What are your thoughts on paternity leave?

Doing paternity leave is a good must and normal. Being an absent parent is not good.
Godspeed and congratulations with your child!

People who brag about going to work deserve to die at their desks. Godspeed taking care of your newborn and your spouse.

Men who brag how little time they spend with their kids shouldn’t be having kids.

My company offers parental leave (generic, not gender-specific, and applies to adoptions as well as giving birth). Everyone I work with expects people—men included—to take it.
A guy on my team took his a couple years ago and now with his second child recently born, he is applying his lesson learned. Instead of taking the time as soon as his kid is born, overlapping time off with his wife, he’s letting his wife take her full time then he’s taking his. That way they stagger the full-time care of the newborn for about 6 months straight, after which his wife will be done teaching for the summer, meaning more like 8 months straight.
Another coworker (Director level) had his latest kid December before last. Our busy time is January to April, so he delayed and took his time off in May or June.
Fuck companies that don’t support it and the small-minded people who think men shouldn’t take it. I can understand how challenging it can be for a small business to support that kind of leave, but as humans we should care more about supporting the next generation than a couple hits to productivity at work for 2-3 months. (I write as a permanently child-free person.)
What you’re missing is that the people you work with are stuck in the mindset from 2 generations ago. Don’t buy in. Taking your leave IS supporting your family; you’re doing it right.

When I'm on my deathbed, I'm absolutely sure I won't be thinking about work.

I'm not a psychologist or whatever to say how long but the dad should get as much leave as the mother does to help deal with all the new baby shit and bond with the child.
You should take all the time you can get. Fuck other people's expectations.

So basically, the choice is to spend 12 weeks with those idiots or with your baby? Seems like a no brainer to me.

People are idiots. Why would you give up a benefit you're legally entitled to? Nobody is going to as much as thank you for that.
- In the US fathers don't have any legal right to take time off from work. It's expected that you would miss at most a few days for the hospital visit.
  
  FMLA does cover leave for fathers, and in 2020 the DOL said 56% of US workers were covered by FMLA. That’s still a lot of people who don’t have those protections, but it’s still demonstrably incorrect to say there isn’t “any legal right [for fathers] to take time off from work.”
  
  Fathers don't have a lot of legal rights there, don't they ("There" as in USA)

Those 12 weeks will be no walk in the park. You rightfully state you'll be taking care of everyone, and it's 24/7 juggling new dynamics and a whole new human being's needs.
Yes, people survive with less time or no time off at all. I'm convinced some brag about it like some badge of honor to make themselves feel better.
Thank you for being considerate of your family's needs. Good luck!

I’m all for paternity leave, but there is a conflict between taking time off to take care of your newborn, and taking time off to breathe.
Newborns aren’t exactly a vacation.

In the U.S. we're taught to brag about how much we're exploited, as if it's a virtue.
It's a very sick culture.

I WISH my husband had been able to take time off. Those first few weeks of sleep deprivation are fucking ROUGH on your own. I think you did the right thing and that the child is going to get dramatically better care because his parents are actually sonewhat rested.

Come to the EU, noone will scoff at paternity leave here. On the contrary, colleagues will congratulate you for procreating lol

Take the paternity leave with pride

My manager is on paternaty leave for half a year, it is normal here, he is a dad after all!

You’re the smart one. Fuck the haters. Ignore them.

What you're missing is some men legitimately hate their wives and children and dislike spending time with them. Others drank the coolaid of American capitalist propaganda. Your child will only be a newborn once and your wife will need the help. If anything you should be normalizing it by telling all your friends and colleagues how great it is and how happy you are to get to spend that time with your family. Never shut up about how awesome it is. Expound at length about the many benefits you personally enjoyed thanks to your time with your new child. Every man you convince makes the world a better place.
- When I was born my dad worked for himself, he was never home and I can remember running away from him crying cause my mum was leaving the house. He found permanent employment by the time I was 2 because of this.
  These men are fuckwits and will wonder why they don’t have or struggle to form a relationship with their children in later life.
- If you hate her why would you marry or have kids with her? Its completely optional to have a wife or child.
  
