So What If Yahoo's New Dads Get Less Leave Than Moms? 832
Dawn Kawamoto writes "Yahoo rolled out an expanded maternity/paternity policy that doubled the family leave for moms to 16 weeks. But new dads at Yahoo get only 8 weeks. It turns out that Yahoo is not the only Fortune 500 company to short-shrift news dads. But, really, do new dads think it's worth crying over? Hmmm...changing diapers or cleaning up code — both are messy, but one smells less."
Equal rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Anything less than equal treatment is discrimination.
Men are being discriminated against by not getting the same amount of leave to spend with their newborn children.
This has both physical and psychological effects on all parties involved.
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Insightful)
I should add, its ironic that ultraliberal California doesn't consider this illegal, but Ruby Red North Carolina prevents such discrimination.
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Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Informative)
Last I saw, FMLA says unpaid leave. Yahoo(!) is offering paid leave. Dads can still take 12 weeks, but the last 4 have to come out of vacation or unpaid time.
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Informative)
Don't forget that with FMLA only applies to certain companies (50 or more employees in the area), may not apply to you (upper 10% of earners and your leave would hurt the company), you and your wife work at the same place (then you have to split your 12 weeks). Pretty sure most companies require you to burn your paid time first, so it may be unpaid leave.
While time to bond would have been great, I don't have any real heart-burn about Yahoo's benefit offering for a few reasons. 1) I do believe that on average, women are likely to need more time off to recoup from giving birth, especially as it seems troubled pregnancies are becoming more common. 2) I'm much more bent over how a female dominated field like education (birth - high school) has zippo paid parental leave benefits. Considering the current overall state of such benefits Yahoo deserves applause, albeit possibly with a raised eyebrow.
Sheesh folks are getting bent over Yahoo increasing an already generous benefit for women but, not for men. How about we cut them a huss until everyone else in the country has the paltry 8 weeks of leave dads at Yahoo will get, then we can paint signs, hop on a buss, protest outside their offices, sign "Give Peace a Chance" and boycott their services...
Re:Equal rights (Score:4, Insightful)
Fairness is not about everyone getting the same things. It's about everyone getting what they need. Since people are different, they should get different things.
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Would your defense of Yahoo! be the same if the discrimination was drawn along racial lines instead of gender?
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Interesting)
No, fathers aren't the same as mothers. Men aren't the same as women. So why the fuck do women demand equal pay?
Sorry, but it's all or nothing. Equal rights or no equal rights. Don't go demanding unequal rights that benefit one population over another.
Shit, next you'll be complaining that men don't take on their fair share of caring for and raising the children.
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Insightful)
You are obviously choosing to ignore the one great difference between men and women - it's the woman that bears the child, the man does not.
They are treating everyone equally - every person that actually delivers a baby gets three months paid maternity leave. Every person that impregnates another person gets two months off. That "tends" to fall along gender lines, but let's consider same-sex couples:
I suspect the answers to the above answers will show the policy to be legal and fair, and by the way, if the whiners are going to have any impact on Yahoo to change their policy, I strongly suspect they will back on the benefit for new mothers 33 1/3% rather than increase the father's paid leave 50%.
Ah, so you're from the camp that defines equal in whatever what you want. So, women should get the same pay as a man for the same job (they should), they should have the same chance for a promotion as an equally qualified man (they should). Oh, they should get the same time off as a man? No, they get more because they're women.
Your logic could also be easily used to justify lower pay for women (they tend to get pregnant and leave you in a lurch), fewer promotions (same reason) and probably other things I haven't thought of.
You cannot argue for equal rights between the genders and then turn around and say that a clearly unequal policy is equal because it "tends to fall on gender lines". Policies are either racially and gender blind or they are not. I'm not saying whether I'm for or against women getting more time off. What I am saying is that you cannot simply construct some backwards logic to say that this is 'equal' in the manner in which it is unequal and therefore not discrimination.
The policy at hand is clearly discriminatory and blatantly unequal. Whether that is a bad thing or not I leave as a separate question but by supporting the policy you support discrimination and unequal policies and there is no way around that.
