Parental Sabbaticals

Today was Jill's first Mother's Day as a mom.

Tuesday, Jill returns to work after the end of her parental leave.

The end of her leave, and the beginning of a return to "normal" where we will both be working parents, underscores just how special these last four months have been. That we've both been off of work and have been able to just concentrate on being parents, on loving and cuddling and playing with our baby, has been a gift beyond measure.

It's also accentuated how important parental leave is. We've been very lucky in terms of support: we're financially stable, had both sets of parents come for extended visits, had night doulas for much of the first month, have a baby who basically started sleeping through the night immediately, and yet it still feels like this whole deal would have been absolutely impossible if even one (let alone both) of us were working. Even now, with four months of experience under our belt, the prospect of "daddy daycare" feels terrifying to me (and that's accounting for the fact that Jill works from home!).*

I do not understand how anyone who's ever been a parent doesn't support universal parental leave. Jill and I have joked about how "surprising" it is that not having to work and just being able to concentrate on helping your baby grow is so much more pleasant than toiling in the salt mines, but really, it is an experience that everyone deserves to have. Oregon, to its immense credit, does mandate (and fund) twelve weeks of paid parental leave -- this is a brilliant policy that should be nationwide.

In fact, I'm way beyond that -- I think we should have periodic parental sabbaticals. Not a sabbatical from parenting (that's what sleepaway camp is for, and I'm embarrassed that I didn't figure that out until well into adulthood). I just think that every six or so years, one should be able to take parental leave again just to ... parent. Obviously, the parenting demands of a baby are different from those of a six- or twelve- or eighteen-year-old. But no matter what age your child is, I cannot help but imagine that both parent and child would benefit if the former could set aside four months where all they have to do is be a mom or dad. Four months to dive into a parent-child art class. Four months to really concentrate on math tutoring. Four months to dedicate to college visits. I get why this incredible experience of parental leave is centered around the time when your baby is a baby. But really, why should it be so limited?

We live in a (for now anyway) incredibly rich society. This an investment we could make, and which could make so many lives so much better. A lot of people talk a big game about encouraging families to have children -- by which 98% of the time they mean "taking away choices from women so that they no longer have any option but to have children" -- but this is something that actually would be a great catalyst for thriving families.

So consider this my big Squad/Green New Deal-style pitch: universal paid parental sabbaticals, for any parent with children under the age of 19. Build families back better.

* My leave formally ends at the end of the semester, but I don't teach over the summer, so even though I will be "working" (e.g., writing papers), I'll be taking over primary childcare duties during the day.

After Bostock, Was It All Worth It?

It's been interesting to watch conservative reactions to the Bostock decision (holding that Title VII's prohibition on sex discrimination encompasses anti-gay and anti-trans discrimination, because that discrimination necessarily is also "because of" sex). Some of the usual suspects have been relatively muted -- likely because the outcome the Court reached is actually overwhelmingly popular. But there certainly are some on the right who are very upset. Josh Blackman collects anonymous examples here. Right-wing commentator Josh Hammer urges conservative judges to abandon procedural legal reasoning entirely in favor of an unabashed substantive commitment to social conservative principles. Senator Josh Hawley claimed the decision represents "the end of the conservative legal movement."

It's more than just Joshes, of course. And the theme of this critique is, as Hawley alludes to, the question of whether it was all worth it. The claim is that social conservatives, at least, have been holding their noses and voting Republican for years because "the judiciary". But if the conservative judiciary gives them results like these, is the bargain really worth it? The murmur is that after Bostock, the jig is up, and conservatives will no longer come out to support a GOP whose judges have betrayed them.

If you're a liberal reading this, it's rather striking. The undisguised insistence that judges should vote in alignment with conservative policy objections (up to and including explicitly disavowing neutral legal proceduralism!) is amazing to see -- less because of the content and more because it's being said out loud. But more incredible is the idea that this Supreme Court has represented anything less than a massive triumph for contentious right-wing causes. The Court of Citizens United, of Trump v. Hawaii, of Hobby Lobby, of Janus, of Masterpiece Cakeshop -- none of that registers? Is it really everything or nothing?

I, of course, heartily encourage social conservatives to adopt this reasoning and decide it's not at all worth it. Rise up by sitting down, and showing the Republican Party what's what! But that's because it's obviously self-serving for me: the result of social conservatives staying home and fuming because the Supreme Court only backs them 80% of the time instead of 100% of the time is, in five or ten years, a Supreme Court that backs them 40% of the time.

Indeed, the most important lesson liberals could learn from watching, agape, the social conservative reaction is "if this strategy looks ridiculous to you coming from the right, it's equally farcical when it's threatened from the left." You don't win by staying home, and you're not playing hardball when you insist on everything.

