<p>Yeah, I am a little put off by that comment. I am a mom – and also held a pretty high powered management job through most of my kids’ lives, and am considered an expert practitioner in my field today. Not sure what they were “right” about. I took 3 months of maternity leave with each of my kids, and their dad took 3 months after that. Don’t believe for a minute that 6 months out of a 30 year career ought to make a speck of difference in the quality of my work and my employability (then or now).</p>
<p>I DONT feel that way at all. Am saying these )&%$^_)^&*$^ practices were unwilling to take a chance on a bright , competent, professional FEMALE because they feared she’d get pregnant and leave or take too much time off. It outrageous. I had 2 kids. Worked until the day I delivered. Went backl fulltime after 3 weeks (yes thats weeks, NOT months) with the first, and 6 weeks (though did supervision from home after a few weeks) with the second. My point is EXACTLY what you are saying, intparent. These practices need to open their eyes and their minds. There is no place for sexism. These practices made assumptions and lost out of a fabulous practitioner.</p>
<p>Apologies if my post was unclear. Yes she had a kid. So what. She is a good, dedicated doctor. They didnt ask the illegal questions. They just passed her over because she’d have a child soon. Ugh. Provincial.</p>
<p>Sorry… when you said they were “right” that she went on to become a mom, I didn’t read it as “of course she did, she is a married woman biologically capable of bearing children, but she will be back in a few months and you will have an employee that is just as good as any dad”. 
We do agree!</p>
<p>A 3 month leave can cause a lot of hardship, especially these days when every organization is running as lean as possible.</p>
<p>Plus, a decently high percentage of professional women I have known have decided to become SAHMs after they had kids. These women had all planned to come back, but their priorities changed. I’ve seen several times where the mothers said they were coming back after a paid leave, but returned for one day and then resigned, in order to not have to pay back the leave money. The company is left high and dry and out a lot of money, other employees are resentful because they’ve been carrying the load, feel they were misled, and will have to continue to carry the load until the person is replaced.</p>
<p>It’s hard hiring good people in any field. It’s not like you can find a replacement in a week by putting an ad in the paper. If you are investing a lot of time and money in a person who will be an important part of your company, it’s something that will be considered, especially if the company has been burned before. You may not like it, and I’m not saying it is right, but that is the reality.</p>
<p>“I think you can be asked about conditions that might interfere with your ability to perform the specific job duties; thus, for example, I suspect airlines can make pilot applicants take a vision test. You can’t be asked about your general health, though.”</p>
<p>I think it is something that has changed because of legalities through the years. I was hired by American about 24 years ago. The physical was extremely thorough. We had to list how all our grandparents died, got everything from arduous hearing and eyesight tests, EKG, blood tests, and even an EEG (brain scan). They called it the astronaut physical, and some long distance runners were turned down because they were so healthy they weren’t in normal parameters. Ridiculous. When my husband interviewed, he had badly hurt his hand, but was afraid to even take aspirin or Tylenol for pain, in case it skewed his blood work.</p>
<p>Fast forward a couple of years later, laid off, new job. All they needed was a Class I flight physical, no medical questions. To pass the Class 1, “Can you see me? Yep, eyesight’s good. Can you hear me? Hearing is good.” An entirely different world, and I’m sure lawsuits had everything to do with it.</p>
<p>An EEG measures electrical activity. A brain scan looks at the structure of the brain . Sorry-- pet peeve.</p>
<p>I was asked in one of my job interview whether I planned to get married, I was 19, the guy didn’t want to train somebody and that person left to get married. I was young, naïve and stupid, but I also left the profession(accounting), if I was not so young, naïve, and stupid, I would sue them for money. I changed to engineering, it was the best decision that I’ve made. Either my skill sets were in demand or I was lucky that 3 companies let me work at for almost 10 years. Every time I asked to go part-time, they said they would let me work at home. Well my kids friends were always envying of my daughters, their moms(doctors) told me they said why couldn’t the moms work at home like me.</p>
<p>“An EEG measures electrical activity. A brain scan looks at the structure of the brain . Sorry-- pet peeve.”</p>
