Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums | Hacker News Reader

Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums

bbc.com

683 pointsSJSque587 comments

I'm a dad (of three) and I am not convinced that time spent at the very start of their lives is as significant as that later in their lives (note the "as", I am not saying it has no value!) when you can really nurture their passions, knowledge, etc.

I did spend a lot of time with my children in their earliest days because it was the right thing to do, but I don't feel either they or I particularly gained from it (than if I'd spent a bit less, say). Do I feel the time I spend with them now they're older pays serious dividend for their futures? Absolutely.

I own a company and can spend an above average amount of time with my children.. but are companies or the government going to support the majority of parents spending prolonged periods of times with older children? Sadly I can't see it happening, but I think that's a more important task than having two parents on tap for a newborn. All purely IMHO, of course.

I think this is missing the point of equal parental leave and how it creates equality - it's for the mum just as much as the dad, so she can now get a bit of her life back earlier.

I took 3 months leave (wish it was more) when my daughter was born, spread out through the year a month at a time. I loved each month for different reasons and I know each month helped me understand what my wife was dealing with better and the slog of looking after a baby as well as the fun bits, and it helped her understand me better too - she really missed our daughter when she did a month's work and saw how going to work every day wasn't such great a holiday from childcare as she thought!

These policies have definitively contributed to a big social change. And while it looks on the surface like this is about "fairness for dad", on a macro level the changes mostly benefit women who want to both have kids and a career.

It's no longer a bigger risk for companies to hire late 20-s women compared to late 20-s men - both will go on leave if they get kids.

At my job, I also see way more dads staying home with sick kids or going to "planning day" or similar, compared to when I was growing up.

Maybe. As a new father, though, back to the office from parental leave, I'm not pumping breast milk in the lactation room. 3 times per work day, ~40-45 minutes a pop. This is something my wife is actively dealing with today and it causes her a lot of stress, due to the fact that she's essentially MIA on the job despite the fact that everyone is aware of what's going on and she has full support. The perception that she's not pulling her weight is potentially there, and she struggles with it herself because she also feels like she isn't pulling her weight. It's all really complicated and we'll never truly have equality here, I don't think.

> It's no longer a bigger risk for companies to hire late 20-s women compared to late 20-s men - both will go on leave if they get kids

True. But now it is a risk to hire people in certain age groups in general. Could this become a "don't hire married people in their late 20s and early 30s" incentive?

"don't hire married people in their late 20s and early 30s" incentive?" --> "Don't hire people during their most economically productive ages."

Not an economically viable strategy for any company looking to stay in business more than a year or two.

> Could this become a "don't hire married people in their late 20s and early 30s" incentive?

Not for a good company. I've had several employees go on maternity and paternity leave. I've given them respect, and time, and money, in order to make this time of their lives as unstressful as possible.

I've done it because it's the right thing, but these people remember being treated well. They've come back to work and done very well. They feel safer knowing that their day job explicitly supports their families.

The time someone needs off work to care for a new family is a drop in the bucket compared with a whole career, or even a few good years spent at one company. Optimize for the humans, and for the long term.

It would at least least disperse the risk from "don't hire women of a certain age" to "don't hire people of a certain age" which I think is a win on the margin.

* Could this become a "don't hire married people in their late 20s and early 30s" incentive?*

No. The only real way to avoid this is to just not hire folks who can birth or father children. You'd be mostly safe hiring folks over 45 (Though men over 45 would be more risky than women). This probably isn't a good strategy for an employer.

Marriage doesn't lend itself to children: Having sex does. Having a stable relationship does. Adoption does. On the other hand, lots of married folks don't have children, on purpose or by circumstance. There is no real way to sort folks out.

I think it also establishes a connection between the dad and the kids that makes the dad a better parent down the road. At least spending a lot of time with my infants did change me enough to be a much better parent for the rest of the journey.

I very much agree with this. Having an extended amount of time where I was 100% responsible for my daughter made me feel very different compared to the time spent jointly looking after her. I hope it's made me a better parent.

Absolutely - and I love the change, in case that wasn't clear. But I think the motivation was about equality for the sexes - and specifically, making it easier for women to work. The rest is just a bonus. A very nice bonus.

I'm a dad in Norway too, and I think that's the wrong way to look at it. Getting on with their life? It's the time with your kids that's the bit of the life that's more valuable.

Likewise, trying to measure how beneficial it is for the kids sort of misses the point. I'm sure it can be beneficial, but whether they draw lasting benefits from it or not, they value it there and then.

You do get deeply attuned to your babies as a parent - at least, we did. You got uncannily good at guessing what they want, what they feel, from practice and from the biological connection that they are like you in so many subtle ways most people aren't. And of course, two parents will understand their babies in slightly different ways. They're very capable of appreciating this.

Equality before the low == not discriminating in the law.

Now if it say "mom has X leave after birth and dad Y", this is discrimination in the law.

Please note im not saying this is bad, im just saying it is NOT equality.

I'm an American who received several months of paid paternity leave when each my children were born (my company is an exception to the rule here in the US). It's not just about the child that is born, it's about your partner as well as your other children. The introduction of a new child is a huge shift for everyone in a family and being there to support your partner during that time makes a huge difference if you spend that time well.

But the biggest benefit of all was in the lives of my older children. When a new baby comes along, their mother is almost entirely occupied caring for the newborn (my wife wanted to exclusively breastfeed our children, so that is a lot of why it played out this way), so having me there to spend time with them each day during those first few months and take them places and reinforce the fact that they are loved just as much as ever was immensely important. I've seen so many older siblings change, develop resentment, begin misbehaving during that transition period. My kids all handled it extremely well and I think I played a role in that.

I sincerely believe every father should have paid time off when a child is born. It's not about one person in the family, it's about how the entire process of bringing a new person into the home affects everyone.

In Norway we get the paternity leave after the mother goes back to work. It is just the man for 4 months. When baby gets sick/teeths then it must be the man that is there with baby 24/7. You are describing a support role. The Norwegian model forces the father into the primary role.

It's amazing and really really hard.

But the biggest benefit of all was in the lives of my older children.

That's how it seemed to me, too. When my second child was born, I was working for Facebook so I got a nice chunk of paternity leave. My wife was breastfeeding, so she was basically with the baby all the time. The most helpful use of my time often wasn't to be the second parent in the same room as the baby, it was to go do something else with our 2-year-old so that he could still do fun stuff that the baby wasn't ready for, and so that at least my wife only had to deal with one kid at a time.

I think you miss the biggest point. This will have a significant impact on the wages of women. As suddenly women are not longer at a disadvantage when companies need to decide who to hire for a certain position.

That's only true if men actually take the leave, which in a large percentage of cases is not going to happen. The unspoken truth about leave is, you can forget about that promotion you were angling for if you take a couple of months of leave, for whatever reason. So men by and large won't take it, especially when they find themselves under pressure to earn more and provide. I did take my 6 weeks in the US though when we had our son 16 years ago, but only because he wouldn't sleep and the first few months were very rough, so career plans were put on hold.

Also, women will still leave the workplace in droves to care for newborns and the young. That's just what a lot of them prefer to do, and I think it's the right ordering of priorities, for both parents. There's really no way to properly rear young children if both parents have full-time jobs and actually try to advance their careers at the same time.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.FM.NE.ZS?en...

That having been said, I'm glad this is being introduced. In difficult cases like ours, for instance, this would have been huge help, for reasons not entirely related to work.

I don't understand this argument.

A man and a woman can decide that whats best for them is that he not take leave, but for the benefit other people he should take parental leave.

Even if he enjoys working, even if the mother has decided she wants to stay home, even if they need opportunity that work brings (such as the opportunity to get promotions). Even if there are a hundred reasons for a man to not want to take leave, even if taking leave is worse for him, his partner and child, he must take leave so that other people who he may never meet have an advantage.

Yes, encouraging a few weeks off work is good for the family, but forcing someone to take 7 months off of work is massively disruptive. Not even to speak of the disruption on small businesses, that may not be able to accommodate a person leaving for that period of time. If you run a business of 10 people, a single person is 10% of your workforce, and just due to the size you may not have staff to cover the missing expertise.

Forced long-term paternity leave is a system, that explicitly harms the outcomes of one group (working fathers) to provide benefits to others (working mothers, and non-working people in general).

Frankly I would rather you be forced to take the 2 months off so that I can safely take it without people like you sneering at me the entire time.

Who is sneering? You can take 2 months off, you can take 2 years off. Take time off for children, sickness, holidays. Its none of my business.

What I am against is the government enforcing someone who must take time off from work, that may not be in their best interests.

I support your right to chose to take time off, and I support your right to not take time off too. I don't support the government telling you, you must take 7 months off at the cost of your career, because you taking time off helps others.

I'm pretty sure no one can force you away from your laptop and colleagues, but also, no one can force you to work. It's a protection. I like it.

> no one can force you away from your laptop and colleagues

But they can! The article talks about 2 months the father must take off.

This big point and the big point that you can also be there for you partner. And the big point that you might, as a father, develop a tighter bond with the kid then you would otherwise.

I think you're right in that women's disadvantage decreases, but I don't think it vanishes entirely. As an example, consider the problems many women experience during pregnancy, which is likely to affect their performance at work.

