Mastodawn

https://npr.org/2023/01/08/1147737247/teen-pregnancy-rates-have-declined-significantly

Again for people (racists), complaining about falling birth rates:

The birth rate for women over 40 is not falling. The birth rate for women over 30 is not falling.

What's happening, is girls 15 to 17 are having fewer babies. Kids are having fewer kids.

Also, this is an interesting way of saying that "Teen pregnancy is down, due to sex education and contraception."

In 1991 25% of 15 year olds gave birth before they turned 21. That's bad. Now it's 6%. That's better.

Y'all are literally complaining that not enough white children aged 15 to 17 are getting pregnant.

Do you even hear yourselves?

You know y'all are saying this out loud right? And that other people can hear you?

I'm running out of ways to tell you that this is a good thing.

I don't know how much you know about anatomy or biology, or how long 9 months is... but the things required for a 15 year old to give birth, are not good.

Less of that is a good thing.

👴🏻But Mekka! Without young people, our economy will collapse! We need fresh meat! I mean workers! To serve me! Always serving me!

🧔🏿‍♂️Young workers are smuggling themselves into the country, just to serve you. Will you let them?

👴🏻No! Illegal!

🤦🏿‍♂️
NYC has a 400K person blue collar worker shortage🤯

NYC has 10K+ legal migrants that want to work, but work permits are delayed.

If you were NYC mayor, would you:
a) Issue temporary work permits, and not enforce fed law?👍🏿

b) Make the migrants homeless?🤡

👴🏻But growing our population through immigration ain't natural! We should grow it like we've always grown it: through good old American procreation!

🧔🏿‍♂️A) Don't procreate with children. Not debating this.

🧔🏿‍♂️B) No, that's not how the US population grew

Shout out to all my fellow Americans that still believe in Santa, the Easter Bunny, and that the US population got to 350 million mostly white people, in only 400 years, due to the "hard work" of a few boatloads of frisky settlers.
🐇🐇💘

But let's talk about replacing the births that girls aren't having as much anymore, with births that women can have.

* Provide affordable housing
* Provide reproductive rights, education, and care
* Provide affordable healthcare and medical care
* Provide affordable childcare
* Provide women equal access to higher education and employment, and equal compensation

Then *women* that *want* to have kids *choose* to have kids.

derle Apr 27, 2024

@mekkaokereke Maybe not so much of a problem in the US but I'd add provide affordable housing. Having more than one room is a bit of a prerequisite for having children amha

You're so right!

Added!

Greg Kemp Apr 27, 2024

@derle @mekkaokereke I came here to say the same thing. 30 years ago someone 20 years old could afford a modest apartment in most of the US on a shit-wage job. Now a lot of 20 year olds in the same position live with their parents. Not negating or arguing your other points. But I was there, and I see how bad housing has become for young Americans.

QCATOPR

@gkemp @derle @mekkaokereke My first apartment in 1995 was $550 a month. The same apartment is now $2,200 a month. In that time, the minimum wage has less than doubled.

Greg Kemp Apr 27, 2024

@timjclevenger @derle @mekkaokereke About that time, my wife and I lived in a small city in upstate South Carolina. $400 a month for a nice two-bedroom unit. Today they’re asking $1250, and the units are 30 years older.

QCATOPR

@gkemp @derle @mekkaokereke Oh, definitely. I had an upstairs apartment and the whole place shook when someone walked by. (Picture a motel-like layout.) It doesn't look like anything has been done since except paint in the past 29 years.

FrauZeitlos Apr 30, 2024

@gkemp @timjclevenger @derle @mekkaokereke not just in the US: My first apartment in Germany was 150€ per month, something the same size/area now costs more than 400€.

QCATOPR

Apr 30, 2024

@FrauZeitlos @gkemp @derle @mekkaokereke There are 3 small towns left in America where the average rent for a 1-bedroom is less than $500.

Dana das Grau 🧙🏻🧝‍♂️Apr 28, 2024

@timjclevenger @gkemp @derle @mekkaokereke I believe that is the capitalistic greed effect.

Paul Chernoff May 3, 2024

@gkemp @derle @mekkaokereke @Selena I happened to look apartments not as nicely located as my house. In some cases rent was more than my mortgage for much less space and a much longer walk to mass transit.

cui bono, baby.Apr 27, 2024

@derle It's very much a problem in the US.

Andreas Scherbaum Apr 28, 2024

@derle @mekkaokereke Dunno, many small one-room houses here:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/dfyX31ftkZWUi6pw5

Entire village built with one-room houses ;-)

(Yes, I know, it's a historic site today)

Before you continue to Google Maps

Adam Kaplan 🚌🚊🚢Apr 27, 2024

@mekkaokereke affordable childcare requires paid parental leave:

1. Daycares compete with unpaid labor of parents (mostly women). Most staff (also women) are paid poverty wages.
2. Infant care is a loss leader. Staff/child ratios make profits impossible - business makes up the loss in the 3/preK years.