Re:Equal rights (Score:4, Informative)
Re: Equal rights (Score:5, Interesting)
Meanwhile in sweden: 280 days per child. Of those, at least two months must be used by the father. All days are payed.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
tax rate of 51.1%
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Equal rights (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes. This is also included in the 2000% efficiency.
Home schooling is a nice option but it's being used primarily to keep kids dumb, by avoiding "evil science". On the other hand, there are the occasional cases where the kid is bright and bored in class and if mom and dad are PhD',s or least as bright as Feynman's father, they could give better schooling. However, considering the frequency of the above two cases, and the many extra requirements for the successful application of the second (educated, willing parents with free time - is there such a beast in the world) for the good of society, better not have home schooling. Pity that the minority suffers due to the stupidity of the majority but that seems to be the way of the world.
The long maternity leave is....too short. The best I've seen is my country during the totalitarian years - 2 years full pay with reintegration program (if needed). My mom starter working at 19, after secondary school. Gave birth at 27, stayed with me for the full 2 years, did not need reintegration program and then went to become HRM in a company of 4000 people and for most of our lives brought home more money than dad, who was a construction worker.
I was laughing my head off (because the communist got at least one thing very right; there were precious few such achievements like education), after hearing from the Zeitgeist guys (the latest movie) that pregnancy is in fact 3 years, of which 2 years outside the womb, since we could not have the full development inside - the head would be too big to pass. So the first two years of a child's life are enormously important. Many a study have shown that the most crucial aspect is the simple touch between parents and kids, the physical and emotional presence of parents in child's life. Oh, but mom and dad cannot hold you, honey, they have to work, otherwise the economy will collapse! You know, today, when we have so much power and knowledge, when our civilization does not know what to do with unemployment, when we have people who could buy a country, we still cannot somehow manage to ensure healthy environment to raise our kids. Can you put monetary value to properly raised kid? How much money would be SAVED by society by providing good conditions for raising kids? Kids that would be healthier, happier, more productive, more creative and more humane (less crime, then).
Why it is that every time the moron politicians of the world reach for the cutting budget scissors they cut education, healthcare and social programs? Exactly the most important things needed for healthy society and the proper rearing of kids. Why is nobody thinking rationally and working a good compromise based on science?
Re: Equal rights (Score:5, Insightful)
is going to come pretty dang close to the 51.1% for the median family.. The numbers can be moved around some, but taxes are paid something fierce. We just break is down into chunks that each seem fair, some of it falls on the employer, so it is hidden.
I'd take 51.1% total tax in a heartbeat to have really good government services. I'm paying pretty close to that for a system with few safety nets, few employee protections, and for insurance that has been pillaging the population.
Sweden isn't utopia. But I don't hear horror stories from my friends who are Swedish nationals.
Re: Equal rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Rejoice, you've found the answer! Move to Sweden.
Re: Equal rights (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't give a shit about tax rate. Quality of life is the only measurement that matters. If I can have a high quality of life and freedom to do what I want with a 100% tax rate then by all means, take it; I don't care. Money is just a means to an end.
--Jeremy
Re: (Score:3)
480, not 280.
Re: Equal rights (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Informative)
(Also, side note, some residents of the OC evidently hate it when you call it the OC, so call the OC "the OC" whenever you get the chance.)
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"Yeah guys, Conservatives are super easy to find in California - you just have to go where nobody lives."
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't get me wrong - this is just one perception that has many more variables than I'm willing (or able) to enumerate here, but it seems that the party lines (at least from an individual citizens' perspective) seems to largely depend on the problems that those individuals deal with every single day. People in cities deal with different problems than people in rural areas...it's not a big surprise to me that their priorities are different.
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Funny)
Childfree people are being discriminated against because they get no leave. I should be able to take leave to take care of my cat.
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Except in 30 years that kid could likely be taking care of you in a home or driving a bus or even being a Dr taking care of you. Your cat won't.
Nearly every single other country in the world realizes that long term they're better off if kids are taken care of from the beginning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave [wikipedia.org]
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Funny)
You are wrong. It is a life event, not a yearly occurrence...
Clearly you are not Catholic, Mormon, or from the Bible Belt.
