I was planning to take 3 weeks with my first, but went back after 2 because another week of my mother-in-law's shit would have had me living in a van down by the river. For the second, I stayed home until I was sick of the mother-in-law and went back to work again.

Kharn

I am just trying to understand how someone does that and then can pick up right where they left off 4 months later.

Sooooo many factors to consider, but I could never do it.  Wouldn't even consider it if it was on the table.  Everyone is different and to each his own, so it's not like I have anything against this guy.

My company does 3 months for both maternal and paternal leave, it's a great benefit.

Eta: I should specify, this is paid leave. Been in place for over a year now and we've not had any hiccups, definitely makes for a happier workforce. FWIW this is at a Fortune 100 so we have a pretty large workforce. No idea how this would work at a smaller business.

Good work if you can get it.

I took two weeks off for each of my kids.  By the end of week 1, I was in the way.  

Yeah, Wells Fargo gives 16 weeks paternity leave.

That's insane.

Planning. A company would most likely have approx. 7 months to prepare for the employee to be off. If management can't make proper arrangements in that time frame they suck.

I once had some extended time off. Came back better than ever..... hit the ground running. Was more productive and sharper than I had been before I left.

It doesn't take long to come back up to speed if that is what you want.

If he is a stellar employee a company just got hosed for 1/3 year and some else is going to have to do a stellar job for him and still cover his own work load. Which in reality is two jobs not getting the full attention of an employee.

If a company can do without you for 4 months you should start looking for another job, because someone is going to notice.

Nobody is indispensable.

I should have a kid.

Again, real smart. Great way of thinking.  In the remaining decades he works without taking an extended leave, he could out produce everyone else  by a wide margin. It is real smart to penalize someone like this for a leave that may only happen once or twice in decades of employment.

I am glad that management at my company told me  " take everyday that you need just please come back 100% we need you."  AND, that was with no policy in place.

They made out like bandits and were smart enough to know this.

Your vision / logic is short sighted.

There used to be a time where if a new father took advantage of FMLA for his newborn, he could kiss goodbye any chances of advancement.

Y’all do realize that people take that much time and more for other things, right? Like chemo, heart surgery, etc. We just had one lady take almost 6 months after her 11 year old committed suicide.

Regardless, a lot of times, those people aren’t truly 100% away from their jobs. They often still answer emails, field phone calls, do some telework stuff, and keep abreast of goings on. They just aren’t physically present.

Some companies realize the importance of family and make allowances for that in order to recruit better, more talented, happier employees. Those companies tend to be able to hire better, more talented, happier employees. If it wasn’t a successful program, it wouldn’t be growing as much as it is.

I took some when we had our kids. It comes out of our sick leave that we get to sell back at 50% of our pay at time of retirement. I worked with my employers and came in to work when someone needed time off or they were short handed. When I came back I made sure to be considerate of my fellow employees when it came time to bid for holidays off. No one had an issue with it. I did know a couple of married officers who both took off for 12 weeks right when summer started which totally screwed the guys they worked with from taking summer vacations with their families and caused a lot of hard feelings and discontent. I enjoyed being with my kids the first few weeks but I can also understand the resentment of other employees who end up carrying more workload. The amount of time off should probably be revisited and shortened or broken up so as to not put as much of a hardship on the employer and employees.

We get four weeks paid (160 hours), and it doesn’t have to be taken consecutively. We can do half days for like 2 months, or take off every Monday & Friday for 10 straight weeks, or every Friday for 20 weeks, etc



My wife is due in mid-December with our first. I plan to take off the 2 days she’s in the hospital, another day or two at home (working from home, too) once she’s sent home, and then I’m going to work half days.

I can’t afford to miss more than 3-4 days completely off the work grid or my projects will suffer.

My boss gave me shit for taking two weeks off.  Said I could go FMLA unpaid but later approved.   Came out of my vacation time.

Damn that’s pretty sweet, I got two weeks and wife gets 6-where’s this guy work??? Applications inbound!!!

My boss at my last job had 4 weeks paternity leave.

