Ayo, Gentribuck...I mean, Starbucks.
Lemme holla at ya'lls real fast.
First off, congrats is in order.
For the last 20 some odd years, not only have you been our Golden Standard for overpriced, GMO lattes and paper-tasting egg sandwiches that are the only option for new age college babies when their Icelandic bodegas close at 8, you've proven a hallmark institution in the world of people publicly pretending to write Empire spec scripts, so they can think, "I'm really doing it! Because its on my laptop, next to this coffee, and people can see it."
But enuffa dat. Time to get to the real reason behind this letter. So I peeped recently that you guys updated your parental leave policies for your employees. And I must say, I'm marginally impressed!
For store partners, according to the site:
- Birth mothers will now receive six weeks of 100 percent paid leave for recovery and 12 weeks of unpaid parental leave.
- Non-birth parents will now have the ability to take 12 weeks of unpaid leave.
For non-store partners:
- Birth mothers will now have the ability to take up to 18 weeks of paid leave.
- Non-birth parents will have the ability to take up to 12 weeks of paid leave.
In today's world, becoming a parent while paying the bills and rent, and maintaining unbroken hair edges is a boss-level feat. So, as someone who hopes to never work for your company, I still appreciate this capitalist concession to your exploited employees.
One thing that kinda irks me, though, is the fact that store partner mothers under this policy will receive an actual six weeks of 100 percent paid leave, and store partner fathers won't. Yeah, I know that shooting an eight-pound thing out your vagina after holding said thing for nine months requires "recovery," as was your reason for providing that specific perk.
But if a store partner guy's store partner girlfriend/wife is about to give birth, that means for those first six weeks, only she'll be banking any cash from this job, and he won't. Therefore, considering the long-standing Puritanical idea – rooted in Bible-lickin' good fun – that the man's job is to provide and the woman's job is to stay home barefoot and raise the kids, you've just told him his role as a father is outside the home, at least immediately. After all, if he's not getting any bacon for those six weeks, and they need as much cash for that kid as possible, that means he has to get income from somewhere else for that time period.
You guys are basically reproducing gendered norms and patting yourselves on the back. So please, consider this: give those same six weeks of paid parental leave to the dads as well. Oh, and 18 weeks of pay for non-store dads as well.
I'm just sayin'.
#sahdadsrnotlessmasculineforbeingthere
