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neomachino @lemmy.dbzer0.com

What are your thoughts on paternity leave?

I'm about to start my 12 week paternity leave next week thanks to a state program and almost everyone that I've told has had their jaws on the floor that I would even want to do that.

Today I witnessed a group of coworkers almost bragging how little time they took after their kids were born. I've heard stuff like "Most men are hard working and want to support their families so they don't take leave".

To me it was a no brainer, I'm getting ~85% of my normal pay and I get to take care of my wife, our son and our newborn for 3 whole months. and for someone who hasn't taken a day breathe in the past 3 years I think I deserve it.

I'm in the US so I know it's a "strange" concept, but people have seemed genuinely upset, people it doesn't affect at all. Again, it's a state program available to almost anyone who's worked in the past 2 years, I've talked to soon to be dads who scoffed at the idea and were happy to use a week of pto and that's it.

I feel like I'm missing something.

243 comments

  • Paternity leave is a no brainer for families of all stripes. Both spouses should have time off to care for their children in the first year of their life, especially during the vulnerable first year before they are immunized against dangerous diseases. And I'm in a same sex relationship, so I'm definitely using it when we are ready to have kids, haha.

    Honestly, each parent should have 6 mo of paid leave.

    Edit: adding onto this, all men's bathrooms should have changing stations. It's insane that some women's do, but men's do not.

    • Honestly, each parent should have 6 mo of paid leave.

      Heck yes. 12 weeks is nothing. The baby still needs a ton of help at this stage.

    • all men's bathrooms should have changing stations

      This is unfortunately one of those things that people care about greatly for a very short time when it affects them and then never more. It never really gets any traction.

      Thankfully it never was much of an issue to me, even if I almost singlehandedly changed every single diaper due to my wife having a bad shoulder. I quickly learned to change a diaper everywhere. On the floor, in the car, busting into the ladies nursery rooms, just everywhere. I got so good at it, that I bet I could change a diaper faster and cleaner than a Formula One wheel even without a table.

      Nobody ever complained. The only odd situation was when I busted into a nursing room full of muslim women where a young mother was breastfeeding. Her entourage gave me quite the looks and standing in my way shielding her, so I said "I need to change diaper". The mother looked up and everyone was watching her for a reaction, but she smiled and said "It's right over there" pointing me to the changing table. It was quite the stinker, so I apologized on my way out.

      However. I admit. This is not the best way to change diaper. A good diaper change is not fast. It's a time for bonding. It's not something I want to do in a public space with the rest of the family waiting for us, but at home, it's the perfect time to get some eye contact with the baby and confirming that, yes, your father is there for you to get you out of all the shit you get yourself into. It's perfectly fine if it takes half an hour in which most of the time is spent playing peak-a-boo. It's a chore, but it's also a much needed break from other chores. And this counts for both parents at the same time. Your partner would love nothing more than for you to disappear with the baby for half an hour.

      And that is why paternity leave is really important for the father and baby.

  • Swede here. Taking care of your family means being an active parent and a sharing partner.

    I took 18 months paternity leave with our firstborn so my partner could finish their degree.

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

  • Fuuuuck that. There's a reason it's offered. You get once in your life to see your newborns like that. Fuck your coworkers, take the time.

    And this is coming from someone who is child free and really doesn't enjoy kids personally. Take the time, be with your family. Jobs come and go but your family is who matters. Start talking the other way. "I want to make sure I absorb this while I can, I can't imagine missing these moments" and "this will only happen once or twice in my life, how could I miss that?".

  • That group you overheard were reinforcing their excuses for ignoring the needs of their child along with the needs of the mom, and reinforcing beliefs that have overwhelming evidence of being false.

    Kids needs dads in their lives, the earlier the better. Moms need dads to help out and support them.

    You're not taking time off work to laze about, you're switching from one job to take on several related jobs for a while so that you,your child, and your woman have a brighter future than any amount of money could buy.

    You're only missing out on taking the easy, shortsighted route. You're missing out on ignoring the future cost your family has to pay in the long run so that you to get to go back to the familiar routine of work. You're missing out on staying with the known game of work to avoid taking on something new.

    You're not missing out, they are.

  • That is an absolute no-brainer. Pay aside, take care of family.

    That's the whole purpose of the pay anyhow, money is just an odd totem that we allow to take care of our families.

    Plus, you get to hang out with the little one for 3 months! Your wife loves you even better. It's wins all the way down.

  • 12 weeks paternity leave at 85% salary? Damn, that's sweet, even by many EU standards.

    I wouldn't think twice about taking it.

  • I'm pretty sure there is enough research that supports the idea of paternity leave increasing parental involvement and connection with your child and leading to more gender equality/more balanced responsibilities in families.

    My husband and I went the very conservative route with him being off for 2 months and me being off for 3 years (German classic). Let me tell you I would have not survived the newborn stage, having no help from outside, without him. At the same time, for him it was so hard - although I am not sure that work was easier, he after all still came home to a little baby. Parental leave doesn't mean you get to chill, it means you have no excuse for not doing half of the night shift, half of everything except breast feeding. When he went back to work, he would do the night shifts on the weekends, and I would do all the night shifts on workdays.

    Your co-workers are morons. They miss out on helping their baby mamas, connecting with their kids, and going through a unique experience. Even if your pay was much lower, it's worth it. It's hard and stressful and awful and it is the best thing you'll ever do.

  • It sounds like your fellow wagies have been conditioned to shun anything that smells even a little "socialist". Paternity leave not only smells like communism, but also wokeism by daring to suggest that the man of the house should maybe share the responsibility of taking care of their baby.

    You are bravely doing the radical feminist work of daring to care for your wife who is likely going to have trouble with either holding her bladder (if she squeezed your new family member out through her pelvis) or with standing up and holding your baby (if she got a c-section). How do you feel knowing most of your coworkers wouldn't do this for their wife?

  • Work is something I do, not who I am.

    Americans have been indoctrinated to feel their work is their worth.

  • 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.

243 comments