  I guess because people fall in and out of love, which is natural, so they start a family and later everything changes. Also because people's personality changes with time and because they tend to conform to social expectations.
  
  Social pressure. "When are you getting married? When are you having kids?"
  For some people, that's enough to push them into doing it.

Their logic is from a POV of they dont get the benefit since they aren't expecting parents or didn't get that benefit if/when they wer, so why should anyone else. When really the proper evolved response is to be happy that new trends are being set and we're improving the cruel system that keeps new parents from critically important family time.

Take the full 12 weeks - you’ll never regret it. Superhero dads are there for their wife and children. You’re doing the right thing.

Pretty sure THEY are the ones missing something. They've been brainwashed into thinking you should be embarrassed NOT to shun your family so you can be at work 24/7 to make someone else rich. Take advantage of that program while it still exists.
- It's the typical toxic corporate pressure.
  Fuck machismo.

@neomachino,
You will never get the time back to be with your offspring during these formative months into years. I would scoff at any "scoffers" and tell them their bragging about not taking time off to be with their family isn't the flex they think it is. Life is more than just your occupation. I'm an American living in the Netherlands with my Dutch wife these days, and I can guarantee with certainty my European colleagues would scoff at me if I didn't take the time off. Attitudes towards this are changing in the U.S., albeit too slowly in my opinion, but our culture is fundamentally sick. I primarily blame puritanical christian zealotry that made its pact with the devil (pun fully intended) with avaricious capital for much of the woes found in our society, for what its worth. The gods willing, this will die out in a few generations.
Take the time and cherish it; your future self and children will thank you.

My man, you are literally getting paid to spend time with a tiny human being you helped make. You’d have to be pretty deep into the Kool-aid bottle to say no to that.
I had my mandatory 15 weeks last year and loved it, so from one dad to another: enjoy it!
And remember: if you die tomorrow, you’ll be replaced at work within a few weeks, but you can never ever be replaced at home.

I had 8 weeks fully paid through use of accrued PTO. 8 weeks is about the minimum of paternity leave necessary to kind of get your life back into order imo. This isn't a vacation, it's taking full care of a little person that needs help every 2-3 hours. If both you and your partner work it would be impossible without leave just due to sleep depravation. Our first kid was (is still 4 years later) a terrible sleeper and the first few months were hell. Luckily our second is actually a better sleeper than the first right now and she's only 8 months old lol.
But yes, 12 weeks paternity is not a vacation, it is work. Plan for 12 weeks and if you think that you have everything sorted then great, go back. But daycare might be more than what you would make going back to full pay so just consider that too.

Am American. Would take every day of it. Would come back and laugh at them when they picked on me for it, while calling them idiots for not taking advantage of the opportunity. "Have fun talking yourselves out of regret, losers."

Yeah we haven't in Australia, seen people take it , it's a great idea

You are experiencing gender based persecution. Think of men who can't be a stay at home dad, work as a nurse, or can't show emotion, etc. Women who want to do construction work or STEM. LGBT and especially trans discrimination is also that taken to an extreme because the perceived gender divergence is more drastic. For whatever reason, there are many people in society who want to enforce strict artificial gender roles on other people.
- My wife said something like "the patriarchy hurts everyone, men included" and everything made a lot more sense.
  
  Out of curiosity, where do you live? If you live in a conservative state, that explains a lot about the scoffing and the dismissal of the unfamiliar and new by your peers.
  Anyway, screw the haters. They are the ones who will regret missing out on those privileged pay from paternity leave.

Those first few months, especially with your first kid… man. The sleep deprivation alone makes it worth it. Not to mention all the firsts that happen so fast that you’ll otherwise miss… presumably to work for “the man.”
Am American, but been lucky enough to work with people who understand this, and maxed out all paternity leave I could get.