Give parents a year to take care of their kids, and running a daycare becomes a more reasonable enterprise.

Mad B Apr 27, 2024

@adambkaplan
Though I've heard that it's a trap for women to have a year of parental leave, breaks job momentum too much. Maybe 6 months allowed for each parent? A year if there's only one parent?
@mekkaokereke

@Oaktag @adambkaplan @mekkaokereke
I do think male parental leave is something that should not only be encouraged, it should be made mandatory to end the career advantage to being an uninvolved or lesser involved or non-caregiving parent and partner.

@JoBlakely @Oaktag @adambkaplan

Yup to both.

Women don't "have babies." Parents "have children." I was very vocal about taking my full paternal leave.

And a weird thing about it being hard for women to re-enter the workforce. That's also not quite true. It's much easier for women to re-enter the workforce than people make it seem. What's hard, is for men to accept women who are reentering the workforce.

It's a subtle but critically important difference.

@mekkaokereke @Oaktag @adambkaplan exactly!

@JoBlakely @Oaktag @adambkaplan

Consider a woman that wrote C++ for Microsoft for 10 years, then left the workforce for 5 years to have two kids, and is now trying to come back into the workforce to write C++ again.

The world of software engineering hasn't changed so much since 2019 that she doesn't know what she's doing anymore. That whole concept is nonsensical.

But a hiring manager asking silly questions like, "Explain this gap in your resume," might not be satisfied with her answer.

@mekkaokereke @Oaktag @adambkaplan There are a myriad of small companies that just don’t want the hassle of dealing with even the potential of a female employee going on mat leave, they just conveniently never hire women and millions of these small bro co’s exist.

@JoBlakely @Oaktag @adambkaplan

Me, giving hiring secrets away...

If you were a highly rated senior staff engineer at Microsoft, and you have a 10 year history of great work, I don't care what you've been doing for the past 5 years.🤷🏿‍♂️

Maybe you had kids. Maybe the pandemic required you to care for an elder parent. Maybe you tried your hand at a start-up. Maybe you opened a sandwich shop. Maybe you'd burned out and went backpacking around the world.

It. Doesn't. Matter.

None of my business.

@mekkaokereke @JoBlakely @Oaktag @adambkaplan

Tim Bray 🇨🇦Apr 27, 2024

Even OK if they got tangled up in crypto?

@timbray @JoBlakely @Oaktag @adambkaplan

Controversial: but yes!

Maybe they believed in formal methods and smart contracts, and bought the "access for all" line. Maybe they believed in crypto at first, then figured out what it really is.

Maybe they worked at Tesla, and then realised who Elon is.

Maybe they thought that they were working at a company that makes "software for parents to track their kids" then found out that they're working on stalkerware.

People make mistakes.

People learn.

Greg Pfeil Apr 27, 2024

@timbray @mekkaokereke Yes! Just make sure to ask about such things in the hiring process.

Mina Apr 27, 2024

@mekkaokereke @JoBlakely @Oaktag @adambkaplan meanwhile i was out of the DevOps loop for five years thanks to kid and pandemic, and now i feel completely out of my depth trying to reenter the field. The things i had let pass by me as hype, are more mandatory, and the things i had specialised have become completely nieche. and while I've done a ton of programming in the past seven odd years, it's far from enough to actually qualify as software engineer. (maybe as apprentice or junior engineer)

so, yeah, it kinda depends on the specific field…

I've done this before. Even in DevOps. Here's what it looks like:

* Woman looking to re-enter the field interviews. It's clear that she was once an exceptionally strong performer, but has not worked in the field for 5 years.
* She feels like she flubbed the interview
* Hiring committee decides: extend the offer with conditions: needs a team that will commit to helping her ramp back up.
* Woman gets hired. Is genuinely surprised to get the offer

1/N

* Woman starts on team. Feels like an imposter. Feels out of depth.
* Team helps her ramp back up, bridging the stuff of DevOps that hasn't changed(fundamentals), with the stuff that has(tools, tactics, vocab). She has a patient and understanding mentor.
* Manager makes sure that she knows that no one expects her to be at 100% on day one.
* Woman feels included. She starts learning. Impossibly fast. Because she's not so much learning, as remembering

2/N

* By month 3, woman is even with her peers.
* By month 6, she is one of the top performers on the team
* By month 9, some of the people from the hiring committee that asked, "Are you sure that she will be able to pick it back up? Tech changes fast..." Are now asking me, "OK clearly she was under leveled at hire. What did we miss?"
* By month 12, people are assuming that she will be going for promo, to correct the under-leveling at hire.