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Informative)
No, men don't have a choice if contraception or sterilization fails. Women can always chose to abort. Contracts to abort in event of contraceptive or sterilization failure are unenforceable at law.
Men can become fathers, with legal child support obligations, if their semen is stolen out of a used condom. It has happened, and the argument is that the child's needs for support outweigh the father's rights to not be made a slave.
Men can become fathers, with legal child support obligations, if they donate semen for artificial insemination, and later the child goes on welfare, with exceptions existing only if the sperm donation was done under state guidelines.
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Interesting)
People should be given all the leave they want to deal with newborn children. They ABSOLUTELY SHOULD NOT BE PAID by their employer while they are doing it unless they are using sick leave and vacation time like everyone else. Paid leave for a life styule choice is wrong at every level. Its especially unfair to coworkers who, for whatever reason, are not having childern. Its also unfair to shareholders and customers.
This strikes me as a case of CEO, who just had a child, whose perspective has been warped in favor of people who make the same choices she is making.
If you make paid leave a mandate at a governmental level you are nearly insuring employers will balk at hiring employees who are likely to have children and become a ball and chain on the payroll, taking off huge amounts of time with pay and requiring him to also pay a temp to cover for them.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Anything less than equal treatment is discrimination.
Men are being discriminated against by not getting the same amount of leave to spend with their newborn children.
This has both physical and psychological effects on all parties involved.
Then don't think of it as man vs woman. Think of it this way: if a human being comes out of you, you get an extra 8 weeks off. You can be a man OR a woman; as long as a human being comes out of you, then you get the time. See how that works?
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Interesting)
Except that the law isn't supposed to work like that. The US constitution does not permit women to get special rights that are not available to men. Which is why things like title IX don't specify a sex, they specify that both sexes are required to get equal opportunity to resources covered under the title. And that can mean extra resources for men, even though it usually works out benefiting women.
What's more the bulk of the maternity leave has nothing to do with pregnancy, and everything to do with bonding with the newborn. It's questionable as to why we're granting women all that time off and then bitching about how men don't spend as much time with their children. Well, no shit, we don't give them the same sort of break in terms of availability to bond with their own children.
Re:Equal rights (Score:4, Informative)
Except that the law isn't supposed to work like that. The US constitution does not permit women to get special rights that are not available to men. Which is why things like title IX don't specify a sex, they specify that both sexes are required to get equal opportunity to resources covered under the title. And that can mean extra resources for men, even though it usually works out benefiting women.
What's more the bulk of the maternity leave has nothing to do with pregnancy, and everything to do with bonding with the newborn. It's questionable as to why we're granting women all that time off and then bitching about how men don't spend as much time with their children. Well, no shit, we don't give them the same sort of break in terms of availability to bond with their own children.
As many others pointed out, FMLA covers both equally and supersedes this law (with unpaid leave). You can think of it as them giving a bonus to women that isn't available to men. but based on decades of salary data, men were getting bonuses all along and no one bothered to cite the constitution in protest.
In a perfect world anyone with a newborn would get paid leave, but most companies give 0 weeks of leave to fathers and 6 to 8 weeks to mothers (often at a discount) so why are we getting on Yahoo's case for going above and beyond 99% of the employers in the US, with the same difference?
Re:Equal rights (Score:4, Informative)
You can't have it both ways. If women want to complain about being underpaid, then they're going to have to accept the cut to benefits like this that it's going to take. They're also going to have to be willing to make the other sacrifices that men make in order to get those bonuses.
Also, women should stop complaining about men being less involved in the lives of their children, when men are being provided with fewer opportunities to do so.
Just because they're going above and beyond 99% of the other employers, doesn't make the practice of granting women additional leave any less sexist. It just means that they aren't as bad as the other companies are.
Re:Equal rights (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, except we don't give them more time off because something came out of them. Medically, its a minor event. You're ready to just about anything you could do before hand (physically) in a couple days. About the only thing you can't do immediately is make another baby. C-sections are different as they have to cut you, but those are not the norm.
If you reduce it to 'recovery from the process of passing a child' then you reduce the time two no more than 1 week, unless the women works in a baby mill, in which case, I think its 6 weeks.
