Paternity leave at startups: designing a policy for new parents | Hacker News Reader

Paternity leave at startups: designing a policy for new parents

kapwing.com

47 pointsjenthoven52 comments

I look for policies like this to see how I'm likely to be treated by a company in general.

Even more critical are terms of employment. Over the past few decades, companies often went from a healthy relationship (long-term employment, companies own IP in the domain of employment created on work hours) to a rather unhealthy one (3-year stints combined with abusive terms -- overreaching non-disclosures, non-competes, IP ownership, etc., digging deeply into my personal life).

Then there's background checks. These went from reasonable due diligence (I got my degree and worked where I claimed) to digging into past salaries and using those in negotiations (salaries get shared through data brokers like Equifax, often in violation of state laws), looking at credit records, etc.

There are policies around emergencies -- what happens if a relative dies and similar?

And there's the practical: How often do employees get legally threatened or sued on the way out? I've now had this happen to several friends; it's surprisingly common. In all cases, they settled on the company's terms (which were always without merits) since litigation would have cost years of life and hundreds of thousands of dollars.

A job is kind of like a marriage. Even if they don't effect you directly, these are pretty good indicators of whether you're getting into a healthy or abusive long-term relationship.

> sued on the way out

Extraordinary - on what alleged grounds?

In one case, an employee was going to work for a startup developing a new (completely novel) product in the same industry as former company. There was a non-compete clause in the employment contract. It was cheaper to wait a year before joining the startup than to litigate. I know both companies, and the claim of competition was tangential at best.

In another case, an employee hadn't signed the current employment agreement which was far more overreaching than the terms of employment they originally agreed to (but which were needed for the organization to pursue its new -- somewhat sleazy -- business model).

The organization fabricated criminal allegations and told the employee they would press charges if the employee didn't sign away their rights. That's criminal extortion, but if such threats are verbal, it's not something you can really prove. Best case outcome for employee was a (very public) mud throwing match against an organization with an extensive PR/press department. A lawyer took that one pro bono, but I think that cost that employee 3-6 months of their life, and in the end, they gave up on their next startup too (which was, again, in the same industry as their former employer, and difficult to do with new terms).

Both were big organizations (ones you would have heard of, and one of which is held in extremely high esteem as an 'ethical' organization). Both settlements involved signing away rights to talk about those settlements.

> I look for policies like this to see how I'm likely to be treated by a company in general.

Policies like this are no assurance that you'll be treated well by a company. It's still roulette. Maybe they care, maybe they can't get talent in the door.

Wow. This reminds me why I am happily living in Sweden. Government pays me and my partner for 480 days off for every child. To split as we see fit more or less. My employer (startup with 16 employees) tops up what the government pays me such that end up having 90% of my normal salary.

Yeah, American policies around this are incredibly bad. Even the nominally "good" ones are pretty terrible compared to other developed nations.

Because Americans think if you have a need for this type of government support, well you just haven't worked hard enough and you're "part of the problem" (whatever that means).

This is generous of Kapwing.

It's worth noting that, outside the United States and a very small number of other countries, parental leave is usually publicly funded through taxes and administered through social security. Companies can then augment these social security payments.

For example, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey all fund parental leave through social security. Others as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave

This is great!

I wonder if we can generalize this to a 'life-choice/situation' based time-off policy. Not all employees want kids and it's weird that companies can choose to sponsor/accommodate the choice of having kids but not the contrary.

And it's not just for the single/DINK life; some people have elderly parents that need assistance and that can take a lot of time.

I shudder to think what would happen in some places if a father actually took paternity leave for a newborn. Probably get fired or downranked in some way with long term advancement consequences.

Hopefully more directors do research on the matter. Maybe it could help with that “skills shortage” they are so often complaining about.

Is there any value in having different paternity vs. maternity leave or primary vs. secondary caregiver?

Wouldn't something like X weeks paid for anyone parenting/birthing/adopting. (i.e. a paid family leave) be a simpler design?