<p>Aha! Now I know why I passed. So now I know they weren’t actually looking for a brain, just mere electrical activity. Thankfully I hooked up some of the electrodes to my beeper…</p>
<p>Many years ago, I had a job interview with 2 men who said “I see you have a wedding ring and are married. Do you have any children?” At the time I had a 1.5 year old. I knew right then I would not get the job and wanted to get up and walk out of the interview. Once the question is asked, there is no acceptable answer. In addition, you also know what they are judging you on.</p>
<p>CMU, I walked out of interview all the time. If I don’t feel it’s a good fit I told them. Especially, some young male engineers from countries that don’t always treat women right, they have a tendency to be a bit of a JERK, and I have no problem let their HRs know by walking out on them in interview. When the HR came they were often apologetic. So it can work both ways, I don’t always have to be at the receiving end of these kind of treatment.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>“xrays of patient’s skull showed nothing…” (old joke) </p>
<p>From what I’ve seen from owning a business for 15 years. The maternity leave itself has never been that big of a deal to me. It’s afterwards - there have been a very few who then took off all the time and didn’t have reliable child care. And that was very few. What I really believe for my company is that those with kids tend to take their jobs more seriously because they have someone else they are responsible to and they need that paycheck. But I have also noticed it’s almost always the mom who takes off when a child is sick or has an appointment or conflict. Then again, there are very few women in my company who are married to the father of their children.</p>
<p>Looks like our kids are smarter than us (“us” being boomers as a group):
<a href=“http://www.bankrate.com/financing/retirement/young-and-planning-to-retire/”>http://www.bankrate.com/financing/retirement/young-and-planning-to-retire/</a></p>
<p>^Good to know! Except my kid is making a minuscule amount of money and is so proud to support herself that she refuses to take spending money from me and save her earnings.</p>
<p>My kid would never refuse to take money from anybody, she would not consider it smart. I told her that this is a great attitude to have. However, she will be financillay independent in one year and it scares me more than her since I am very well aware of her expenses. We will see. If her job (resident) will have any kind of 401k, I will strongly reocmmend to participate. But we stiil have to get there and the “judgement” day a.k.a "match’ is March 20, 2015. Everybody is getting hyped up about it and crossing their fingers. Who knows, she might end up in some expensive place (like Chicago) and there is no adjustment for resident’s salary geographically. However, the main goal is to match, nobody can be choosy, they just go where they match.</p>
<p>
Maybe she would be willing to take the money if it goes right into an IRA? Especially if it can go into a Roth.</p>
<p>That way you are not subsidizing her current lifestyle, you can characterize it as she is getting part of her inheritance a little early.</p>
<p>I did what notrichenough did, started son’s IRA. In a few years, he took over. We made the mistake of contributing 1 year in grad school, when, for first time, he did not have outside earnings. oh well.</p>
<p>So my millennial daughter asked me about IRA and 401K the other day because her roommate works at a big corporation that offers it. If their peers are into, they are also into it.
From what I’ve read on this thread, small business owners do not qualify for HSA, my daughter is in this category and I’ve research that even though her business can’t deduct HSA, however she can deduct for personal income tax, but it’s not as great. Perhaps, a Solo 401K is a better tax savings, because of its generous contribution limit, up till $52K and one can borrow if one needs money, just like regular 401K. There are some brokerage like Vanguard and Fidelity that can set up paperwork for her. </p>
<p><a href=“https://www.hsaresources.com/pdf/Small_Business_Owner_HSA_Contribution_Guide.pdf”>https://www.hsaresources.com/pdf/Small_Business_Owner_HSA_Contribution_Guide.pdf</a></p>
<p><a href=“Solo 401(k) - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solo_401(k)</a></p>
<p>Back in the day (after fire but before the wheel), I worked at a place that would allow a 6% contribution to a 401k and double match it (12% match for 18% total!!). Some of my younger co-workers did not participate, no matter how much I told them it was free money. It’s a good thing that younger workers (I.e., those with jobs) are wising up. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, I can’t access her accounts. i can hand her over a check marked for IRA deposit. That may work.</p>