Wow, you guys have a lot of rules for things that don't matter and none for things that do. Here a husband and wife, husband and husband, wife and wife could work in the same company... no one says anything, in fact, I'm pretty sure it would be discrimination if someone was excluded from a job because of their spouse. It just doesn't look good if one works directly under the other.

Also the 60 weeks paid maternity is not at all weird here. By law we get 52 weeks and our vacation continues to accrue, so because I happened to have my son in April, I was able to go from Jan to April without using any of my 4 weeks vacation and 4 more accrued during my 52 weeks and I have to use them up immediately after my statutory mat leave. The only thing out of the ordinary I got were a ton of sick days I had banked which they made me use before I went on mat leave so if you add those up, it ended up being almost 16 months.

Almost all (if not all) developed countries have at least 12 weeks legislated paid mat leave and vacation days. It's ridiculous to hear anyone talking about 8 weeks as if it were a privilege. I'm not saying that to put anyone down, but ladies in the US need to do something about that... you're getting screwed... and before anyone starts talking about bankrupting the government or businesses, it has nothing to do with them so small businesses couldn't care less if they hire a pregnant lady, it won't cost them any more to employ them. Our mat leave is paid by employee-funded employment insurance. When a baby is born or adopted, a man or a woman is entitled. They can even split the time and both be off for half a year each either at the same time or one after the other.

I guess since a husband and wife evidently can't be employed by the same company, the point about which one goes on mat leave is moot, but it still remains a disadvantage to women when trying to get hired simply because the company will realize if she gets pregnant, they'll have to give her twice as much vacation time as a man.

So if a man and a woman don't have to be treated fairly at a company, how about two employees performing exactly the same job, exactly the same pay and have a baby at exactly the same time. Employee A gets 16 weeks because their ankles swelled but employee B only gets 8 because theirs didn't? I bet employees C & D will get tired of a bunch of employee A's around because they have to do their job twice as long.

You don't have to understand my point if you don't want to but there are at least 42 countries outside of the US that do.