded over employer-funded maternity leave, for the anti-discrimination reasons you put forward. I don't know what the current split is in the UK.
The thrust of your argument seems to be "women should stay at home and raise the kids, paid for by the working husband, because that's the way nature intended it", a position consistent with the high status you attach to child-rearing. This was the social position in the UK until a decade or two ago.
The thrust of your argument seems to be "women should stay at home and raise the kids, paid for by the working husband, because that's the way nature intended it", a position consistent with the high status you attach to child-rearing. This was the social position in the UK until a decade or two ago.
cymtriks said:
The solution is obvious.
Stop paying people for perfectly normal activities that haven't been a problem for millions of years.
Here we are again.Stop paying people for perfectly normal activities that haven't been a problem for millions of years.
Look, what is hard to understand about this? We haven't lived like we do before, not for millions of years or for ever. We've never had the technology before, or the lifestyle or the health care. We've never had the longevity before, we've never had the rates of infant mortality before, we weren't able to survive all sorts of conditions before, such as appendicitis.
For millions of years, if you had appendicitis you died. If you had toothache, you went out of your mind with agony, and that went for everybody, men, women, children, rich, poor, young and old.
Now, if you want to live in todays society (and i presume you don't want to see your wife dying a screaming death in childbirth, or your little daughter screaming and screaming as she died from appendicitis) then it all has to be paid for.
Businesses, in effect, don't pay the costs of child care or whatever, their customers do. As we're all customers of businesses in one way or another, depending on how much we spend, we all end up contributing, and as we all need to make use of other people (that's every single one of us without exception) then what could be fairer than we all pay? What's the problem?
If you don't want to pay towards the cost of other people having children then fine, but don't have any interaction with any other people either.
I don't see why the cost of providing society with *everything* (which in effect is what they would be doing|) should fall only to parents. I think we all should pay.
heebeegeetee said:
I don't see why the cost of providing society with *everything* (which in effect is what they would be doing|) should fall only to parents. I think we all should pay.
So if a parent wants any number of kids the rest of us should pay for them?So a couple who are too lazy to work but insist on having kids should be paid to do it by the rest of us?
It sounds to me like you are the one who is not getting this ................................... unless you think that is right?
Ribol said:
heebeegeetee said:
I don't see why the cost of providing society with *everything* (which in effect is what they would be doing|) should fall only to parents. I think we all should pay.
So if a parent wants any number of kids the rest of us should pay for them?So a couple who are too lazy to work but insist on having kids should be paid to do it by the rest of us?
It sounds to me like you are the one who is not getting this ................................... unless you think that is right?
Otherwise, take yourself off to a desert island and live on your own, and see how you get on without other people.
but its not allways passed down.
Most people are employed in small firms ie under 6 employees. These firms are already close to the mark on pricing in order to stay in business, if they have an e/ee who get pregnant that small firm then has to bear the cost and uncertainty of it. They are not going to increase their prices to cover their extra costs as it would hit their sales.
Most govt legislation to me as a small business owner is geared up to large firms with hundreds or thousands of e/ee which the MPs/ policy makers often only have knowledge of. The employment laws hit very hard on small firms.
We have had new regs on us which the gove has said we can if we wish pass on to our clients as it wil on be £x per 50 clients Yeah right we can. bllox.
Most people are employed in small firms ie under 6 employees. These firms are already close to the mark on pricing in order to stay in business, if they have an e/ee who get pregnant that small firm then has to bear the cost and uncertainty of it. They are not going to increase their prices to cover their extra costs as it would hit their sales.
Most govt legislation to me as a small business owner is geared up to large firms with hundreds or thousands of e/ee which the MPs/ policy makers often only have knowledge of. The employment laws hit very hard on small firms.
We have had new regs on us which the gove has said we can if we wish pass on to our clients as it wil on be £x per 50 clients Yeah right we can. bllox.
superlightr said:
but its not allways passed down.
Most people are employed in small firms ie under 6 employees. These firms are already close to the mark on pricing in order to stay in business, if they have an e/ee who get pregnant that small firm then has to bear the cost and uncertainty of it. They are not going to increase their prices to cover their extra costs as it would hit their sales.