What moron would pass up on 85% paid leave??
- Furlough was such a sweet deal during the covid lockdowns. Like 80% pay and no work? Sign me up!

Enjoy it. A great number of people in the US have been conditioned to tie up their sense of worth to their job, and can’t comprehend there’s more to life.
I’d take 12 years paternity leave if I could.

My main thought on paternity leave is that it should be exactly the same as the maternity leave so that there is no difference between hiring a man or a woman.
- This or eventually give a total amount to the couple and let them decide to split according to their needs (with a minum each partner, maybe).
  
  Downside there is the company can then try and pressure one of them, usually the man, into not taking much/any.
  
  That's how it works in Canada. There's a set amount given to the parent giving birth, then the rest can be split however you want.

It's just hyperbolic masculine capitalism being parroted. Live in the U.S. south and have dealt with many friends and their relatives who have said the same shit. I've been around long enough to see those same people completely fall apart when the lives at home just crumble because they're too busy with work (illness, deaths in family, etc). They always eventually come to regret the decisions and times they've missed once they get in their later years.
There's nothing wrong with choosing to prioritize a work career in one's life though, but hating on someone else's choice is just ridiculous.

Ignore them. If you can, should you try and stagger the time off with your s/o. Don't take it at the same time.

Any man that thinks work is more important than spending time with the family is a bad father. I say this as the son of a bad father.

I had 12 months of paternity leave, 11 paid. I dig it.

It is a no brainer dude. Absolutely take the leave. You know how the work culture is here in the US, it's pretty ridiculous. The "Live to Work" crowd is getting pretty old now though so I have seen a shift in corporate culture where I am at.

Work is something I do, not who I am.
Americans have been indoctrinated to feel their work is their worth.

Your coworkers are fucking idiots.
- I too recognize that this person's coworkers are fucking idiots.
  
  I three recognize that this person's coworkers are fucking idiots.

Fuck those people dude. When it comes to children. The days are long, but the years are short. Enjoy the time you have with them when they are little and don't miss out on all those amazing moments. I took 12 weeks with my kid and it was wonderful to just watch her grow. Take benefits where you can, fuck the haters.

Don't listen to those morons. Paternity leave is a legit great way to stay with your wife and children when they need it the most.
- Yea F those tools that judge you on wanting to be there for your wife and kid.
  For some providing a reliable income is their way of supporting, but man is it great to actually provide the time to be there in person

I have four kids and I took ~6 weeks of paternity leave for each of them (which was in my contract—I’m an Episcopal priest, though I still went in on Sundays because I was going to go to church regardless so I might as well lead services and save the parish money on paying what we call a “supply priest”). It’s absolutely worth it and don’t let anyone make you feel weird about it. You’re doing a great thing for your partner and child—as well as yourself. Babies are a lot of work for dads as well! Acting like dads don’t need paternity leave is a form of patriarchy.

You are surrounded with workaholic, misogynists. My company gives full pay for 12 weeks for mothers and fathers. Several of my coworkers, mostly men, have used their leave in full (usually 9 weeks together and the other 3 broken up). Nobody ever looks down on people for taking leave.
Maybe they would take all of it if it was for full pay. Ya'll motherfuckers need a union.

When my daughter was born, I was blown away to find that my company offered 16 weeks paternity leave. A couple of weeks before my wife was due, I was talking to a coworker and found that his wife was also pregnant, but he didn't know about our company's parental leave policy. He had only been planning to take a couple of weeks. After we talked I found out he took the whole thing.
That four months was one of the greatest times of my life, getting to know my newborn daughter.
Three years later I was in a different job when my son was born. They offered three days. Six months later I found a new job, and I took an extra month off during the transition, just so I could spend every day with my son.
I don't regret any of that. I can't even imagine what that would feel like. I love my children and love being a dad. This is life. This is all we get.

Life at home would have to be pretty bad for me to rather be at work.

