The Two-Penny Soapbox Hits the Real World!

As many of my readers already know, I used to have the perfect job.

I worked 22 hours a week. I had full-benefits, including healthcare, one week paid time off, partially paid maternity leave, 401K, employee stock program, and regularly offered paid training resource opportunities. What mom wouldn't want a job like that? I got to go be an adult, contribute to our household finances, and could still feel like I was there for my kids whenever they needed me. The job itself might not have been the career I would have chosen for myself, but there was no arguing with the awesome way it let me combine income production and child rearing.

And then in 2010 it all came to an end. I won't go into the minute details here, you can read all about in a previous post: My Job Loss, A personal view from the frontlines of the child care crisis . The long and short of it was that we got a new (male) boss who, unlike our previous (female) boss, hated part-timers. Or at least that was the rumor. The supposed word on the street was that he had been overheard in meetings complaining that part-timers made him mad because he hated having to juggle their schedules and that if they were part-time it meant they weren't truly committed to the company. (As a side note, it would not shock me if his wife was a stay at home mom, because only by being truly alleviated of all reproductive labor (housework, appointments, sick kids, errands, food preparation) could you be blind to the need for part-time work.

And so I was given a choice: I could work from 8:30-6:30 or 6:45 four days a week plus Saturday mornings, or I could resign. The fact that they were offering me another position meant they weren't "technically" firing me.  With two children, and child care needs extending beyond the typical childcare day, working full time wasn't exactly an option. We tightened the purse strings as far as they would go and I resigned.

I had already been an advocate for a healthy work/family balance after writing my master's thesis on the steep increase of stay-at-home mothers in America between 1995 and 2000. But in 2012 I launched this blog, The Two-Penny Soapbox, to discuss the things I saw around me in my day-to-day life that were related to the work/family balance. But after a few years of shouting from my soapbox into the blogosphere (yes, that is an actual word), I decided it was time to do more than talk the talk (don't worry, I will never give up shouting from my soapbox), it was time to get up and walk the walk.

Enter: 9to5

For me, when I decided to give time to making real change in the work/family balance there was only ever one choice. The national organization, 9to5, was founded in 1973 and has gifted working families with legislation like The Pregnancy Discrimination Act, The Family Medical Leave Act, and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in addition to other wins related to increasing minimum wage and decreasing sexual harassment. With a 40+ year history of winning justice for working women (and all families) it was obvious where I wanted to put my time in. As it states in their brochure, "if you are feisty, feel empowered (or want to be), fed up, or all three" then you should join up.

And lucky for me I happened to get in touch with them just in time for their membership drive, which meant memberships were discounted. Awesome, I can help out without breaking our budget! Things were getting better and better.

I put my sassy boots on and headed on over to the membership drive kick-off meeting where I got to meet some phenomenal women, who I am looking forward to getting to know very much. I also got to see what is on their agenda this year, which from the Two-Penny Soapbox's opinion is some pretty inspired stuff.

They are looking at creating an insurance program to pair with the Family Medical Leave act in order to ensure "employees in Colorado are able to provide critical care for themselves and their families without risking their financial stability." They are also looking at legislation for Parental Involvement, ensuring "protected leave when parents must miss work to attend school activities." And lastly, they are continuing the fight to bridge the pay gap between men and women.

So, as you can see, EVERYTHING that the Two-Penny Soapbox stands for! Sign me up!!

And now, dear readers I urge you to take advantage of their current membership drive.

Just click here to join

 

There is no better time to band together and fight for change. Together, 9to5 and The Two-Penny Soapbox are doing the important work of changing hearts and minds and that can only be done with a unified voice that includes you. So please, please sign up. Even if you just send $5 and do no more than read my blog you are still helping enact change. But, of course if you want to get involved, there are lots of opportunities to do that too (and feel free to tell them Amie sent you).

 

As always, it is time to stop worrying about Family Values and start Valuing Families.

 

 

The Bigger Better Blog

Welcome to the wonderful re-launch of The Two-Penny Soapbox. Some things may look different, but the content will remain the same; honest, thoughtful and occasionally angsty. I will still be looking at the issues surrounding work/family balance with the occasional anecdote about my crazy family and periodic musings on adoption.

Now for some housekeeping issues:
This new incarnation of my little corner of the universe will (hopefully) remain more structured than previously. Posts will be updated twice a week; once on Monday morning to start your week off right and again on Fridays, just in time to give you reading material for your lazy weekend mornings, waiting for your child's game to start, sitting in line at the movies, or even on the potty....hey, I don't judge. As always, I ask you to keep your comments thoughtful and respectful. I will delete anything I think is inappropriate because, hey, this is my little corner and I can do that.

Now.....without further ado.....let's talk about.....
The Flu.

The flu you ask? What a strange topic for your re-launch. But, as it happens, the flu is very much at the heart of one of the biggest challenges to the work/family balance in America. The flu, especially certain strains, can knock you down for a week or more. It is the concept of being "out sick from work" writ large. In large families it can take ages to travel through everyone, thus extending the time you are quarantined at home. This is a huge problem for any family, but most especially two-income families.

