• As my maternity leave after having my fourth child was ending, summer was starting.
• I wanted to spend the summer with my kids, and I looked for a solution.
• I ended up taking a 20% pay cut for 8 months for another 73 days off.

Our fourth child was a happy surprise, and arrived on the scene when we were busy putting out metaphorical fires with our 4-year-old twins and our 2-year-old daughter, who seemed to spend most of their time playing and fighting.

We felt like we already had a lot of kids. Not too many, but enough. When I learned I was pregnant, we asked ourselves, what was one more?

As my maternity leave was ending, I still wanted more time

Nine months later, the real party began. My maternity leave started coming to an end just as we were facing a very long summer: 12 weeks, from June 20 to September 8, with no school. We live in Spain, and were about to face one of those eternal Spanish summers I remember so well from my own childhood: long, hot days full of sand, sea, salt, swimming pools, and, yes, boredom.

Our monthly expenses were already higher than ever (diapers, onesies, baby food, and all those brand-new baby things I'd previously gotten rid of because I thought we were done having kids). Still, I decided to take a 20% pay cut in exchange for more time, simply so I could get us through the summer.

That decision meant more time with the baby, obviously, but also with the rest of my kids, who are still just older than babies themselves. The difference is that 40 years ago, in many families, one salary — usually the man's — could support a household. Today, both parents often need full-time jobs and want to have professional lives of their own. This is the case for us, and it's not particularly compatible with looking after four very young children for 12 weeks.

Taking a pay cut gave me an extra 73 days off

By agreeing to a 20% pay cut for eight months, I was able to combine my reduced working hours into 73 full days off instead of working shorter days each week. Together with my maternity leave, weekends, and public holidays, those extra days allowed me to stay home with my children much longer than I ever expected. I didn't have to return to work until my baby was 10 months old. It was a financial sacrifice, but it gave me something I couldn't put a price on: more time with my children. Face to face.

It sounded stressful when I thought about it. In reality, it turned out to be a dream. I've had the best summer of my life, and I'm afraid I may never get another one quite like it.

Since June, the weeks have passed slowly, as we looked for activities to fill the days: painting, drawing, gluing things together, doing yoga or gymnastics, trying to get everyone to nap at the same time, and, obviously, spending hours by the pool and at the beach.

There were moments when the baby wanted to breastfeed while my little girl needed a diaper change at the pool, with me sitting on the edge, trying to manage both. Or one kid suddenly needed to pee while the others were happily playing in the water. It has been a crash course in patience, caregiving, and motherhood.

But the interesting part isn't just how much fun we had. It's how much money we saved by doing it this way.

We saved so much on childcare that it didn't make much of a difference

I lost €10,000 (about $11,200) by taking the pay cut, which is a lot of money when you have this many kids. But I also avoided paying for the baby's day care, which costs around €700 a month. Over three months, that's about €2,100. Summer programs for the other three children would have cost around €200 per child a week. Over 12 weeks, that comes to €7,200.

Put it all together, and we would have spent about €9,300 on childcare over the summer anyway. So, in practical terms, we gave up roughly €700 so I could spend an entire summer with our four kids.

It a good trade.

Then there's everything that doesn't fit neatly into a spreadsheet: everything we learned together about being a family, sharing things, expressing ourselves, respecting each other's rhythms, and simply waiting for things to get done, something you do a lot of when there are four small children involved.

Financially, it turned out to be a good decision for us. Emotionally, it was even better.

The question now isn't really how much we saved or lost. It's what we're going to do next summer.

We'll see.

Enquanto os sindicatos que representam trabalhadores comemoram o fim da escala 6x1, as entidades empresariais lamentam a abolição da jornada e cobram do Congresso Nacional a revisão da proposta de emenda à Constituição (PEC) aprovada na noite desta quarta-feira (14). 

A Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT) saudou o fim da “massacrante escala 6x1” e a redução da jornada de trabalho das atuais 44 horas para 40 horas semanais como uma vitória “maiúscula da luta, do suor e da organização da classe trabalhadora brasileira”.

Notícias relacionadas:

• Senado aprova fim da escala 6x1 e redução da jornada de trabalho.
• Fim da 6x1: saiba quando entra em vigor nova jornada de trabalho.

“[A aprovação] marca um divisor de águas na superação de um modelo arcaico e cruel que suga as energias de quem realmente trabalha e produz a riqueza desta nação”, afirmou a entidade, em nota.

A Confederação Nacional da Indústria (CNI) reclamou que a PEC representa um “retrocesso” para o Brasil, que já sofre com baixa produtividade e falta de competitividade.

O presidente da CNI, Ricardo Alban, pediu que o Congresso revise a aprovação da PEC 221/2019 “após a constatação, por exemplo, da perda de competitividade e da alta inflacionária”.

“Acreditamos que o Congresso Nacional possa abrir espaço para revisitar o tema visando encontrar a melhor solução para a economia brasileira”, disse o representante.

Também por meio de nota, a Força Sindical destacou que o “diálogo democrático” com todos os segmentos da sociedade conquistaram a aprovação da PEC do fim da 6x1.

“A medida beneficiará milhões de pessoas pelo país, que poderão contar com mais tempo para cuidados com a saúde, convivência com a família, formação, lazer, ou seja, para usufruir como melhor lhe convém”, escreveu Miguel Torres, presidente da central Força Sindical.

Torres acrescentou que estudos e experiências internacionais demonstram que a redução da jornada tende a elevar a produtividade, qualificar o tempo de trabalho e gerar novos postos de emprego.

A Confederação Nacional do Comércio de Bens, Serviços e Turismo (CNC), que representa as empresas, lamentou a discussão do tema “em pleno período eleitoral”.