I don't think you're missing anything. I think that your co-workers bragging is one of the toxic effects of how we tend to think about productivity nowadays, especially in America. I think that there's a tendency to glorify suffering (i.e. sacrificing time with your family to do so much work that by the time you get home to your family, you're too exhausted to be fully present with them).
I know fathers who effectively didn't have a choice about spending time with their newborns, because of a mixture of social pressures (especially gendered pressure from extended family) and financial pressure (such as not having access to paternity leave), who then go on to brag about how much they worked and sacrificed, framing it as if it's a choice they're glad they made. I think that for some people, this nonsense rhetoric is what they tell themselves to cope with the fact they were effectively coerced into something they regret.
Long story short, you're not missing anything. You are, in some ways though, going against the grain: even in places that have paid paternity leave, that alone isn't enough to change the tide of social attitudes. That change happens because of people like you who go "fuck this nonsense, I'm not making a martyr of myself to support my family when I can do a much better job supporting them if I'm there with them".
Unfortunately, based on reports from friends who are fathers, this is just scratching the surface of people being weird about men who are enthusiastic and engaged fathers. It sounds like you've got your priorities in order though. Your coworkers are very silly, and even if you don't feel it appropriate or necessary to tell them how absurd they are, you should at least internalise the fact that you are the sensible one here. An analogy that comes to mind is how, if your employer matches your 401k contributions, it's a no-brainer to take advantage of what is basically free money. If someone has "spare" salary and asked for financial advice online, one of the first and most basic suggestions is often that if you're not already taking advantage of any 401k match your employer offers, you definitely should be. It's free money! Similarly, taking advantage of the paid paternity leave is a no-brainer. This isn't a challenge run in a video-game, so there aren't any prizes for making things needlessly harder for oneself.
Edit: Also, I bloody hate it when people say shit like this:
"Most men are hard working and want to support their families so they don't take leave".
The subtext they're saying here is "I don't acknowledge parenting (and other caring labour) as being hard work, and I certainly don't acknowledge how critical essential this labour is for the world to function. I assume that this work is primarily for women, because this allows me to ignore it and the people who do it, which allows me to feel more important. The only way I can maintain my self identity as 'hardworking' is if I implicitly demean others' hard work".
It's bullshit, and your instincts are right to flag this shit as weird. Parenting is bloody difficult, and anyone who makes comments like this are actively reinforcing old systems that led to many fathers not being given the opportunity to be active fathers.
Anyway, rant finished. I'll finish this edit with something I forgot to say in my main comment: congratulations, and good luck in the weeks to come. And well done on taking this paternity leave, because that helps to disrupt the existing, outdated systems of traditional family structure that make everyone miserable. The impact of one person's choice is only small, but if enough people opt for their family over slaving over the altar of capitalism, I hope that we can build a world where a father wanting to actively be a father is treated like the normal thing it is.

I went through the same thing when I took my paternity leave. Other male coworkers bragged about how they went back to work the day after their kid was born.
It's a culture thing where our society is conditioned to be boot lickers for the ruling class. I responded to them at the time, "Congratulations on being a bad father, I'm going to take every day entitled to me"
Don't fall into their trap.
- Yup. Had old union buddies I was talking to after my first, and I brought up that he had a diaper blowout earlier, and they were like "I've never changed a diaper in my life!"
  Just told them " damn, I'd be too embarrassed to admit I were that bad of a father in public..."
- I find it hilarious when people brag about things they think are cool but it just makes them look like dumbasses.
  "Lol I can drink 24 beers in one sitting"
  "I never call in sick, I can be hacking up a lung and I'm still there at the office"
  On and on...
  
  These are the idiots that put the ruling class in the position that they hold today. Is it any wonder why they have so much power?
- There's nothing impressive about a man going back to work the day after their child was born unless they somehow popped the newborn out of their precious little asshole.
  All it means is that they're willing to put their wife at risk of post partum depression and that they don't give a shit about their child. Not a thing to be proud of there.