ANY company can do without anyone for any length of time. It's just a matter of how they will get on without certain personnel in place.

No one is indispensable  but some are extremely hard to replace and make a big difference when they are present.

It isn't a question of " we don't need you because you were gone for 4 months and we survived "........... The question is what the person brings to the table and how much value they add to the company when they are present.

There is ALWAYS a good, better, best option.

Yeah, fuck that, if you're on a team and people rely on you. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

Our company offers three months parental leave, and some of these assholes turn out kids so fast they basically get a quarter off every 13-14 months.

Same here.. I had a guy take a month off when the child was born, then wait six months and take another two months off for summer vacation. To me, that's just bullshit and gaming the system.

Equality shit.

You are comparing taking 4 months leave when your wife has a normal pregnancy and a healthy child to someone who has a life threatening illness that could render them dead.

What about the importance of the family (ies) of the other employee(s) who have to take up the slack when some jackwaggon takes 1/4 a year off? I am sure they were pretty happy to cover the extra work and all that comes with it except for the extra $$$.

I worked in the corporate cubicle farm and ran a small business. If someone is not there someone else's day just got longer and/or more hectic.

In the military I took three weeks after every kid.

My first wife was in the military and only got 6 weeks.

Hate the game, not the player.

Saw somewhere that a French police chief hadn't been to work in like a decade thanks to child leave policies.

That's called a dream job. If suckers want to be exploited, oblige them.

My coworkers wife took of 9 months for each of their three kids. It wasn’t all paid, but her work happily welcomed her back.

I guess, if your dream is to be stuck in the same position until the next "right-sizing".  You're going to be first on the chopping block, no matter what you think you bring to the table.. there's a point of diminishing returns.

This. My buddy received it when his wife had their first. I had never heard of it at that point. Fuck it, if it's available, take it.

Does that cancel out vacation, personal and bereavement time?

The reason for the time away from work is inconsequential to the work that needs doing and the burden it places on other employees.

As for the other employees, it’s likely part of their benefit package as well (the paid leave and the paternity leave). If they choose not to exercise those benefits, that is a choice they are making. If they choose to exercise those benefits, they are placing just as much burden on papa to be as he is on them. I get that you don’t like it and don’t approve. Regardless of your personal opinion, companies are realizing that your way of thinking doesn’t lend itself to recruiting and keeping quality employees. The days of making fathers second class citizens in their children’s lives are coming to an end. Perhaps this will follow to the family courts.

People with marketable skills get perks so the best skilled people are attracted and retained.

People that can be replaced by someone walking in off the street don't. It's really that simply.

Someone's jelly.

Meh, I guess this is a good time to mention something that I have been hearing on and off for the last 10 years or so.

My daughter just had a baby bout 5 months ago.  She had several nurses take care of her during the week she was in the hospital . She had some complications.

A couple of the nurses she had came here from Poland.  They were excellent nurses in their late 20's and early 30's.

Wife ( who is a nurse ) and I got to talking to them .   I asked them how they liked the US and they both said they liked it but were moving back to Poland and couldn't wait to get back home.

I thought this was kind of odd so I asked them why they were leaving.

They both at separate times said " Americans live to work I want to go back to working to live."

Bottom line, they thought the way Americans worked and how they looked at Work VS. Family was screwed up.  Their values were entirely different from the values of the average American.

They put free time, family time, leisure time far above work time and material possessions.   They could not wait to get back to their grandparents and parents..... could not wait to have their children grow up in a different setting.

I have heard this sentiment expressed more than a few times over the years.   Something many people don't realize or think of.  One of the main reasons foreign auto manufactures come to the US is because of the workforce we have in place here and because of employee costs.

In a nutshell , it costs all the major manufactures  less to build cars in the USA than it does in their home countries. I'm talking about comparable first world countries. They pay out more benefits / have more employee costs in their home countries.

WE have been conditioned here in the US to put our jobs above everything. To do what is necessary to keep your job.  I have often said over the years that in the US , the mindset of people concerning Jobs VS. Family is completely reversed.... it isn't that way in many other countries.

