Parents Need More Than Just a Few Months After the Baby Is Born

Pilita Clark wrote in Monday’s Financial Times about the difficulty some men have in taking parental leave when their child is born.¹ In the UK, parents can share up to 50 weeks of leave, most of it paid.  But, apparently, in many companies, while women can take leave without a problem, many men feel the company’s culture doesn’t let them do so.  Ms. Clark notes that some managers are encouraging men to take their share of the leave, too.²

But while parental leave when a child is born is important, I think there is more to it than just that.  Here is a letter I wrote to the FT with my thoughts:

“Pilita Clark talks about the need for men to take more leave when a baby is born.  Back in the dark ages of 1984, our daughter was born on Sunday, we came home from the hospital on Monday, and I went back to work on Wednesday.  Obviously, that would be viewed as unacceptable today.  But the key to the jobs I had was not the number of weeks or months I could take off when our daughter was born (and our son 20 months later).  Rather, it was the time I was able to take over the next 18 years.

I was fortunate in my job and the companies I worked for.  They did not care when I did my work, as long as it got done.  So, I would go home for dinner every night and, if necessary, do work after the kids went to bed.  As they got older, I was able to leave work early for baseball games, tennis matches, and concerts, once again doing work after bedtime. 

While getting time off when your child is born is wonderful, what men and women really need are jobs and employers who understand that parents need occasional accommodation for eighteen years, not just leave for a few months.”³

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¹ The article is behind the FT paywall.
² On this side of the ocean, JP Morgan Chase has just settled a class action lawsuit that allows dads to claim leave as the baby’s primary caregiver without having to show the mother went back to work or was medically incapable of caring for the child.
³ You can find the letter here.  UPDATE (5/31/19 11:15 pm): Apparently, the letter is behind the paywall, too.  It is just as set out above.