Paternity Leave, and Labor Day Weekend

Give new dads the time they need to be better dads.

I was outside in front of my house in the city this morning. It was a clear, sunny morning as I washed and scrubbed the invisible oil of poison ivy off of my family’s hiking shoes with a bucket of soapy water. I looked up from my toils to see my neighbor Peter walking down the street, pushing his little one’s stroller, and wrapped up with his newest little one hanging from his chest, marsupial-like in a baby carrier.

“Hey Peter, happy Labor Day weekend!” I called across the narrow street.

“You too!” he yelled back over the noise of an approaching car. It was a typical, short pleasantry exchanged between two dads taking care of business. I thought that would be it as Peter kept strolling and carrying, but then he stopped and took a backstep. With a little awkwardness he said: “I’m taking 5 weeks of paternity leave. I just started.”

“That’s awesome!” I yelled back, setting down the soapy brush. “Good for you. I took 12 weeks myself when my daughter was young. One of the best decisions I’ve made.”

He nodded. “My wife just went back to work.”

“She must be kind of happy to go back to work a bit, right? When I took those weeks, I thought I’d have time to get in shape, rest, and maybe even write a book. Jesus, with a colicky baby, I barely survived!”

“No doubt!” he called back, and then was off down the street, a dad on a fortunate yet exhausting new journey in 2022.

~

At this time 11 years ago I was just into my first month of parental leave. When you are a father this is called paternity leave, marking an explicit, jarring distinction in terms. Even from the first time you utter the words “I’m taking paternity leave” there is a built-in recoil by your employer, family, friends, patients, colleagues - and even within yourself. For some that recoil lasts a few seconds, and they get over it quickly, congratulating you and giving you undue credit that women on maternity leave just don’t get. Some people respect you as a kind of quirky pioneer. But for some others that immediate recoil lasts for hours, days, weeks, and even a decade later. They still don’t forget the leave you take, and you sense a lingering judgemental edge in questions like: “How old is your daughter now? I remember how you didn’t work for a couple months when she was born. Mr. Mom, right?”

~

No, that’s not entirely correct. I worked damn hard during those months. They were some of the best of my life, even though I didn’t get in shape, I lost sleep, and I wrote an incoherent poem instead of that book. I did all the cliched things like: dad changing a diaper, dad thawing pumped milk for the bottle, and dad singing botched versions of lullabies and Smashing Pumpkins. I also learned novel things, like what it’s like to walk a crying baby around the summer streets of Philadelphia at 4 AM, soothing her with the humid night time air and distraction of the August moon. I learned how precious, terrifying, and incomparably beautiful it is to see a human consciousness emerge from the chaos, and to be there to help guide it into the world. The crying, the cooing, the crying, the first smiling, the crying, the sweet smell of a baby’s head resting on your shoulder, the crying. I learned of the colossal burden and privilege that women for thousands of years, nay hundreds of thousands of years, have upheld - and for which they sacrificed their bodies, wits, and pastpresentfutures.

~

I’ll spare you the actual statistics. Suffice it to say that not enough men took paternity leave 11 years ago. Back then it was only paid for in three states (NJ, CA, RI), one of which I was fortunate enough to live in. More men are able to take paid leave now, as the list has grown to 11 states, and more private employers are offering paid leave as a benefit. But so many more men need access to paid parental leave, or if they can afford unpaid leave, to take that at least.

Overcoming a sense of penalty, embarrassment, and shame as a man taking paternity leave is truly not heroic. On the contrary, it’s a shame on us that we haven’t been doing this routinely, holding on to some unfair notions of work vs. family vs. masculinity. This post is about parental leave, but being a stay at home dad is also a choice that some families make. From what I learned first hand, it should be greatly honored.

Leave is good for dads, mamas, and families. Studies show that dads who take even two weeks have children who report a stronger connection with them years later. They get divorced less often. They divide chores more evenly and remain more involved in parenting. A study out of Sweden showed that mothers themselves need fewer antibiotics and psychiatric medications in that first year. Fathers’ brains actually change, with improved social cortical functions. Paternity leave promotes child-parent bonding, improves health and development outcomes for children, increases gender equality in the home and workplace, and provides an advantage to working families.

70% of Americans now support some form of paid leave for new fathers. But some other studies have shown that taking paternity leave can damage a man’s professional reputation and future earning potential. How can this be changed? From a NYT article:

In 2006 Quebec adopted a “daddy quota” similar to the Scandinavian model, offering 5 weeks of dedicated, non-transferable, government-paid leave to new fathers in the province.

Within two years, 75 percent of new fathers in Quebec were taking paternity leave, up from 22 percent before the use-it-or-lose-it “daddy quota” was implemented.

The United States federal government offers zero weeks of paid paternity leave. Other rich countries routinely offer 8 weeks, and 186 countries offer some amount of paid family leave.

We should fight for it. If you think it’s okay to dismiss a woman’s right to control her own uterus and what grows there, then casually support a culture that excuses men from the labor it takes to parent an infant, then we are truly backsliding into the dark.

~

Tomorrow I plan to do some more chores around the house on this clear, sunny Labor Day weekend. I’ll be folding three loads of laundry and getting some groceries. I’ll be taking my child to an outdoor pool party. I can still grill some meat, too.

I hope to see my neighbor Peter walking down the street, glowing like some metaphysical god of manliness, his shoulders covered in spit up, his stride confident and powerful, his posture stooping joyfully behind the stroller.

~