We hear from the CDC and news outlets that we need to stay home if we are sick. Moms outside the school complain when kids are given Tylenol to keep their fever down and sent to school anyway. Bosses lament that their department is all sick, and yet they discourage workers from taking "time off." And lastly, we all lament when more severe flu strains careen through the community because they can be scary and we don't want to increase exposure to those who are vulnerable. What our workplace is reluctant to acknowledge is that when the flu hits, and some strains hit with a vengeance, it can take weeks, even a month or more to get an entire family back to health. What are families, especially two-income families supposed to do in that situation?

Two weeks before Christmas break my middle child, Raindrop, got sick with the flu. She actually was down and back up within three days and only missed 2 days of school total. I work sporadically so I have no problems begging off work to stay home when one of the kids are sick. Then the next week my oldest, Snowflake, got sick. She was really sick. I mean really, really, really sick. I took care of her for 2 days and then I got sick. I got really, really, really sick. Raindrop walked herself to and from school (which is practically in our backyard) while Snowflake and I laid on the couch and despaired at how awful we felt. Meanwhile Starman demolished the house with the flourish of a bored 3 year old while I lay helpless to stop it.

I was home Monday and Tuesday with a sick Snowflake. Wednesday I got sick and by Friday night I was so ill my husband had to take me to the ER where I spent all night getting IV fluids and other fun things. I had the beginnings of pneumonia, severe dehydration and a 104.5 fever WITH fever reducers. He took me in, despite the fact that he had gotten sick himself that morning. Being the end of December he was, of course, out of  Paid Time Off (PTO) so had to take the day unpaid.

The following Monday was Snowflake's 9th birthday. Starman was sick now too. Happy Birthday Kid. Sorry your sick. Let's watch our 100th movie. The husband was home again, more missed pay. We were all sick except Raindrop, having already fulfilled her role as "Typhoid Mary." Now by this point we were staring down a missed birthday, Christmas and Christmas Break and no one felt very good at all. The husband dragged himself back to work after three missed days and a weekend. There is a very good possibility that he infected others in his department as he really shouldn't have been back yet, but 3 days of no pay after birthdays and Christmas is enough to throw us into a tailspin when we only have one reliable income, so he went. Three and a half weeks total and we were all starting to feel better and were officially declared not contagious by our doctor.

Now, I only chronicle this whole story to you, my reader, to make a point. It took 3 1/2 weeks....THREE WEEKS.AND THREE DAYS...where someone had to be home with sick kiddos or sick themselves. That wasn't intermittent either. It was 3 weeks straight. And that was just one sickness, what if we had just gotten over something else a month earlier. Now, imagine we are a dual income family. You are paying for childcare regardless of the children are there, school is getting missed and no one is getting paid. How do you do it? No one gets 3 weeks of sick leave. And even if they get 3 weeks of PTO, no one is going to save it all until the end of December, just in case since it is a use it or lose it thing. But being sick when you are out of sick leave puts you in danger of being fired.

So what do families do? They do what they have to. The problem is that that is how so many people end up getting sick. We should really have a system that promotes staying home when ill to protect those that are young, or older, or are immuno-compromised. We should stay home to reduce the spread of viruses, but we can't. Our work system here in America is not designed to care about the person, much less the family. We care about productivity and work hours and the presence of people in the office. Things are better with the advent of telecommuting, but many jobs still require your presence. And some jobs don't provide PTO or sick leave at all, leaving workers the impossible choice of sucking it up so they can pay their bills or staying home and resting in order to protect strangers and co-workers.

I feel a little bit like I am beating a dead horse. Some of my readers might remember that I discussed this same thing back in 2012, in my post The Trouble With Illness. In that article I argued that we need to add more sick leave. I stated that,  "By providing more sick time, we would actually get sick less." Sadly, three years later we have made little to no progress in this arena. In fact, in many ways we have slid backward. Illnesses seem to last longer and sick leave seems to have gotten shorter. although this is a subjective observation no based in statistical information at all. I am merely basing it on the vocal frustrations of families around me. The longer the illness lasts, the more likely someone is to return to work/school/child care while still contagious.

The other problem is the concept of the Doctor's note. Workers abusing the sick leave system have encouraged companies to demand a "sick note." So now, even though a worker may be missing work unpaid, and knows that the illness isn't severe enough to visit a Doctor is going to clog up the Doctor's offices just to obtain this piece of paper that is the equivalent of Mommy calling you in sick to school. Companies are saying "your word isn't trustworthy enough, we need an authority figure to confirm your story." However, the cost of this visit might be pricey depending on whether the company provides a quality health care plan or not and many doctors feel pressured to fill out sick notes if someone is in their office, even if there is no obvious physical need.