The time off is given for the 'family' not for medical recovery. The time off is so mom can be with her child, not because she is recovering. She isn't even taking care of the child for the most part during her 'recovery' period, its only after that when she starts doing her job.
I'm fairly certain you don't have any experience with women giving birth. We did it for hundreds of thousands of years when taking a break for more than a few hours meant something big and mean ate you alive. They even did it without hospitals ... or someone to tell them they were working too hard!
I want to spend that time with my child too.
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Anything less than equal treatment is discrimination.
If you think that's bad, not only do I get less maternity leave than a woman would, but the men's room DOESN'T HAVE TAMPONS IN IT!!!
[/s] Lets not make overly broad declarations. It's only discrimination if the situations aren't actually equal. Which it isn't. Physically if nothing else. I went back to work a few hours two days after my kid was born (voulontarily, to keep things going in lab), my wife at that point still couldn't really walk. Postpartum depression also is a thing women have to deal with, while we don't.
I'd like to hear the reason for the discrepancy before I condemn it as sex discrimination. I know some of you are really anxious to find something about the rare female CEO in a tech company to cry foul about, but this is not necessarily discrimination.
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
I'm guessing that any men who actually managed to give birth themselves would be able to successfully argue for more leave.
(The less tongue-in-cheek way to express the same thought is: if the parents are a married lesbian couple, what does their policy say about the amount of time permitted? If a female parent who didn't carry the baby is entitled to more leave than a man under the same circumstances, then yes, there's no argument by which the policy isn't discriminatory. But otherwise, there may be.)
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not discrimination for a company to say "we don't want to give lots of paid leave to both parents." It is discrimination to say "we arbitrarily decide one parent deserves more leave than the other."
In other words, I am fine with giving extensive parental leave to only one parent -- but I think the beneficiary, not the employer, should decide which parent deserves the benefit. I think in more than 90% of the cases, it will be the mother who wants it. I could be wrong about that, and even if I'm not, real equality includes having the freedom to switch roles if you want.
This is, of course, complicated by two factors. Most couples don't both work for the same company, so the employer can't tell who is taking time off to be the primary care giver. That could be addressed by making the employee sign some papers promising he/she is really using the leave for child care. Another problem is that mothers have medical recovery, but that could be addressed by having separating medical leave from parental leave and having them run consecutively (not concurrently) when appropriate.
Re:Equal rights (Score:4, Insightful)
That no excuse, under the same rule you could pay women less because they have a period. Or maybe give women extra days to recover? The same thing isn't happening biologically so it justifies different employment conditions?
Both are discrimination, It should be based on the person who is the primary care giver to the child. In general that would be the mother (I am assuming) but it is possible that it is the father and in that case the man deserves the same amount of leave. As for the physical recovery that should be sick leave. 8 weeks is a long time to recover from child birth.
Re:Equal rights (Score:4, Funny)
8 weeks is a long time to recover from child birth.
Not really. I'm sure Justin Beiber's mother is still on the mend.
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Re:Equal rights (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure exactly how much of your statement is sarcasm, but for anyone claiming that biological differences justify this, you should be careful what you say lest someone hold you to it. Do biological differences really mean a father should not be given equal opportunity to spend time with his child? In the reverse case, how readily should we accept "biological" arguments for giving women lesser treatment? Also remember that a policy like this creates a perverse incentive to favor employing a man instead of a woman-- he's less of a financial liability.
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the man didn't grow and eject said child from his own body.
There is a difference, and it is a significant one. Men at Yahoo should be happy they get any paid paternity leave. It is quite generous by industry standards.
It's a fact that women will, on average, outlive men by several years. However the courts have declared that when women and men pay the same amount into a retirement system, it is not legal to offer the women a lower monthly retirement benefit.
When policies have been found to discriminate against women, the response by courts has been clear - you can't treat women and men differently, even if there's some fundamental difference that's causing you to draw that distinction in the first place. Given that, I don't see how it's relevant that the woman "ejected" the child from her body - both parents are equally important to that child's well being.
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You believe maternity/paternity leave is solely about medical recovery? And not, say, about bonding with and nurturing the child? Because that's the only way this would not be discrimination.
