Editorial Responce

July 5, 2009 “Has family-friendly law gone too far?” By: Mandy Laurie Editorial response by: A. Naweed Aryan

Say “yes” to family-friendly law Imagine you are working as an employee in a company. You are a recently married woman and you are considered a hard working employee. You want to have a child but you have to think again about demanding your right because your employer thinks that family friendly law makes it harder for him to retain talented women in the company. When Mandy Laurie wrote the article “Has family-friendly law gone too far?” she was obviously thinking only about the employers and completely ignored the most important factor in the economy, the workforce. She criticizes the paid maternity and paternity leaves and argues that these paid leaves will cause the employers to “throw up their hands in horror”. She is also worried about a “kid-centric” society if this law is in effect. She thinks that by imposing a family-friendly law the government will neglect “another important demographic group”. She believes that family-friendly law will create an “increased tension” among the employees without children because they will feel parents will get a “better deal”. The point is that Mandy Laurie completely overlooked the large population of workforce because she is only worried about the employers. But if family supporting law is not in effect it will discourage the married employees to have children and it will not be so long when the employers and the governments will be in a great jeopardy lacking workforce to move the wheels of the economy. If there is no law to support the families in developed countries it will discourage the

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working couples of having children and there is even a concern that if the population in these countries continues to shrink, it will eventually put the survival of their nations at risk. Mandy Laurie starts the editorial by the claim that because of familyfriendly law the employees no longer “require sneaking out of the office” to “nookie with the Mrs.” on a fancy afternoon but “would merely form on of the long list of employee rights”. For the reader it gets quite obvious what to expect in the article when he reads the first sentence of it. It is obvious from the beginning that Mandy Laurie’s argument lacks validity because she completely overlooked the large population of the employees. Of course no one wants a law that allows them to “nookie” with Mrs. X during the work hours especially when Mrs. X is also working as an employee in another company. There is no question about the invalidity of the claim that she has made in the first part of her article because it is just a work of her imagination without any reason or support. The next claim that she has made is also as invalid as the first claim. Taking “ovulation Leave” is something that you expect to read about in the “Reader’s Digest’s” jokes section. However in her article she states that “reports have stated that KLM stewards and pilots (both male and female) who want to start a family can take ovulation leave at the time of the month they are most likely to get pregnant”. Lucky KLM employees! A couple working in KLM can be paid just by “producing” a child every year and then. The most interesting part is that even the husband can take an “evolution leave” just because her wife is likely to have a child in the future. Every one reading this point doesn’t bother to ask himself about the invalidity of the report that this claim is based on. She backs her claims by “recent Dutch press reports” but never seems to provide any specific source of reports that the reader can access to test her claims. Another issue that she appears to be worried about is the issue of baby bonus and extension of paid maternity leave. She writes, “Employers 2

may throw up their hands in horror, but the Dutch proposal is merely an extension of a ream of family-friendly legislation that has swept across Europe in the past decade”. While in most developed countries baby bonuses may not be required to encourage parents to have children, maternity leave is definitely the right of the working mothers and their children everywhere on the planet regardless of the policy of the government to encourage or control the growth of the population. According to Elizabeth Broderick of American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), “paid maternity leave is a basic human right”. The child also has a right to have his/her mother when he/she needs her. If mother is under pressure she can not take care of her child and feed him/her properly and this will cause serious problems in physical and mental health of both mother and child. Moreover, restrictions in maternity and paternity leaves can discourage the working couples of having children. This may not be a serious problem in developing countries, but in developed countries it can have dire effects in the future of the country. According to the United Nations Population Division, in the year 2050 more that 30 percent of the average population in developed countries will be consisted of “aged” individuals compared to less than 12 percent in 1950. This means that in 2050 there will be two workers available to support each person over 65, compared to four today. It is quite obvious that this will put tremendous pressure on the working population of future and will cause numerous problems for the governments in developed countries. In her editorial Mandy Laurie also expresses her concerns about creating a “kid-centric society, with little thought directed to those left in the family-friendly wake”. She is clearly ignoring the fact that kids will not remain kids forever. We can not be ignorant of the fact that today’s kid will be tomorrow’s workforce supporting today’s working population. There will not be any loss in investing in today’s kids

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because they will one day be the most valuable resources of the country. She uses a report stating that “employers lose up to $126 million a year in covering maternity leave”. The report that she is using is inconclusive because it does not provide any specific data. If she accounts the overall loss of the companies in European countries, it is a very small number comparing to hundreds of billions of dollars of profit that they make each year. In her paper she claims that the government neglects “another important demographic group when focusing on the family”. She backs her claim by the results of a research by sociologists at London School of Economics stating that “in many European countries about 10% of women reach 45 without having children, increasingly by choice”. Although the result of this survey may be correct, it does not support her claim of government “neglecting another important demographic group” because according to her own claim, women without have chosen not to have children by their own. This may be a policy of the government to encourage working mothers to utilize this advantage and contribute to the solution to the problem of future workforce. Working women can choose at any point to have children and become entitled of the benefits of this law. If a woman wants to have a child but she is suppressed by the strict laws of her working environment, this can have a huge negative impact on her and on the society in the long run. The last claim that Mandy Laurie is making is family-friendly laws will cause “tension in the workplace as employees without children feel that parents get a better deal when it comes to time off”. This claim of “increased tension” is not valid because it is not based on any survey and moreover women without children can choose at any point to spend on diapers rather than on had bags and thus to become entitled of the benefits of the family-friendly law. 4

Conclusion: By considering the warrants and claims that Mandy Laurie has made in her editorial, it becomes quite obvious that she is completely neglecting the fact that it is the workforce who move the economical wheels of a country and who are the most important resources of a society. She claims that by introducing family-friendly law the government is neglecting other demographic groups and that this law will cause pressure on the women without children.

The evidences

that she has presented to support her claims are weak, irrelevant, inconclusive or fail to support her claims. By reading her editorial it will become clear for the reader that the final target for her criticism of family-friendly law is in fact todays children as she expresses by choosing the words “Too kid-centric” and “Baby bonus” for the topics of two paragraphs. However it is obvious for everyone that today’s kids are tomorrow’s resources and we will never be regretful if we help them today because we will need their help tomorrow.

Works Cited: “Paid maternity leave a basic right:commissioner”. ProQuest Research Library. 2008. 5 July. 2009 “Growth of Aged Population (chart)”. Microsoft student 2008. 5 July. 2009

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