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.

Comments

Though spoiled is a likely side effect...

[rmdingler]

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 related research, children born to billionaire parents are statistically likely to experience better outcomes than those below the poverty line.

Re:Though spoiled is a likely side effect...

[Nemyst]

Actually, I think there's an opposite effect going on. I'd say the children born to wealthy parents, but not unbelieveably so, have the best chances. Being the child of Zuckerberg or Gates means you're growing up in a very unique position which isn't necessarily good for a child's development. It becomes hard to have "normal" social interactions, you have a completely out of whack understanding and relationship with money, etc. This goes even more so as a teenager, where the other teens will know who your parents are, which will heavily color their interactions with you. Plus, many of those parents tend to be extremely busy and it's very well known that parental presence is one of the most important factors in a child's development.

Re:And people on slashdot give a shit, why?

[HuguesT]

Good on him indeed, this means several things:

He's a big-shot CEO who can delegate. Great

This sort of things is not reserved for women. Fathers should take time off too. Great

The workplace is not the be-all and end-all of all things. Kids are important too, they are our future. Great

Re:Must be nice to be at a wealthy company

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that in every other developed country in the world, this is considered a basic human right that *every* company, small and large, can somehow afford to "hand out".

Re: And people on slashdot give a shit, why?

[kuzb]

Zuckerberg is hardly what I'd consider a positive role model, unless you feel screwing over millions of people by selling their personal information to the highest bidder while simultaneously looking down on them all as plebs is a virtue.

Re:And people on slashdot give a shit, why?

[davester666]

Yes, it is in writing. But can they actually take the time off. A ridiculous number of people can't even take their vacation time because of the fear they will be asked to stop bothering to come into the office.

And they won't say "we're letting you go because you took vacation time", because would be illegal, just something like "we want to move in a different direction, one without you on our team."