Fun side note: here in Sweden (yeah, right, we're all borderline commies here, so you can automatically discount anything we do, and we do pay taxes through the nose and several other orifices), not only do both parents have the right to paid leave, to the tune of 96 weeks, but four weeks are dedicated to each parent, l
Re: (Score:3)
You never heard of a breast pump and bottles?
We breast fed our daughter for over 6 months, yet I (the father) did most of the feedings, especially the night-time ones.
How? My wife would pump throughout the day, we'd store it up in the fridge, and I'd use it as needed.
Not really rocket-science here folks.
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Under normal circumstances women need less than a week. And in general giving birth is considered the equivalent of day surgery. The main exception being for c-sections.
Remember that as a species we used to have to be on the move constantly, and having women need 16 weeks to recover from giving birth would likely have meant the death of the species.
What's more, there's absolutely no evidence to back up the belief that babies require more bonding between them and their mother than with their father.
Re: (Score:3)
They might require more milk though ?
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Informative)
hedwards, you have no idea what you're talking about.
P.S. Slashdot, if I use an <ol> it's because I want my list items to have numbers in front of them without having to add them myself. Otherwise I'd just use <ul> or a series of <p>s.
Re:Equal rights (Score:4, Insightful)
Especially if its a first pregnancy!
We were in the hospital for a week, and she was basically in bed for another 2, and not fully-recovered for over a month!
A *LOT* of physical (and emotional, hormonal, mental, etc) happens during a pregnancy, and a lot of physical trauma occurs in child-birth. It's not "equivalent to day surgery", except maybe if it's the fourth or fifth child.
If you haven't been in the delivery room with a woman screaming in pain, and had to live with said women after the birth, you really are *NOT* qualified to comment. :)
Re:Equal rights (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, bonding between mother and newborn is, and should be, a lot more intense then for the father.
I agree that it usually is but I see no reason that it should be. Fathers who start involved stay involved and one of the most common reasons fathers stop being involved is that the mother is 'better' at doing things. Better at soothing, better at putting the baby down for a nap, faster diaper changes... and why is that? The innate bond between mother and child? Probably has something to do with it. But isn't it possible that a big chunk of that being "better" at taking care of the baby stems directly from the extra time mother's get with their newborns?
For the record, I would have killed for 8 weeks off when my daughter was born. And I still think it's wildly unfair to give mothers more time than fathers.
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Insightful)
bonding between mother and newborn is, and should be, a lot more intense then for the father.
Not everyone agrees with you.
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Re:Equal rights (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Equal rights (Score:4, Funny)
Men are usually more violent.
Watch it, or I'll kick your ass!
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I have heard of one interesting idea. Certain countries, such as Sweden, have programs in which a certain amount of parental leave is guaranteed, but at least some p
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Ug. Your lead developer could die or quit at anytime, they also get vacation time even in the US. Redundancy is critical to running a business, and if you have too narrow of margins to support it then your business deserves to go under.
Re:Equal rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Leave is easier to plan for an usually not as long.
Death or quitting means you can replace them.
Extended leave while guaranteeing their job placement means you either need to increase your head count if you want to replace them while they're gone or hire an expensive contractor. So so bad for a large company, not so good for a small one.
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Sometimes the father is not known or wants nothing to do with the mother. Are they still forced to take parental leave? Is the mother penalised if they don't?
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Well, lots of people do work hourly jobs where this isn't an issue. But, yes, I agree with everything you said in the professional world.
At my workplace the guy who gets FMLA leave for a month and the guy who slips out to go golfing 10 hours per week for four months basically get treated the same by the system. The same is true of somebody who gets sick/disabled, or who ends up sequestered on a jury for a year. They'll never fire you while you're on leave (especially a legally-guaranteed leave). However
Re:Equal rights (Score:4, Interesting)
It shouldn't be rare. Ontario people get 1 year to split between the parents as they wish - that way if the father is the primary caregiver he can take the most time. I know my aunt did that, she was the primary breadwinner (lawyer) so she chose to go back to work after 6 weeks and her husband stayed home and raised their daughters.
What happens if, heaven forbid, the mother dies in childbirth - do you really think 8 weeks is enough for a father/husband to have off to both raise a child and mourn?