You could expand this over time to include caregiving for elderly people etc. And it could support various family types (i.e single parents, adoptions, same-sex couples, surrogates etc.)

Genuinely asking because it seems weird not to have just a simple inclusive policy.

It's one of these huge gaps between the USA and Europe (the other two being free or near free university education and medical care). Seriously, how worse can it be? Oh yes, it can: holidays! From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b...:

> Some employers offer no vacation at all. The average number of paid vacation days offered by private employers is 10 days after 1 year of service, 14 days after 5 years, 17 days after 10 years, and 20 days after 20 years.

I don’t think I’ve seen this “primary” and “secondary” caregiver distinction before. Seems like bullshit to me.

Salesforce does this. I had a co-worker that took 6 months off for the birth of his child. The distinction effectively means anyone can take the time off. In the case the dad takes time off to be with the child, he becomes the primary caregiver by definition.

Kudos to Kapwing for being attentive to their employee's family and emotional lives. However, it's irritating that parents receive perks at the expense of single and childfree employees (who don't get weeks of time off for _their_ families, and who are expected to cover for the parents on leave). IMHO, all employees should get the same amount of time off, regardless of whether or not they have children.

> who don't get weeks of time off for _their_ families, and who are expected to cover for the parents on leave

I'd be all for policies that supported caring for an ailing spouse or parent also. But let me tell you, taking care of a new baby is about as far from "time off" as it's possible to get. It's hard, stressful work, and if you discourage paternity leave or imply that it's equivalent to vacation time, you're implying that it's womens' work.

Would "time away" be better do you think. I mean they are "off of work" as in not at their job.

If you took some time off to do something else equally taxing I would normally refer to it as time off, probably with a caveat in day to day situations, just like if they were on parental leave.

Thinking about it I probably wouldn't if someone was taking time away from work for reserves work (military, fire service, etc).

I suppose "time away" would work, but that's basically what we mean by "leave" as well. What got my dander up was the implication that me taking leave to be with my spouse and infant child (which I did not get the opportunity to do) is the same as vacation time.

I agree that raising children is taxing. However, the mere fact that you _chose_ to do an activity that is taxing does not, to my mind, entitle you to impose costs on your fellow employees. Volunteering for the Peace Corp is taxing, caring for elderly parents is taxing, climbing Mt. Everest is taxing. Yet, alone of all those activities, parents think they deserve to be subsidized.

Only those having children are choosing a taxing activity that essentially everyone who hopes to retire is depending on, since—public or private, defined benefit or defined contribution—virtually every retirement option relies on the economic activity of generations after those of the retiree.

You're suggesting that parents are some kind of limited special-interest class, as if we're snowboarders asking for powder leave, rather than the overwhelming majority of people. The question of how we treat parents is really a question of how we all want to treat each other -- whether we want to give people support when their children are born, or whether we would prefer to force them to choose between work and family. Furthermore, since this is a discussion about paternity in particular, speaking out against paternity leave is speaking out against women working outside the home. I regard this as a very regressive position and unjust to women.

> IMHO, all employees should get the same amount of time off, regardless of whether or not they have children.

Parents get more time off than non-parents and that's unfair? That's an understandable perspective but here's another one.

1) Children don't get to choose whether to be born. Infants and post-partum women are vulnerable people and giving parents time off helps protect these vulnerable people. Looking at this from the perspective of what's best for the child it's clear that paternal leave is very important.

2) People have a choice of where to work and at least in the US, employers are free to choose compensation that they feel will attract the workers they want. I know several people who have chosen where to work based on paternal leave policies.

3) Life is unfair. If I made a list of injustices in the world an infant spending a few extra weeks with daddy isn't even in the first 1000.

Re: 1) But parents decide to have children, and they have the responsibility for caring for those "vulnerable people". I'm not saying they don't need more time, but to say they've been put into some untenable situation that must be dealt with by everyone else is absurd. There's never been more access to birth control or knowledge about the reproductive process. There's never been a point in the world where there was less space for another child. Looking from at this from the perspective of what's best for children, having a child is selfish. Adoption doesn't add people to the world and would decrease overall suffering assuming you're a better parent than the foster system.