Not to downplay the importance of your fathering and nurturing your child's passions at all-

My understanding of the research around personality development is that something like 80% (BS statistic I know) of the personality is formed in the first 5 years of development. The early few years are when we get conditioned with the core emotional programming: "I am safe" vs. "I am at risk" - "I am lovable" vs. "I am unlovable." etc. which plays a huge role down the line in lifestyle, relationships, and life in general.

Probably not a big deal whether it's the father or mother at the young age, but having adults around to be available to the emotional needs of the young child seems to be extremely important. Maybe easier to split the "full time job" of parenting in this critical period?

If you want to nerd out, check out "Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self - The Neurobiology of Emotional Development" by Allan Schore

80% of the personality is formed in the first 5 years of development.

There's just a huge difference between a 3-month-old baby, who can't recognize faces yet and spends most of the day sleeping and eating, and a 3-year-old child who is running, jumping, telling stories, making friends, and learning to read. For a 3-month-old baby, I doubt that parents do much more than a random babysitter. For a 3-year-old child, there is a clear difference.

My understanding is that the baby, equipped with only instincts / biological hardware, is hyper-aware of the raw emotional communication of their caregiver.

It's this really raw, basic emotional experience which shapes our "core" understanding of ourselves and the world we live in.

"Healthy" attachment in this early stage comes from the caregiver being able to regulate the emotions of the baby. If the baby doesn't feel connected to the caregiver - such as if when the baby cries they don't receiving loving reassurance of their safety - then they form a dysfunctional template for social attachments and poor emotional regulation ability.

If the random babysitter has consistent and parent-like loving connection with the baby then maybe you're right, but I doubt that's the case.

This is really wrong. My baby already recognised and was soothed by my voice and e.g. quieted in my arms much faster than the grandmother's at 2 months.

Research apparently indicates that being loved in your first year is key to your development.

Is your doubt founded in any research or more of a gut feeling?

We hope for "a 3-year-old child who is running, jumping, telling stories, making friends, and learning to read."

It could also be biting, jumping off of tables, hiding poo, poking holes in drywall, poking both ends of the dog, hitting sleeping parents with tools, and learning to scribble in books.

Children are haughty, disdainful, quick to anger, envious, curious, self-seeking, lazy, fickle, timid, intemperate, untruthful, secretive; they laugh and weep readily; the most trivial subjects give them immoderate delight or bitter distress; they wish not to be hurt, but they like hurting others: they are men already. – La Bruyere, Characters (1687)

> something like 80% (BS statistic I know) of the personality is formed in the first 5 years of development

And how much in the first five months?

Hey, good question. My gut says to go reference that book I mentioned and make a guess for you. The author talks about the different stages of attachment and how it affects the forming brain. I'll try when I get home tonight.

I view it from a totally different perspective -- I took 2 months off at the start (and my wife left her job a while before that). Since we had no hired helper (nanny or doula) during that time and had limited grandparents help, it was mostly the 2 of us baby-caring during the first 2 months. It was both rewarding and exhausting, and we both agree that it was the most physically-intense time of our lives, to the point where I don't know how either of us would survive without the other person also being there.

I honestly don't know how parents who have to go back to work do it (especially in a family where one parent goes back to work very soon). There's so much work for the mother that without the father also being there, it seems to me it would create a major rift in the relationship when it comes to understanding what the other person is going through. I theorize that the father not being there (and being at work) during those early months is a foundation of the collapse of a spousal relationship years down the road, for many couples.

I'm guessing that most people have (or create) a support network. Their parents might move closer, they join parenting groups etc. so that there are people to watch the babies, give you help etc.

Of course there are people who don't have that but that is a sad state whether you have children or not.

My wife took her FMLA (unpaid) leave directly after pregnancy, then I took my (company benefit, paid) 16 weeks after that- with a two week overlap so that I was comfortable with all the work necessary. It meant that the kid spent the first half a year of his life with a parent providing care every moment, which was great, something that I am so grateful for, and something that I wish every parent could have an opportunity to have.

While I agree that the benefits of involved parents are most notable for kids at an older age, I think that the effect on the parent is largest at the beginning. Humans don't demonstrate their love by providing care, they provide care that turns into love. It is in the unrequited acts of service like changing diapers, feeding (bottle or breast), and rocking to sleep that build the parents feelings for the kid.

Swedish parental leave can be saved until the kid turns 12. Not that the 480 days will last that long, of course!

That sounds like a good idea and what I think would be better for everyone. Of course, then it's a case of avoiding the temptation of taking it too early(!) :)

If you wait too long, it's hard to find time that isn't taken by school already :-)

From another comment, it looks like the father only gets half, but I assume you get weekends off too. Sweden also has 25 days of vacation.

I have a kid about every 600 days. (have 12 so far) Out of that 600 days, it looks like I'd work just 164 days. It would be 2-day weeks for decades.

That is quite a way to run a country. I think it only works because there are very few births in Sweden.

Basing policy on 99.99 percentile sized families would certainly be odd.

Policy would change what the 99.99 percentile is. If having a large family means that you don't have to work, many more people might do it.

Is that per parent or is it shared between parents? That really sounds incredible, going to have to remember to look this up.

It's 240 days per parent.

That's incredible. That's something the rest of the world should strive for.

It might not be significant to a baby, but it surely is significant for the mother (presuming dad helps her, and not just sits around the house), and less stressed-out mothers are in turn good for babies and the family in general.

This all the way.

I mean, I also think it's significant for the baby & dad. But even ignoring that.. holy shit does the mother need support.

Maybe some moms don't, maybe they happen to have an easy baby.. have parents closeby to easily help.

But other mothers have a terribly difficult time, post-natal depression.. you name it. Having the dad around for support means everything during that time- I can speak from experience.

I've learned over the last few years that much of the parenting that parents do is far removed anything that can be seen. Anything that you can conclude is a direct function of your influence amounts to a very very low percentage of your actual influence. Not that I disagree with the importance of influence in the later bits, but so much of what a child is learning for the first time is all the subtle stuff you don't realize you're doing. How you and your spouse resolve conflict, and you and the child resolve conflict, and you deal with your own emotions, facial cues, body language, regular language, music taste etc

When kids a smal it is more the parents that enjoy the time with them. One, because it is just simply great. And because the workload caused by small kids is distributed between both parents. Because kids are stress. But yes, once they grow older, time with them gets more fun, simply becasue you can do more with them then just feeding and changing diapers. Which I did, a lot.

Agree. I spent five months home with a small toddler of around a year of age. He did get very attached to me, but let's face it, their needs at that stage are very simple. Actually, I think he got much more out of kindie subsequently, getting to play with and be around other kids and adults much more.

The experience of paternity leave is quite intense. It's not all fun. E.g. long nights when baby is sick or teething and the baby's mum has to go to work the next day so she has to sleep and the long night goes straight into a difficult day.

As someone that thought I spent a lot of time with my baby before starting pappperm it was an awakening - but also a wonderful bonding experience.

Yes time as a baby is important. Dad's shouldn't have to wait until their kids grow up before they get to know them.

Or what about the mother damaged by the birth not able to take care of the baby so the father is doing it all for the first month(s), both day and night?

I would largely agree.

In a dark humoured way, and beyond the essential need to create an unbreakable bond beyond infant & parent, you can be replaced and better optimised by an iterated Roomba. :)

But with each passing day/year the desire/need to spend time with your kids should grow.

Our kids are teenagers now>

And I agree that it feels like an hour spent with them today provide all of us more value than an hour spent with them as infants/toddlers.

Both are important, but I think I’m less replaceable today than yesterday.

It is so hard to know the effect on the children. But the effect on your spouse of having someone else around to help? The first couple of months are tough!

When we had our first child (in Sweden), we could divide the time (13 months total) freely between the two of us. Then we got some extra money if each of us took more than 30% of that time. I think they stopped with the money bonus, but it was really great for us.

We are now having our second child (now in Norway), and while the father quota is great, they now require the mother to be "in activity" (i.e. working) if the father is to have anything more than his quota. This feels like an unnecessary restriction, which we didn't have in Sweden.

This should be the norm in all of the developed world! As a freelancer I took a self-funded three-month break (it just finished) when our third child was born and it has been amazing. I wish that I'd been in a position to do the same for my other two children too.

Firstly, we're trying hard to close the gender pay gap. Giving fathers the same amount of free time as the mothers goes a long way here.

Secondly, it's fantastic for the father-baby bond and it makes both life and work as a young parent so much easier.

Thirdly, the cost is not large. Businesses are already absorbing the lost productivity caused by the fathers being exhausted. This formalizes it.

> Thirdly, the cost is not large. Businesses are already absorbing the lost productivity caused by the fathers being exhausted. This formalizes it.

In our project management course we learned a rule of thumb that for new parents you have ~25-30% less FTE available during the first year of the child's life (due to care for sick children, getting sick themselves, being exhausted from lack of sleep etc.)

This seems like a sound argument for avoiding hiring people who might become parents soon. 30% less output for the same amount of pay seems like a bad deal for an employer.

The employer will be fine with 30% reduced output.

> Thirdly, the cost is not large. Businesses are already absorbing the lost productivity caused by the fathers being exhausted. This formalizes it.

