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

Equal rights

[BitZtream]

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

[BitZtream]

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

Re:Equal rights

[HaZardman27]

That's quite understandable, but if a new mother and new father at the same company with the same job title and same salary each have children in the same year, and the new mother gets more paid time off than the new father, how is that not discrimination?

Re:Equal rights

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[hedwards]

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:Equal rights

[toastar]

unpaid

Re:Equal rights

[s0nicfreak]

Then they are discriminating against people that can not give birth. That includes men, some women, and some people in between.

Re:Equal rights

[Kongming]

bonding between mother and newborn is, and should be, a lot more intense then for the father.

Not everyone agrees with you.

Re:Equal rights

[Enry]

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

[0100010001010011]

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

Re:Equal rights

[dawnkawamotodice]

Hi Jittles, In my submission, I left out the word *paid* maternity, *paid* paternity leave. You're dead on regarding FMLA's 12 week requirement, but it does not require it be paid.

Re:Equal rights

[hedwards]

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

[Frosty Piss]

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

[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

[interkin3tic]

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile in sweden: 280 days per child. Of those, at least two months must be used by the father. All days are payed.

Re:Equal rights

[interkin3tic]

When you say "ultraliberal" you're thinking of very specific, small places within California. Like Berkley, Hollywood, and San Francisco. And even then, you're only thinking of the most outspoken residents. The OC is very conservative by national standards. The state legislature has plenty of conservatives in it, some of whom subscribe to the "starve the beast" theory, whereby you solve the budgetary problems by refusing to raise taxes without actually cutting spending.

(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.)

Re:Equal rights

[thehickcoder]

I like the way my company handles this. One partner (primary caregiver) gets 12 weeks. The other (secondary caregiver) gets 2 weeks. It addresses all the discrimination/same-sex issues, while also handling the "someone who just had another person come out of them should get more time off" common sense. If the mother works, the father is automatically considered to be the secondary caregiver unless he can provide documentation from her employer saying she only was able to get 2 weeks off. I know fathers who have been able to take 12 weeks off because their wife's employer only allowed 2 weeks of maternity leave.

Re:Equal rights

[ewibble]

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

[tiberus]

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

[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.

Re: Equal rights

[pspahn]

Sounds like Sweden would be a great place to plop out some triplets.

Re:Equal rights

[SuperAlgae]

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

[Rene S. Hollan]

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

[viperidaenz]

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.

Re:Equal rights

[demachina]

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:Equal rights

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[Belial6]

People are bent because it is wrong. We have decided that we want a society with equal rights between the genders. This is not equal. Men have gotten the shaft when it comes to children for most of the time society has existed. We are finally getting to a place where we don't have to take one for the team when it comes to spending time with our children vs. actually feeding our children. Now is the time to speak up and say that discrimination is wrong.

Would your defense of Yahoo! be the same if the discrimination was drawn along racial lines instead of gender?

Re: Equal rights

[tempest69]

INCOME TAX + SS + Medicare + State Income + State and local Sales + Gas + property + plates + fees + utility franchise fees + workers comp tax + tolls +liquor taxes + other sin taxes + corporate income tax + a whole bunch of stuff
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

[scot4875]

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:Equal rights

[RoknrolZombie]

Is this a surprise to anyone? Most states have most of their Democrats near their city centers, and most states have Republicans on the outskirts. I think the problem with drawing these lines has more to do with the arbitrary manner that they're applied - if you think that homeless people should have assistance, for example, that automatically pegs you as a Democrat...but the reality is that maybe I'm sick of tripping over homeless people living on the street? Rural areas don't have those sorts of problems, so they tend to not show up on an individuals' radar. Likewise, folks in more rural areas might have certain views about protecting business - but that's largely because the businesses in their areas are SMALL businesses that, if they were to close, would really hurt the community.

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

[meustrus]

hedwards, you have no idea what you're talking about.