2) This is recently becoming a national issue, as it well should be. There needs to be a mechanism in place to protect the employees surrounding parental leave if it's going to be enshrined in national law. I don't think you can make the argument that businesses don't have a history of pushing the costs of regulation onto their employees when possible.

3) By that argument bringing up parental leave at all is a completely moot point. We have nearly 438,000 children in the foster system.[0] 45% of all child deaths are from malnutrition.[1] If I made a list of injustices in the world, a parent being unable to spend every waking moment with their child for a couple months isn't even in the first 1,000.

[0]: http://www.childrensrights.org/newsroom/fact-sheets/foster-c... [1]: https://www.worldhunger.org/world-hunger-and-poverty-facts-a...

What's the difference between a woman with an unplanned pregnancy and a woman with another type of unanticipated medical condition that would qualify her for medical leave?

>There's never been more access to birth control or knowledge about the reproductive process.

There's never been more access to knowledge about nutrition and preventative health, and yet diabetes and other lifestyle diseases are at all time highs. The US now spends >$200/billion annually on diabetes alone. As a matter of public healthy policy, should we be able to hold people with medical diseases or conditions more accountable based on how much public health information is available?

"unplanned" Does this women not know how sex works? Does she lack access to IUD's, condoms, abortions? There are rare instances where women have a child against their will, but the number is vanishly small. The vast majority of children are carefully planned _choices_.

The "Medical leave" portion of the time off is covered under completely different laws, so I'm not sure which portion of what I've said you're replying to.

No one is being sent back to work without medical leave from their attending physician, who is charged with determining when the mother is healthy enough to go home and can go back to work. I absolutely do not, under any circumstances, believe in any being or institution ever getting between a mother and her doctor's right to determine what is medically best for her and her child. That is essentially what society was built to protect.

1) Should children suffer the mistakes of their parents? It's a question of values.

2) I don't follow what you're trying to say here? If the fed. govt. mandates paternity leave the unfairness will be a bigger issue? Sure but right now FMLA is the law and it allows unpaid leave to care for family.

3) I agree it's moot but I didn't bring up paternity leave, the grandparent did.

It's a benefit for the children, not the parents. Because everybody gets to be a child exactly once, everybody benefits equally.

That includes you. You can be gay or a Catholic priest, and you benefit.

Ignoring the fact that you had no choice and that benefits may have been different back when you were born, it isn't fair for you to take these benefits as a child and then deny them to the next generation.

No. Having children is, well, literally the activity most essential to the survival of society and our species itself. Of course people should get extra time off to do it.

The problem isn't that we have too many natalist incentives. The problem is that we don't have enough of them! The replacement rate is below replacement in general, and it's worse in cities.

If children, fine. But I don't begrudge people who do.

I don't begrudge people having children. If you want to have more children--and pay for them with your own time and money--more power to you.

What I begrudge is being forced to donate _my_ time and money to subsidizing those who have children, at the expense of the things that _I_ value. Subsidizing the creation of the 385,001th child born today is quite low on the things that I would spend money on given the choice. I would rather spend that money on anti-aging research, or prison reform, or a new startup. And if I were inclined to give money to help children, I wouldn't give it to the relatively wealthy parents of children in the US, but to the children of parents who make less than $2/day.

That suggests that "more people" is an unmitigated good, which I don't believe. There has never been a time when you were more able to avoid unplanned childbirth. The number of children in foster care has been increasing since 2013.[0]Whatever good could be done by having a child could be done better by acknowledging some of the people already in this world and giving them a real shot. We're all responsible for any situation that becomes a "tragedy of the commons", and we need to start behaving like it.

[0]: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/30/567615510...

There's nothing wrong with wanting your kids to be your own, nor with the desire to ensure that part of you makes it to the next generation. I'm sick of anti-humanism backlash against doing the thing that every organism ultimately exists to do.