Exactly! And in both Norway and Sweden you can be part time on leave. For some time I had 25% leave, which meant that I was working, but could go early when tired from a long night of baby cries or stay at home one day when my wife needed to get something else done. And this time I will be on 80–90% leave, which means I am at home, but can pass by the office once a week to catch up with my students.

That 90% is ideal! My wife owns a business with > 100 employees, that's basically what she did during her pregnancy leave. Having me home made that possible (or at least easier, she's breastfeeding.. and that takes a crazy effort to get going).

Yes in Norway I as a father only got 10 days in total due to that rule while in Sweden I would have got 240 (if split equally), quite a difference.

Until very recently unless the mother was working the father got nothing. It only changed because a European Court ruled against the government.

It make sense to have such restriction if the goal is the break the culture that allow/force women to spend time raising the child and allow/force men to spend time at work in order to support the child.

I'm a US male who's 1 month into my 6 months fully-paid paternity leave with our first child.

My wife has roughly 4.5 months between banked PTO and FMLA/disability leave.

I'm sitting at home right now watching/changing/feeding our baby while my wife is out at doctor's appointments taking care of her health. Having the flexibility to practice a modicum of self-care without neglecting the health and happiness of our child has been such a huge boon to our family.

If anyone has any questions about the experience, feel free to ask.

What happens to your responsibilities at work while you are out? And are you totally cut off from work while you are out or are you occasionally responding to mails? Also are you more of an individual contributor or have a leadership role?

6 months paid? Holy cow. Even 1 month would seem like such a luxury to me.

Would you have taken 6 months off without pay to do what you are doing now?

In Germany it is the parents who get the leave and they can freely decide who takes the 12 months of it. Even better yet: If they decide to split they get an extra of two months, so 14 in total.

And it usually ends with the mother taking 12 and the dad taking 2, and these 2 being spent on a longer vacation somewhere.

There are many reasons, it seems to me that external circumstances are shaping a lot of them.

Yeah that's a pattern you see in most places with any kind of shared pool. The father takes a small, frequently the legal minimum time, and the mother takes the rest. Ultimately it kind of makes the most sense because it is the woman that's gone through the most work of giving birth and is a natural food source for the kid but it does perpetuate the issue of women's careers being set back by having a kid.

When they have that much freedom, can you really call it "perpetuating the issue" instead of "doing what they want"? It's not an issue for the women who prefer to do it, or they wouldn't be doing it.

Finances.

In the new system in Finland, both parents get 6.6 months, of which they can give up to 69 days to the other parent. But in other words we can also say that both parents get 4.3 months, and then there is 4.6 months that they can divide between themselves.

In Czechia, there is similar approach to paid parental leave, but it is up to 36 months.

I think that this is much better to left it to parents to decide how to split that based on their personal preferences, than to force equal split in all cases.

Is there more to this, or can you really just be employed to make babies? Most couples can produce another baby before the leave expires.

In Germany it's not restricted to just parents. Could also be the new grandmother taking a few month off.

Do parents typically work at the same workplace? How does this work across employers?

Generally, the parents work in different places of course.

As parental leave is a legal right (not given by the employers), employers simply have to comply with the parents' wishes. In the past employers often frowned upon men taking parental leave, but the younger generation has absolutely normalized this behavior.

It should also be noted that during leave, the government picks up (part of) your regular paycheck - so you don't cost your employer anything while you're not there. (except administration overhead etc)

The parental leave doesn't have to be taken in one block and you can also convert it into 'parental part-time'. A somewhat common pattern that double-earning professional parents choose nowadays that I've seen with some of my team members is something like: 1. simultaneous leave for both partners in the 1-2 months after birth 2. leave of one partner for a few months after that while the other partner works full-time 3. a few months of simultaneous part-time (e.g. 3/days week) where on any given day, one partner is at home 4. full-time work of both partners for a while once the kid is old enough for day-care 5. another month or so of simultaneous parental leave after 1-1.5 years that's used for a vacation.

In the tech worker's paradise that is California, I'm preparing for my generous two weeks of paternity leave. My co-worker, having not been employed at the company for a year yet, is preparing to burn all four days of his vacation time because he's not entitled to paternity leave yet.

This is broken.

As a tech worker in California, your income is triple to that of a Finnish tech worker. You can easily take unpaid time off for your paternity leave, perhaps even quit your job for a year, and still get out ahead.

Tech isn't a carve-out where there are fewer protections from the state. I pointed out that I was a tech worker in California because we normally get better protections than most Americans. In this case, even for the well-protected California tech workers, there are few legal protections, if any. For other Americans it will be just as bad.

If you've been with your company for less than a year, you are legally entitled to zero days of paternity leave and if you take unpaid time off, your job is not protected.

1. Cost of living in the bay area (capital of tech jobs) is a lot higher too. 2. Many companies aren't used to the idea of unpaid time off, and negotiating for one can be difficult. 3. Quitting for a year sounds fine until the end of that year, when the stress of job hunting rises. The interview process for most tech companies, even in 2020, is obnoxious at best, and you could be a rockstar engineer and still have trouble landing a job offer for months if luck is not on your side.

There are a lot of workplaces that will simply not allow someone to take months of unpaid time off work. A woman will be eligible for some medical time off (generally unpaid) - but the father (or non-birthing parent) generally cannot take time. The main exception I see to this in most employee handbooks is time off for adoption.

Now, this is talking in general and not about tech per se, so if someone is really lucky they work at somewhere that doesn't expect them to do work every week to keep their job.

...and his living costs are probably way higher too, so it's not a fair comparison.

I think it's fair to say even if we adjusted for lower US taxes, higher livings costs, that the Californian worker would be far better ahead still.

There is a reason the entire Silicon Valley doesn't pack up and move to Finland. The money is in California right now.

There are cheaper places to live if someone wants to take a year off. I guess even in California some not too distant downs are much cheaper than SV.

> perhaps even quit your job for a year, and still get out ahead.

exactly! Single payer universal health insurance will also take care of the numerous doctor's visits that follow. Oh wait...

It's hard to be enthusiastic about American labor practices hearing anecdotes like this. I think my quality of life would improve by immigrating to a country that provides the benefits like healthcare and childcare as a right. This is because even though I would likely take a salary cut of over 50%, I would have access to the sorts of intangible life experiences that are difficult or impossible to price. For example, raising my child for the first year of their life, living for another decade.

Spain is progressively doing this. Starting 2021, men and women will have the paid same parental leave of 16 + 2 weeks (non-transferable).

The main reason is fight against the discrimination from employers who think hiring women is inconvenient because they can go on parental leave for very long.

I believe men have 4 months of parental leave in Spain already, starting 2020.

It was 8 weeks on 2019, 12 on 2020 and 16 on 2021. Plus now men can also request "Lactancia" which adds an extra couple weeks.

Good job Finland! Fellow Nordic here (Norwegian) and a dad. The father quota here in Norway made a huge social change. It really helped make it socially acceptable for dads to spend more time with their children.

I noticed for my two sons how much of a difference it makes being around your kids when they are young. You cannot cannot substitute short time with "quality time." The amount of time you are there matters a lot to small kids.

I think it is healthy for children to have both a mother and father who is actively present in their lives. You need a gender equality oriented society for that. If women are offered poor pay and opportunities it encourages women to stay home the whole time while men do all the work. That is bad for both parties. Men see little of their kids and kids don't get the experience with dad that they benefit from.

Meanwhile the mother may get a lot more time with the kids but she also suffers from having no career or independence. The relationship also suffers as one does not have a work life experience and child caring experience to share and talk about.

Its also good for the dads!

"Globally, paternity leave can increase fathers’ involvement within families and this has benefits for the children, the co-parent, the father himself, the economy and society."

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2019/06/16/involved-d...

It's definitely good for the dads. Quality time with my baby is huge; I can tell how she is bonding with me with each moment we spend together, and I despair that I don't get these extended leaves the Finns have.

This was someone we definitely noticed about Norway when we were in Oslo for a week.

There was so many dads just walking around the city/parks in the middle of the day pushing prams. It was so nice to see.

sigh

I suppose none of them have to deal with people dismissively describing spending time with their families as "babysitting", either.

I clap back hard on that when people do it to me. No, I am not babysitting, I'm parenting. Thankfully, it seems to be happening less and less over time.

Nope, never heard that.

> I think it is healthy for children to have both a mother and father who is actively present in their lives.

Not sure how literally this was meant (and a lot of the rest of the thread assuming a mother/father) but studies show kids do just as well with two parents of any gender.

Not sure how literal your statement was meant, but some parents are non-gendered, non-binary.

We shouldn't exclude them either.

Every mention needs to include a long list of every possible combination, no matter how rare and edge case. /s

Inclusion is as simple as saying "parents" instead of "mother and father." If you'll read my post again you'll see the wording did include those groups. Maybe examine why you have such a violent knee jerk reaction to these groups being mentioned.

Please cite the studies. It seems at least impossible that babies of a male-male couple could do as well as those where the baby is raised by its biological mother even only because of the advantages of breastfeeding.

Please cite the studies on breastfeeding. Most show very little long term benefit (meaning, excluding upset stomachs in the first year of life and similar).