1. 1. Mothers normally need at least 2 weeks to physically recover from having a ~5" diameter baby pass through a normally ~1.5" tube, to say nothing of the cervix which before childbirth is normally dilated less that 1/8" and the sore abdominal muscles that forced that baby through. In case of Caesarean section, it can take months for the mother to physically recover.
2. 2. Babies need attention to properly develop. A mother's (or father's) love is vital to a child's emotional and psychological development. The lack of such attention can lead to serious and permanent relationship deficiencies.
3. 3. Newborns need to eat every 2 hours, even through the night, until they are anywhere between 3 and 9 months old. The best food for them is breastmilk, providing superior immune support and brain development to formula. In order for the mother to maintain adequate milk production she must either feed the newborn or pump out the milk every 2 hours. Otherwise she will be painfully swollen and will produce less milk thereafter.
4. 4. Even after the mother has physically recovered, she still has a newborn baby that needs constant attention. You can't get daycare for newborns unless you have at least middle class income. Even then there is a severe shortage of care providers because in most areas there are laws severely limiting the number of infants a single daycare worker is allowed to watch at any one time. This is for good reason because infants really need constant attention not divided between a dozen babies in order to develop normally.
5. 5. Remembering that newborns eat every 2 hours, parents of newborns get very little sleep. Assuming you could get daycare for your newborn, both parents will still be sleep deprived for months unless they are rich enough to afford a nanny.
6. 6. Finally, despite all of this difficulty, parents want to be with their new baby. Mom didn't live through 9 months of random nausea, general fatigue, severe mood swings, and discomfort due to carrying an extra 20 lbs. between her legs, followed by the most painful experience the most women will ever have to live through (and far more painful than anything most men will experience), just to drop the baby off with somebody else and go back to work. Parenting is a special joy and will be the single most gratifying experience in the lives of most people. All people have a natural right to pursue happiness. It is immoral to even suggest that staying home with your children for even the few months when they are most vulnerable is an unnecessary indulgence. Any company not willing to give you that is devouring your soul and will leave you spent, poor, and deprived of any source of true happiness.

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

[msauve]

"I'd take 51.1% total tax in a heartbeat to have really good government services."

Rejoice, you've found the answer! Move to Sweden.

Re:Equal rights

[Cederic]

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

[atriusofbricia]

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:

• If two men "arrange" for a surrogate to carry their baby, do both men get two months paid leave?
• If two women "arrange" for a surrogate to carry their baby, do both women get three months paid leave or two?
• If two women draw straws and one of them carries a baby and delivers, do both women get three months paid leave, or does the woman that carried & delivered the baby get three months paid leave and her partner gets two months?

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

[Evtim]

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?

"...one smells less"

[bradgoodman]

Which one is that?

Re:"...one smells less"

[stewsters]

At Yahoo, a company with legacy code dating back to 1995, I think you can guess.

Re:"...one smells less"

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Yup. I'll take a huge diaperfull of steamy pungent poo over server-side Perl every time.

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.

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.

What about lesbian couples?

[Nadaka]

Do they each get 16 weeks?

Re:As a guy that was a stay at home dad for 7 year

[Literaphile]

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?

Canada!~

[Literaphile]

Happy to live in Canada where both men and women can take 35 weeks of parental leave, covered by employment insurance.

Re:As a guy that was a stay at home dad for 7 year

[avandesande]

Gross! You're supposed to change them at least once a day, aren't you?

Re:Sweden, 1 year

[Stargoat]

A MÃÃse once bit my sister ...

a discrimination case waiting to happen

[KernelMuncher]

American federal law prohibits policies that discriminate based on sex. By giving different leave times according to the person's gender, Yahoo is in violation. They could be subject to EEOC fines or even sued in civil court by any aggrieved parties (meaning the dads).

Re:Sweden, 1 year

[Anonymous Coward]

Those responsible for the maternity leave discrimination have been sacked.

Re:Sweden, 1 year

[jonathanjespersen]

Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.

What the hell happened?

[onyxruby]

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