Most govt legislation to me as a small business owner is geared up to large firms with hundreds or thousands of e/ee which the MPs/ policy makers often only have knowledge of. The employment laws hit very hard on small firms.
We have had new regs on us which the gove has said we can if we wish pass on to our clients as it wil on be £x per 50 clients Yeah right we can. bllox.
It works both ways. Small businesses don't benefit from economies of scale, but they also avoid the inefficiencies and excesses of a large organisation.Most people are employed in small firms ie under 6 employees. These firms are already close to the mark on pricing in order to stay in business, if they have an e/ee who get pregnant that small firm then has to bear the cost and uncertainty of it. They are not going to increase their prices to cover their extra costs as it would hit their sales.
Most govt legislation to me as a small business owner is geared up to large firms with hundreds or thousands of e/ee which the MPs/ policy makers often only have knowledge of. The employment laws hit very hard on small firms.
We have had new regs on us which the gove has said we can if we wish pass on to our clients as it wil on be £x per 50 clients Yeah right we can. bllox.
I run a (very small) IT services business. I have absolutely no problem beating larger suppliers on price because our overheads are lower and we are more focused and agile.
I could cope fine with an employee going on maternity leave in much the same way as I could cope fine with an employee getting hit by a bus. Managing key staff risks is normal. A young, male employee just got headhunted by a company in San Francisco. No amount of money could keep him. He's been a fantastic employee, but s
t happens and no-one is irreplaceable.My fiance works in a team of four people within her organisation. One of the four is the team manager.
Said team manager had her first child about three years ago and during the 9 month period she was off work my fiance and the rest of the team managed to just about cope and effectively also took on the line manager's duties shared between them. Hours were long and they had problems taking holiday but they got by.
Then the manager returned to work full time but was continually absent for baby related reasons so things kind of continued as they were before except they were now carrying a passenger who was being paid more than any of them which must have caused some resentment. A few months later, line manager asks for her job to be made part time and her wish is granted. She worked for 2-3 short days a week for a few months and then announced she was pregnant again. A month or so later she had health problems and went on long term sick which then transitioned into her 9 month maternity leave. In total she's probably been in work full time for about one year out of the last four but as far as I know the company cannot simply replace her, cannot find a quality short term replacement and can't afford to hire an additional member of staff.
The whole situation is a mess and to be honest I don't think anyone is particularly to blame. I really don't know how smaller companies cope.
Said team manager had her first child about three years ago and during the 9 month period she was off work my fiance and the rest of the team managed to just about cope and effectively also took on the line manager's duties shared between them. Hours were long and they had problems taking holiday but they got by.
Then the manager returned to work full time but was continually absent for baby related reasons so things kind of continued as they were before except they were now carrying a passenger who was being paid more than any of them which must have caused some resentment. A few months later, line manager asks for her job to be made part time and her wish is granted. She worked for 2-3 short days a week for a few months and then announced she was pregnant again. A month or so later she had health problems and went on long term sick which then transitioned into her 9 month maternity leave. In total she's probably been in work full time for about one year out of the last four but as far as I know the company cannot simply replace her, cannot find a quality short term replacement and can't afford to hire an additional member of staff.
The whole situation is a mess and to be honest I don't think anyone is particularly to blame. I really don't know how smaller companies cope.
heebeegeetee said:
Ribol said:
heebeegeetee said:
I don't see why the cost of providing society with *everything* (which in effect is what they would be doing|) should fall only to parents. I think we all should pay.
So if a parent wants any number of kids the rest of us should pay for them?So a couple who are too lazy to work but insist on having kids should be paid to do it by the rest of us?
It sounds to me like you are the one who is not getting this ................................... unless you think that is right?
Otherwise, take yourself off to a desert island and live on your own, and see how you get on without other people.
Contributing to public services, no problem, we all use them.
Contributing to NHS, no problem, getting ill isn't optional so it is the right thing to do.
Someone finds themselves out of work, help them out until they sort themselves out, no problem.
Old, can't afford to live, fine give them some of what they put in back, no problem.
If some chooses to knock out kids, that is optional, if I want them, I should pay for them.
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