Now for the biggest irony of all. You can be fired for being sick! Not kidding. It is legally true in the majority of American states, with a few exceptions. It doesn't matter if you have a doctor's note or not. Unless you qualify for the Family Medical Leave Act  (FMLA) and have the proper paper work filed in a timely manner, you can be fired. No wonder people go to work sick. No wonder they drop their kids off at school pumped full of fever reducers and hope for the best. A few sites provide legal breakdowns of this;
http://employment-law.freeadvice.com/employment-law/firing/getting-fired-while-sick.htm

http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2013/03/14/fired-missing-work-doctors-note/

http://bcemploymentlawyerblog.ca/2014/04/03/fired-sick-flu-disability/

But perhaps the most informative and comprehensive analysis of this phenomenon comes from one of my favorite, and oft referenced authors, Joan C. Williams, Distinguished Professor of Law, UC Hastings Foundation Chair and Director of the Center for WorkLife Law. Her article, Once Sick Child Away From Being Fired, discusses the problems that illness creates for workers with younger children who can not be legally left at home by themselves.

Knowing you can be fired for missing ANY work, regardless of how sick you are is alarming. It then becomes unsurprising that people go to work contagious and send their kids to school contagious. Of course, this compounds the problem by exposing other kids to the illness, thus putting other parents in the same predicament. In many ways illness is very much at the heart of the work/family problem here in America.

We spend an awful lot of time talking about the health care system, the Affordable Care Act, and the cost of health care, but what we don't realize is the hidden cost of health care reflected in an economic system that focuses on the company line and not on the individual worker. Since so many are married to their jobs in America, maybe we should provide a system that supports families in sickness and in health.

Family Values or Valuing Families

Once again, as I do every year, I found myself increasingly irritated and embittered as Mother’s Day approached. The media's habit of trotting out mothers who are sacrificing themselves for their families, celebrities toting their adorable, well-dressed children and expounding on the difficulties of motherhood (REALLY? You have a cook, a maid, a nanny, a gardener and a personal assistant, how hard could it be!?), the constant barrage of heart-warming commercials extolling their products as the perfect gift for “the mother who has given you everything,” all of it just makes me angry. I mean let’s face it, Mother’s Day is as American as apple pie and Uncle Sam. It’s the day when we can be idealistic and feel good about ourselves and how much we love dear ol’ Mom.  If we truly want to value mothers (and not just on one token, commercialized holiday a year, but all year round) we need to make sure that every mom has the resources to raise and educate their children, care for themselves and promote a culture that truly values families. How do we do this? How do stop paying lip service to terms like “Family Values” and get around to valuing families? This subject is way too broad to try and address all in one (or even ten) blog posts, but I will do my best to outline it as best I can.

 Starting off it is important to look at how the concept of family values has unfolded in the fabric of American politics. Today’s blog entry will be dedicated to the political catchphrase, “Family Values.” The term “family values” is typically associated with political discussions, specifically a Christian conservative position.  The term is a catchphrase for a set of moral values which are thought to promote healthier families throughout the nation. The main focuses of the “Family Values” movement, according to the blog; http://republicansforfamilyvalues.com/, are upholding traditional marriage/excluding gay marriages and promoting legislation that is pro-life/anti-abortion.  They also stand behind the abstinence movement and prayer in school. This is a simplistic breakdown, but it synthesizes the issues that end up being hotly debated topics in every election, and issues that I believe to be currently superfluous to more pressing issues involving families. In my opinion we cannot debate values until we first tend to the immediate and pressing needs of families with children in America. Therefore, in this discussion I do not wish to debate the legitimacy or virtue of the family values position, I would merely like to point out that it actually does very little to promote the valuation of families in our society (a fine line to be sure, but an important distinction).  To clarify, for the purpose of this blog, the term “families” is used to address families with children, school aged and younger, who are too young to care for themselves.

The position of Family Values attempts to define what a family should look like and promote a general structure to which all families should be held up against; a two-parent, Christian household that maintains the sanctity of sexual intercourse between spouses with an eye towards procreation.  This attempt at defining a family, in my opinion, is actually just another puzzle piece in what can be argued is the routine devaluation of families in this country. The fact remains, whether you agree with it or not, families come in all shapes, colors and sizes. There are children out there that are living in nuclear, heterosexual households for sure. But, there are also families with two moms and two dads, no mom or no dad, blended families, inter-racial families, families affected by death or divorce, foster families, adopted families, mixed religion families and so on and so forth. The tenant of my argument is that in order to promote programs that reach real families who have real children with real needs we need to get past the emotion of what is “right” or “wrong” and find a solution that provides a valuation for all families, regardless of their make-up. I mean, what does a family need to have the tools to be successful? A well-tooled family should have a roof over their head, food on the table, access to adequate income production and affordable, quality education. Sounds simple, right? The fact is that those basic things are not always easily achievable for all families, and even less so for families with young children or families that don’t fall under the larger umbrella of “traditional.” In order to provide for those families we would first have to be brave enough to face a full-scale cultural shift that would value all families and what they are trying to do, which is raise happy, healthy, well-adjusted, and hopefully successful children.  So if I can dream for a moment, I envision all parents bonding together in a “Valuing Families” movement to promote the betterment of ALL children regardless of the home that they were born, fostered or adopted into.