Example article:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jun/20/is-brea...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/02/06/children-...

Breastfeeding is one of many variables and formula has come a long way.

Yeah the system where parents can split the time sounds great but it kind of inevitably winds up with woman taking that majority of the time because ultimately it really makes sense if you have a zero-sum amount of hours to share for the woman to take most of it because she is the natural food source for the kid and has gone through the actual trauma of giving birth and ideally gets time to recover from that.

> I noticed for my two sons how much of a difference it makes being around your kids when they are young. You cannot cannot substitute short time with "quality time." The amount of time you are there matters a lot to small kids.

I agree as well, but not so much in the ages of 0-6 months. The biggest bonding for me when I was on parental leave was definitely with my older children, who I was now the primary caregiver. That time was really special and meaningful to all of us.

Don’t get me wrong. I love holding my new born, but (for me) it wasn’t the same type of bonding experience.

> The father quota here in Norway made a huge social change. It really helped make it socially acceptable for dads to spend more time with their children.

If the parental leave policy were taken away, would parents take more or less time to spend with their kids than before the policy took place?

New Zealand is currently at 22, but moving to 26 weeks paid parental leave for babies born from July 1, 2020.

The paid parental leave is up to the parents to decide the split between them.

I think it is a great idea for fathers to be encouraged more to take a share of the paid parental leave.

This could go some small way in helping remedy income disparity between genders.

I was deployed and/or travelling a lot when our boys were young.

Another poster questioned the value of time with infants as opposed to when they are older.

I do think bonding with infants and toddlers is super important for both parent and child.

But it can also feel like a robotic and laborious grind.

As my boys enter high school, I most enjoy our ritualised time together during daily school drop offs and pick ups.

Engaging with them, guiding them on their own journey, and observing how far they have come.

I have few regrets, but one of them is not spending more time wth my kids when they were younger, which probably feeds the extra effort in recent years to spend more time with them as they grow into young men.

You can’t get time back. Make the most of every minute.

The US, federally, already gives dads he same parental leave as moms.

(It's crap, but it's the same crap.)

In letter, yes. Try claiming it and see what happens.

I have. Twice.

Do you mean employees of the federal government? How long is the leave? Is it paid?

> Do you mean employees of the federal government?

No, I mean most workers, under FMLA.

> How long is the leave?

12 weeks.

> Is it paid?

No.

Another step towards equality pay (so the risk of moms and dads leaving on parental is the same). This is not obvious, but after you think about it it makes a lot of sense.

Congrats Finland.

> Neighbouring Sweden has Europe's most generous system of parental leave with 240 days each after a baby's birth

That's working days or what? In Latvia (Estonia neighbour) you may get 12 months (60% of money calculated from amount BEFORE taxes) or 18 months (43,75%). And dad can leave, too.

https://likumi.lv/ta/en/en/id/38051-on-maternity-and-sicknes... Section 10.6. Amount of Parental Benefit

Also Sweden gives ~80% of normal income. If you mean 60% of [income before tax] without taxes, thats pretty good.

> If you mean 60% of [income before tax] without taxes

Yes. And +171 Eur no matter what.

Working days.

I'm glad this exists. When I had my kids I worked white collar jobs for large wealthy corporations, and I got exactly zero days each time. This attitude change is a step in the right direction. The problem is the people who in my opinion who need this the most (the working classes) are the ones least likely to get it (at least here in America).

That’s why these things should be national as far as we can support them. Healthcare being a perk of employment was a mistake from taxing only profit.

This is great news!

With the current direction of US politics, as a US citizen, I find myself increasingly entertaining the thought of becoming an ex-pat.

Top countries I've thought about have been the Nordic countries - Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Greenland, Iceland and have considered the Netherlands as well.

They seem to have reasonable blended economies with social policies that make (more) sense.

No country/systems is perfect and I'm always willing to try something new for a time.

I am in the same boat (pun intended). Just the cost of delivery without complications (>$10,000 on average in the US [0]) makes the prospect of having a child in a country with socialized healthcare economically sensible. Think of how much that $10,000 could be worth if invested in the stock market instead of in a healthcare plan's yearly revenue.

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-hav...

Submitter here. I'm a British chap living in the Netherlands. You might want to read my comment [1] about what happens after you have a baby over here; it triggered quite a lot of discussion...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20884787

Germany has this and is awesome. 14 months paid leave to distribute among the two parents.

Doesn't look like the same thing though. Here it's clearly talking about non-transferable time.

Yeah, looks different. On the other hand, Sweden has something similar.

Dads get 6 month non-trasferable paid leave.

Do we know yet if it has it resulted in an decrease in the gender pay gap and other effects?

It hasn't, or at least the media's whining about the gap as much as everywhere else.

14 months or weeks?

It's months. Amazing for employees and terrifying for employers. Someone I know took a new job somewhere, only to let them know a week or so after being there that his wife was about to have their child and he was going to be gone for the next 14 months.

They were not going to be able to fire him without repercussions. He was not required to let them know during the interview.

14 months, but it is a little bit more complicated than what OP implies.

The mother gets 14 weeks (6 weeks before due date, 8 after) that is the "proper" leave and is mandatory for the mother.

After that, one or both parents can choose to take a leave where the government pays you 2/3 of your net salary, capped at 2000 EUR. If only one parent takes then it is limited to 12 month and it is extend to 14 months in case both parents decided to take it.

(edit: why is this -2? I was asking a serious question!)

>14 months paid leave

Certainly you meant weeks... FMLA only covers 12 weeks of unpaid leave here in the United States.

Nope - it really is about 20000€ the government gives to families.

I’m curious what what happen if someone wanted to have ten kids and abused this system, and the mother didn’t work.

At a gut I feel like I’d be less likely to have kids, not more, if I felt like I was burdening other people by accepting benefits like this. I have no worries as an American having as many kids as I want because I make a good salary, can afford them, and won’t take more than a weeks, maybe two weeks time off, as my wife, despite being just as qualified for software engineering as me, wants to stay at home and raise children. Heck, I won’t even be “overburdening” the school system as my wife is home schooling them, despite living in a “good” school district.

Being charitable I’d hazard the point of this is to encourage population growth, but I suspect it’s playing out more like “have two kids and that’s as many as you should have”, and any more would introduce strong social pressure to stop.

Maybe it’ll work out that lots more Finns will be born, I’m curious to see how it goes in twenty years.

> I’m curious what what happen if someone wanted to have ten kids and abused this system, and the mother didn’t work.

Don't take this the wrong way, but that is such an American way of thinking. You guys are so preoccupied with thinking about somebody getting something they don't deserve that you forget about thinking about what is good for everybody else.

Consider this, Nordic countries have generous public services in all walks of life. If we applied American logic to Nordic countries we should expect the following outcomes:

1. Nobody works, because unemployment benefits are so generous. 2. Everybody is on never ending education, because education is next to free. 3. Everybody has 10 kids because of long parental leaves. 4. Everybody is sick and unhealthy because nobody cares about their health because hey health care is free.

Of course no Nordic countries is anything like this. We have the highest work participation rate in the world (more than supposedly hard working Japanese). Nordic people are quite healthy and live long. Most people just have 2 kids. The average birth rate is something like 1.7 to 1.8 in Nordics. In other words we are under replacement.

So our system definitely helps getting more kids as countries with less generous services have much lower birth rates. Look e.g. at developed asian countries how terrible their birth rates are. Yet the generous system does not lead to some abundance of kids.

Let us get real. Having kids is a lot of work. I love my kids to bits but I don't want more than two. I also enjoy my work and other things. So does my wife. Why would we want tons of kids? Some weirdos probably do, but so what? Why should not I and other Norwegian benefit from a great system because a couple of oddballs exist than abuse the system?

Put some trust in your fellow man. People are not all selfish and self centered assholes ready to take, take and take whatever they can get their hands on.

It is amazing how Europeans like to make fun of Americans for their supposed ignorance of political matters, yet they manage to boast this kind of non-sense that GP wrote. Elternzeit can be for up to 14 months, but it comes with lots of restrictions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22247242 It is not some kind of "cash-for-kids" system that turns wombs into goldmines. Even Kindergeld (~220EUR/month for every child until they are 18) is not really profitable.

As to your gut feel: once you get used to the idea that the Welfare State is something that you can not opt out of and how strong it is at leveling out society, I am sure you wont feel like you are "burdening other people". After I moved here and started leaving 43% of my paycheck to the government, 14% to income-based (not actuarial risk based) health insurance and paying 19% for VAT and seeing how little I was keeping of that "good software engineer income", I started worrying less about my burden and more about how I could get some of my fair share back.

> ...“have two kids and that’s as many as you should have”, and any more would introduce strong social pressure to stop.

I live in Denmark (but I suppose it's somewhat similar in Finland), there is very little social stigma to recieving support from the state.

Because such support is everywhere: child care is supported, parents are given money for each child under 18, when you turn 18 you get educational support, university is free (in fact you get educational support), when graduating you get unemployment support the next month while looking for a job.

I don't think we think of receiving benefits as burdening others, it's more a matter of solidarity. Most people more or less pay off the cost they incur to the state through taxes. So accepting benefits isn't shameful.

