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Comment by PinguTS | Hacker News Reader

To be honest, compared to Germany that is not a good news.

In Germany, you can have this up to 36 months (3 years) for both parants and your employer can't send you a notice to quit.

So, to be honest, I have to laugh at Zuck. Or say it another way: I think, he does not value his kids. I am a shamed of him.

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Sonny Jim, welcome to America, where paternity leave is not guaranteed and rarely granted.

Mark Zuckerberg taking two full months of paternity leave is actually pretty progressive for us. Learn how to context, guy.

About 17% of Americans live in states with family/paternity leave. Zuckerberg's state of California being the first at 6 weeks leave.

It's not that progressive. You'll find more and more states passing family leave laws in the next decade (though I would much prefer something at the federal level besides unpaid job protection).

I would say that doing something that less than 1/5th of the country is doing is pretty progressive.

It's probably more, but I just added up the populations of CA, WA, and NJ. I know RI has it, but it's population is pretty small. That said, these programs are funded from employee paid disability/unemployment programs. It's not a huge reach for other states to implement similar programs. They just need to be pushed to do so (by we the people).

This 3 years seems to be not directly comparable, because it's not all fully paid, and there are limits to how much pay you can get. Seems like it's ~$2k/month max. That's not very much--maybe that's why only "38 percent of dads [in Germany] of children under six chose to take parental leave at all". I guess they don't value their kids either?

What if you have four children, spaced out evenly over twelve years in Germany? Do you just not need to work for twelve years?

Yes, and that's just one of the loopholes. It's a problem with the current crisis in Europe. They want a better life for free and are known to get many children.

>They want a better life for free and are known to get many children.

that's called maximizing ROI and in business is called being smart; on the other hand, in personal terms it's perojative. something's off balance.

Why only 3 years? Perhaps the corporation should have to pay for all 18 years while the child is being reared.

Shame on Germany for not valuing the kids!

Up to 14 months are paid.

You've forgot to mention that up to 14 months from those 3 years are paid.

Three years is all? It takes at least eighteen to raise a child. Shame on you for being proud of your country that doesn't care about children enough to see them raised properly. I have to laugh at you and your country for not valuing your kids. I'm ashamed for you.

This entire (arrogant) line of reasoning is ridiculous because it's completely based on an arbitrary cutoff point that you decide is good. What a crazy coincidence that the cutoff point happens to be the same amount of time the geographic region you happen to live in sets as their paternity leave.

Up to 14 months are paid however.

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