Gingrich's Infidility Saves His Bacon

Newt Gingrich refrained from signing a conservative Iowa group's "Marriage Vow" pledge, probably because he recognized that -- as a prominent serial adulterer -- he'd be a national laughingstock if he did (well, more so). Gingrich instead gingerly offered to help "sharpen" the language so he could sign.

But fortunately for Gingrich, the delay probably evaded a serious gaffe. Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum -- who already signed the pledge, are now scrambling after folks pointed out the pledge implied that family dynamics for Black children were better under slavery than they are today (Robert George: "Black unemployment? Also low then, too!"). The specific claim -- that "a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household" than a Black child today -- is, in addition to being offensive on face (as the "two-parent household" here typically involved a slave woman and the master who raped her), also wrong on the facts.

Bachmann's damage control included a claim she didn't endorse the slavery portion of the four-page document (which was part of the preamble), wrongly explaining that in the antebellum south marriage was common and recognized amongst slaves, as well as a campaign release telling us that Rep. Bachmann "believes that slavery was horrible and economic enslavement is also horrible". That's definitely going to extinguish the fire alright.

So yeah: Lucky Gingrich.

"Value Voters"

This a clip from the FRC's "Value Voters Summit." I wish, I wish, I wish these people were not mainstream political figures. But they are, and they're the Republican Party's baby.



Via Dave Neiwert, who adds:

You'll note, of course, the obvious eliminationism coursing through all this talk -- yet another clear indication of the political religious right's increasing fanaticism and xenophobia.

It's a scary thing.

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How Convenient

Wow, is this revealing:

Doctors adopted the late-term procedure "out of convenience," [Focus on the Family Vice President Tom] Minnery added. "The old procedure, which is still legal, involves using forceps to pull the baby apart in utero, which means there is greater legal liability and danger of internal bleeding from a perforated uterus. So we firmly believe there will be fewer later-term abortions as a result of this ruling."

I'm sorry, I didn't realize that preventing "internal bleeding from a perforated uterus" is merely an exercise in "convenience." I imagine the women undergoing the operation would characterize it differently. But then, since when did Focus on the Family care about what women think?

For a more humane view, see "Why I Provide Abortions", which is heart-wrenching but a must read nonetheless.

UPDATE: More from Marty Lederman and Scott Lemieux.

Cameron Crazies

Talk about a gaffe. The San Francisco Chronicle quoted anti-gay extremist Paul Cameron as a bona fide intellectual source--without even identifying who he really is. I cited referencing Cameron as one of my reasons for doubting the credibility of an academic anti-gay marriage article, and even though S.F. Chronicle shouldn't be held to the same standards as the University of Illinois Law Review, giving accurate background on Cameron shouldn't be that hard. Here's the quote from the article:

Focus on the Family's objection to same-sex parents is grounded in interpretation of biblical scripture and research by Paul Cameron, director of the Family Research Institute in Colorado. Cameron says gays and lesbians are unfit parents, are more likely to molest children of their same sex, switch partners frequently, have shorter life expectancies and cause their children embarrassment and social difficulties.

Sounds innocuous enough, no? But Cameron is not only discredited in the science community, he's a hateful bigot too.

He told the 1985 Conservative Political Action Committee conference that "extermination of homosexuals" might be needed in the next three to four years. He has advocated tattooing AIDS patients in the face, and banishment to a former leper colony for any patient who resisted. He has called for gay bars to be closed and gays to be registered with the government.

He was kicked out of the American Psychological Association, and his institute is considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. There is really no redeeming factor to this guy.

The thing is, this is actually an important story. That a major Christian group like Focus on the Family is basing its claims about homosexuality on a man analogized by the SPLC to Nazis (and they would know--they spend most of their time tracking neo-nazi groups in the US) is something people should know. This is a data point that should be entering our discussions.

Since this is San Francisco,, hopefully there will be a reader response that might provoke a clarification. But, nonetheless, teaching moment: Focus on the Family and other major Christian organizations are deeply invested in using pseudo-scientific research to buttress their anti-gay agenda. In doing so, they align themselves with folks like Dr. Cameron, who believes homosexuals should be "exterminated." You can tell a lot about people from their friends.

Paging Mr. D'Souza

8% of French Muslims say they'll vote for far-right xenophobe Jean-Marie Le Pen. Why?

Fayid Smahi, a regional councillor and National Front member in Paris, claims Mr Le Pen offers much more wholesome values than mainstream politicians.

"Above everything it's his family values we share. When we're eating our dinner, watching TV at night and we see two homosexual men kissing, it upsets us. As Muslims, and as decent French citizens, it shocks us."

Via.