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It's not about fairness, it's about reality. The mom needs more time as she is recovering from the labor. Plus she is often the primary care taker and can get exhausted easily.
This canard keeps getting brought up, and it just makes no sense.
Momma has to "recover from labor" and "can get exhausted easily?" Well, it's a damn shame that pop isn't treated like a parent instead of an ambulatory ATM, then, or he could be there to do some of those changings and feedings so that mom could rest and recover, isn't it?
"...one smells less" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"...one smells less" (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:"...one smells less" (Score:5, Funny)
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Writing Perl is easy. It's reading it that's the hard part.
Sexist (Score:5, Insightful)
They shouldn't be so sexist about it. They should offer 16 weeks to any human employee that gestates a fetus, and 8 weeks to the partner of the gestater. That way it's not sexist.
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"Goodbye baby Banting; you'll soon need decanting."
Sperm Donors, That's All We Are (Score:5, Insightful)
At least, that's how Corporate America seems intent on treating male parents.
Society, too - basically, if you have a penis, you are considered tertiary to the rearing of a child. Look at custody battles - The mother is given the benefit of the doubt almost without exception. Case in point, my ex-sister-in-law has documented psychosis, multiple suicide attempts on her record, and a known history of violent behavior, whereas my brothers record is sterling; yet she was given damn near full custody of my nephew anyway.
One has to wonder if the unbalanced treatment of fathers in our society has anything to do with the number of them who bail on their spouses/offspring...
Re:Sperm Donors, That's All We Are (Score:5, Insightful)
You see this reflected in sitcoms too. The dad is the idiot who couldn't be trusted to look after the kid if the mom set everything up beforehand and just needed an adult to keep the child from climbing on the counter and getting to the knives. The mom is the all-knowing, ever-right parent who suffers through the dad's antics and who could keep the children occupied (safely, mind you) if all she had on hand was a crayon stub and a diaper.
Back in real-life, I've heard of dads harassed because they were taking pictures of their kids in public because a man taking a photo of a kid = pervert but a woman taking a photo of a kid = loving mother. Dads will be patronized about being "babysitters" for their kids (what I'm doing is PARENTING, not BABYSITTING). Stay at home dads are still looked at as being "less than" for not going to the office to work.
In general, dads are considered minor parenting figures. It's alright if they're around, but the mom is the official parent and knows much more by virtue of being female. The irony is, if dads were given more respect as parents, more would take on more parenting responsibilities, more would stay home with their kids, and staying home with the kids would finally cease to be viewed as "women's work." In other words, increasing dads' rights and respect helps dads and moms.
What about lesbian couples? (Score:5, Interesting)
Do they each get 16 weeks?
Re:What about lesbian couples? (Score:4, Informative)
The one who squeezes the watermelon-sized thing out through the lemon-sized opening gets more leave than the one who doesn't.
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Which would be neither, unless one of the lesbians is an elephant.
How men could use this (Score:4, Funny)
1) To wife: "If all goes well I'm taking a week off after the baby comes."
2) To work: "I'm taking all eight weeks off."
3) Enjoy seven weeks of 8-5 freedom.
Why shouldn't dad's get equal treatment? (Score:3, Insightful)
This inequality just furthers the discrimination between the sexes in our society. By giving men less leave, they are saying that men are less inportant and/or less effective when it comes to childcare. What if the mom doesn't get any leave at all? What if mom wants a break after 8 weeks? Or what if the mom completely abandoned the kid to the father? I see no excuse for this.
As a stay-at-home dad and former IT worker (Score:3, Insightful)
I would never, ever, give up the time I've spent with my child for a job. Your children are only ever that age once. To miss that time with them would be far greater loss than anything else.
Real motivation here (Score:3)
Let's try to figure this one out...
The new CEO - a woman who just gave birth (or is about to?) - and has publicly cracked-down on people putting time in at home comes up with a Maternity/Paternity policy....
Re: (Score:3)
She already had her child back in September. This led to a big controversy. She had her baby, worked from home for awhile, and then (in February) decided that no other employee should be allowed to work from home.
Canada!~ (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I see Your Canada and raise You a Norway.