Note. it is possible to not get benefits, my little brother said no to educational support during highschool (while he was living at home). It was ~200 USD/month -- but he is a special case, most 18 yearolds do not say no to free money :)

(My little brother later did accept educational support during university ~1k USD / month).

Sweden has an even more generous system and our birth rates are below 2, so... I'm not worried for Finland.

The thing is, kids are damned expensive today. When you are not working, you are forgoing "normal" salary. The mother will get ~80% of the pre-pregnancy salary, up to a limit which is not very high. There are afaik no "virtual salary increases" here, at all. We even have "barnbidrag" and "flerbarnstillägg" meaning you get a small amount of money per month per child, and that amount goes UP with more kids. So if you have 7 kids you get even more money per child than if you would have 2 kids. Still nobody has 7 kids to "make money", because its still a loosing proposition. There is a template about how much a kid costs here until theyre 18, and its about $104,000.

Sure, you could stay at home and being poor for 10 years or so but how much fun is that really? =)

"abused the system"? Fertility rate in Germany is 1.50 at the moment. Every new child will be a precious asset to sustain the future pension system.

"We shouldn't make things better because one person might do something weird at some point".

I mean, really, how do people think like this?

The goal is probably more to reach equal pay/opportunity as opposed to any population growth agenda.

When I was in the EU, I knew a woman who had 4 kids, each ~1/1.5 year appart. So she would have a kid, be out 6 month, go back to work for 6 month, have another kid, rinse and repeat 4 times :) .

It was a total nightmare for her employer because they couldn't let her go, and they couldn't hire anyone permanently to do her job. They could only use short term contractors who would stay 6 months (barely enough time to get up to speed) and then leave. I don't know if she was "abusing" the system, I mean, it was her right by law to do that, but after popping the 4th one she left work to be a stay at home mom. I don't know how well her employer took it :)

Perhaps it makes more sense when viewed from the perspective of the child?

Every child has the right to spend time with their parents. Every child has the right to an education. And so on. You should not be given less parental time just because you were born with nine siblings. It's not your choice.

I believe the "unwashed masses having lots of children and draining the wellfare systems" is a quite popular far right anti-immigration trope. And while that may even be true somewhere, as long as it remains individual cases, the economic impact on society is still net positive as long as those kids get an education and a job.

According to statistics increased education leads to lower number of child births (and later). At least from what I've read.

So it's all connected, free school and good social support.

As a parent you can never make a profit from it anyhow. There are of course people who don't know how to work and actually don't want to contribute. But they are far apart.

Having both parents be economically unproductive for an extended period of time is clearly not a tenable arrangement in the long term. But the long term, in this case, is measured in tens of generations. In the short term, most developed societies are more than wealthy enough to shoulder such a burden. People would still probably get looked at weird for having tons of kids, but that already happens anyway.

> I’m curious what what happen if someone wanted to have ten kids and abused this system, and the mother didn’t work.

The easy solution would be to have this set up for the desired number of children. 1-3 children: 100% of the benefits, >3: 20% or something similar.

Seems a bit bizarre seeing that mothers in most cases will need to spend more time with their babies. After all, there are certain things like breastfeeding that only a mother can do.

Hmm, a quick search tells me that roughly half of all babies are breastfed after 6 months in the US. Seems acceptable to cater for potential needs of half the population (assuming numbers are the same obviously).

I was home with my kid when he turned 1 until he was 1.5 using this system in Sweden. Being a guy, I didn't breastfeed him. Kid still appear functional.

> Kid still appear functional.

Yeah you don't want an object oriented kid.

> Kid still appears functional.

It's ok, you have more than enough time to traumatize his childhood and early adulthood :-p

> After all, there are certain things like breastfeeding

Mother's can and do express milk to be fed to babies in bottles; the fact that a baby is on breastmilk doesn't require the mother to be with them 24/7, and formula is a thing that exists.

What other things are there?

I would assume that there is some kind of maternal bond, so that it would be best for the mother to primarily be exposed to the newborn at least in the first 6-12 months. I doubt sucking on a plastic bottle would assist with the maternal bond. What do you think?

Formula that adjusts formulation every day by detecting the chemical balance of the baby during nursing does not exist yet (ever? It’s an interesting biology challenge).

There is pretty much exactly one thing that only a mother can do once the baby has been born, and you just named it.

For many reasons, a mother might not be willing or able to breastfeed her child or to do so exclusively, so you'd need additional feeding arrangements in those situations.

Even if the mother is breastfeeding, in practice she might appreciate being able to express some of her milk and have the father feed the baby sometimes.

Things could be much more even with early years childcare than they are in many places at the moment, and in my experience there are a lot of mothers and a lot of fathers who wish it were so.

But both genders can feed the baby. It is not a rare situation where a mother doesn't have enough milk to feed a baby without additional food.

What other things are mother-only things in your opinion?

Also: pump and store the milk. It’s not hard. Dads can feed breastfed babies too! Just out of a bottle.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2939272/

>Seems a bit bizarre seeing that mothers in most cases will need to spend more time with their babies

And in those cases the mother needs extreme support. Like a father around to help her out with all the little things constantly and to give her a break.

It seems fairly bizarre that you think caring for a newborn is a 1 person job no problem!

Would make more sense to point out how ridiculously short maternity leave is in many places. Like the US isn't it a couple of weeks or something and not even paid?

I noticed when visiting the US that breastfeeding was not very normal. Like they don't even teach it in a standard hospital.

Finnish moms are getting longer maternity leave than most countries in the world with this system. If other countries can manage with their short maternity leaves, I am sure Finnish mothers can manage too.

I mean I agree with you in principle that moms are needed for longer time than dads, but too often such questions are raised in an a disingenuous fashion to push back against gender equality.

What we do in Norway is that moms get some extra time at work for things like pumping. I believe the first year you get something like 1-2 hours at work for breast feeding.

As a dad I was feeding my child milk which had been pumped earlier.

> I noticed when visiting the US that breastfeeding was not very normal. Like they don't even teach it in a standard hospital.

Not sure how you would notice that when visiting, but, yes, they do.

> I noticed when visiting the US that breastfeeding was not very normal. Like they don't even teach it in a standard hospital.

On the contrary, that was one of the first things they teach after giving birth (apart from diaper changing). They also stressed heavily on the importance of nursing and set us up with a lactation consultant if we needed help in the future.

It's working fine in practice and in my circle of friends almost every father took at least two months off.

Those months can be taken at any time in the first year and normally overlap the mother's parental leave, so the husband can help her and spend time with his baby.

Breast pump solves that.

Unless dad also pumps, it doesn't...

Wow impressive. In Canada as a Dad I can get, I think, 6 months of paid leave. Although the pay is covered by Employment Insurance and it only covers so much (like 55% of your salary up to $600/wk)

I ended up just taking four weeks vacation for my first kid and it made all the difference. I strongly believe that giving flexible and generous vacation time to all parents/guardians will have a positive impact on society. The challenge is that these impacts are hard to measure with a spreadsheet.

Quebec goes beyond the Canadian norm in this area, though still nowhere near some European countries: https://www.educaloi.qc.ca/en/capsules/maternity-paternity-a... (EI premiums are lower here, because a separate QPIP payroll deduction funds the more generous paid leave benefits described at this link in lieu of the corresponding federal ones.)

We also have $8.25/child/day government-subsidized daycare.

Eh? It's either 12/18 months of EI (split however) + 5/8 weeks reserved for the non primary caregiver.

I worked for a company based in the valley a while back.

They announced their paid parental leave policy one year to much fanfare.

That was handy as we were having my second child.

I filled out the paperwork for the parental leave and .... they told me I didn't qualify because I didn't live in California... so unpaid leave for me it was.

Government policy is the only way to go with this stuff. Otherwise it will be a benefit only available to a few.

I'm among the ones who think that the most efficient way to lower gender pay gap is to promote longer leaves (parental or not) among men. 'favouring' one gender with 'benefits' for things like caring for family is only reinforcing established roles.

Where does the money come from? I'm an American and so I'm less familiar with other countries policies. I get that mandating a very generous family leave policy is wonderful for parents and good for society. To me it seems it's gotta be tough for small business owners though. A business of lets say 8 employees simply cannot afford a paid six month leave without it impacting its performance. How is that handled in those countries?

That being said, I'm inclined to proposals here which fund it through Social Security or a Social Security like system, which would level the playing field between small and large businesses.

In most of Europe, the company doesn't pay anything, so it isn't tough for it. Every worker contributes a percentage for the Social Security, so basically the cost gets diluted among all tax payers.

> A business of lets say 8 employees simply cannot afford a paid six month leave without it impacting its performance.

If all it’s competitors have to, what’s the difference?

If you’re really concerned make an exemption for small businesses that allows them to claim the costs back from the government.

Edge cases like this are irrelevant, most Americans are employed by enormous companies that can most definitely afford it.

> If all it’s competitors have to, what’s the difference?

Because it tips the scale in favor of large companies vs. small. Small firm cashflow is lumpy, large firm cashflow is smooth, and payrolls need to be met.

> Edge cases like this are irrelevant,

17% percent of the work force is employed by firms with fewer than 20 employees, 27% by firms with 50 or fewer.

https://www.bls.gov/web/cewbd/table_f.txt

The company does not pay the parent on leave. The state does. Its part of the concept of a welfare state.

