Hacker News Reader

Comment by gdfasfklshg4 | Hacker News Reader

OTH the father had to until this year go back to work the next day...

True. In my haste, I neglected to mention that until recently the Netherlands has had one of stingiest paternity/partner leave policies in Europe. It used to be (roughly speaking) one or two days, as of this year it is one week, and next year it will become six weeks. Too late for me though! In my case, I saved up some of my holiday days to be able to take time off work (fortunately you tend to get a few months' warning before a baby appears in your life).

> fortunately you tend to get a few months' warning before a baby appears in your life

Yes but the baby can come anytime within a period of about a five weeks and be within the "normal" period. You need an understanding employer to take two weeks holiday "sometime in the next 5 weeks".

You do, and any employer who won't allow it is being an ass and should get ignored. Your family and your baby is more important than your manager's power trip.

Any responsible father takes two weeks off after the birth of a child. I'm glad it's mandatory now, but even before, it shouldn't have stopped any new father from spending those first two weeks with his family.

It's a very important period where you learn how to take care of the new baby, bond with it, and need to take care of your wife who quite likely is in no condition to do anything other than recover.

Not in the US, where paid leave for either parent is not guaranteed. Mom's are allowed 12 weeks unpaid leave, but only if her employer has 50+ employees. If she works for a small company, she's SOL. Dad's have no guarantee of anything. It's pretty horrific.

Just take the time off, then. What is this, slavery?

(I'm aware that people with very low incomes and no paid holidays at all, may not be able to afford that. But that situation should be illegal in any modern, wealthy country. I guess the answer to the question above may indeed be "yes" in some cases.)

Umm, sort of - without employment, one will likely lose any health insurance that one might have had and with that can follow financial ruin. "Lives of quiet desperation" is a fairly accurate description.

Not American, but I believe taking unpaid leave is not necessarily an option there. Unless by taking unpaid leave you mean resigning.

What are you supposed to do when you are ill? What are you supposed to when a dependent is ill and in need of your care?

Never being able to take a day off for anything at all is incredibly harmful. People used to fight for these rights. What happened?

> People used to fight for these rights. What happened?

Everybody got convinced that a) those rights will be used by those people who obviously don't deserve it and b) those rights will make life harder for them when they become billionaire business owners.

The US experiment with social democracy in the 1940s, which was not terribly comprehensive in the first place, has been slowly dismantled as the employer and political class continues to concentrate as much wealth and power for themselves as possible. Key to this has been to weaken and villainize labour unions at every opportunity.

When sick, you continue going to work until you wind up in the ER. If you're lucky, you don't get fired when you're there. Only exaggerating slightly. It's pretty sad.

As for what happened, the US isn't highly unionized outside certain regions and trades. Everybody else has next to zero legal protection. White collar workers typically get some leave simply by virtue of having skills that are more in-demand. And the labor movement largely allowed conservative, anti-labor factions to cast them as evil socialists. In the US, "liberal" has long been a bad word.

"Dad's have no guarantee of anything. It's pretty horrific."

This is not accurate. If the employer falls under FMLA, then dad gets 12 weeks unpaid leave as just like mom does.

In some states there is paid family leave for both mom and dad. I've used it twice.

My mistake. FMLA does extend unpaid leave to both parents. In my experience, fathers tend not to use it because somebody has to pay the rent. The father I do know who have taken leave did so because their employer offered paid leave as a perk.

Also correct that some states have additional leave requirements. 12 of the 50 have done nothing (only FMLA applies). 14 have lowered the FMLA business size from 50 to something smaller. 7 have adopted more generous maternal leave policies, though most only offer 50% pay over a short period of time.

Only 4 states offer paid paternity leave.

Regardless, the US is the only OECD member that does not require paid maternity leave.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com