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Comment by RodericDay | Hacker News Reader

I like the idea of "mandatory paternity leave", to make up for the biological asymmetry.

Even if you have a stereotypical breadwinner/housewife relationship, you are legally mandated to take time off, even if you don't want to. That way you avoid the "you're allowed to take paternal leave, but real go-getters don't!" game altogether.

edit: The way I see it, the responses just prove my point. "This would just make people discriminate against x!". That's exactly why it needs to be mandatory, affecting more people, so the issue doesn't become invisible based on it affecting only women.

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How do you know when a man in the office becomes a father? If you institute "mandatory paternity leave" then he just won't tell you. It's already illegal to ask about marital status during a job interview. Are you suggesting we change that, too? Then you risk further reducing the number of marriages in society.

The whole problem with paternity leave is that there's a financial disincentive for companies to offer it and there's a financial disincentive for male employees to accept it.

How do you know when a man in the office becomes a father?

Well, for one thing, there's the bit where, if the new child will be covered under the father's health plan, he kinda has to tell HR about it. So they can, you know, change the coverage?

I live in Canada. We don't need to tell our employers about our families in order to receive health care. We still have a similar gender wage gap though.

Besides, if I did live in the US and the situation came up, I would be more likely to pay for my child's health insurance out of pocket than to take a $40,000 pay cut.

You only have to do that when the child of born. Even then, you have quite a bit of leeway as to when you have to notify the insurance company.

> How do you know when a man in the office becomes a father?

How do you know when a woman in the office is actually pregnant?

Going to go feel the bump up yourself?

We already suffer from declining birthrates in the west. Your solution would make not having a child the best choice for "go-getters."

Isn't that already the case?

My solution may not be optimal, but the status quo is "male go-getter with supportive female companion" as standard model of coupling.

If we have to deal with declining birthrates while we figure out a more fair and sane arrangement, that doesn't pit family building against professional success, I'm down.

The Swedish way is to have 480 days of parental leave per child, which can be split between either parent. "For 390 of the days, parents are entitled to nearly 80 per cent of their normal pay up to a maximum monthly income of 37,000 kroner ($4,500)." - http://www.thelocal.se/20151229/one-in-four-swedish-fathers-... .

Also, "From January 1st 2016, the number of use-it-or-lose-it 'pappamånad' or 'daddy months' will increase from two to three, in an bid to push couples to share early years childcare more equally." because currently "One in four Swedish dads take no baby leave".

Mandatory parental leave is tricky. Is that a month in a row? As a self-employed person, am I prohibited from filings taxes, sending out invoices, and support questions? Or can I work one day a week?

> which can be split between either parent

That's the issue right there. Not surprised "One in four Swedish dads take no baby leave".

I know things are tricky to roll out, there's tons of quirks here and there. User chongli is on like three leaves of the discussion trying to take the idea down based on implementation details. That comes later.

The whole point is that right now it's a "woman's issue". Forcing men to deal with it would make it a "parent issue", and more resources would be devoted to ironing out the details.

It's like that pithy line I heard once- "If men could get pregnant, abortion wouldn't be controversial".

edit: Can't reply, but I got your reply just fine dalke. What I'm saying is that making it use-it-or-lose-it is still not good enough. Rather, if you don't get why I suggest it needs to be mandatory, it is you who is not getting me.

edit2: Fanning threads on HN are just no good for discussing stuff. Sorry!

"That's the issue right there"

I ... don't think you understood my response. Three months of it can only be taken by the father. The "split between either parent" has limits.

What's wrong with the non-mandatory Swedish system? It's most assuredly called "parental leave here", and isn't a "woman's issue" but a feminist issue. As a male feminist, I agree with that.

Edit regarding "it is you who is not getting me".

You are right. But I fail to understand why I should get you as you haven't made any statement about what "mandatory" means. Do you mean one week of mandatory leave, or one month, or one year? Will it be paid leave, and structured similar to what it is in Sweden (percentage of salary, with cap)? What is the penalty for not complying? If I am an unpaid board member of a Fortune 100, am I prohibited from attending meetings? What about going to shareholder meetings? Going to professional society meetings?

You complain that these questions are "trying to take the idea down based on implementation details", but they are not. They are aspects of trying to understand what you mean by mandatory parental leave, and do a cost/benefit analysis

If Sweden were to require on week of mandatory parental leave, for each parent, how would that improve things?

I don't know whether a week a month or a year is suitable, or percentages, or damages. This is not my field.

The fundamental idea I'm advancing is that men get to do calculus with their choice ("hmm do I want to stay? or do I better by my kid by working hard now and sending them to prep school?"). It's cool that Sweden makes it attractive for them to pick parenthood, but it's not enough, it's not really in the same ballpark.

