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.
I mean, I’m no economist so I cant exactly speak on the how, but the government should be involved in the funding for this, passing the financial burden onto parents would just cause either those couples to not have kids, or not give those new born kids the adequate attention they need leading to further problems in their life.
Oh I agree it would help with birth rates. And mental health of the population. But healthy isn’t what we do around here. I watched a woman with 1 arm being told off last night at work that she wasn’t likely to be able to keep her performance numbers up and should consider quitting instead of trying to ask her if she would find a better fit somewhere else that would work better for her situation. They are hiring like crazy so just about every position is open. The people watch you go through a metal detector on the way in and tell you to take your keys out and try again. You can do that all day with 1 arm. (Strange that we have that, but huge company and many expensive parts I assume they are worried people might be walking out with. Or maybe it’s for cameras coming in… Idk. Either way, they are hiring for positions that don’t require you to belittle someone but rather find a better use, it’s not like they could have gotten through interviews and paperwork without disclosing they had a disability. (Not to mention companies get tax write offs for having employees with disabilities last I checked)
-sorry for the rant, new contract one week down and learning what kind of company it is