Without knowing anything about it, I'm inclined to think that it's a combination of Finland's offshore oil drilling income of at least $5.23 billion and their tax rate of 51.6%:

https://oec.world/en/profile/country/fin/

https://tradingeconomics.com/finland/personal-income-tax-rat...

The US has a lower top income tax rate of 37%:

https://www.debt.org/tax/brackets/

Other more democratic socialism leaning countries redistribute income tax from the wealthy to fund the needs of the general population, but the US just gives that money to people who are already rich. Supposedly this raises all incomes, but incomes have not risen appreciably since the mid 1970s:

https://economics.stackexchange.com/questions/15558/producti...

You're misreading the OEC report - Finland exports refined petroleum. They don't do any drilling. Even then it's only 7% of their total exports.

You're confusing Finland with Norway and their national fund.

> Finland's offshore oil drilling income of at least $5.23 billion

Huh? We don't have any sources of oil. We do have oil refineries but not any wells or drilling. You may be thinking of Norway.

The discussion surrounding parental leave is one of the reasons I like contracting. I get paid hourly and get to set my own working conditions and benefits. If I ever get a baby, I can take as much leave as I want to make sure my wife and baby are taken care of. I don't have to lobby the government or beg my employer in order to get time off.

And to answer the question that is going to be asked: "But then you don't get paid?". Correct, but when I do work my pay is around double to triple, so I can take a whole lot of parental leave before it becomes financially irresponsible.

You're projecting your personal situation on to hundreds of millions of people with dramatically different situations. Government policies should be designed to work as well as possible for as many people as possible, not for the minority who stand out because of their high incomes or high demand skills.

It’s the difference between you making good choices individually or the government forcing “good” choices that might not be best for you as an individual.

Excellent- maternity leave isn't just about physically recovering, it's about the child and parent as well. It only makes sense that both parents should get the same time with their kid.

Great job Finland! This is very important for strengthening the family.

As a dad, if I were to choose, I'd rather spend a larger chunk of time with my kid from 2 and up. That is a very good period of time when the kid forms important habits and through games lots of things can be taught. This is actually a goal of mine, I want to save enough and take a few years off from work (or maybe find a part-time gig) and spend some good quality time with my kid.

That’s really cool. It sets strong incentives for men to spend those 6 months with their children, but still leaves the the freedom to not take the leave (and basically forfeit 6 months of free “vacation”).

I’m incredibly grateful for the combined 4 months I got to spend full time with my two children and can only recommend taking the time if you can.

I don't know what it's like in the Nordic countries but here in the US I walk down the street with a 4 year old on my shoulders to work every day to drop her off at school. The women I pass on the street and in the halls beam at her when she greets them and sometimes they exchange a few words. The men? They don't notice her: she's edited out of their minds eye like she doesn't exist, even if she cries "HULLOOO! My name is ___ what's yours?" to them except on rare occasions.

Men who don't have the experience of caring for a child even for a short while cannot make good decisions about what's normative of a civilization. Good policies will not be enacted if men do not "see" children.

I'm a dad of 3, and I do acknowledge other people's children with a wave or hello. But prior to becoming a father, I felt very nervous about doing so, because so few men do give children attention (outside of family members) that I worried that parents would wonder if I had bad intentions.

But hey, fellow men, guess how we break down that stigma? It's by having a lot of normal, everyday guys acknowledge children's existence in friendly, wholesome ways -- even if it's just a wave or a quick greeting.

If a greater percentage of men would do this, then there would be far less nervousness about undeserved, incorrect assumptions.

Maybe they want to avoid the risk of being labelled predators.

You’re saying you’re bothered by men not smiling at your kid as they walk past?

Hardly think that has anything to do with making good decisions about civilization

Replace your child with a full grown adult and you BET I'm ignoring someone trying to chat me up while I'm hustling to work in the morning :)

Just saying, don't take other adults not interacting with your child as some overarching statement about gender in society.

Well, in Austria you can get up to three years paid leave and freely choose between parents, so not sure if the article is correct. Question is how much the payment is, we get less the longer we take it. Alternatively you can also take a year (also with +2 months if both parents use it) and get 80% of your previous salary.

Thanks but no thanks.

When I’ll have a baby I‘ll have to breastfeed, after having carried him for nine months, and having him exit through my private parts.

Give me my extended, non trasferrable maternal leave!

Edit: since some people are misunderstanding my point: extending the paternal leave costs money. I would rather prefer those money being spent on more maternal leave.

Nobody is taking that away. This is about giving the same amount of non-transferrable leave to both mothers and fathers.

Mothers already have a year of maternal leave, this is about fathers getting decent amount of leave as well. No one is taking anything away from you.

I know I'm going to be downvoted and already regret deciding to share this but...

I've never understood parental leave. If I want to go on a vacation, I have to plan for that and save time to use for it. If you want to have a child, you should have to plan to save your time to take and spend with the child or be in a financial place where one parent can quit their job to stay with the child. It's not like you go to sleep one night and wake up to find a baby next to you that was delivered by a stork. My fiance and I plan to try to have a child once we're married in May but it's something we will save our time off for during the early days of its life because we are choosing to try and have a child.

If a company wants to offer this as a benefit, that's awesome, but I don't understand why governments need to create law to make it a mandatory thing. Having a child is a choice.

Governments have an interest in how the children grow up. Now there is some "whatever that means" encoded in the above. However it is generally noted that children with a good relationship with both parents tend to do better in life than those with only one parent. Thus there is an interest in ensuring that relationship exists if possible.

Because most people can't go on a 6 month vacation no matter what the circumstance. And this is a much more critical event to another persons development than going to see Macchu Picchu.

And I'm saying this as someone with no kids, but I did have the displeasure of growing up with my family overseas at various wars throughout my childhood.

Because many governments rely on children to finance the country's economy?

It's still less costly than immigration.

Because it's not about individuals making good or bad decisions, but about building a good, equal society. And importantly this means caring for children as a collective society.

Who pays? Employer/Government? Can anyone chime in on the basic setup... eligibility, amounts, etc?

France: both parents can be on paternity/maternity leave up to the age of 3 for the child.

I strongly dislike the idea of any government-mandated paternal leave. Staying home from work is not free, and the cost of it comes out of my salary.

I personally want some paternal leave even with its costs, but I'd prefer that negotiation to stay between me and my employer. I don't want some bottom threshold set by a third party.

You are paid in Nordic countries during the leave, so that is a non-issue. Sure indirectly you are paying through your taxes.

But for society as a whole this makes financial sense. In Nordic countries we have the worlds highest female labour participation rate. That is a lot of extra tax dollars.

It also means higher birth rate which benefits the economy. Look at asian countries with birth rates around 1.2 which where slow at adopting these kinds of systems. Nordic countries are more like 1.8.

Over time such a low birth rate will be a huge financial burden for a country. Any taxes you saved from not having paternal leave will be lost in taxes to pay for caring for a huge elderly population.

>Staying home from work is not free, and the cost of it comes out of my salary

So does every other aspect of caring for people (police, fire, education).

>but I'd prefer that negotiation to stay between me and my employer

Hey that works great if you are one of those people that is invaluable to your company, or can easily negotiate and move into a better job. Do you know how that would go for 99.9% of people?

"Hey boss, I'm pregnant, isn't that great! Can I have 12 months paid off so I can take care of my family?"

"Erm, how about 3 days?"

"Ok I see how this goes, fine how about 2 weeks?"

"No forget it, you're fired. I'll just hire someone who isn't having a baby to replace you. Good luck!"

How do you feel about the US' government mandated overtime laws?

The government mandated exempt employees? Just curious.

>and the cost of it comes out of my salary.

Why should it come out of you salary? Why can't it be fully paid?

Dad living in Austria. Here parents share the parental leave, and it's amazing.

What are the negative impacts?

Cost. It costs a lot of money.

Laughable. None of the suffering, equal benefits. Being a man is a cheat code.

so is this implying they deserve the same time off? let's be honest the Mums did all the heavy lifting here, i'm ok with them having more time off their body did go through a massive change.

> Finland says it wants to "promote wellbeing and gender equality"

Finally, a country that understands that one of the driving forces of gender inequality is the asymmetry of experience caused by maternal leave.

> Finally, a country that understands that one of the driving forces of gender inequality is the asymmetry of experience caused by maternal leave.

The asymmetry of experience is actually caused by child bearing, which can only be done by women. Maternal leave is downstream from that.

Disagreed. Child bearing is only an initial factor; after the baby is out it goes away. The problem is breastfeeding, but there are ways around that (and some mothers, for a variety of reasons or impediments, don't breastfeed; in that case it's completely moot).

So minus breastfeeding, the asymmetry has a large component of "it was always done like this", plus the mistaken idea some employers have that the leave is some sort of "vacation".

As a new father: quality time with my baby is a huge deal and it's unfair that society expects the mom to do all the work (and spend all that time). I think this should be a concern for all fathers; I find my friends who don't prioritize this and dump it on the mother are behaving in an insensitive way. They get to work on "real stuff" and interact with other adults -- even commuting to work can feel like a respite from caring for a newborn -- and when they get home they don't understand why the mother is burned out and grumpy: "but you stayed at home while I worked, why are you so tired and upset?"