I am suggesting that men shouldn't really have a choice. Women have little/no choice (biologically, because of labor, and socially, because of expectations), so only by forcing an approximation of time lost, do we really make people reconsider whether the situation we put them in and the choices we offer them are fair.

In case this sounds incredibly sinister to people, like capping runners so they're not fast, don't get me wrong. I think the outcome here would be an increased amount of resources put into the "work-life balance" question that everyone pays lip-service to, so that we wouldn't be really forced to choose one over the other.

Okay, I see your point. I don't believe it's a useful one.

What you are saying is that you want the government to fine, imprison, or otherwise punish a woman who, as CEO, signs a business deal three days after she gives birth, yes?

Because that's what "mandatory" means. Unless "mandatory" only applies to the father? In which case, why is the father prohibited from signing a business deal three days after the mother gives birth, when the mother would be capable of doing so?

Then there are all the tricky questions, like if the father and mother have broken up and are no longer on speaking terms, or the father is overseas. They are the same issues as for parental leave, only backed by the force of government punishment for not complying.

This is ridiculous. The policy could be something like "take a month off within a year of your kid being born".

> What you are saying is that you want the government to fine, imprison, or otherwise punish a woman who, as CEO, signs a business deal three days after she gives birth, yes?

Do you sincerely think this is a good post?

I sincerely think that the benefits are not worthwhile.

Every mandatory requirement must be backed by penalty, otherwise it's merely optional. Such penalties can include fines, jail, lack of access to social services, and forced removal of one's child.

We know already that 1/4 of Swedish fathers prefer to take no leave, even when there's an 80% salary support. (I don't know how many Swedish mothers take less than a month of leave.)

Any fines must therefore be more than 20% of three months' salary, and even higher for those making over $100K/year.

Any system must also have a way to identify lawbreakers, and allow appeals and special circumstances.

The Swedish experience shows that the father tends to put the extra time into the summer, Christmas, and New Year holidays. If the goal is increased co-parenting - which I believe is your goal - then 1 month spread over a year, especially in a vacation-poor country like the US, is very likely not enough.

>It's like that pithy line I heard once- "If men could get pregnant, abortion wouldn't be controversial".

An interesting line which seems to ignore evidence as to which gender is more expected to care for their child and treated harsher when they don't.

The underlying ideal is that men would favor men and they would all vote to legalize abortion, but this ignores both how there are many women who are against abortion (while few are against all forms, most are against some forms). It also ignores how men often hold other men accountable for caring for their children, including supporting laws that put dead beat fathers into prison.

I prefer the line "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be illegal."

> male go-getter with supportive female companion

Do you have any objective reasons why this is suboptimal? Maybe we should go the other way; for example in the Netherlands, many women (with children) choose to work part-time (because they can). So maybe the "status quo" is by choice.

Maybe it's a biological choice, maybe it's cultural and social momentum from hundreds of years of forcing gender roles legally and violently.

Impossible to tell with our current experimental setup. I lean towards the latter though.

The precautionary principle would say not to do your experiment until you can be assured it won't damage your research subjects.

I lean towards the former. There are multiple reasons for this being a biological choice. One, women's childbearing period is more limited than men's, so it's rational for them to prioritize "taking care for the children" over "having a great career". Another is that because they give birth, they pretty much have to be absent from work (for a few days at least), whereas men don't, so again it's rational for a woman to take additional leave for childcare, so that only one parent gets penalized (by lower pay and less experience and future promotions) by taking time off. Of course, the latter only applies given everything else is equal; if the mother earns significantly more than the (step-)father, then it would be rational for her to take off only as many days an necessary for health reasons, with her partner providing the rest of childcare.

It already is for female go-getters.

Which is why the person you replied to would most likely advocate for eliminating parental leave entirely, and I agree.

No matter how you slice it, government mandated leave that doesn't apply to every single person equally will lead to discrimination. If you mandate maternity leave then companies will prefer young men to young women, and if you mandate paternity leave then companies will prefer the old to the young.

Parental leave is detrimental for every person that has it, but doesn't want it. If you're of child bearing age you're a huge risk to your employer if your resume doesn't come with a sterility test stapled to it.

Similarly it would lead to discrimination against large families (large these days being anything more than 2 kids). Employers likely won't tolerate someone having 5 kids over a 5-10 year period and taking all that disruptive and expensive leave.

Because people should totally be making major life decisions on the basis of what employers will "tolerate".

FFS. We've already ceded enough control over our lives to these companies whose only agenda is to suck people dry, and then find new ways to wring even more out of them.

Businesses exist to serve people's needs and interests. People do not exist to serve businesses.

There's not a whole lot you can do about discrimination. Unless the employers are dumb enough talk openly about what they're doing. They can find any subjective reason they like and claim that's the reason for letting you go. You can try to sue, and sometimes you'll even win, but there's no Job Police SWAT Team that will beat down the door and force them to give you your job back in time for your next mortgage payment.

