Ask Lemmy

I was interviewing with my current company while my wife was pregnant and I didn't disclose it to them bc I didn't want it to impact my hireability. My wife was due about a month into my tenure after I got hired. I told my boss after I was hired, and only took maybe a week off. The only reason I took such a short amount of time was I didn't want my boss to think poorly of me so soon into the job and make a good 1st impression. I was sleep deprived the whole time and my performance was definitely impacted.

When my 2nd was born, you best believe I took the full 12 weeks, and every day was worth it. That bonding time is absolutely irreplaceable, and I wish I had it the first go 'round. You only get 1 chance at it. Fuck your coworkers, they're probably shitty parents.

Your coworkers are fucking idiots.

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.

I worked during my mom's last months of life while taking care of her because the company allowed me to fully work from home, no question asked if I was available ok, if I wasn't ok too. And I brag about that. Otherwise I would have taken a sick leave to take care of my mom (which my country allows), but working gave me a good, I don't know how to say, sometimes when I had work and my mom didn't need me I didn't think about the situation and that was nice.

People should make use of their rights, although in my case I found a compromise that, in my opinion, benefited me; but this company gained my loyalty for the time being.

almost bragging how little time they took after their kids were born

I had a coworker bragging about lying to his wife that he couldn't take time off. This is fucked up on so many levels: why even have a kid? Why do you lie to your wife? Why are you telling people you barey know (I had been there for like two weeks) that you lie to your wife? WTF?

I feel like I’m missing something.

Maybe they're insecure? They don't know what to do with the new kid, and instead of figuring it out together with their partner they run back to the things they know and hide behind a fake martyrdom. I wonder how many of them will in a few months or years say that women are "naturals" when it comes to taking care of kids.

Congrats on the kid and on being an actual dad!

Paternity leave saved my life when I was a young father with an ill wife. Take as much time as you can.

Also, side note, the year I took off of work to care for them when my sons were small (3 and 5) I look back on as one of the best decisions I ever made. Despite the fact we were flirting with homelessness, the bonding and memories made a huge impact on them, and now that they're adults, we have an amazing relationship that far surpasses the distant bond I have with my own father.

this is part of your compensation. you pay state taxes for it. And you deserve it. decades of corporate propaganda has made most people believe they don't deserve leave at all. ignore the haters and take your leave.

What you're missing is full brainwashing from the patriarchy, from the bootlicking capitalists.

Any partner who can but doesn't support their partner and newborn is an ass.

Any partner who can but doesn't take advantage of the leave benefit they earned is giving free money to their employer overlords like an absolute cuck.

Be revolutionary, put your family over your employer.

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".

Toxic masculinity.

You are absolutely right! 85% is nice money and especially in the first months it's super important to spend time with your new born and to support the mother.

And for all those fuckers who think that you "aren't working" in this time... Well, get a child and take care of it. It's way harder than you think. You will see, it's gonna be a hard but also rewarding time. My second daughter is now 3 months... And boy, to see everything that is happening within 3 months. It's unbelievable and makes me so happy.

You're on the right path.

Yeah probably as always only a matter of perspective. Don't listen to other men, just do what feels right for yourself.

I took a solid 9 months paternity leave with my son, and I think we just built the best base for a father son relationship I could ever imagine or hope to have. I know they don't seem like it as a baby, but you are building your foundation already.

This was 3 years ago and I still feel the outcome of it every day.

Go for it , be yourself, don't listen to others.

Those people are jealous fucking idiots. 12 weeks is hardly anything. You get a fucking year for each parent in Norway

Do it. Be with your offspring as much as you can. Anything else is barbaric corporate slave mentality.

In our country, both parents are allowed to spend 6 months (each) at home with the newborn.

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 or for you to get back to the familiar routine of work as soon as possible. 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.

Spending the first 2 month of my child's life with them was one of the best things in my life.

I was so mad that I only had 1 week of PTO to take care of my wife and son after the rough birth. Thankfully some friends pulled us into their place to help take care of my wife while I had to work, otherwise she would have had to get grippy socks....

I fucking hate this country.

I’m a dad of two, and in my country (Norway) it’s mostly common to divide the leave. With my first, I had 9 months of paternity leave, 6 months with my youngest. The two best periods of my life!

I think a lot of the pushback can be chalked up to jealousy as well. If you are living paycheck to paycheck, then you can’t afford to take a 15% pay cut. Then of course, you taking leave means that they will have added responsibilities until you get back as well.

