I’m about to start my 12 week paternity leave next week thanks to a state program and almost everyone that I’ve told has had their jaws on the floor that I would even want to do that.
Today I witnessed a group of coworkers almost bragging how little time they took after their kids were born. I’ve heard stuff like “Most men are hard working and want to support their families so they don’t take leave”.
To me it was a no brainer, I’m getting ~85% of my normal pay and I get to take care of my wife, our son and our newborn for 3 whole months. and for someone who hasn’t taken a day breathe in the past 3 years I think I deserve it.
I’m in the US so I know it’s a “strange” concept, but people have seemed genuinely upset, people it doesn’t affect at all. Again, it’s a state program available to almost anyone who’s worked in the past 2 years, I’ve talked to soon to be dads who scoffed at the idea and were happy to use a week of pto and that’s it.
I feel like I’m missing something.
My US company went ham on paternity leave. I adopted a 3-day-old and got 12 weeks leave.
I provided pretty decent support from home for my position for the first week, I did small things and help people in my department get up to speed on what I had to do. I was kind of sleep deprived but they needed the help to start with. 9 times out of 10 I was holding the baby because at that age there’s not much you’re doing other than holding feeding or changing them. And that’s what they really need.
I then took a solid 6 weeks of only minimal interactions. I would drop in on occasional daily meetings mostly so I knew what was going on.
The vast majority of my work can happen from home. The sleep deprivation and bonding time are the important things to take care of, along with giving my partner a decent level of support and adjustment time. Putting in a little work here and there in between things actually gave me a little bit of mental stimulus when I needed it.
The six to eight week period, I ramped up a little more and remotely attended most meetings. I started coming in a few times a week from 8 to 12 weeks so that my partner didn’t feel my support just fall off a cliff for 8 hours a day.
It’s important to get that early bonding time in, it’s important to give your partner the support they need to adjust. I honestly feel that what I did makes a lot more sense than just 12 weeks of off time. I think I’d probably rather have 8 weeks solid and then have another 4 weeks of flexible PTO that I could take around them learning to crawl, walk, have medical issues.
Nothing about child rearing fits nicely into a 12-week box.