In light of this reality it's good to avoid policies that incentivize even more discrimination.

They can find any subjective reason they like and claim that's the reason for letting you go.

Oh, believe me, I know. I was dismissed from my last job for having the temerity to take a leave of absence — negotiated in advance with the company, with C-staff level approval — to travel for a few months. When I returned, they presented me with a materially altered performance review (fact-checked with the manager who actually wrote the review), filled with straight-up lies, and said that was why they were firing me.

If you dare to decide the life your job pays for is more important than the job itself, well, there's the door...

There are many businesses out there. Make your employment decisions based on your values.

I don't have children, and won't be having any. You seem to be saying that I have to subsidize your childcare leave.

Yes, because, shockingly, both parents caring for babies helps society as a whole. Maybe you should stop being selfish instead of making it hard for others to have families.

There have been studies that have shown fathers are far more involved in their kid's lives by taking paternal leave. It also means that the parents will both be far more productive post-leave as they would have developed more balanced responsibilities, and don't have to juggle waking up in the middle of the night with a job for at least the first few months, which is arguably the toughest.

The fact that family leave is not government-mandated and involve both parents taking a reasonable (several-month) leave for caring for a baby is ludicrous.

Society is helped by having healthy babies, yes.

You haven't provided any support for your argument that I, as someone without children, must be made to subsidize the family choices of others.

The resources to cover the extended work absence of the parents has to come from somewhere. In many cases, it'll be one past parent covering a new parent, and then vice-versa. But those of us who can't have children (a) don't get to have children, yet (b) are stuck holding the bag having to pay the costs for others'. Isn't that kind of adding insult to injury for people who can't have babies?

So how is it that you get to make the decision for all of society, such that it must be a one-size-fits-all law, and people aren't allowed to negotiate for the terms that make the most sense for their own personal situation.

I'd say that you came up in the public school system, were raised by a mother who dropped out of the workforce and stopped her other contributions to society in order to raise you, received all the cheap or free healthcare that is available to minors, and took advantage of all the opportunities that society provides to young people in order to help them be successful and functional parts of their community. So you've kind of already had your share and owe it back to us.

I'm sure I won't change your mind, but as a single person with no kids, that's how I see it. I'm quite happy to make a few sacrifices to make life easier for today's children.

I doubt any legal scholar would argue that a pre-schooler is able to sign a contract obliging them to pay back a student loan, so how can you say any given person owes society for their public school education?

I said that's my point of view. I had no intention of making a legal argument of it.

Doesn't that argument boil down to "we've done it that way in the past, so it must be continued in the future"?

It's in my interest as a member of society that there's a well-stocked pipeline of healthy well-adjusted well-educated kids coming up so that my old age is not some kind of hellscape.

> So how is it that you get to make the decision for all of society, such that it must be a one-size-fits-all law, and people aren't allowed to negotiate for the terms that make the most sense for their own personal situation.

Yeah, societal decisions are generally one-size-fits-all laws because it's virtually impossible to make it any other way. In short: tough luck.

> Maybe you should stop being selfish

Personal attacks are not allowed on HN. Please post civilly and substantively, or not at all.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

That is not remotely what I'm saying, and I gave absolutely no reason to suggest it.

This is the worst case of someone trying to put words in my mouth on HN since the last time I tried explaining something from a feminist perspective...

> Because people should totally be making major life decisions on the basis of what employers will "tolerate".

Shouldn't they? The career you choose, and the specific firm you choose to work for (or start your own, or whatever) is what I would consider a major life decision which ought to carefully be considered alongside other major life decisions like whether or when to have children.

Another interesting way of considering it is that people who exercise their natural right of association make trade offs in doing so that you find repelling. This viewpoint has the benefit of not dehumanizing people who run and work for businesses.

I flatly reject the notion that, with as massive a power differential as the employer-employee relationship structurally entails, it qualifies as an "exercise" of some "natural right of association".

With the way we've chosen to run our world, such that there are orders of magnitude fewer people offering jobs than there are needing them, one side of that dynamic has tremendous power to dictate terms to the other. That is not remotely an equitable relationship, and to suggest that participating in it is some sort of "exercise" of a "natural right", that is freely entered into, is fatuously specious.

It's already mandatory in multiple european countries and it leads to nothing of the sort.

Because Europe already has an average of <2 kids pr couple?

Thus indicating that us getting over a year of parental leave for each kid doesn't lead to mass breeding.

Or hiding it.

> We already suffer from declining birthrates in the west.

Which is fantastic! There are too many people on this earth for the resources available, and population growth in wealthy countries can be fuelled by immigration.

