About 15 years ago my Japanese friend took her visiting mother to Hooters for Mother’s Day. Apparently they really liked the wings. The waitress brought them a free pie.

Just want to state this. "People should not have children if they cannot afford them!" Well, as a small business owner-"Business should not have EMPLOYEES if they cannot afford them." That means you should provide a decent salary, health benefits and paid time off, especially for family/medical related issues.

Not only is it the right thing to do for employers to offer maternal leave, but it’s also good business sense. What’s easier? Losing an experienced employee after she has a baby and having to train a new employee up from scratch, or giving an experienced employee time to recover before she can come back and be 100%.

I just found out that one of my friends, a new daddy, has to go back to work after 5 weeks in paid paternity leave. I was puzzled. I thought FMLA gives you the right to 12 weeks unpaid, why don’t you take them? I asked him. He said in his firm everyone gets 5 weeks paid and he could ask for the other 7 unpaid but then it would be bad for his career. WTF? We need standard 12 weeks of paid parental leave and we need to make sure employers do not penalize those who take the whole 12 weeks. With the system we have now it only gives employers ways to force people to take fewer weeks and look like a “family-friendly” workplace just because they give a few paid weeks.

::the cries of a thousand whiny MRA man babies come together in unison::

And at that moment, I collapse into myself like a dying star, leaving nothing but the echo of my exasperated sigh to suggest I ever even existed.