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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."
Which one is that?
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.
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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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...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
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?
Childfree people are being discriminated against because they get no leave. I should be able to take leave to take care of my cat.
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.
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.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.
Meanwhile in sweden: 280 days per child. Of those, at least two months must be used by the father. All days are payed.
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...
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.
#DeleteChrome
Sounds like Sweden would be a great place to plop out some triplets.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
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.
In Liberty, Rene
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.
@de_machina