“Mudanças estruturais dessa magnitude exigem aprofundamento técnico, diálogo e avaliação criteriosa de seus impactos sobre o emprego, a competitividade e a sustentabilidade das empresas, especialmente nos setores de comércio, serviços e turismo”, escreveu, em nota, a entidade patronal.

A CNI calcula que a redução da jornada aumenta os custos de produção em até R$ 267 bilhões, com queda de 0,7% do Produto Interno Bruto (PIB) e inflação média de 6,2%.

Estudos têm divergido sobre impactos no PIB e na inflação do fim da escala 6x1. Enquanto algumas pesquisas registram amplos impactos negativos, outras apontam prejuízo residual. 

Estudo do Ipea avalia que a redução da jornada terá um impacto de 1% no custo total das empresas, em setores como comércio e indústria, chegando até 6,6% nos setores da vigilância e segurança.

Aprovação

O plenário do Senado concluiu a aprovação da PEC do fim da 6x1 na noite de ontem com 75 votos a favor e apenas um contrário.

A oposição, que era contrária à aprovação da matéria, mudou de lado após o presidente do Senado, Davi Alcolumbre (União-AP), pautar o tema no plenário.

Em entrevista à TV Jovem Pan, o líder do PL na Câmara, deputado Sóstenes Cavalcante (RJ), afirmou que, se eleito, Flávio Bolsonaro deve aprovar a PEC 12/2026, que prevê um contrato “por hora trabalhada”.

Saiba mais no Repórter Brasil Tarde, da TV Brasil

Entenda a PEC

O texto da PEC que acaba com a 6x1 prevê descanso remunerado obrigatório de dois dias por semana, em jornada máxima de 5x2, sem redução salarial, e também reduz a atual jornada de trabalho de 44 para 40 horas semanais, com uma regra de transição total de 14 meses.

Pelo texto, 60 dias após a promulgação da emenda constitucional as empresas deverão adotar a escala 5x2 e reduzir a jornada máxima para o máximo de 42 horas semanais de trabalho. Depois de mais 12 meses, a jornada será reduzida para 40 horas semanais.

Stories on the color orange, the data center rush, a local hero, the AI labor takeover, and a boy dinner subreddit.

Kate Manne, a philosophy professor at Cornell University, situates the lawsuit from a former student alleging she was gang-raped at the Chi Phi fraternity in 2024 within a broader, deeply troubling campus “rape culture.” The specific details of Jane Doe’s case are horrific, but Manne also points to shocking statistics and examples showing that sexual misconduct is rife and often taken less seriously than other student infractions. She is critical of Cornell’s response and culture, but emphasizes that, tragically, this normalization of misogyny is widespread across many American campuses. A disturbing, important read.

In a deeply misogynistic society, groups of boys and men routinely bond over humiliating and exploiting women, as Soraya Chemaly has written. And the victim is not only physically and emotionally traumatized following one of the most fundamental imaginable violations: They are likely to be doubted and undermined at every subsequent step of the process. In Jane Doe’s case, the district attorney did not bring any charges after relying on the investigation done by campus police; they didn’t even speak with the men involved. The district attorney just announced that they are reopening the case on the basis of new information contained in the civil lawsuit, and in recognition of the fact that “it can take years of therapy and healing for victims of sexual assaults to fully process and understand what happened to them.”

Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis triggered an outrage when he proposed that the “unemployment benefits” should last just two months in order to force jobless to take up a work. According to Greek legislation, the unemployment benefit of 526 euros per month increased by 10% for each child runs for maximum 12 months provided that the […]

The post Gov’t spokesman proposes sharp cut of “unemployment benefits” down to just two months appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.

A Chinese man hired a Florida surrogate, then didn’t pick up his kids because of visas issues, sparking a custody battle that could upend the lucrative, largely unregulated industry. Emi Nietfeld spent more than a year reporting this rollercoaster of a feature. One particularly harrowing turn involves the father hiring people to retrieve the babies for him:

As the men continued knocking on her door, Simpson’s phone convulsed with notifications. Zhou messaged her nonstop. He called 53 times. “If you don’t give my babies to us, we have to report to the police. And you will be arrested immediately,” he warned. Then came pleas—or were they threats? “Think about your daughter,” he wrote, referring to Simpson’s 5-year-old. “I don’t think you want to have her be live without you for several years!”

Halfway across the world, Zhou paced in his apartment, chest seizing in panic. Over and over, he’d tried to explain his predicament to Simpson. He was still waiting for his visa interview; without her help, he couldn’t get his kids home. Running out of money and options, he’d hired the handlers as a last resort. Now, as his calls and messages went ignored, he feared she’d fallen in love with his children and would never let them go.

When Leslie Buck was discovered dead in her home in 2002, Mystic, Connecticut, went into shock. What had happened to the grade school teacher and who had wanted her to die? For journalist Brenna Ehrlich, this one was personal; Buck had been her teacher in grade one. In her latest for Rolling Stone, Ehrlich returns to Mystic to learn more about who Leslie Buck was and why she was murdered.

And Anna Greene, my second-grade teacher, told me about the poems she found in Leslie’s desk after she died — that she read at the funeral. There’s one about the kids who are different, “who don’t fit,” who “dance to a different drum.” For some reason, that hit me harder than police reports or autopsies. More than the horrors that true-crime often focuses on. I still can’t read it without crying. Maybe because I definitely was one of those kids, or maybe it’s just because it shows that she truly saw her students — all of them. Or maybe it’s a much-needed reminder that Leslie Buck isn’t a story, a case to be solved. She was a person. And she deserves to be remembered.