Sounds like attitude of wage slaves that have been brainwashed into doing everything for the corpos and being fine with getting scrap. They live to work as opposed to work to live.
Can't change the slave mentality of some people. They were just born to be one.
- They were not "just born to be one", it’s just the propaganda is so strong

First of all dont tell your coworkers shit. It almost always becomes ammo for them later.
Definitely take advantage of every state program you can. You paid for it already. People talkin shit are fuckin smoothbrained trogs

Americans are weird.
Honestly the time with your partner and kid is precious irreplaceable.
Anyone who's weird about it is insecure about their own paternal involvement.

You are missing better coworkers, or coworkers who haven't succumbed to the stupid idea that working yourself to the bone for someone else's profit is good.
"Men are hard working" my ass. Taking care of kids is hard work and if they can't understand that, their social conditioning worked exactly as expected.

12 weeks paternity leave at 85% salary? Damn, that's sweet, even by many EU standards.
I wouldn't think twice about taking it.

Absolutely take paternity. Why wouldn't you?

Good for you! That time with your family is really important.
I'm from the US and I caused quite a stir when I took 4 weeks off; 3 days paternity leave and the rest was accrued vacation. HR was trying to convince me to break it up because "it would set a bad precedent." But my boss was supportive and approved it anyway.

I came into this thread thinking I'd just post "Uhh, it was pretty nice?"
Then I read the post text. Jesus fuck.
The other comments are probably right, no real point in doing anything but ignoring them. But goddamn, my first instinct would be to try and call them out on that bullshit attitude. No way am I clever enough to do it effectively, though.
- I did call them out a bit. The thing that broke me was when I said something like "I provide a lot more than financial support. I cook, clean, change diapers etc.." And I saw the group split between the guys who do that stuff and those who don't.
  It made me sad, a lot of these guys are only a few years older than me and can't really blame it on "how things used to be". I felt like I was in the 50s or something and I needed to check if the bathrooms were segregated. I've never seen such ignorant toxic masculinity in real life, and I used to work in construction 10 years ago.

The "work yourself to death" is a stupid boomer concept. It's a hugely negative aspect of traditional masculinity.
When people say weird stuff like this, I always question why. Why would you have a kid and then work so hard to be away from it? Why would you work for a company that will lay you off the moment it earns them a higher stock price to do so? (no modern company deserves your loyalty.) Why would you brag about suffering instead of relaxing?
I understand that we're all wired differently but those values literally don't make sense to me.
- The "work yourself to death" is a stupid boomer concept. It's a hugely negative aspect of traditional masculinity.
  At least for boomers, loyalty was often rewarded with promotions, bonuses, and generous pensions. But these days companies will work you to death and then fire you for a 0.0001% boost to their quarterly profits. They'll fire 10,000 people just so the billionaire shareholders can earn 1% more.
  
  Yup. Loyalty is a two way street. I know pretty successful companies whose former employees still speak highly of, precisely because the company did the whole "you work hard and we treat you well" thing. The moment that that trust is lost, your employees will treat you in kind. Except for some idiots falling for the propaganda of course.
- It's a "Greatest Generation" concept. Those depression-era folks unionized to be able to live a better life, then never bothered to actually retire and live that life. They worked themselves into the grave.
  Boomers don't work themselves into the grave. Boomers "Retire in place".
  
  For those that are unaware, retiring in place is actually a great way to describe American politicians.
  Boomers keep their job till they go to the grave but they stop working at 65, coasting while collecting a paycheck and having others pick up their slack.

It's a psychological defense, "I did this and it was ok and it's the right thing to do, so everyone must do it too". It's like backwards logic, like, I think it's s good idea simply because I was forced to do it and that's the only way it makes the whole thing ok.
Also related: toxic culture of "toughen up".
The brain works in quirky ways. There's real studies that show that if something is higher price people attribute better characteristics to it.