47 weeks(100% pay) or 57 Weeks(80% pay).
Dad HAS to use 12 of the weeks or they will be lost.
Apart from a small part around birth, all weeks can be used by either mum or dad.
Give me the diapers... (Score:3)
After the past week of looking at some really stinky code around here, I would cherish diapers.
a discrimination case waiting to happen (Score:5, Informative)
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Except the policy doesn't technically discriminate on the basis of sex. A woman that does not bear a child only gets 8 weeks, just like a man. The additional 8 weeks is for recovery from pregnancy.
Now, it would be interesting if a FtoM (that is, somebody who was born female but happens to be considered "male" by society) happened to get pregnant if they would get 16 weeks. My guess is that they would, precisely because of this distinction.
Missing the point... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ensuring that men have and *must take* as much leave when a child is born ends up improving equality *for women*, as now employers have no productivity basis for discriminating against women w.r.t. having kids.
Diapers Smell Less? (Score:3)
Would that be the diapers that smell less? Diapers don't typically stink until the baby starts eating solid food. This happens at around the 4 to 6 month mark. So if dads got 16 weeks of paternity time, they would head back to work just when the diapers began to smell.
Yes, I'm a dad (two wonderful boys) and yes I changed my fair share of diapers when they were younger. (However, I'm glad that we're out of the diaper phase for good now!) Unfortunately, I didn't even get 8 weeks of paternity leave. I took a week off when my first son was born (out of my own vacation days) and then took a couple of days off when my second was born. I would have loved to have spent 8 weeks pampering my wife and helping her with our newborn.
I'm not sexist... (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe, just maybe, giving moms more makes a bit of sense.
What the hell happened? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only is the policy blatantly sexist (coming from a female CEO makes this even worse) but it actively discourages Dad's from participating in their kids lives. This perpetuates the myth that only women can be active parents and has no business in the 21st century. There is absolutely no reason that a father can't provide just as good of care and be just as involved with raising their child as the mother.
Sexist attitudes like this are why men get taken to the cleaners in family courts all over the world. This same woman probably bitches about men not helping with diaper changes and parenting duties. If you have a kid, never ever let someone do this to you, get involved and refuse to let sexist twats keep you from being part of your kids life. Take the opportunity and raise your kid right, teach them the things you wished you learned and have fun with the.
Fathers are supposed to be more involved in their kids lives than providing a paycheck. Take responsibility, stand up to sexism, raise your kids as they deserve better. If doing the right thing doesn't inspire you just remember that if you don't you'll be taken to the cleaners if you ever go to Family Court.
/Rant off
The disparity is no reason for feminists to cheer (Score:4, Insightful)
When we give women more time off than men to take care of an infant (and that's what parental leave is mostly for), we are strengthening the notion that the mother is the better person to take care of a baby. And what about women who don't *want* to take so much time off from work? My wife is a researcher running her own lab, and needed to get back to work as soon as she could after our son was born. Fortunately, I was working part-time and I could be a stay-at-home dad (with some babysitting assistance). But suppose I had a similar job to hers, and the University said "OK, she can have 12 weeks off but you can only have 6", isn't that putting added pressure on her to take the leave, regardless of the relative importance of our positions? Isn't it telling her "We can spare you a lot more easily than we can spare your husband, because he's a man"?
So I see no reason for women to cheer this disparity.
Re:As a guy that was a stay at home dad for 7 year (Score:5, Funny)
Nothing motivates you better to go back to the grind of corporate work than 7 years of shitty diapers. I love my kids, but 7 years of diapers was enough. Much happier with a regular paycheck and a nanny.
Maybe your problem was leaving your kids in diapers until they were 7?
Re:As a guy that was a stay at home dad for 7 year (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sweden, 1 year (Score:5, Funny)
A MÃÃse once bit my sister ...
Re:Sweden, 1 year (Score:4, Funny)
Those responsible for the maternity leave discrimination have been sacked.
Re:Sweden, 1 year (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Promoting child birth is considered good for the community?
Re: (Score:3)
And yet it seems that numerous such studies have been conducted [wikipedia.org], and concluded the precise opposite of what you just asserted: