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.
I had 8 weeks fully paid through use of accrued PTO. 8 weeks is about the minimum of paternity leave necessary to kind of get your life back into order imo. This isn’t a vacation, it’s taking full care of a little person that needs help every 2-3 hours. If both you and your partner work it would be impossible without leave just due to sleep depravation. Our first kid was (is still 4 years later) a terrible sleeper and the first few months were hell. Luckily our second is actually a better sleeper than the first right now and she’s only 8 months old lol.
But yes, 12 weeks paternity is not a vacation, it is work. Plan for 12 weeks and if you think that you have everything sorted then great, go back. But daycare might be more than what you would make going back to full pay so just consider that too.