what do childfree/childless people get instead of "parental leave?"

[Squinch]

561. We are not talking about the FMLA which gives everyone job protection

and benefits coverage to anyone who needs to care for elderly parents, have a baby or get sick enough themselves that they cannot perform their jobs. We all have that.

We are talking about the PAID maternity leave that is offered by many companies, 6 or 8 weeks where the new parents are paid to stay home for the first few weeks of their child's life.

The suggestion is for that paid leave to be extended for other situations besides new parenthood. Like, say, you haven't taken a maternity leave in 15 years, but your child is having a crisis with drug abuse and you need to take off a few weeks to work on it. Or you get an illness that is serious, but you can't afford to take the UNPAID time to tend to it that the FMLA offers. Or you need to do renovations to your house so you can bring those elderly parents - the ones that we don't understand about - to come and live with you, and you have the know-how to do the building yourself and you can't afford to hire someone else to do it.

There are many perfectly legitimate situations where those who do not have children, or those who are not at the time of life where we are giving birth, might legitimately need to a month or two, but we currently can't afford to do it without pay. All of the situations I have outlined are as essential to the well-being of the family as is the situation of new parents. So why are we limiting it to the one situation? The option to take off six or eight weeks with pay, maybe twice every fifteen years, for issues like these, seems to me like a great idea.

It is a compensation issue. We compensate some employees for this kind of thing, but we don't compensate others.

And "I think it is probably impossible for you to understand if you are not a parent" is a dumb cop-out of an argument. By that logic, it is impossible for you to understand what others are saying BECAUSE you are a parent, so you are equally at a loss as those you are dismissing. This, "you just can't effectively engage in this conversation" approach is silly.