But it’s your right, if you can afford it then you absolutely should take it if that’s what you want. You can’t get this time back

I'll never have biological children of my own and I'll never get to use that benefit. From a strictly selfish standpoint, it stings a bit that pretty much all my heterosexual friends and coworkers, male and female, get a minimum of 12 - 36 weeks of paid time off that I'll never get.

Having said that, I'm genuinely happy that they get it, I think it's a shame that 12 weeks per child isn't a minimum standard for paternity & maternity leave. In the professional settings I've worked in that offer paternity leave, I've never experienced a coworker complaining or making fun of a man taking paternity leave, nor have I ever heard of a man NOT taking paternity leave when it's offered.

The places I've worked that offer it also usually offer flexible leave, so it's very common for new dads to take 4 - 6 weeks off at birth, and then work a reduced schedule for the remaining time until they're out of leave, after which they return full time. Even some of the moms are doing that as well, basically maximizing the amount of time that at least one parent is on leave and at home with the newborn.

But, outside of professional settings and particularly within conservative/Republican family and acquaintances, typically lower-to-middle class people, they act like paternity leave is ridiculous. My dad laughed out loud a while back when I mentioned I was taking over a new project because my coworker was about to go on paternity leave "What? Are you serious?" In my opinion, "toxic masculinity" aka stupid, ignorant, and useless concepts of overly rigid gender stereotypes is where this type of opinion is rooted. That and probably a good degree of jealousy.

The traditional view that the father needs to work is strong. In Denmark we have had the opportunity to share the maternity/paternity leave between parents for several years, but most often the mother would take the majority, with only 2 weeks being specific for the father.

This is due to the imbalance in pay, since the cut in pay would be larger for a man (generally), so men voluntarily gave the leave to their wives. This is obviously not the intention of the leave and also based on the flaw of unequal pay. Keep in mind that the wage difference is often explained as being caused by the mother taking more leave and thereby not advancing her career during the years when they have small children.

So, to fix his, the latest law make more weeks untransferable. The father now has 11 weeks that can not be transferred. Use it or lose it.

One would expect such a removal of flexibility to make people upset, because technically it will cost the families more potential income, but it hasn't.

It turns out that most men actually wanted the additional weeks of paternity leave. They just needed it to be normalized and/or the legal framework to demand it, so they don't have to have this discussion with their employers or wives. No man is ever asked why they're taking it now. Use it or lose it makes sense to everyone.

In addition we still have 26 (13+13) weeks that can be transferred however the parents want. Still very flexible.

Holy cow, that is a strange concept - I was coming back to add some of the hate you’re getting might be from affordability. Any paternity leave you can get in the US is usually vacation and unpaid. No one can afford much of that. That’s amazing that you still get an income to support taking care of your new child

I did 6 months for each of my kids and it was great.

Here in Ireland I got a meagre 2 weeks (but took an additional 2 weeks unpaid!)

People always bitch about fathers being too busy for their kids and shit but as soon as a father wants to be there they're all like "ew what the fuck is wrong with him"

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.

My thoughts:

We have it at my work (just called paid parental leave) and the guys seem to really consider it a benefit, they take it. Like you. Nobody has ever said anything but Congratulations. This is in Florida. You ARE supporting your family. I got 0 weeks paid when I gave birth, I'm really happy this is starting to change. Parenting is valuable work.

I scheduled two weeks off for the birth of my first child. Not paternity leave, just vacation time. My wife became a SAHM a few months before. I was bored and went back to work after 1 week. I couldn't imagine 12 weeks.

The kid is just not doing that much. Feed, poop, change, sleep. And the child doesn't recognize you at that stage. It's all stimulus response. If he was crying and I picked him up, he didn't care. I got zero emotional reward for the interaction with the child. Emotional bonding all happened around 3 months old and beyond. Before that the benefit was more in the shared experience with my wife of learning how to take care of a newborn. But really, it's not that hard, and after one week it was old hat.

Honestly it took me years to lose the American work mindset. It was destroying my brain.

Take the leave and feel no shame. Others are reacting because you taking leave challenges their understanding of work. Something that is exceedingly rare in the US.

In my work environment (in the US), people have roughly this much paternity leave, and it is taken for granted that they will take it because this is viewed as important even if their absence during this time inconveniences the rest of us. They often split it up, though, instead of taking it in a single contiguous chunk.