That's what's happening here in Australia - low birthrate (~1.8) has been aided by immigration, and we've had a 25% increase in population in the last 17 years. Having kiddliwinks is not the only solution to growth in the west.

You want to make it illegal for someone to work when they want to work and can work..., and maybe even need to work for the income? That is a horrible idea.

What possible reason is there for this? To equalize wages? A family had 2 income earners, then they are down to 1. And you want to take away all their ability to have income?

> and maybe even need to work for the income?

We don't lose the income during parental leave.

How far are you willing to sacrifice freedom in the name of a few percentage points increase in your so called "equality."

You need to get your priorities aligned. This is the land of the free. Not the land of the equal.

I'm actually Canadian, and I was astonished to find, in this very thread, that in the USA you don't even offer paid maternity leave .

Enjoy!

>I'm actually Canadian, and I was astonished to find, in this very thread, that in the USA you don't even offer paid maternity leave

This varies from company to company. It isn't legally required, but the company I work for offers 6 months paid parental leave and it is encouraged you take it to spend time with your newborn/spouse and adjust to the new life. There are a lot of married couples in the office and both parents are allowed to take it together.

Most companies that my friends work for offer paid maternity leave ranging from 3 to 12 months. Generally paternal leave is the one that is never offered, or if it is offered, it's subtly discouraged against actually using it (you want that much-needed promotion now that you have a newborn, don't you? better work harder and not take time off!)

> randyrand

> This is the land of the free. Not the land of the equal.

Is this an attempt to make novelty accounts a thing on HN?

Or more seriously, on a scale of 1-10, how much tongue in cheek is in that assessment?

Huh? Its a play on my name... Randy =)

That would go a long way to correct for differences resulting from maternal leave, but there would still be issues such as single people, and especially single men, being favored (since it is rare for them to have a child who they must then take mandatory leave to care for).

It would definitely favour gay men, though they could still adopt and take paternity leave.

I remember reading that gay men suffer a penalty to straight men while gay women have a boost compared to straight women. I wonder if that is related child care expectations when they do adopt children.

No doubt you're correct. It's not a simple issue to fully resolve, but there is some seemingly low-hanging fruit to grab for.

That's a terrible idea. It may seem nice to a person with a lot of disposable income, who can afford for both people in the family to take have a break from their careers, but forcing that on people who are in poor financial condition is just terrible.

Parental leave is paid.

It should be, but in America there is no requirement for it to be. Presumably that would come in with any change to make it mandatory.

But how much is it paid? If somebody is making six figures, is it going to cover the whole amount? That seems unlikely. If it's a low percentage of the total amount, then it's forcing a big pay cut that families may not be able to afford.

Details vary by country, but in the three countries I've lived in 100% of your salary. It's paid by social security, even if your salary is in the seven figures, then you also paid a high amount to social security to cover for it.

edit: here's a table with more details https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Europe_.28inc._...

I think the US would have a long way to go before the public would ever accept having 7+ figure salaries paid out of the taxpayer pocket. That's pretty cool that some countries do though I see some of them only offer the 100% to women and not men.

We don't lose the income during parental leave.

You lose the experience, and you're not going to be first in line for a promotion when you come back after 6 months. Unless you want to go full Harrison Bergeron and mandate that the employer isn't allowed to reward Alice for the work she did while Bob was on paternity leave.

I think parent means mandatory paid leave.

First, you'd be creating a penalty for hiring people who are likely to have children. As a father of young and yet unborn children, I wouldn't appreciate it.

Currently there's a penalty for hiring women based on that exact same reasoning.

Right, but that penalty is deeply ingrained into our capitalist society. You can't solve it with just a quick bandaid fix.

Can it be fixed? In the end, pay is linked to productivity. The only fix I see is increased use of paternity leave.

Productivity on paternity leave is zero, since you're not working, so why expect pay to be anything but zero?

"Paternity leave" is an attempt to create a non-capitalist bubble inside of a capitalist world. It's like building a colony on Mars; not something you can do trivially.

If we're talking about Silicon Valley and the tech field in general, there already is a penalty for being a father to young children and/or expecting them. A good deal of tech jobs are well over 40 hours a week, sometimes work is all there is time for. That is not an environment conducive to being an active and involved father.

>I like the idea of "mandatory paternity leave", to make up for the biological asymmetry.

How do you enforce it tho? People can not report child birth to their employers.

Just to clarify, your ideology requires legally enforced social engineering to deny an aspect of biology?

That should be the hint that your first principles are incorrect.

That would only work if you would pay parents for the money they lose while they are not allowed to work. Otherwise you would mainly make families poorer.

How about letting people make their own choice on how they want to spend their life?

Who are YOU to believe you can make that decision for me and everyone else?

I agree. I also agree with your comment if you replace "life" with "money."

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