That doesn't seem right.

If months of parental leave are granted to mothers but not to fathers (something not decided by who has the womb), we should expect to see motherhood being more damaging to a career than fatherhood.

If parental leave is offered equally to mothers and fathers, we should expect the disparity to shrink, though probably not disappear entirely as the womb thing does still remain.

Right now all an employer sees is time off. In Finland that means there is no difference to the employer.

Paternity leave is a lot easier to implement than artificial wombs.

Fixed that for you:

> AMONG OTHER THINGS, the asymmetry of experience is actually IN PART caused by child bearing

no it is not

The broader issue is that having/raising children doesn't fit with the otherwise fairly materialistic value system our society has.

Childless women earn just as much as men. Forcing fathers to take family leave does fix the asymmetry between parents (mothers vs fathers), but will exacerbate the difference between parents and non-parents by penalizing not just mothers, but also fathers for having children, vs. non-parents who don't (need to) have a career break.

I think that no discussion/policy about parental leave is complete without some kind of incentive for people to have kids (or a discussion about whether we should encourage that at all or not - looks like it might be sensible in Western countries).

It also penalizes non-fathers because employers assume the possibility of you having children, and that has an effect on your pay, even if you never have children.

As a non-father, you have no way to say "I don't want paternity leave" and negotiate a better salary instead.

> I think that no discussion/policy about parental leave is complete without some kind of incentive for people to have kids

The simplest way to incentive more kids is to make housing cheap. The biggest downside to most people considering children is the cost of family formation. And by far the biggest component of that is the cost of housing.

Western governments are doing quite the opposite of promoting kids. They're actively pursuing policies that constrict the supply of housing. These favor older post-childrearing homeowners at the expense of young potential families. Abolish zoning and land-use restrictions in metros like San Francisco and New York, and watch fertility rates boom as property prices collapse.

Remembering conclusions from studies done in the past, the fathers in Finland that takes up on the offer and use similar amount of parental leave are going to suffer more in terms of decreased wages and loss of career progress compare to mothers.

People who do not conform to gender expected behavior usually get punished by society, even if politically the same society want the opposite to happen. Giving people the choice to break conformity is still a positive move, and in the long term culture might change enough that taking parental leave (and sick days) won't have a negative effect on both career and wages.

an interesting story from japan: they have 1 year parental leave for men and women. but just 8% of men actually took it compared with 82% for women. the reason is the same across the planet: they would be left behind at work.

compare this with the former communist country of Romania, today an EU country: 126 days for women, 5 days for men. income during those times is payed for by the state (80%).

societal discrimination against women is deep, and the law can certainly help, but it's only part of the problem. in some places a huge overhaul of society needs to happen. my fear is that the forces that want to keep society as-is are usually much stronger than the ones that want change.

> compare this with the former communist country of Romania, today an EU country: 126 days for women, 5 days for men. income during those times is payed for by the state (80%).

Not true

sorry, that was "maternity leave", not "raising a child leave". for "raising a child" it's a maximum of 2 years, granted you've worked for 12 full months before, right?

2 years in Romania. Can be either mom or dad

we did this at LightSail Energy and while it was a little awkward sometimes it was an overall beloved policy.

USA will never do this :( Plus my kids are already born. I got two weeks and it wasn't nearly enough.

When my 1st daughter was born, I got exactly 2 days off using my own vacation days. We were a small team at a printing company and each person had a "specialization". If I wasn't there, it was a large part of the company effectively shut down until I returned (it was a lot of pressure and I am glad to not be there anymore).

At a different company (much much larger) I was able to take 2 weeks (out of 3 the company provides) of vacation when my son was born and I am two months away from my third and final child where I expect to do the same. I wish I was able to spend more time with them (and my recovering Wife from the caesarean) but as the primary income for our household we wouldn't be able to survive on things like FMLA. It is very disappointing seeing how modern the rest of the world is in terms of healthcare, maternity/paternity leave, education, etc...

New Jersey already does this.

Men can love their kids without becoming co-moms. You cannot will biology.

Finland Finland Finland, the place I want to be...

As an American, I find it hard to be patriotic about my country when my fellow citizens can’t muster up the political will to ensure any paid parental leave for most people.

Edit: changed parental leave to paid parental leave

I get that you genuinely care about the issue, but please don't take a thread like this veering into generic political flamebait. Parenting and child-rearing are emotional topics to begin with, so this pretty much guarantees a toxic cocktail.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22247563.

I'm not opposed to paid parental leave, but it's not equitable at all. It benefits the rich the most, and may even punish the poor. For example, there's no reason a senior investment banker should be paid high 6 figures to take care of their kids. They should have more than enough money saved up themselves to take unpaid time off. Meanwhile, the most vulnerable will have are even harder time finding full time employment as companies will have less incentive to grant it to them. Something like a guaranteed $500 a week for 20 weeks from the government makes a lot more sense.

Well, there is a big election coming up. You can find out who is on the ballot, where they stand on this issue and pass the info along to the people in your area.

If someone isn't planning on having kids, they might not think it affects them, so be prepared to convince them otherwise, too.

But... we are doing this. The President brought it up during the State of the Union.

> The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) requires large organizations to offer employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a new child, sick relative or their own illness. Although a growing number of states have passed or are considering paid family leave laws, there is no nationwide equivalent.

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/...

Is paid paternal leave viewed as a good thing by most voters (or voters represented by the larger part of the electoral college/senate seats)? That can be viewed as a factor that erodes the remains of traditional family.

"to get fathers to spend time with their children"

I'm all for fathers spending time with their children, but this kind of framing annoys me.

The feminist narrative, which governments seem to swallow, is that fathers don't want to spend time with their children, and force mothers out of their careers.

The reality is probably that it is primarily a financial issue. Fathers spending more time with their children means less money for the family, in most cases. Not only is the compensation usually lower than the salary, many dads also fear disadvantages in the job when they stay away for too long, which would also result in less money for the family.

And yes, there are also reasons why it is expected primarily of fathers to provide for the family. It is not just an arbitrary social construct.

> The feminist narrative, which governments seem to swallow, is that fathers don't want to spend time with their children, and force mothers out of their careers.

I think that is all in your head because you are so anti feminism.

Look we have been through this in Norway for years now. Reality is that many men felt uncomfortable making that choice because there was an expectation in society that staying home with your child was a mothers job and a silly indulgence for men.

Once we made part of the leave reserved for men, they suddenly had a simply argument for the boss "sorry man, we got to take it or we loose it."

It reduced the stigma for men to stay home with the child. It also changed how bosses viewed it. You could say it was a bit of clever social engineering.

> The reality is probably that it is primarily a financial issue. Fathers spending more time with their children means less money for the family, in most cases.

When you get full pay during leave as in most Nordic countries, that is not the issue. The issue was the stigma attached to men being home.

There are not many countries where you get full pay. Full pay makes it a different matter.

And again, I am all for fathers taking time off to spend with their kids. I just think the narrative is harmful.

Harmful to women, actually, who tend to be forced out of their motherhood privileges by well-meaning laws.

As for "fathers feeling uncomfortable", I am not buying it. That is just in people's head and could be remedied with a little propaganda (some TV shows telling people it's fine to take time off as a father). Finances on the other hand are a real world issue.

Seriously, you would forego spending time with your children because it makes you uncomfortable that society might frown upon it? There are no real repercussions, just a mild feeling of uneasiness?

I do wonder if Norway has a different Pension/benefit scheme.

Or if they need ever greater numbers to keep the benefits paying out like UK/US.

> noticed about Norway when we were in Oslo

A lot can be achieved when your country floats on oil. The Government Pension Fund Global, aka the Oil Fund, was worth about $195,000 per Norwegian citizen in 2018.

If others had this kind of safety net they might behave in a similar manner.

Petrostates can afford a lot of leisure time for their citizens.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22247305 and marked it off-topic.

> Petrostates can afford a lot of leisure time for their citizens

So what's the United State's excuse?

(A lot of US citizens are somehow unaware of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_produ...)

What about when your country (like mine) is a technological superpower and allows the super rich to keep all of the wealth generated by our greatest minds locked up? We could do the same if we had the courage.

The US can afford it, too. We choose not to.

Is there evidence this isn't true for other states? I think we just prioritize differently.

Time spent raising children is not leisure time.

The stupidity of people these days. This was literally an article about Finland and paternal leave. A country which has no oil. Literally EVERY single Nordic country has this kind of system. Not just Norway.

And Norway had this BEFORE we had any oil.

Never mind the whole inconsistency in your rant. Why do you think the oil fund is so F...ing huge? Because we DON'T spend a lot of oil money. We save it.

But will they force Dads to take it? As a Dad who had two kids, I would much rather pay for childcare than take paternity leave. Would someone like me be held back artificially to promote equality?

EDIT: Not a freak, don't care for the infant stage. Happy to dote when they start to turn into people.

It is just that the days get wasted if you don't take them. So you would be stupid not to do it.

> Not a freak, don't care for the infant stage. Happy to dote when they start to turn into people.

