Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2014 1:06 pm
It's not the responsibility of the government to plan your retirement for you, or to help you raise your kids. "Family values" doesn't mean you force your neighbors to take care of your family.
I am a little torn on this issue. On the one hand if you aren't working then why should a company pay you? Your paycheck is a fair-value compensation for your effort which gets realized as revenue for the company--on effort on your part means no revenue and thus no pay. On the other hand, perhaps some day more companies will come to realize that their employees are people rather than robots and that sufficient time off leads to happier employees who are more willing and able to put more effort in to the company.
That being said, I never take time off unless I absolutely have to, which is why I have already hit my max PTO bucket of 140 hours (which will go up to 160 hours in about three weeks). In fact, I am surprised that my supervisor hasn't told me to go home so I can burn a few hours. My job is not labor-intensive so if we had the option of overtime I would probably work more just to fatten my paychecks. By contrast, my former lawyer friend (sadly, he died a couple of years ago) said that in his younger, post-college days he put in 80 or 90 hours per week as all young non-partner lawyers in large firms do.
In many ways, we still have a 19th-century (or early 20th-century) mindset when it comes to work in the United States. The general idea is that you work your ass off and you stay grateful for your paycheck even if your boss/company is slightly abusive of you. At the same time, many people refuse to accept part-time or full-time jobs which are "beneath" them because they still equate personal status with job title. Some of my fellow citizens might make fun of other nations for getting more time off--well, those people are just lazy, aren't they?--but those same people will work themselves into an early grave for an ungrateful corporation which does not have its employee's best interests at heart.
All things considered, though, not allowing new parents time to form emotional bonds with their newborn (as well as each other) can lead to a weaker and less rewarding home life, the negative repercussions of which could linger for decades. There isn't enough money to make up for that shortfall.