Family leave bill's a sham

The Boston Herald

BEVERLY BECKHAM

You would think it was this great, magnanimous thing. "Family leave" - it has the ring of a papal dispensation. It has the sound of charity.

But it is neither. The much-debated bill finally working its way through Congress is crumbs from the table. It's much ado about nothing. Workers, primarily women, if the great and glorious Senate approves and the president signs, will be entitled to take off 12 whole weeks from work without pay to stay home and care for their infants.

Workers, primarily women, will be entitled to take off 12 whole weeks from work without pay to attend to a sick or dying parent, partner, child. Bravo. Such benevolence. Such a wealth of kindness.

I am reminded of Henry VIII's sending to France for a skilled swordsman for his beloved Anne. He didn't want his young wife whom he'd ordered to death to suffer as her head was detached from her body. Hence the grand gesture.

That's what family leave is: a grand gesture, nothing more. It's permission to do what no woman should need permission to do - stay home with her baby or attend to some other vital need.

Once upon a time in America there was no need for family leave. The majority of women didn't work outside the home. They stayed with their kids, cleaned their houses, bought the groceries, cooked the meals, took care of their parents and their sick aunts and uncles and stepped in during any and all family crises.

But the world has changed, and the family has changed.

Today most women work full time, outside the home, and children stay alone, and the house doesn't get cleaned, and families eat out, and old people sit alone in their apartments or in nursing homes. Why? Because women cannot do it all.

That's the way it is. Women and men, millions of American families, are overworked, overextended and overburdened.

And the solution to all this? Twelve weeks off... without pay. What a country!

Holding a place in line is all it is. A time out from one job, to attend to another: To feed and change and rock a baby every three hours; sit by a hospital bed and hold a hand and pretend everything is fine; bury the dead; deal with emergencies and crises.

The government is always mouthing platitudes about children being its future and the family being its foundation. But what does it do to support the family?

Precious little.

A woman, 39, is pregnant. A college graduate, she works full time in a city an hour away from her home. Every morning she leaves her house at 6:30. Every night she returns home at 6 p.m. Her children are 10, 9, 6 and 2.

Her husband, a professional cook, works evenings and weekends. A few years ago, he invested their life's savings in his own restaurant in a ski area. No snow for two years bankrupted the area's businesses. He now waits on tables to survive. His wife went back to work because she had to.

During the day he tends to the animals on their small farm, takes care of his children and cooks organic foods, which he sells and delivers to specialty shops.

Both he and his wife drive old cars. Hers doesn't have heat or a radio. They live in a small house with one bathroom, no clothes dryer, no dishwasher. They buy their clothes in resale shops. They are not poor. They have far more than money can buy. But they are struggling.

The baby is due in May. They shouldn't have had another baby, is what many people might say. People shouldn't have children they can't afford.

But they can afford the children. The children are the joy of their lives, the reason for their being.

What they can't afford is the unending drain on their resources - the soaring cost of medical insurance, and homeowner's insurance and automobile insurance.

The family leave bill means nothing to this family. Whether or not it becomes law doesn't matter. Twelve weeks without pay and this family would go under. Twelve weeks with a reduced income and the bank would come knocking at the door.

And so she'll give birth and be back to work in two weeks, when her vacation time is up.

For her and millions like her, family leave is a pretty package with nothing inside.