That is kind of a selfish attitude. The early stage is a lot of work, but why should you skip the work while your wife has to do it all?

I remember back in that time. I was quite happy to go back to work the first weeks, because I found it quite exhausting with the first child. Work was super relaxing in comparison.

I think it is only fair and square that one shares the load. I had my parental leave when my kids were 8 months or so. I actually forget exactly the time. But it was quit manageable by then and while a fair amount of work it was also a rewarding experience.

> Would someone like me be held back artificially to promote equality?

What about your wife's career. Isn't she held back if she had to spend all the time taking care of the kids? Why should she not be given similar opportunities as you?

> But will they force Dads to take it?

Nobody forces the moms either (though I do understand that dads don't breast-feed every 3 hours without sleep).

The point is that this means the "she will be off for X months" becomes less of a biological parts thing against women and more of a life-stage thing. Though the ageism might still strike here, as people plan to have kids later in their lives.

> Happy to dote when they start to turn into people.

Also specifically for the leave itself, a significant part of my paternity leave was just partner support by picking up everything else that was previously shared including shopping, cooking, laundry. Otherwise, it was just about generally being awake without worrying about the clock.

This all came to highlight when I went back to work after 3 months away, the transition to a 9-5 schedule was bad for everyone involved.

I'm not a big "babies" guy either. I'd love if you could delay this leave till they were older. But are you really telling me you'd rather go to work and pay for child care than take 7 months off, fully paid, and be at home? You could take the leave, pay for child care and go hiking every day if you wanted...

It's paid leave and no you won't be forced to spend time with your infant children you freak

said with love

No, the point is to offer an incentive. Even the mother may not take any of her leave if she wants. But by providing an incentive, you do change how most men consider normal for raising the kids.

> Not a freak, don't care for the infant stage. Happy to dote when they start to turn into people.

It seems like you may not care, but that infant stage is the most critical for bonding and attachment. You're potentially sacrificing your ability to have a strong or deep relationship with your children in the long-term, regardless of how present you are later on. But as I said, perhaps you're making that tradeoff knowingly.

My in-laws were with us for 6 months after our little girl was born. My wife and I took over almost everything childcare related to be with her except for things like cooking meals and catch up naps during the day sometimes. Some parents do want to spend time with their children you know!

I don't think they'd ever force anyone to take time off if they don't want to. They'd give you the right to take time off to be with your kids, but if you don't want to take them up on that offer, then that will always be your prerogative.

A grave error to believe oneself superior to the pure emotional existence of infancy

Would you prefer paying because they would do a better job? Or because your kids would prefer it? Or because you would make more money?

It's up to you of course, I'm just curious.

You'd be surprised how quickly they start turning into people by doing things like, you know, bonding with other human beings.

I think even if you didn't want to take the leave for its own sake you might find taking it would let the mother have some time and rest which didn't involve caring for a tiny-human non-stop.

But to answer the question more literally I suspect there would be no penalty.

In the US, I have seen cases of both parents taking company leave, and still putting their kids in childcare so that they can do house projects. Defeats the purpose... culture takes time to change

Would you show this comment to your kids once they're able to read?

> Research has shown this to be optimal (time spent with your children later in life closer to adolescent years matters more than their younger years).

> they're not at an age yet where I can fully appreciate time with them.

Now that sounds closer to the truth. It's not about what's best for "them", it's about how you can _enjoy yourself_ more.

This means other women will have the same resource options you do.

Why shouldn't their husbands stay at home?

Noone is forced. It's just a 'waste' if you don't :).

I love a good, "X Nordic Country provides Y for FREE -- so should the United States!" Where Y is some socialized benefit.

Let's put this in perspective: Finland's population is around 5.5 million people. That's somewhere between the populations of South Carolina and Minnesota.

Get a grip people -- The United States is not even remotely equivalent to Finland in terms of demographics and population. Find a nice U.S. State that doles out great Parental benefits, and move.

Yes, Finland is small. Yes the cost of covering these benefits is smaller than it would be in America, but the people who pay taxes are also fewer.

If all of America paid the same %-taxes as Finnish people do the system would absolutely work. It isn't magic. It's just that your country has decided, over a number of years, that health-care should be covered by insurance, and employment, rather than taxes.

If your politicians want to make a change, and get the appropriate votes, you absolutely could do the same thing as is done here.

Among the things you fail to understand is that GDP will generally scale with the population. You wouldn't be trying to pay for U.S. parents' leave with Finnish tax revenue.

The Finnish GDP per capita is $45,700. For the US, it's $59,500. Please explain why social programs are so impossible for one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

Wow, you all are really taking this fact hard. It's ok -- I know was shocked when I first heard this back in high school.

Reading thru the comments, it sounds like New Jersey has great parental benefits, but you will be sharing them with a few more million people than Denmark, so ymmv.

It comes down to this: you sound like a complete idiot comparing social programs of these small Countries to <any> large Country. Stop.

> while fathers are given 2.2 months until the child turns two. However, on average only one in four of them take what they are given. The current plans now talk only of parental leave.

Is it conceivable that fathers actually don't want to spend that much time at home and that the Finland Government is strong-handing them into doing it?

One frustration I have in this topic is that it is seldom mentioned that any parent with any savings and a decent job has the option of taking unpaid leave and take as much as they want with their kids, but choose not to. That is a very strong case for revealed preferences.

this is paid leave (it's only an allowance, not usually a full salary though). Where I live it's up to a year for a father, but most of them do not take it since we are still entrenched in the "father at work/mother at home" society

Well, they could just not take the days, then.

Many comments laud this as a step towards gender equality, which is a noble goal. However, I do wonder about the unforeseen consequences. All mammals (afaik) are raised by mothers. Humans are mammals. Humans do a good job of making changes to our nature, and for the most part those changes have resulted in better lives. However we still have things like nuclear families. Children aren't taken away from parents and raised by communities instead. So we don't throw everything out from nature, because some of it works well and reliably. Is there any science to suggest that there are no adverse effects on an infant from having an absent mother?

To move back up: I'm saying there might be a good reason mothers should be given maternal leave and that there might not be as good of a reason for men to be given paternal leave. Gender equality doesn't mean both genders are the same.

Other animals don't commute to an office hours away every day. There is practically nothing in human society which is very normal, relative to the natural state.

In fact I would argue this in many ways makes things MORE normal not less. Fathers in hunter and gatherer societies would have spend far more time with their children than a modern father.

A hunter and gatherer spend around 8 hours per week hunting. The rest of the time the family was quite close together.

> I'm saying there might be a good reason mothers should be given maternal leave and that there might not be as good of a reason for men to be given paternal leave. Gender equality doesn't mean both genders are the same.

Of course genders are not the same. But there is no reason to encourage difference just for the sake of it. The fact is that giving fathers and mothers leave works great for families.

I have lived through this myself. Your kids are much better off for it, and so are the parents.

Statistics speak for themselves. Nordic countries score well on family friendliness, child development and happiness.

Humans are herd animals. From what I know there is consensus among developmental psychologists for attachment theory. A theory that roughly states that the caregiver or caregivers a child has from 6 months of age to two years old is very important and forms how the child will form relationships with other humans during the rest of their life. It does not need to be a single caregiver nor that the caregiver is the mother.

Edit: Historically it has not been uncommon for the mother to die while giving birth. So it has always been important for us to accept other caregivers than our birth mothers.

All of your assertions are false. Male wolves and foxes help with child rearing.

Aka Pygmy Men breastfeed (some men can lactate a little) Most Women outside these tribes don't look for it in a man. Whereas there's do.

Social Services does take children away from there parents and raise them instead.

It's only culture that says just the bad children.

Colonialism commonly took natives away to be raised by society instead.

The kibbutz movement used collective child rearing. They thought it was the only way for equality.

Nuclear families are mostly a western thing. Plus we see more and more young people living together in shared housing.some in a family atmosphere. Why not shared child rearing?

Of course if there are good reasons then someone can provide them righ

> Is there any science to suggest that there are no adverse effects on an infant from having an absent mother?

This is a straw man argument. It's not possible to conduct such a study scientifically because it would be unethical and that's not what this policy is promoting.

Mammals are polygamous by nature and humans are no exception. We have only changed this in the last several thousand years and the benefits have been substantial enough that it's now the model in most of the world. I expect gender equality in the workplace to move in that direction.

What? Why would giving men paternity leave suddenly mean that women would become absent mothers?

As a species that grew out of bands of hunter gatherers, tribes and communities have played a huge role in raising children. Our modern circumstances are the exception — two parents, often shouldering the burden largely on their own.

What kind of good reason would you be looking for? I mean for most just spending time with their small children and forming good relationships with them is 'good enough'

And yes, gender equality has not been tried fully in a society yet so it's hard to know.

Under Finland's system mother are still given maternal leave, but the fathers now get mandatory leave too. That's how I understood it, no country would forbid the mother maternal leave, except maybe the US.

We used to live in caves and evolving past that touched off a chain of events that led to the subprime mortgage crisis. But we don't lament our evolution. Living indoors, while messy with unintended side effects if you choose to look at it that way, is something we value.

Ever seen or known someone who grew up with an absent father? It makes a big difference in their lives despite what you might intuitively assume about mother/child relationships.

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