It wasn't so very long ago that corporations discriminated against single people. They felt that married people were more stable and reliable.

Now they feel that a family takes valuable time away from work ... why, it's just like stealing from the company!

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First, childcare is not a women's issue. It is a family issue. Men make families too and today I see men struggling with time constraints quite a lot.

We really need to fix this antiquated corporate system that is based on men working outside the home and women working inside of it. It is not relevant to family lives as it does not address the need to have much more time off than two weeks per person and flexibility is not available to those who need it the most - the poor and lower middle classes.

We really could afford to cut the work hours down for all workers (never mind that Wall Street would cry in its collective beer over not being able to line its pockets quite so much). I think the work week should not be more than four days; after all, there is no one at home taking care of the other 40-80 hours of work in the home and that's aside from taking care of the children. 32 hours is more than enough and the economy would adjust to this just as it adjusted to women entering the outside workforce in many more numbers years ago. Remember, we have added so many to the workforce since women chose to work outside the home in force.

I always preface the type of work with "inside" or "outside" the home because it is all work - and it should all be respected. I don't think we need to let men off the hook here and many men would like to participate more.

This though is really a great article and brings on the important points that we are all from families. Why do we do this to ourselves? A corporation is not family friendly - it is profit driven and there is not much common ground here at all. The entire idea of what an economy is, what a oorporation should do - the idea of how much time off people should have (and what about self renewal time?)....all of these things need to be refashioned in the modern world.

The Europeans are light years ahead in their policies. Wall Street wants you to believe that things are so terrible over there (and they are terrible if you're incredibly greedy and want nothing more than to work people to death for profits). But what I saw on a visit there was a lot more family friendly and I saw the most beautiful and healhty and happy people there. I know it is not perfect and certainly they have to do a lot to integrate opportunities for all, especially the poorest immigrants who live in the slums....but the idea is right. However, this kind of ideal and family friendly environment cannot co-exist with the kind of greed engendered by the rabid capitalist system we have in place.

Thus the capitalist system has to be tempered - either with legislation - or by other means - in order to modernize it. In all it would make a happier, more sane and healthy society. But first we must recognize that it is all about families and not about one sex or the other. This debate should be about what constitutes a healthy society and what can be done to bring it about - specifically disempowering corporations enough to bring them into some kind of reasonable operating mode. And we must rework the profit model - surely there are other benchmarks of a successful society. I think we have seen the devastation and damage that the sole focus upon GNP and profits has brought us. This kind of system benefits only the top. Now that the other half of America has been wrung out by anti-family policies, by subprime wages, the promulgation of shopping as Soma, the push to buy things way out of their league...now that we are all exhausted by the bogus and insane trickle down economics that have depressed wage earners everywhere, then perhaps we can focus on issues like these to rebuild America. And corporations definitely need a re-do in their focus - in every way.

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“We just need a shift in corporate culture and in the laws of the land (that's all!)” is a great idea and would solve most, if not all, of our nation's gravest problems.

But, don’t anyone hold your breath. Why? Because, thanks to nearly eight years of Cheneybush, corporate culture IS the law of the land.

I know it's preaching to the converts, but in November vote Democrat to get the shift started.

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Let's be honest here... corporations, most of them, anyway, are bending over far enough to kiss their own ass for parents these days, and and the trairots in office are in full support of it. If you have kids, you can get off largely whenever you 'have' to. Have a family emergency? Go! The suckers at the office will pick up your slack (and at no extra charge!). If a single or childfree person wants to take off time for some reason, even for an actual emergency, they often get the shaft. America pays people, in the form of tax credits, to have kids. The childfree? Singles? We get taxed HARDER. Also, let's play devil's advocate here a second... there are businesses that depend on regular schedules. If you work in such a job, especially knowing that it is that kind of environment, why should accomodations be made to you for a personal CHOICE you've made for yourself? For a handicap or other issue its valid, but this? Few employers are willing to accomidate someone if they choose to take a class or work charity functions in the middle of the workday. Why? Because its a lifestyle CHOICE they made for themselves. Children are no different in this era of well-understood reproductive science and ready access to birth control. There are some areas in life where you have to make a choice and are forced to go one way or the other. If you go the route of parenthood, you should be prepared to pay the price of it, and complaining about the consequences of the choice you made is really nothing short of pathetic. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

As to the argument that the 'heroic' parents are raising the next generations leaders... So what? Leadership takes strong character, and unlike what the pop-child pshcologists tell you, that can't be 'parented in'. Its quaintly nice that the yuppie parents of today seem to care so much for the future that they are willing to screw up the present, but the adults of this generation have to live here now in the conditions that exist.

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