So What If Yahoo's New Dads Get Less Leave Than Moms?

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."

Comments

Sexist

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Equal rights

[BitZtream]

I should add, its ironic that ultraliberal California doesn't consider this illegal, but Ruby Red North Carolina prevents such discrimination.

Sperm Donors, That's All We Are

[CanHasDIY]

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

[Jason Levine]

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.

Re:Equal rights

[SirGarlon]

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

[93 Escort Wagon]

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.