3/N

* By month 13, I start talking to the woman about promotion
* Woman is genuinely shocked. Still feels out of depth. Lists her shortcomings
* I share objective data and subjective peer reviews with the woman: eg, all her peers think that she's clearly performing at the next level, everyone in the company considers her the go-to person on topics X,Y, and Z, she leads the team or company on important metric X2, changed the way devops does thing X3, etc

4/N

* Woman gets promoted, and thanks me profusely, claiming that I changed her life
* I point out that she did this all herself. All I did was give her an opportunity.
* Woman deflects and asks how can she ever thank me.
* I tell her that I've just hired a woman that used to work in DevOps but took 5 years off to homeschool an immuno-compromised child during the pandemic, but is now re-entering the workforce. This woman is ramping up, and needs a mentor...♻️

Mina Apr 27, 2024

@mekkaokereke @JoBlakely @Oaktag @adambkaplan thank you for this. this… helped.

@mekkaokereke @meena @JoBlakely @Oaktag @adambkaplan

RM Apr 27, 2024

Perfect example of this:

https://www.practicaldiversity.org/2024/03/31/opportunity-is-the-antidote-to-discrimination/

Thanks for doing what you do!

Fink

Apr 28, 2024

@meena @mekkaokereke @JoBlakely @Oaktag @adambkaplan What do you think changed in detail?

Knowledge in any programming language is something I'd look for if I'd be hiring. I'd guess you also can properly use git. And with that you are much more qualified than many colleagues who have been doing this without any gap. Impostor syndrome is quite hard to overcome, I know the feeling...

SusannaAuthor Old White Hippie Apr 28, 2024

@mekkaokereke @JoBlakely @Oaktag @adambkaplan Sorry to disagree, but I damn well “had” 3 babies while my husband sat there. I was doing the work. Yes, we were becoming parents, but I had the babies. Until men actually go through pregnancy and childbirth, you just can’t say that.

@susanna @JoBlakely @Oaktag @adambkaplan

Apr 28, 2024

I think I wasn't clear. Character limits. I agree with you.

It shouldn't be only women that take maternity leave. All parents should take parental leave. And yes, men should do much more to share the workload. And the expectation shouldn't be that "women care more about kids than their careers." It should be that "all parents care about their children."

Otherwise, the negative career impact is felt only by women.

SusannaAuthor Old White Hippie Apr 28, 2024

@mekkaokereke @JoBlakely @Oaktag @adambkaplan THAT I can agree with. 😄

@JoBlakely @Oaktag @adambkaplan @mekkaokereke I live in Romania (EU). Here, when a new child arrives, one of the parents (either one) has the option to go on a 2y paid parental leave. The income is paid by the state at 75% of their current salary. Their job is locked and secured by law (can't fire them now or for 6mo after they get back). Daycare is a mix of private and public. Public daycare is also owned and paid by the state.

If having kids is profitable for the state, it's an investment.

@JoBlakely @Oaktag @adambkaplan @mekkaokereke there are "reinsertion incentives" to help parents decide to go back to work earlier than 2y (cash bonus). But neither the parental leave itself or cutting parental leave short, is mandatory. If the mother goes on leave (makes sense, our nipples are useless), the father Has the option to take 1 full month of paid parental leave either at the beginning (usually) or at the end of the mother's parental leave.

@JoBlakely @Oaktag @adambkaplan @mekkaokereke if there is anything that should be paid for with taxes, it's to ensure that the society you live in has a chance at a future. No kids, no future. No proper emotional support during early years, no well adjusted individuals a few years later.

@JoBlakely @adambkaplan @mekkaokereke

Mad B Apr 28, 2024

@gabriel
I'd be interested in seeing stats about hiring of mom-age women in Romania, because "only one parent can have leave" is massively sexist.

As mentioned in other places in the thread, this seems like it would result in women not being hired.

It's also the state paying to support the idea that only women care for kids... To get past the inertia of that stupid idea, a man has to be left alone as the primary caregiver for days/weeks on end.

@Oaktag @JoBlakely @adambkaplan @mekkaokereke

Here, either parent can leave. The couple can decide which one.

According to: https://insse.ro/cms/sites/default/files/field/publicatii/balanta_fortei_de_munca_la_1_ianuarie_2023.pdf

Overall workforce occupation is 55% (men), vs 45% women.

Gender pay gap is still bad (4.5% - https://www.euronews.com/next/2024/03/08/gender-pay-gap-in-europe-how-do-countries-compare-on-narrowing-the-divide), but not as bad as the EU average.

Most companies will give parents a raise if they announce at work that they are about to have a baby. This helps them get better parental leave income, as that depends on their current salary.