Our values are screwed up.... we put material objects over family and relationships.   Someone here said " don't hate the player hate the game ".  That pretty much sums it up I  guess.

If a fellow co- worker values his family above work, deal with it.   Don't expect everyone to give everything in their lives up for a job.

I have worked for companies that operate on as few employees as humanly possible and push those employees to the max in order to realize max profit...... all else be damned.  Sometimes, a company gets burnt when they operate this way.

As long as a policy / benefit is available to every employee, it's GTG.

Don't like a co- worker taking maternity leave? Go knock someone up and take advantage of the policy. Don't hate on someone who has different priorities than you...... this is America.

Companies that give generous benefits have managers that plan so that people can actually use those benefits.

We can accrue up to 500 hours of PTO before it drops off. People used to be able to take it.

Now we have a piss poor manager that can't plan for shit. We have employees leaving giving months notice, as in pleural months, plenty of time to train a new person. In addition to that, we are micromanaged to death, nitpicked over stupid shit like writing with a pen in a color she doesn't like. .  I wish I was making it up.

But the incompetent manager sits with her thumb up her ass sucking whatever she had to suck to get that job.

So now employees are just walking off the job. Highly unusual in my field. Never expected the last one to do that.

So now we don't have enough people to do the job. My field is in high demand due to lack of qualified people. It's not the best paying field but it's got to be one of the most secure.  Most hospitals try and retain employees because it's hard to find new ones.

The point is, some places are able to retain employees and keep them happy, some are not. If you look closely, there is a reason some are half staffed and some are fully staffed and allowing people to use the benefits that was promised to them when they are hired is the managers problem.

Skilled people can always go elsewhere. And they do.

Do you not take your contractually agreed upon paid vacation time every year?

I took my 10 days and was glad for it. I'd have taken more if it wouldn't have come out of my leave.

My company just started offering 4 months paid maternity and paternity leave. My boss told me i'd be stupid not to take advantage of it when my first kid is born in a few months.

If you are a valuable employee, they will work with you and know that you won't totally disappear for the time.

And why do you think America is the most prosperous and advanced nation in history? Because people took three months off work to have a kid?

Let me be clear: I'm not saying I don't *understand* it, I'm saying there are tradeoffs to be made that shouldn't be discounted.

Immense natural resources and geographic protection from any real threat of war from other countries?

Meh some people stack vacation time to take time off for kids. If your company lets you roll it over its not hard to find yourself with a ton of time you can take off.

If my work gave me 4 months PTO for paternity leave you bet I'd take it.

I'd also probably go back after week 2 when I got bored

Sometimes its not a matter of missing you, but the extra workload everyone else has to pick up while you're gone.
I wouldn't do that to my coworkers, and the people who willingly schedule their elective surgeries so they get the entire summer off tick me off.

Both of which would mean jack shit without people spending their time to make something of them.

I feel like there's a deliberately contrarian element here just trolling.

You get a 15 minute smoke break, I get a 15 minute coffee break. You get a 4 month paternity leave, I get a 4 month coffee break.

I have 8 weeks of paternity leave available at half salary.

I have no opinion of the guy in the OP. If it’s in his contract, good for him.

Disgusting.

You agreed to work at the company, and read the full benefits package they offered?

There are countries in Europe that give you 2 years of paid maternity leave.

Yes, and you know what makes people work better? A good working environment. Unless you believe in beatings until moral improves.

Would you rather work at a company that offers 0 hours PTO, or one that offers 160 hours PTO? All other benefits are the same with the same pay.

I guess my point is we all get the same amount of PTO and sick leave (2 weeks PTO per year we can carry over, two weeks sick time per year that expires).  The fact that someone should get three extra fucking months off (non-consecutive, no less) just because they chose to have a kid is unnecessary and detrimental to the team.

The parent's morale isn't the only morale that matters, the employees left behind to carry the workload and then spend another month getting their ass up to speed after the fact are affected, as well.