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Zuckerberg To Take 2 Months Paternity Leave To Give His Kid a Better Outcome (techcrunch.com)
theodp writes: TechCrunch reports that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will take two months off from Facebook for paternity leave. Why? "Studies show that when working parents take time to be with their newborns, outcomes are better for the children and families," Zuckerberg explained in a FB post on Friday. "At Facebook we offer our U.S. employees up to 4 months of paid maternity or paternity leave which they can take throughout the year." No word on why the child will only get 50% of that time — maybe that's what the gains chart suggested as a good tradeoff — or if expectant parents who apply to send their children to Zuckerberg's new Primary School, which aims to "help children from underserved communities reach their full potential," will be expected to make a similar commitment.
I took out 19 months with our firstborn - from when he was 4 months old.
Of course, I'm Swedish. Anyone who would only take two months would be seen as quite uninterested in their children.
(In Sweden you get 480 days per child, to be divided as you see fit between mother and father. 120 of those days are however locked, divided up as 60 each, to each parent. You get 80% of your salary during parental leave, capped to a maximum which is far far below what anyone in "IT" makes)
it's in my head
Why is this news? Don't most parents take (m|p)aternity leave when they have newborns?
I guess this is why this really is news that matters. Because paternity leave is a very rare thing in the US. You may live in Europe where this being news sounds like nonsense, which more Americans need to realize. Less than 15% of US employers offer paternity leave, and that is almost entirely exclusive to white collar professions. Paternity leave tends to be about two weeks here, as opposed to months in more progressive European countries.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
I took 4 days, cause that's all the vacation time I had and in the US no one is going to pay you