@Oaktag @JoBlakely @adambkaplan @mekkaokereke

The first link is in Romanian unfortunately, but it may be translatable through google translate.

Tortipede Apr 28, 2024

@Oaktag @gabriel @JoBlakely @adambkaplan @mekkaokereke In the UK when we had our 2nd kid you got up to a year of parental leave - the pay depends partly on the state, partly on the employer, and starts to taper off after 6 months (I forget the details, plus it's a while ago now & might have changed). But the key thing they introduced was that you can split it between parents - my (female) partner had the first 6 months, then I took 3 months paternity leave, at home with the baby & a toddler.

@Oaktag @adambkaplan @mekkaokereke

Mab_813 Apr 27, 2024

Here in Austria, almost no mother gets back after 6 months, it's more like 1,5 to 2 years.

So I'd say it should be possible. Most jobs don't change THAT much.

Orava Apr 27, 2024

@Mab_813 @Oaktag @adambkaplan @mekkaokereke slight counterpoint: during that time at home, the women don't participate in the sort of networking and relationship building that would be necessary to advance their careers and get promotions. Even more: here in Germany we might finally have a discussion about how in civil service, where pay raises are entirely linked to length of service, parental leave does not count toward the time needed to rise into the next wage bracket.

Mab_813 Apr 27, 2024

@painting_squirrel

German civil service has some weird aspects, imo.

As for networking etc., well it's possible to come back earlier? Different time frames work for different people.

Orava Apr 27, 2024

@Mab_813 @Oaktag @adambkaplan @mekkaokereke totally totally. I just kinda wanted to point out that taking time off always comes with some kind of "opportunity cost", so to speak. But I guess that's true for practically everything in life? Not really going anywhere with that thought, tbh :-D

Elizabeth Winter Apr 28, 2024

@Mab_813 @Oaktag @adambkaplan @mekkaokereke What happens to the person who has filled that job for 1.5-2 years? Fired?

Mab_813 Apr 29, 2024

@EWinterNM

It's a temporary employment, so you know from the start that you will be employed there for, let's say, 1.5 years.

trachelipus Apr 27, 2024

@Oaktag @adambkaplan @mekkaokereke
My office has a very generous parental leave policy. The cost of childcare here is also insane. What I've noticed is that a lot of the dads wait until the wife goes back to work before starting their own parental leave. Some families have been able to avoid putting the baby into childcare for a full year by carefully using their PTO and parental leave. I wish more people had these options.

klausfiend has moved Apr 27, 2024

@trachelipus @Oaktag @adambkaplan @mekkaokereke My current employer had a plan like this -- one of the main reasons I joined up -- in no small part because one of the women in the C-suite got pregnant, and refused to accept the shitty deal the previous benefits package offered. Then we got absorbed by a much bigger company, and all of that went out the window in the name of "harmonization".

1/3

klausfiend has moved Apr 27, 2024

@trachelipus @Oaktag @adambkaplan @mekkaokereke I feel I need to follow up, because that change triggered HEAVY pushback internally, with employees going as far as posting job links from competitor sites in open Slack channels, etc. This was also happening at the same time as the company was taking heavy criticism for being too "woke" from bad faith dickheads like Chris Rufo over its public emphasis on DEI.

2/3

klausfiend has moved Apr 27, 2024

@trachelipus @Oaktag @adambkaplan @mekkaokereke Some unlucky VP-level person was dispatched to do damage control in individual Zoom "listening sessions", and I still remember the look of hapless "get me out of this place" desperation on his face when I pointed out that family-friendly leave policies are a way to facilitate DEI, and if the company was serious about that, it was going to have to put up or shut up. It effectively chose the latter.

3/3

Johanna, CanCon variety Apr 28, 2024

@Oaktag @adambkaplan @mekkaokereke that scans like propaganda from a vote no camp.

Canadian here, since my kid was born our parental leave time frame has gone from 12 to 18 months job-protected leave for either or both parents to share. Employers MUST support a return to work in the same or an equivalent job. It only “breaks job momentum” if the employer is a capitalist asshole dodging the law.

ajkandy Apr 30, 2024

@adambkaplan @mekkaokereke In Quebec, subsidized (and regulated) daycares helped increase labor participation, particularly among single parents, and it lifted a lot of families out of poverty. This, in addition to a year of parental leave that can also be split between parents.

The program has flaws re: the early childhood education aspect, but did what it was supposed to do.

There’s a proposal from CAP to create a different US version based on tax credits. https://www.vox.com/2015/9/8/9262901/high-quality-child-care-tax-credit

Tax credits to pay for child care is the next frontier for the nanny state

A top progressive think tank proposes Obamacare for child care.

Vox

@mekkaokereke provide us men that take on their fair share of the emotional and household labor.