Considering humans are the demonstrated reason for climate change, I'd argue some anti-human sentiment is a bit overdue. Nature's going to be fine. Life will recover once we're gone. It's us humans that are going to suffer because of our humanist entitlement.

The idea that some environmenal metric is more important than human suffering is bizarre and vaguely masochistic. The environment is an instrumental good for humanity's use, not a legitimate moral object in itself. Human extinction is a maximally bad scenario no matter how well the environment does afterwards

Society has decided that having children is important, and individuals, companies, and governments encourage that activity by providing benefits like these.

I guess your humble opinion would change if you had a child.

So if he was to benefit from it, his opinion would change? Its' obvious it is likely it would.

Would OP be envious of someone's leave while they were battling cancer? Benefits exist because we have collectively decided they increase quality of life.

Not everyone will have children, but that are necessary for a vibrant, healthy economy (in the long term) and to provide societal continuance. Therefore, the benefit provided to parents is valuable, both to the parents and to society.

Honestly I had the same initial reaction. It’s kind of like sick leave: people who get sick a lot use it and people who are healthy cannot. Perversely incentivizes getting sick. The alternative is “paid time off” which can be used if you’re sick or for vacation. Unfortunately this means you can blow half your vacation time for the year by getting a cold that lasts a week.

Just provide more time off to everyone and don’t bucket it into specific purposes. Why does your employer need to know whether you’re using your allotted time off for vacation, taking care of a kid, or due to illness? I’d argue it’s none of the employer’s business.

> Perversely incentivizes getting sick.

This is a stretch, since "getting sick" isn't generally something one controls directly. At most, it could incentivize illness-risking behavior. However, even then, to be an incentive, the benefit of paid leave combined with being sick during that leave would have to be more attractive than being healthy and working, which is not a foregone conclusion.

Instead, lacking distinct sick leave perversely incentivizes getting coworkers sick (in situations that a sickness is contagious and workers are co-located). Rather, it incentivizes the risky behavior, where the risk is borne by everyone else and, by extension, the employer.

Did your parents get any benefits when you were a child?

So this "perk" does not even meet legal minimum for large companies. Just hire remotely if you want to attract top talent.

This is form of discrimination against older workers who get no paid leave to care for their ageing parents.

I went through hell 5 yrs ago where I was on a death march project and had family situation involving a parent.

I will not support any of this until they change this into a 'life situation' leave instead of parent leave.

We're all in this together. You can support parental leave and also advocate for other types of family leave. Not only are they not mutually exclusive, stronger parental leave norms will probably make other types of leave more acceptable.

> We're all in this together.

Exactly my point too. We should all come together and make it fair for older workers( esp older women) who often are tasked with caring for a parent(s). I've been a parent too and caring for parent situations are often way more arduous and tend to get worse.

Accepting parent leave without giving a break to any other situation is just 'fuck you i got mine' case.

Why not support this as a step along this route instead of treating it as a zero-sum game?

Older people are allowed to have kids as well, and so are just as eligible for paternity/maternity leave. Even if women are past the age of child bearing, they can adopt children and be eligible for maternity leave.

For your situation - were you not eligible for the FMLA?

FMLA is a joke. All FMLA actually says is the company can't outright fire you if you need up to 12 weeks to deal with family matters. The company is under no obligation to do anything else for you and if you can't afford to take time off without pay, well sux to be you.

Depends on the state. What about the business? They hired you for a reason, and you want them to keep paying you while you are not doing anything for them. What if the business can't afford to pay in a state where it is mandated? Well, sux to be them.

The business also wants me to come back after leave instead of moving to a less expensive place while looking for another job. Paid leave is an investment.

California its paid.

> Older people are allowed to have kids as well

Did you read my comment at all? I am not talking about having kids.

>For your situation - were you not eligible for the FMLA?

Because I needed a salary to pay medical bills and provide for new living arrangements .

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